Perfect Possession - Episode 1

Rough breaths heated the room, causing the slender arms wrapped around his neck to tremble. Jae-hoon’s heart burned, and his body writhed with the warmth of her skin against his neck. He couldn’t resist pouring his desire onto Seo-yeon, who lay languidly disheveled on the pristine white sheets.

An irresistible addiction, a lust he didn’t want to quit. Embracing Seo-yeon was like writhing in maddening pleasure. Jae-hoon relentlessly craved and devoured Seo-yeon with a desire so intense it brought forth rough curses.

***

Clink, clink.

The grating sound of a fork snapped Jae-hoon back to reality. He stared blankly at the untouched steak on his plate. Not a single speck of sauce stained the fork and knife in his hands.

It had been two years already, but Jae-hoon still lingered in the past every moment. Slowly, he raised his gaze to the person sitting across from him.

Not a man, but a woman. Since Seo-yeon left, there were no more women for Jae-hoon. So, this person sitting before him, all dolled up, was not a woman to Jae-hoon, but just a person.

He put down the utensils in his hands and opened his mouth.

“I wish you wouldn’t manipulate our parents into setting up these meetings.”

“Why? Are you unhappy with me?”

“Unhappy? You need emotions to feel that.”

“Then try to develop some emotions. I’ll make sure you feel that unhappiness.”

Jae-hoon had come to this meeting because of his parents’ nagging, but he had no intention of continuing it.

He turned a deaf ear to his father’s words about how this marriage was necessary for the benefit of their companies. He didn’t care what happened.

Jae-hoon stared at the person in front of him with cold eyes. He only learned her name was Seo Mina today.

He had no intention of remembering the name of the woman who would appear at these arranged meetings that had been plaguing him for months.

“Save the wordplay for someone else.”

He ignored Mina’s call and left the restaurant immediately. As he walked out into the lobby, Hyun-shik, who was waiting, quickly approached.

“I’ll have the car ready right away.”

Jae-hoon had come out earlier than expected, but Hyun-shik showed no signs of surprise, as if he had anticipated it.

“Give me the keys.”

Wanting to be alone, Jae-hoon held out his hand for the car keys.

“It’s raining heavily. I’ll drive you myself today.”

“Chief Jung. No, Hyun-shik.”

“Yes.”

Hyun-shik raised his head.

“Seo-yeon?”

“There’s still nothing new. I’m sorry.”

Jae-hoon thought as much. If Hyun-shik had found even a small clue, he would have contacted him even in the early hours of the morning.

He knew, but he asked anyway, wanting to abandon his lingering feelings and find some peace, even for a few hours. To be able to breathe, even for a moment.

“I want to be alone today.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Jae-hoon took the keys from Hyun-shik and headed to the parking lot. It had been two years since Seo-yeon left. Yet, he was still stuck in her memory.

He was disgusted with himself for relentlessly chasing after a woman who had chosen money and left, but Jae-hoon couldn’t stop.

As he drove out of the parking lot, the brilliant lights illuminating the hotel scattered in all directions through the pouring rain. Jae-hoon’s vision blurred for a moment, and he shook his head to clear his mind.

Only then did he realize that he hadn’t eaten anything all day. Still, Jae-hoon had no appetite. He was just eating enough to survive, not tasting anything.

He just wanted to go home, wash away the woman’s lingering perfume in the air, and sleep.

To get home, it was easier to go through the back gate of the hotel than the front, so Jae-hoon turned the car toward the back gate as soon as he left the parking lot. After confirming that the light was green before entering the road, Jae-hoon sped up.

At that moment, something darted out in front of the car, blocking its path. Startled, Jae-hoon slammed on the brakes and stopped the car. He glared ahead with fierce eyes.

A black figure was staring directly at Jae-hoon through the increasingly heavy rain.

As the figure standing between the car’s headlights became clearer, Jae-hoon’s eyes widened, and he stopped breathing. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, even though he was seeing it with his own eyes.

He thought his love and resentment had penetrated so deeply into his bones that there was nowhere left to dig, and it had even messed up his mind. Otherwise, the woman he had been searching for over two years wouldn’t be glaring at him, soaked in the rain.

But Jae-hoon didn’t close his eyes. He was afraid that even that would disappear. Staring at her as if time had stopped, Jae-hoon finally took a breath and jumped out of the car.

Even in the rain, he could see the tears streaming down her face. She looked so sad.

Blinking as the rainwater flowed into his eyes, Jae-hoon quickly opened them. She hadn’t disappeared. She was actually standing there in the rain. He stared blankly at Seo-yeon, whom he had never forgotten for a single moment.

The thin, wet dress clung to her skin, revealing her body. Jae-hoon was overwhelmed with things to say, but he couldn’t say anything.

Countless words clamored in his head, trying to burst out, making it hard to breathe.

Jae-hoon quickly took off his jacket and draped it over Seo-yeon’s shoulders. His fingertips brushed against her slender shoulder. In contrast to the intense emotions burning in his chest, Seo-yeon’s body was ice-cold. He said in an angry voice,

“How long have you been standing here?”

Seo-yeon, who was breathing heavily, trembled and tugged at Jae-hoon’s collar.

“Please find them. Please… find my child.”

He heard her voice for the first time in two years. He had closed his eyes every night before going to bed, consciously trying to recall Seo-yeon’s voice, as if it were a ritual, hoping to hear it even in his dreams.

But she had ruthlessly hidden her traces even from Jae-hoon’s dreams. And today, miraculously, she appeared before him and opened her mouth.

‘Find my child… Whose child?’

Jae-hoon gripped Seo-yeon’s trembling shoulders tightly. Jae-hoon’s body was soaked in the pouring rain. Rainwater streamed down from his hair into his wide-open eyes, but he didn’t even blink.

“What… what bastard’s child are you asking me to find right now!”

Seo-yeon couldn’t bear it. She heard the crying of her child, whose whereabouts she didn’t even know, every night as a hallucination. Her nerves were so frayed that it was painful to breathe.

Unable to do anything on her own, she had abandoned everything and come before Jae-hoon. She believed that he would find them. Seo-yeon wasn’t in her right mind, but she could tell what Jae-hoon was suspecting.

She thought he was a coward who couldn’t even say goodbye in person. She had come to ask such a man to find her child because it was also his child.

Seo-yeon forcefully shook off Jae-hoon’s hand and pulled on his collar with all her might.

“It’s our child. They’re only 16 months old. Please find them.”

Seo-yeon sobbed as she pulled him closer. It was hard to tell whether the rain was holding tears or the tears were seeping into the rain as Seo-yeon clung to Jae-hoon and cried as if vomiting.

Jae-hoon’s hearing became blurred, as if her sobs were coming from a distance. Only her words grabbed him by the collar and shook him.

‘It’s our child.’

“What, what did you say?”

“It’s our child. I thought they were dead, but they’re alive. But… I went to find them, and they’re gone. They’re nowhere.”

“Snap out of it! Where do we have a child? Don’t tell me… you were pregnant when you left me?”

Jae-hoon couldn’t understand Seo-yeon’s sobbing words properly. No, he wanted to have misheard. If she had taken a large sum of money and left while pregnant with his child, Jae-hoon would find it even harder to forgive Seo-yeon.

So, he desperately hoped that it was all a lie, that she had just come because she missed him, that she would say that.

Jae-hoon gripped Seo-yeon’s shoulders tightly and said in a menacing voice,

“If you’re lying… I might kill you. So, snap out of it and tell me properly! Tell me it’s not true!”

The last cry was almost a scream.

Seo-yeon looked at Jae-hoon’s distorted face and slowly shook her head. She, too, wished that the events of the past few months had been a nightmare. No matter how scary, it would be an illusion once she woke up, so she desperately hoped it wasn’t true.

But even if she didn’t sleep, the nightmare continued. Only then did she realize that all of this was real.

Seo-yeon hated Jae-hoon so much. It was Jae-hoon who had given her a large sum of money and said goodbye. Seo-yeon, for whom loving him was everything, wanted him to at least say goodbye in person.

The secret relationship between a boss and his secretary, which had started with physical desire, would end someday, she had soothed her heart every moment, but the shock was hard to bear.

But it was a conditional relationship, “This relationship ends when one of us gets tired of it,” so Seo-yeon didn’t even think about confirming whether the farewell he had given her was true.

Of course, she didn’t know she was pregnant. If she had known, something would have definitely changed. Seo-yeon had grown up in hardship under her single mother.

Her wish was to let her child know the love of a father. Perhaps even if he had wanted to break up, Seo-yeon would have told Jae-hoon if she had known she was pregnant.

So, she couldn’t understand Jae-hoon, who was looking at her as if he wanted to kill her. It was Seo-yeon who wanted to shout that it was all your fault.

Suddenly, her vision blurred, and Jae-hoon’s figure became faint. Seo-yeon grabbed his arm and supported her fading body.

She vaguely felt that she was saying something, but she couldn’t even hear her own voice.

“…If I had known even if you wanted to break up I would have.”

“Seo-yeon? Seo-yeon!”

Jae-hoon, holding Seo-yeon, whose body had gone limp, shook her. But she was just being shaken back and forth like a dead person, and there was no response.

“Seo-yeon, wake up!”

Jae-hoon’s voice calling Seo-yeon echoed in all directions through the heavy rain.

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