The New Groom Chapter 19

Like a barbarian, Chief Joo flicked his cigarette butt out the window. He wandered around the room, closing all the windows he had previously left wide open. The humid air was quickly pushed out and vanished in the breeze of the air conditioner. After closing the windows and drawing the curtains, Chief Joo lit scented candles he had set up around the room—one could only wonder when he had brought them. He meticulously sprayed perfume on the bed sheets as well. Lee Jeongrok stood blankly, watching him.

“Come here and lie down quickly. Anyone can see that your face looks like you just fucked.”

“…”

“Hurry?”

“…”

Lee Jeongrok remained obstinately silent. Chief Joo grinned.

“My, my, our Young Master is quite high-maintenance.”

The moment he strode forward to grab his arm, Lee Jeongrok recoiled as if jolted. He hobbled toward the bed, ran, and hurriedly hid under the covers. The smell of the freshly sprayed perfume pierced the tip of his nose. Chief Joo chuckled from across the room. The laughter was short-lived.

“Stop wagging your tail, you fucking slut.”

“…”

“I’m leaving. Don’t get caught by the lady.”

He heard footsteps striding across the room, and then the bedroom light went out. Immediately afterward, the sound of the door closing echoed. Even so, Lee Jeongrok stayed under the covers, holding his breath and listening intently. After waiting for a long while, he cautiously poked his head out. The bedroom, illuminated softly by the bedside lamp, contained only Lee Jeongrok himself. Although he was alone, he didn’t feel at ease, so he remained stiff and rigid for a long time.

After that, he drifted between dozing and waking without relaxing his tension until Hwang Imin returned. Hwang Imin, who he thought would be back immediately, did not return for another two hours or so. Exhausted to the limit, Lee Jeongrok had fallen fast asleep. He woke up, startled as if shocked, at the sound of the door opening. Hwang Imin, who had washed in the outside bathroom so as not to wake Lee Jeongrok, had already changed into his pajamas. He discovered Lee Jeongrok awake and approached him with quick steps.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, no.”

A voice so hoarse it was nearly metallic escaped his lips. Lee Jeongrok was stung by the sound. Fortunately, Hwang Imin reacted casually. He seemed to have misunderstood, thinking his voice was hoarse because he had just woken up.

Hwang Imin, having climbed into the spot beside him, patted his pillow nonchalantly with an unsuspecting face. Lee Jeongrok, who had been half-risen, collapsed back into place. Hwang Imin, who had turned off the bedside lamp, lay down beside him. There was no contact, but he whispered, lying close enough that his breath could be felt.

“Thank you for letting me go play with my friends earlier.”

“…No. If I hadn’t been drunk, I would have stayed with you.”

“I know. It was really fun today. It’s a shame.”

“…”

Lee Jeongrok, who had almost been murdered at the villa where his wife had had such fun, kept his silence. Hwang Imin stroked his arm.

“We can just go again next time. Summer is still a long way from over.”

Because he couldn’t produce a voice, Lee Jeongrok just nodded silently. Hwang Imin, who had pulled the covers up to his chin, yawned. He whispered in a sleepy voice.

“Good night, honey.”

“…You too.”

Perhaps because he was tired, Hwang Imin fell asleep quickly. After partying at the hotel and moving to the villa to spend time late into the night, it was no wonder he was exhausted.

On the other hand, Lee Jeongrok’s mind became increasingly clear. His sleep should have been woefully insufficient from just the nap he took while waiting for Hwang Imin, yet his consciousness was strangely lucid. He lay there like that for a long time. Doing nothing, thinking nothing, just like a doll with open eyes painted on it.

∞ ∞ ∞

“Son-in-law. What’s wrong with your cheek?”

His mother-in-law, Kim Soohyun, asked in surprise. Lee Jeongrok reflexively rubbed his cheek. It stung. He answered nonchalantly.

“I think I was bitten by a bug.”

“A bug? What kind of bug? A mosquito bite? There aren’t any mosquitoes at home, perhaps because it’s been raining constantly. I haven’t been bitten even once this summer.”

“No, not at home, but yesterday at Mr. Go Yoongi’s villa. I must have been bitten by a mountain mosquito. I didn’t know last night, but when I woke up this morning, it was in this state. Haha…”

“A mountain mosquito, then. Right, mountain mosquitoes are poisonous. But even so, it’s too severe. Did you apply any medicine? Go to a dermatologist first thing tomorrow. Do you perhaps have a mosquito allergy or something?”

“No. I don’t have allergies, haha. I’ll go to the hospital right away tomorrow, Mother. More than that, yesterday, because we were moving our spot to the villa…”

Lee Jeongrok, who laughed awkwardly, steered the conversation toward the previous party, pretending to be embarrassed. Perhaps because she didn’t intend to drag out the mountain mosquito topic, Kim Soohyun readily followed the change in subject.

The swollen cheek he had passed off with an impossible excuse about a mountain mosquito was entirely due to Chief Joo. Because Chief Joo had bitten and sucked on it like a madman, by the next morning, the cheek had swelled up so tautly it couldn’t be managed. As soon as he woke up, Lee Jeongrok had hidden himself in the powder room, restlessly peeling off and reapplying bandages and gauze. He had secretly stolen ice and pressed it to his cheek, but it was useless. No matter what method he employed, it couldn’t be hidden.

The traces of last night weren’t limited to his swollen cheek. His eyes were puffed up, the inside of his buttocks was indescribably sore, and red handprints from Chief Joo were left all over his body. He couldn’t express how fortunate he was to have a sexless relationship with his wife. If he had ever had to undress with her, his blood ran cold just imagining how he would have explained those marks.

The traces visible to the eye weren’t everything. Lee Jeongrok suffered from terrible muscle aches and a headache. Even his knee, which he had injured playing tennis when he was in middle school, throbbed. His entire body felt as if it had been bombed, aching back to the knee surgery he had undergone 15 years ago. He blankly recalled last night, gently stroking the faint surgical scar on his knee.

Exactly how many incidents had occurred to him during last night’s single night?

Before the insane, lunatic acts committed by Chief Joo, he had experienced an incredibly brutal assault at Go Yoongi’s villa. But the near-drowning he experienced at Go Yoongi’s villa was no longer shocking. No, he could barely even remember it. The only things Lee Jeongrok remembered about last night were the semen—or the liquid as thin as urine that wasn’t semen—that had gushed out from between his legs.

Chief Joo had said he spilled ‘water,’ but Lee Jeongrok had never experienced or witnessed a man’s member ejecting liquid other than urine and semen (the latter was obvious). However, if he thought of it as urine, he felt like he would want to crush Chief Joo’s cock right then and there and die himself, so he had no choice but to believe the words that he had ‘spilled water.’ Just recalling it again made him feel like throwing up.

Unlike Lee Jeongrok, who was riding a rollercoaster in his head thousands of times with all sorts of stray thoughts, Kim Soohyun pleasantly brought up a new topic.

“I still laugh even now when I think of President Shin yesterday.”

“President Shin Gonghee? Isn’t President Shin a high school classmate of yours, Mother?”

Kim Soohyun nodded with a satisfied smile. Completely falling for Lee Jeongrok’s intent, she was preoccupied with recalling what had happened at yesterday’s party.

“Oh, you know, President Shin used to tease me every single day, asking who would ever marry into my family when they were so afraid of a gangster father-in-law. Her son-in-law is a Harvard-educated accountant, you see. You must have seen him yesterday, too. But that President Shin, who had always been so stuck-up, when she saw our Son-in-law at Imin’s wedding, she shut her mouth tight, and then yesterday at the hotel, she actually said that I’d gotten a good son-in-law. That girl, she really cracks me up.”

“Haha, is that so.”

“Of course! Our Son-in-law graduated from Seoul National University, has business experience, works splendidly well at the baby’s father’s company, and look at how handsome you are? I’ve been boasting a bit that a real treasure has entered our family.”

“Why did you go that far.”

While pretending otherwise, Lee Jeongrok felt good and couldn’t help but beam. Kim Soohyun waved her hand at Lee Jeongrok, who was feigning modesty.

“Oh my, that’s not all. Yesterday was the first time since you two got married that we’ve had such a big gathering. But our Son-in-law was so polite and kind to the guests yesterday, everyone was praising you until their throats were dry, saying I’d gotten a good son-in-law. My shoulders were so puffed up with pride. The baby’s father is the same. Do you know how happy he was, saying he’d saved face thanks to you, Son-in-law? Even though he’s always so prickly at home, how can that man be so dishonest.”

“…Father-in-law?”