The Cruel Beast’s Desire - Chapter 29
[You are really bad.]
Hayeon’s voice coming through the phone makes my heart ache.
[Ieum’s dad… just do that.]
I’ve lived like that for seven years.
Who do you think you are?
If she said it so arrogantly, it was her responsibility to handle anything.
When I did only what she wanted, being Ieum’s dad, her lowered eyes were trembling.
During the meal, I deliberately ignored Hayeon, who couldn’t stay still and kept rolling her eyes around.
I grabbed Ieum’s hand and ran up to the second floor as if escaping.
She said she had picked out five books, but Ieum seemed to want to talk about something else.
After brushing her teeth and changing into pajamas, Ieum tilted her head.
“Dad, you’re acting really weird today.”
“I’m not weird at all?”
“Did you fight with the teacher?”
I guess I can’t fool the child.
It wasn’t a fight, but it was a phone call filled with complicated emotions that I couldn’t say wasn’t a fight either.
“We didn’t fight. Dad went to work. I didn’t even have time to meet the teacher, so how could we fight?”
“But why do you keep getting angry at the teacher?”
It felt like she knew everything, so I quickly denied it.
“When did Dad get angry…”
“Get along. I like the teacher.”
How much has she even seen?
“I told you I bumped into a lady while running in the hospital a few months ago, right?”
When I went to the hospital that day, Ieum’s eyes were swollen as if she had been crying.
When I asked why, she said she cried because the lady she bumped into seemed hurt.
“That lady I bumped into is the teacher.”
I knew from Manager Jang.
Even though Ieum ran into her, she held her in her arms to protect her from getting hurt. So much blood flowed from the place where she had stopped the bleeding that it stained her clothes. She could have been annoyed, but Hayeon didn’t show any of it and took care of Ieum first.
When I heard the story, I thought she was a grateful person, whoever she was. When I found out that person was Hayeon, my heart was complicated.
Even simple things became complicated when it came to Kang Hayeon.
“How did Dad get to know the teacher?”
“Why are you curious about that?”
I asked to buy time to find a suitable excuse, but Ieum was quiet.
“Dad and the teacher are both weird.”
“Why? What’s weird?”
Without answering, Ieum picked up a book. She climbed onto the bed and lay down, looking tired.
“Read me only two books today.”
“Are you tired? Didn’t you overdo it today?”
“It’s not that. I want to go to bed early because I want to play with the teacher tomorrow.”
She said she wasn’t tired, but Ieum’s eyes were already half-closed.
“Do you like the teacher that much?”
“Yeah… I like her.”
Ieum mumbled with her eyes closed.
Yoonjae quickly read her a book. He hadn’t even turned two pages when Ieum quickly fell asleep, making soft breathing sounds.
He quietly closed the book he was reading and put it down, gazing at the sleeping child.
How can I get along with Hayeon as Ieum asked me to?
Is it enough to just be Ieum’s dad as she wants?
My mind hadn’t been cleared all day, but the clock was ticking relentlessly towards the promised 10 o’clock.
Kang Hayeon is really bad.
She gave birth to a daughter who was exactly the same as Ieum, making it impossible to forget for even a moment, and then cruelly abandoned her in collusion with her unscrupulous parents.
The first emotion Yoonjae felt when he held the child who had been smuggled away was the self-loathing of being abandoned again.
His mother said that the man she loved was from a great family. Abandoned by her lover due to family opposition, his mother gave birth to and raised him alone.
The label of being the son of a single mother tormented Yoonjae more and more as he got older. He didn’t give up swimming, which his mother opposed, and gritted his teeth and devoted himself to training, eventually becoming a national athlete.
He had a woman he loved, and he was happy with the unexpected gift. He had hope that he could finally be happy.
His records were good, and everything was going smoothly.
He had a happy dream of proposing and getting married formally after the World Championships.
The first thing that went wrong was his mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis. He didn’t despair even at the shocking news that she had only three months to live at most.
Because he had hope that there was a way to save her.
Even when Hayeon’s parents came and urged him to break up with their daughter, Yoonjae could endure everything.
He had Hayeon, who cheered him on to focus only on the competition, and he could endure it thinking about Tantan, who would be born soon.
On the day he won two gold medals, Yoonjae was greeted with unbelievable news.
He ran to the hospital and barely managed to save the child who was about to be abandoned.
He couldn’t escape the thought that he was passing on the fate of being abandoned because he had nothing to give to the child.
While floundering in the swamp of self-loathing, he had to save the child and his mother, so he went to his paternal grandfather and became Tae Yoonjae instead of Seo Yoonjae.
As the child grew, she resembled the mother who abandoned her.
She resembled Kang Hayeon so much that he couldn’t think of her without thinking of Kang Hayeon, from her smile to her sleeping habits to her eating habits.
If Ieum hadn’t been sick, he wouldn’t have seen Kang Hayeon again. Facing her was like facing the painful fact that he had been abandoned.
That was why he couldn’t bring up Ieum’s story first, and why he couldn’t introduce Kang Hayeon and Tae Yoonjae as colleagues.
I’d rather she apologized and begged for forgiveness back then, and I would have gladly forgiven her and lived as Kang Hayeon’s pushover, Ieum’s dad.
Seeing Hayeon ignoring the past, he couldn’t escape the swamp of emotions he felt seven years ago when he held the tiny baby.
Like someone whose berserk button had been pressed by the word “colleague,” the anger he had barely suppressed was stirring.
“You like ‘colleague’.”
“Hic.”
“I would never have sex with a colleague.”
When he grabbed her soft cheek, her eyes contorted in pain. As the time to face her dark eyes lengthened, they gradually filled with tears.
“You are really bad.”
The words she spat out from her red lips pierced his heart.
He swallowed and swallowed the lips that only said bad things. His desire surged with her scent that permeated his breath.
No, his desire had been boiling since the moment he faced Kang Hayeon.
“Hic.”
He swallowed even the moans that leaked between their overlapping lips, but his thirst didn’t subside.
Even after stripping off all the pieces of cloth covering her body and embracing her, he couldn’t grasp Kang Hayeon.
He licked every corner of her body as if devouring her. Traces he left on her delicate skin were densely packed. But still, his desire to possess Kang Hayeon completely was boiling.
“Yoonjae… stop.”
Knowing she wasn’t ready, he roughly dug in. He engraved himself deeper and deeper.
“Ahhh.”
His possessiveness, dominating her body, moved violently. Hayeon’s wandering hands embraced Yoonjae’s neck.
“Ah… stop.”
He couldn’t stop even at Hayeon’s plea. It wasn’t enough for her slender hands to embrace him.
“Hold me tighter.”
Her face, shaking her head, was all red with heat. He liked everything, but he didn’t like the one thing she stubbornly kept closed: her eyes.
“Open your eyes, Kang Hayeon.”
Hayeon bit her lower lip and shook her head. One more thing he didn’t like had been added.
He increased the speed he had reduced and moved strongly. A tingling pleasure flowed as he reached deeper.
He didn’t stop the speed at all until Hayeon opened her eyes. Her eyelids lifted, and he met her eyes, reddened with pleasure.
He had the futile dream that what was contained in her dark pupils was everything she cared about. His futile desire leaked out as a rough gesture and dug in even deeper.
“Please…”
He didn’t dislike her plea.
He reduced the speed at which he was moving violently and stroked Hayeon’s disheveled hair.
“It’s hard… hic.”
He hugged and hugged Hayeon, who said it was hard, as if she would escape forever if he left her alone.
The first thing Hayeon checked when she opened her eyes in the morning was the traces of last night. Seeing that it was clean again this time, Hayeon quickly showered and went into the bathroom.
Washing her stiff body under the hot water, Hayeon let out a long sigh.
“You said we should have a parent-teacher conference… who told you to do this?”
A throbbing pain remained in the places that were a mess from the traces of last night.
“Crazy bastard, you’re like the twelve zodiac signs in fish sauce.”
Hayeon finished showering after uttering the curse that Ji-hye had taught her several times. After getting dressed, Hayeon headed straight to the main house.
After breakfast, Hayeon spent time with Ieum. As the sunlight became moderately warm, the two went out to the garden.
“The garden is nice and spacious but it feels a bit empty. There are no flowers.”
“Teacher, shall we plant flowers?”
“Shall we?”
Hayeon took out her phone and downloaded a drawing app.
“Why is that?”
“I’m going to draw a picture of our plan for what to do in the garden.”
“Okay. Let’s sit over there and draw.”
There was an outdoor table in the pergola on one side of the garden. The two sat side by side there, putting their heads together with the phone in the middle.
“How about putting a swing here?”
“Okay. I really like riding swings. Oh, I wanted to try growing tomatoes once.”
“Tomatoes?”
“Yes, I brought a tomato pot from kindergarten a long time ago, but it died quickly.”
The child had her own reasons.
“Then, let’s make a small Ieum’s farm here. Was there anything else you wanted to grow besides tomatoes?”
“Um…”
Hayeon waited patiently while Ieum pondered.
“Peanuts. Manager Jang likes them. Oh, and corn that Ms. Lee likes.”
“This is going to be a bigger farm than I thought. Let’s write down what to grow in a memo and then decide on the size of the farm again.”
The result of the two putting their heads together all day was a picture that Ieum drew in her sketchbook and handed to Yoonjae, who had come home from work.
Like a junior employee waiting for approval, Hayeon and Ieum waited anxiously for Yoonjae’s answer.
“If you want to plant flowers, the gardener will plant them on their own. I’ll tell them. The vegetable garden… everything is delivered from the organic food store.”
Ieum, who had been full of expectations, puffed up her cheeks and got up from her seat.
She didn’t even look at Yoonjae and turned her back.
“Dad, I’m disappointed.”
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