Exotic Love (Novel)

89

CW// Mention of suicide
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Yoo Ha-jun was persistent, and as he said, It's been a while since I've been out of this place, so I went with him.  At one table, four or five people were playing poker, but at the other table, they were drinking in half lying position on the sofa.  They were the faces I had met often before, and they also welcomed me, saying that they had not seen me in a long time.

  "What? Why can't I see you these days?"

  "Well I'm busy."

  "If anyone sees it, they will think you are the only one working for the company. Are you cosplaying an upright livelihood after divorce, you look suspicious these days, you know?"

  Lee Do-kyung, who asked me that, was two years older than me and she was my sixth cousin. Chairman Jung Se-jin's younger brother separated and formed another group, and Lee Do-kyung was working in the cosmetics division among its affiliates. Others around me were paying attention to what I would answer to the nuance question she asked, such as Yoo Ha-jun. I don't really have anything to answer for this one.

  "What more am I supposed to do? And wasn't my divorce is considered a natural outcome?” (TN:meaning the divorce will happened eventually.)

  "You would have done that even if it was two years ago. But you lived with her as if you weren't going to get divorce.”

  "I don't know when we'll go separate ways, so I'll have to further keep an eye on her."

Hmm. Lee Do-kyung looked at me with a keen gaze, but I had nothing more to say.

  She and I weren't very close, but there were times when I felt that she looked quite like me among my relatives. For example, sharp-looking eyes.

  "Why? Does the woman you meet hate you because you are a married man?”

  The fact that she's quick to catch on.

  But I was as good at wrapping up and camouflaging myself as I was at reading people or situations well. It was enough just to raise the corners of my mouth and smile.

  "I guess that's why your husband wants to get a divorce?"

  "...Why are you talking about that bastard?"

  Lee Do-kyung glared at me and grinded her teeth. Her love history was also quite famous on this industry. There was a man she liked so much, but she was forced to part ways due to opposition from the family, and it was an obvious story that she had a political marriage that way. At the time she got married, she even tried to commit suicide, and looking at that, the person who was her current husband said that he had no interest with her even before marriage. The two, who did not have any children, have maintained a marital relationship that is difficult to call a couple since marriage until now. There was also a story that Lee Do-kyung, who came to her senses in the middle, trying to do well somehow, but the man did not follow her will.

  "Even so, he went to Australia with the girl on his side."

"Are you in a position to say that, nuna*? I heard you changed your man again."
(Nuna: A younger brother or a younger man will use the Korean word. 누나 (noona) to address a female family member/friend who is older.)

  Yoo Ha-jun was teasing, but when Lee Do-kyung glared at him, he hurriedly raised his hands and shut his mouth. But his mouth was smiling, and the others in the room were chuckling as well.

  After Lee Do-kyung's husband refused to reconcile, Lee Do-kyung was also seeing another man. However, just like her husband, she did not pretend he was a lover, but met the man in an in-depth sponsor position. Nobody here who doesn't know about the issue that she have to worry on talking about it. Perhaps she thought it was funny herself, and eventually even Lee Do-kyung laughed.