AOA 103

“Is sex that good?”

The shame, self-loathing, and embarrassment from the morning crashed over me like a waterfall. I could admit that sex was insanely good, but not to the point of ignoring other important matters.

More than anything, Baek Mugyeong, who had suggested going to New York in the first place, had just said he understood and left it at that. Even while we drank coffee, he hadn’t brought it up again. And yet here I was, chewing it over by myself.

I shook my head and tried to focus on my monitor again, but it didn’t last long. I forced myself to keep writing my report, but in the end I made plans to meet Choi Jaeha tomorrow.

He was the only friend I could talk to about this.

*

“He’s the one who said you should go to the US?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? He can’t inherit DS Motors or something?”

It was Sunday. I met Choi Jaeha while Baek Mugyeong went to see Baek Jinseok.

After taking a big gulp of his grapefruit smoothie, Jaeha came out with that strange comment. His pretty, cat-like eyes held both surprise and pity.

“Huh? What does DS Motors have to do with this?”

“You know Mugyeong-hyung isn’t in Korea for good, right? If he can’t inherit DS Motors, he’ll have to go to the States. Isn’t that why?”

Whether or not he inherited DS Motors, Baek Mugyeong had wanted to go to America anyway. But that wasn’t what I was trying to say.

That was when I remembered I hadn’t told Jaeha that we were getting divorced.

I hesitated over whether to say it, but I couldn’t explain anything properly without telling him.

“That’s not it. When we got married, we agreed to stay married for about two years, then get divorced.”

“What?”

“It was an arranged marriage. Neither of us wanted it. So we agreed to divorce when the time came. But after the divorce, Baek Mugyeong asked me to go to the US with him.”

Saying it out loud made it sound even stranger. Asking your ex-spouse to leave the country with you definitely meant something.

“You’re divorcing him? Because you didn’t want the arranged marriage?”

“Yeah.”

“And after that, he’s the one who said you should go to the US together?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded as Jaeha confirmed each point. What I wanted to know was why Baek Mugyeong was acting this way.

“…You poor soul. Your love cells are so dried up they’re practically dust. Tragic.”

He said tragic, but his expression didn’t match. The corners of his mouth, his raised cheekbones, and his eyes were full of mischief.

I felt my temper rise as I felt like he was mocking me.

“What?”

“What do you think? You’ve lost all sense.”

“I have not.”

I was a little clueless sometimes, but not to that extent. But Jaeha was firm.

“Listen carefully.”

“I’m listening.”

“I told you before. If it’s Mugyeong-hyung, there’s no way he’d have sex with someone he didn’t care about, even if they were married. And a man, no less. You follow me so far?”

“No. Even if he didn’t care, he could still do it just because he can.”

When I argued back, Jaeha’s face scrunched up. The playful glint in his eyes was gone, replaced by the frustrated look of someone who’d eaten a hundred sweet potatoes.

“Why are you stuck there? Don’t you know what he’s like?”

“When I asked if he liked me, he said he liked my body.”

I ended up saying it. I didn’t regret it. Jaeha’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Then maybe at first it was just physical, but over time, his feelings grew.”

“What now?”

Once again, Jaeha’s conclusion was romance. I glared at him, but he just smiled confidently.

“Listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“What do you think it means when someone asks their ex-wife to move to New York with them? If he didn’t want you around, he’d just walk away. Why do you think he asked?”

“Well…”

“You really think it’s just about sex? Do you know how ridiculous New York housing prices are? Seoul doesn’t even compare. That means you’d have to live together. Which means he’s asking you to live with him. Right?”

When he put it that way, it did make sense. But I still couldn’t feel the same certainty he did.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? This is a green light if I’ve ever seen one.”

“With his personality, instead of saying ‘come with me,’ I feel like he would’ve just said ‘let’s live together.’”

“Well, that’s…”

Choi Jaeha looked startled, and he couldn’t answer. If it were Baek Mugyeong, he wouldn’t dance around the subject. He would say it directly.

“Should I ask him? If we go to New York, will we live together?”

“Hey!”

Jaeha, who had been sulking, suddenly lit up as if he had just thought of a great idea and lifted his phone. I panicked. He was the type to do exactly what he said.

I snatched the phone from him like grabbing a live grenade. He reached out, asking for it back, but I shoved it into my back pocket.

I might have shown Baek Mugyeong an embarrassing side of myself before, but this kind of humiliation was not acceptable. Especially since I was supposed to have dinner with him later.

“If you’re curious, you have to ask. Keep quiet and you’ll never know.”

“I’m fine not knowing.”

“Tsk tsk. That’s how misunderstandings happen. Relationships are supposed to be bold. That’s how you win over a handsome guy… No, wait, that’s not the first question. How about you? Do you like him? Do you want to date him?”

The direct question hit me like a hammer to the back of my head.

Date? With Baek Mugyeong?

The shock left my mind blank. I had thought about the possibility of going to New York, but never about dating him.

When I tried to picture being in a relationship with him, my brain rejected the thought. Goosebumps rose along my arms.

“You don’t want to?”

“I just… can’t imagine it.”

“But you sleep with him.”

“That’s different.”

When he muttered that it wasn’t very different, I told him it was. I’d never had a proper relationship before, but I knew that much for certain.

“Still, wouldn’t he be a good partner? Like I’ve said before, there aren’t many Alphas as handsome as him. You know that, right? He can be a bit difficult, but compared to real bastards, that’s nothing. His private life is clean too. You think I followed him around for nothing?”

Jaeha listed off Baek Mugyeong’s good points, and they were all true.

The only other Alphas I knew who could compare were Baek Yeongseop and Jeong Guhyeon. Compared to them, and especially to all those troublemaking third-generation chaebols, Baek Mugyeong was a unicorn.

Objectively, he was attractive. No one could deny that. But I had never once thought of him as someone I might date.

Before my regression, I had been so intimidated by him that I could barely look him in the eye.

Even after starting my second marriage with him, things hadn’t been much different. I had been careful around him, focused on making sure we could part ways cleanly when the time came.

Now, we sometimes exchanged jokes and had sex regularly, but that didn’t mean I was completely comfortable with him.

And yet, with Jaeha suddenly inserting the word “dating” into the equation, my head became a mess.

I wondered whether I should even consider dating him. I would have to divorce him eventually, so there would be no point.

And before anything else, it would require the assumption that he actually liked me. If Jaeha was wrong, I’d just be fooling myself.

Sure, he had openly said he liked my body, but I had no other qualities that would count as an advantage. I wasn’t especially talented, or eloquent. I was confident in my looks, but next to him, I might as well have been an unwashed potato.

Feeling inferior left me a little deflated. Comparing yourself to others was bad for your mental health, but it couldn’t be helped.

“I’m not sure.”

“Don’t overthink it. If you like him, date him. If you don’t, stop. Hm… it is a little complicated since you’re already married to him. Just enjoy yourself. Sex is good, after all.”

Whether he understood my tangled thoughts or not, Jaeha offered a simple solution. Sex was good. Enjoying the moment was good.

The divorce was still a long way off. Things could sour between us by then, so I decided to leave the worrying for later.

“But I’m telling you, he does have feelings for you. I’ll bet my watch on it.”

While I was trying to push the mess of thoughts aside, Jaeha grinned mischievously and raised his left arm, showing off a watch that looked expensive.

It was a teasing remark, but this time, it sent a ripple through me. I didn’t want him to notice, so I shot back immediately.

“That’s mine now.”

“I’ll ask him myself. Give me your phone.”

“Hey.”

“This is faster.”

He was dead serious. Knowing him, he’d call Baek Mugyeong right now and ask every question he could think of.

I told him flatly that if he said anything to Baek Mugyeong, I’d never see him again. He grumbled that I was being too much, but promised to keep quiet. Still, he winked and said my love life was too interesting not to keep talking to him about it.

I was too tired to argue that it wasn’t a love life at all, so I just said fine. To be honest, he was the only person I could talk to about Baek Mugyeong.

I liked the part about not worrying and just enjoying the sex. But everything else, whether Baek Mugyeong liked me, whether he would be a good partner, only made my thoughts more chaotic.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep a straight face when I saw him later.

It would work out somehow.

I deliberately pushed him out of my thoughts.