Chapter 62

“Anyway, it’s been a long time since I have eaten a meal like this. I have not gone to my parents’ home in a while.” said Na-Yool with a relaxed expression and a faint smile.

“What do you eat at home then?”

The indifferent tone had a hint of interest. Na-Yool replied with a slight sting.

“I cannot eat breakfast because I do not have the time, as for dinner, I usually eat it in the office before going back home, thanks to someone…”

“That’s such a pity.”

An unconcerned reply as if it had nothing to do with him. Na-Yool’s eyes momentarily sulked, but soon relaxed.

“So I practically can’t eat at home.”

“More like “don’t” than “can’t”. All it takes is to give up the thought of wanting to sleep for another 10 minutes.”

“What can I do? Because I leave work late at night, it’s hard to get up early.”

“Even if it’s a pain, sleep later on. If you can’t sleep for ten hours anyway, get up a little earlier, put something in your mouth and go to work. Don’t starve.”

It was hard to tell if he was being harsh or kind. Na-Yool grumbled as she scooped more rice.

“Anyway, your words are extreme as always…”

“What about weekends?”

“Even if I slept all weekend long, it would not be enough to catch up on sleep.”

“So you don’t eat?”

“If I am meeting up with someone, I eat outside…”

“That’s why you look like this.”

“What is wrong with my looks?”

“You, you need to gain some weight.”

Did she not have a very average body? Not to mention this self-evaluation was reached with a bit of self-love. Her eyebrows furrowed with incomprehension.

“…I am average, though?”

“You weren’t like this before.”

“Before?”

“Two years ago.”

Indeed, compared to 2 years ago, it could be said she was thinner. Not because she was thin now, but because she was on the heavy side back then. While thinking so, Na-Yool felt strange that he would remember her body shape of that time, and she froze with her chopsticks in her mouth. It would not be hard for an ordinary person to remember such detail, but for someone like him, who did not give a damn about others, to nonchalantly mention it, she could only feel suspicious.

“Well, I had a bit of fat back then… That is it, basically. Rather, back then, briefly—”

It would have been since then. Since the moment she had been put in an awkward position in her previous company because of her 40-year-old manager who, simply because Na-Yool had sat a few times next to him at the excessively recurring office dinner parties, had hit on her arguing she had a crush on him, and even had one-sidedly brought up the topic of marriage in front of other people.

She had then suffered every day from another kind of stress than the current one. If the oily food eaten at the dinner parties was the main culprit, the food she chewed every night thinking about the manager’s face became the second cause. Back then, no matter how tired she was after work and even if it was cumbersome, she would stuff her mouth with food over and over again. Living like this, she was doomed to gain weight.

“—briefly, it was just how I was.”

Leaving the unpleasant memories behind her, Na-Yool resumed her spirited chewing. Si-Jin straightened up and said:

“It looked good.”

“What did?”

“Your fatter self.”

“…What kind of trap is this?”

“There is no such thing as a trap. I’m telling you to eat better and get fatter.”

“You prepare me a full meal ‒ which does not suit you ‒ and verbally encourage me to gain weight, and no trap?”

“I mean it though.”

“…You know, it is my first time eating a meal a man made for me.”

Na-Yool immediately got flustered by the cringy remark she had just let out despite herself and could not even take back. She sounded like a shy and helpless cornered little thing, as if telling him she was too ingenuous so if it was a prank he should drop it now, her own tone making her feel lame.

You stupid, why would you say that, you are crazy…

While she was stuck tongue-tied with her mouth open, Si-Jin responded with a grin.

“It’s my first time feeding a woman too.”

Na-Yool’s confession was met with an incredibly cheesy and childish comeback.

“……”

Na-Yool stayed in a daze for a while. It belatedly occurred to her how stupid she must have looked.

But that thought was not enough for her to retrieve her words and she barely managed to mumble an awkwardly timed reply.

“… You’re lying.”

Si-Jin simply shrugged his shoulders without answering, not caring even a little whether she believed him or not.

“Even if I am, is that your sole reaction?”

It seemed he had no intention to bother convincing her of his honesty. He just kept looking at Na-Yool’s mouth puckering as she chewed on food, like a master feeding a snack to their pet.

Na-Yool stared at him quite meaningfully and narrowed her eyes.

“What ulterior motive do you have to coax me like this?”

“Coax?” He answered as if he had no idea what she was talking about. Na-Yool snorted, not deceived by his tone.

“Unless you want to lure me into something, why would you make me lower my guard by feeding me delicious food…”

“So you mean, putting a nice meal in your mouth is all I got to do?”

It was not enough that he already took her for an ‘easy woman’, now she had even ended up confessing feeding her was all it takes to win her over…

“Anyone is okay, as long as they feed you?”

“No. Absolutely not. You cannot hear it that way. It is just the tip of the iceberg. Please interpret accurately the essence of the words.”

“That’s how I hear it. Accurately.”

“…I asked you something first, Mr. President. That question was not meant to be used by you to attack me…”

“It was you who ‘lured’ me. Who’s the one sitting in front of me with no panties on?”

“……”

In a flash, a dangerous shadow dwelled within Si-Jin’s calm eyes. His gaze, sweeping over Na-Yool’s frozen face down underneath the table, was blunt and obvious. As though he could clearly see her bare legs through it.

As soon as Si-Jin swiftly regained his sexual appetite, Na-Yool looked away nervously. She was about to change the subject, but he was faster.

“Isn’t it funny? I can’t see anything from here, but it feels like I can see it all.”

“……”

“It excites me just thinking about it.”

He meant it, and Na-Yool could not laugh it off. His eyes were scanning her up and down with a burning heat, as if about to voraciously devour her from head to toe. Just as his gaze met Na-Yool’s, she avoided her eyes and spoke.

“Is it not because you are a pervert, Mr. President?”

“If you want to argue who the pervert here is, then exposing your naked lower body to me is probably a little more depraved.”

Si-Jin shamelessly shifted the responsibility to her. Hearing him say so, Na-Yool truly felt like an exhibitionist, sitting like this in her makeshift half-outfit, and protested full of restrained anger.

“Whose fault is it…!”

“Yes, I, who kindly washed your clothes because they were dirty and thought I would give it back to you clean, deserve to die. Don’t I?”

Truly, there was no fluctuation. Without the faintest fluctuation in his voice, the tone of his argument gliding under his silver tongue had drastically changed.

“… Putting my clothes to wash, doing such things which do not suit you, it was not an act of goodwill but that you wanted to put me in this kind of trouble from the beginning, isn’t it?” replied Na-Yool, baffled.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I’m asking if you did not deliberately put everything in the washing machine to get rid of it! To make my clothes disappear, full of obscene thoughts, and then, to enjoy watching me naked, like a voyeur or something. So filthy…”

“To distort my innocent consideration in such a way, that very same suspicion makes you the pervert, Ms. Kim Na-Yool. If you were that embarrassed, shouldn’t you have stayed in bed?”

“Then who knows what you might have done to me…!”