A few days after that, Lee Jaeha still couldn’t bring himself to go back to the house; he was wandering like a stray dog.
On the table sat paper-thin slices of pufferfish sashimi. While the man across from him picked up several pieces at a time and chewed greedily, Jaeha lowered his eyes beneath the table and looked at the ring finger of his left hand.
“Imagine that—Director Lee seeking me out.”
He’d clamped the bleeding gash so hard to stop it that even the wedding ring had gotten smeared and clotted with Taegun’s blood, turning filthy.
He’d told Manager Im to have it cleaned, and the youngest staffer in the secretariat overheard and piped up that he could handle it. No need to send it to the high-end brand that made it; an ultrasonic eyeglass cleaner would make it good as new.
Manager Im looked at the junior as if he were childish. People who, like Lee Jaeha, were born at the summit and had never descended tended to demand the very best of anything; Im seemed sure Jaeha wouldn’t approve of dunking the ring in the secretariat’s little ultrasonic tub.
But what bothered Jaeha more was the idea of being without that ring for long.
So he nodded to the suggestion. While the junior set the portable cleaner humming on his own desk, Jaeha stood quietly beside it.
Whether the secretariat staff realized they looked flustered or not, the freshly hired junior—with the bright face of someone who’d landed a job right out of university—said he had a jewelry polishing cloth, then gave the ring a good wipe after the ultrasonic clean and returned it to Jaeha.
He’d been worrying how many days it would take to get it back if he sent it to the brand. He’d never taken it off once since the wedding.
Since the day he got into Secretary Go’s car, he hadn’t been able to see Jang Taegun. He was busy, and he didn’t have the nerve to reach out, so he kept putting it off.
Putting something off because he was afraid—lately, Lee Jaeha kept finding himself having brand-new experiences.
But even the thought of contacting him made a cold ache pass through his chest; it wasn’t easy. If he couldn’t reach out, of course the man’s whereabouts would stay vague.
Jang Taegun probably knew all about the nonsense Lee Jaeha was stirring up outside.
The request to behave and stay put might have felt rough on the surface, but it had been a request. For someone like Jaeha, whose heart was wholly fixed on the one who’d asked, he wanted badly to grant it—but it wasn’t easy.
If Taegun hadn’t come home that day covered in blood, Jaeha might have finished the handovers he needed to do and fully stepped down from the directorship by now.
At this hour he would’ve been waiting for Taegun to come home, reading a book, or looking up gardening techniques to pick up a hobby he could do at home.
But even trading those things away as an offering, there was something Jaeha had to do. So, until then, not seeing Jang Taegun was only natural. From here on, all he could do was wait for Taegun to forgive him one more time.
Though he knew—this alpha wasn’t one to grant anyone a second chance. That chance wouldn’t come to Jaeha either.
Still, while he waited, he didn’t want to spend long with the ring off his body.
He treated it like a stand-in for his heart. The wish to see Jang Taegun, the thought of going back to him, the sea-scent pooled on his bed—he kept rubbing the ring as if that single action could compensate for everything, stroking it and stroking it. He didn’t want to take it off.
The junior had cleaned the ring in five minutes, which Manager Im seemed to think was a breach of executive protocol, but Jaeha disagreed.
He was glad to get it back right away. Besides, they’d picked the rings together the day they had their outfits tailored.
“I still use tools. That’s where my station is, and I’m sorry to say so to you, Director, but facts are facts.”
Jang Taegun had tried on sample rings on all ten fingers, turning his hands to catch the light like a vain peacock.
His fingers were long but thick; he’d forced rings that wouldn’t even slide past one knuckle and asked Jaeha which looked better.
Spellbound by his face, Jaeha hadn’t even looked at the hands and got flustered. Maybe taking that as a failure to understand, Taegun had lifted one eyebrow and added,
“Thicker bands or fussy designs will catch on my tools and get scratched.”
“Ah….”
Only then did he understand what the man meant. Even as the third generation of a corporate gang outfit, a gangster was a gangster. Jang Changsik held the cash flow of the Jongno streets in his fist, yet he couldn’t keep his hands off working his grandson to multiply it.
A greedy old man. That greed had brought them to this mess.
In a marriage he’d pushed for as much as he wanted, all he could put forward were terms and conditions. Yet here was his future spouse saying he wouldn’t take the ring off even while working.
He was worried that the satisfaction boiling under his skin might burst all at once.
“Let’s go with a slim design. I want to earn the money to let him live on my dime, so for now I need to make a lot. Till then, I’ll be holding tools.”
Speaking offhand, Taegun slid off the ring he’d been wearing and put it on Jaeha’s ring finger. His thumb traced the diamond, then kept rubbing and grazed Jaeha’s ring finger too, his face empty of expression.
It squeezed his heart to the point of pain. He didn’t even know why. In the end, as time passed, he could only regret letting those words slide. He should have asked then.
What exactly did he do, and how dangerous was it for him?
With a stubborn touch of lingering attachment, he rubbed the ring on his left ring finger with the thumb of the same hand and gave a small smile.
“I wanted to pay my respects to the Chief Prosecutor. When my grandfather was alive, you often came by the house; I’ve been sorry not to see you lately.”
“Ah, well, people are… You know I’m not exactly close with Ikhyeong….”
The Seoul District Chief Prosecutor smiled affably.
He’d long taken funding from the chaebol patriarch Lee Wonung, yet his inaugural speech as chief prosecutor had beaten the drum for integrity; it had left quite an impression. Jaeha had wondered how he’d managed to ignore the congratulatory wreaths with the Yushin name on them that were delivered to his office.
He and Jaeha’s father, Lee Ikhyeong, were university classmates; the moment Lee Wonung was laid in a paulownia coffin, the man had picked a fight with Yushin on charges of illegal gifting. Cleared of suspicion, Ikhyeong went home that night and, dead drunk, raised a golf club at Lee Jaeho.
Jaeha remembered Kim Ranhui running in crying, begging him to stop it; half-asleep, he’d wrested the golf club away.
In short, here was a type who took everything he could get and felt not a flicker of guilt. People like that were easier for Lee Jaeha to handle than breathing.
“What are you looking at? I told you to pick a ring—why are you only looking at my face. Focus before you grab any random thing.”
That was the kind of man who’d slid a ladies’ pink heart-cut diamond onto the tip segment of Jaeha’s pinky and drawled—whereas dealing with the chief prosecutor in front of him was far easier for Jaeha.
He hid any smile that might betray his thoughts behind his cup. If his sneer showed, it would only get in the way of business.
Warm sake, with a dried sea-bream tail—dried in sea winds—floating on top, went down well enough. The problem was he had no appetite.
Once the other man seemed satisfied—having focused on filling a belly swollen with greed even on an empty stomach—he finally set his chopsticks down, rinsed his mouth with sake, and spoke.
“Anyway, I have a rough idea why you wanted to see me.”
“I figured you would, Chief Prosecutor.”
Jaeha gave another neat smile. Like one painted on. It was pathetic, the way the man was fishing, but he didn’t show it.
A so-called “dragon from the ditch,” with the stigma of being funded by chaebol families trailing him his whole career—he’d never shaken it; at times like these, you had to indulge a little of that inferiority if you wanted to wring out what you came for.
His inferiority toward his classmate Lee Ikhyeong, and the label of chaebol-backed support from law school to training institute.
If he hated it, he could have walked out of the library like others and thrown tear gas; instead he’d eaten every free meal, and at that age he still hadn’t missed a single chance to act out and make a scene to bleed off that inferiority. It was ridiculous.
But people came in useful as they were. On the Go board set before Lee Jaeha, things like this happened as a matter of course.
“They say you only become an adult once you marry—still, you didn’t have to rush. Sounds like there’s a bit of noise already?”
He was roundabout saying it would’ve been better to stay single than marry some gangster riffraff.
One of Jaeha’s eyebrows twitched, then returned to place as if nothing happened. He didn’t want to hear more, so he got to the point.
“…So I’d like your help.”
“After what your grandfather did for me, of course I’ll help.”
The chief prosecutor was still scooping up two or three slices of fugu at once and stuffing them in his mouth. With his appetite gone, Jaeha could only sip at his sake and hide his face.
“Well, of course. Who else would I help if not our Director Lee.”
—His words, at least. Jaeha lifted just the corners of his lips and took another sip.
Something that once belonged to the sea lay sunk in the cup. He knew, to the point of a shudder, a scent like what was spilling from the cup.
“Thank you again, Chief Prosecutor.”
He forced out the thanks that wouldn’t come. Not because his pride was wounded, but because a weariness with necessary work had blocked his throat.
He just wanted to go back. But where to? He wanted to see the sea, but he couldn’t tell if it was the sea he missed, or something else.
Nodding, pleased by the thanks, the chief prosecutor spoke again.
“Strictly speaking, pufferfish sashimi should be eaten during the day. You don’t want to go to sleep at night and get hit by any lingering toxins.”
“……”
Under the table, fiddling with the ring as always, Jaeha pretended to listen.
“But I like eating it at night. When it’s good and late. Feels like I’m venting the bravado I used to put on when I was young.”
“……”
Bravado? On the son of a poor mother who used her pin money to help with tuition, who then became a chaebol’s lapdog. When his classmates were out in the student movement choking on tear gas, he sat safe at his desk; now he played king of Jongno like some Kim Duhwan of the streets. It was absurd.
But Jaeha didn’t show it; he simply toyed with the ring and sighed. The diamond snagged on his thumbprint. A stone that promised eternity.
“The more a man has, the more he gets addicted to risk, don’t you think? At my age I can’t take drugs or break the law.”
In short, he meant he saw Jaeha’s marriage as the playful delinquency of a chaebol scion. Jaeha pressed down the sigh of boredom. Did Jang Taegun have to put up with drivel like this too?
“The officiant is boring as hell. Think he’s like that even when he’s screwing.”
The officiant had been a former governor of the Bank of Korea. The tailor must have balked at putting an omega’s outfit on a man built like a mountain; he’d had a tuxedo made of cream silk.
It had looked perfect on Taegun. Hair, usually left to fall any which way, combed back clean; hands folded politely; but the whisper he breathed toward Jaeha had crashed like thunder.
He’d opened his eyes wide and stared at him. Maybe noticing a bride and groom who weren’t focused on the officiant, the former governor gave a pointed cough.
Jaeha straightened his head; beside him, he heard Taegun give a small snicker. Jaeha, too, had to bite his lip to keep the corners of his mouth from rising.
Thinking of that, patience wasn’t Taegun’s style. So these tedious chores belonged to Jaeha.
Isn’t that what being a couple is? If Taegun were just an ordinary man, he might have called Jaeha to catch a bug for him. Then Jaeha would have gladly come and snatched up the tiny creature that startled him.
But what needed doing for Jang Taegun was a few sizes larger. So it didn’t matter what others thought.
With a smile pitched to suit the man’s mood, Jaeha answered,
“I’m relieved you understand. As you know, I’ve lived far from any kind of delinquency. In any case, I’m married now, and I want to give my spouse what he wants. I’ve talked big, too.”
A lie. This was for Jang Taegun—but not what Jang Taegun himself wanted. It was still true now.
Even so, he believed it was something that had to be done.
“Sure, I know that feeling well. So… was it Myungwon, you said?”
The chief prosecutor smiled around the rim of his cup. Between narrowed lids, his rolling eyes fixed on Jaeha.
Loathsome man. He’d do some small thing and keep score, thinking he’d put Lee of Yushin in his debt. That’s why, with all that backing, he’d never risen past chief prosecutor at his age.
But Jaeha returned the look with a smile full of pity. Because that was what Lee Jaeha did best.