PUCKD Ch 34

Kwon Junghyun’s face gradually grew cold, but Shin Hojae paid him no mind and continued speaking.

“Didn’t I say I’d play along with whatever you want, CEO-nim? And to never touch my family again.”

“…….”

“I thought you would understand if I said it like that. Stupidly. As if trash like you would ever consider my position.”

He deliberately chose sharp words to say. Shin Hojae’s fiercely raised eyes shone blue.

Trash? Junghyun, who had been silent until now, repeated Hojae’s word and let out a scoff.

“What did I do to deserve being called that by Mr. Shin Hojae?”

“What did you do? Are you asking because you don’t know?”

“I know very well. I drove you myself because it seemed like an urgent situation, and I lent you my living room. Ah, I even called my employee who had already gone home to pay for your taxi fare instead. Could you please explain where in any of that is a reason for me to be called trash?”

Shin Hojae clenched his fists tightly. His jaw muscle bulged and then disappeared repeatedly before he could finally open his mouth.

“…You said you wanted to sponsor my younger brother, CEO-nim.”

“I did. And what of it?”

A short, derisive laugh escaped him without him realizing it. How could he be so deceitful?

“If you remembered what you did to me, you wouldn’t be able to say that.”

“…….”

“If I just stand by while you demand saliva or relations from a twenty-two-year-old girl, does that make me family? It’s my own younger brother, not some stranger!”

“…You seem to think of me as some shameless pervert who loses his mind over any Alpha, but I have my own tastes. My offer to Mr. Yeonjae was a pure sponsorship. Born out of goodwill.”

Pure? Goodwill? The choice of words was truly unfitting for him. Shin Hojae glared at Junghyun with menacing eyes.

“I thought Mr. Hojae wanted to apologize to me when he said he had something to say. For misunderstanding the sincerity I offered and for acting rudely in front of his younger sister.”

“How much was it.”

“What?”

“The taxi fare. How much was it?”

“…Do you think I’m doing this now to get the taxi fare back?”

“I don’t want to owe you a single penny, CEO-nim.”

Shin Hojae immediately took out his phone, went into the chat window with Kwon Junghyun, whose number he had yet to save, and transferred 30,000 won.

Almost simultaneously, a buzz vibrated from the phone in Kwon Junghyun’s pocket. Hojae could see Junghyun check it and his face harden.

“The taxi fare is paid back. Please cancel the suit you had tailored for me as well. I don’t want to receive it.”

“…I have no idea what this out-of-the-blue behavior is. Mr. Shin Hojae, I know you’re young, but let’s separate public and private matters. This is a stadium. And you have a game in a few hours.”

Hojae’s eyebrow twitched.

“Then, CEO-nim, as an adult who knows how to separate public and private matters, did you go around selling other people’s family stories?”

“What?”

“How did you know about my father’s situation? It’s something even the people at the team don’t know.”

For a fleeting moment, a look of dismay and bewilderment simultaneously crossed Kwon Junghyun’s face.

“…I knew because I heard it from Advisor Park Namwoong.”

“He’s not the type of person to speak of others’ affairs so easily.”

“He didn’t speak of it easily. The topic of retirement came up, the mood became a bit serious, and the story came out somehow.”

Shin Hojae stared intently at his face.

His words in themselves were plausible. They also matched what Coach Park had said about bringing up retirement first.

Coach Park, who probably thought of Kwon Junghyun as some kind of wingless angel, must have said it with good intentions.

But what about Kwon Junghyun? Just as he had used the team’s story to raise his stock, wouldn’t he have judged that my story also had its uses? That’s why he must have gleefully leaked it to scum like Reporter Kim.

“You seem to be close with Daily One’s Reporter Kim Injoong. Close enough to have drinks together. Is this what they call collusion? How much do you give him in return for writing articles tailored to your liking?”

At the mention of Reporter Kim’s name, Kwon Junghyun’s eyes narrowed as if he had finally caught a clue. Hojae hammered the final nail in.

“Did you think it would help the team’s performance to sell someone’s father, who is perfectly alive and breathing, by turning him into a brain-dead patient?”

“…What did you say?”

“It seems you plan to keep feigning ignorance, so see for yourself.”

Hojae handed the phone with the article page to Kwon Junghyun. As he checked the screen, a clear look of bewilderment appeared in Kwon Junghyun’s eyes.

“Go ahead and make an excuse for this too. I’ll listen.”

“…It’s true that I had drinks with a few reporters who are favorable to our team, including Reporter Kim.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“But it was just an ordinary business dinner, and I never discussed players’ personal lives or solicited articles there. I’ll have to check where Reporter Kim heard this story and wrote the article.”

“Is the only excuse you could come up with ‘I didn’t know’? That’s even less sincere than the time with Shin Yeonjae.”

“…In any case, managing reporters should have been the team’s job, so I apologize.”

“No. That’s not enough.”

At the voice filled with anger, Kwon Junghyun shut his mouth and looked at Hojae.

“…What is it that you want.”

“The season opener is now two months away. I would like for us not to meet until then.”

This meant that the two months of meetings would disappear entirely, not that the missed time would be carried over. Junghyun asked back with a calm face.

“…Are you saying you want to terminate the contract?”

Shin Hojae let out a scoff. Terminate? There’s no way he could do such a thing.

How could he dare to speak of termination when the team’s life was in the hands of the owner?

“No. I will fulfill the contract as it is. I’m just saying that I want to focus on training until the season starts.”

“…….”

“Making time for two hours a week is more troublesome than you’d think. I told you before the contract that I wanted to prioritize training and conditioning, so you know what I mean.”

From the fact that he didn’t ask again, it was obvious he understood. Hojae seized the momentum and spoke.

“After the season opens, I will resume fulfilling the contract as scheduled. …But before that, I think there’s something you should know.”

Shin Hojae looked straight at his face with calmly settled eyes.

He couldn’t demand the termination himself, but he could make Kwon Junghyun want to terminate it on his own.

“You said before that you wanted our relations to be consensual.”

“…….”

“I don’t think I can do that, so what should we do.”

Shin Hojae clenched his fist before spitting out the next words. When he slowly closed and opened his eyes, they were filled with a deep light of contempt.

“…Because kissing a man is even more disgusting than I thought.”

It was a statement honed and sharpened to hurt Kwon Junghyun, but at the same time, it was also a statement to himself.

If Kwon Junghyun was a trash-like man who knew no bounds, then what did that make him, who had wanted to kiss such a man? And what about getting a hard-on and going into heat from just one kiss with him?

To a man who would shamelessly offer a sponsorship to his own younger sister. To a man who would, without a shred of guilt, turn his own father, who worked so hard to live that his palms were covered in calluses, into a brain-dead patient.

How… how could he have harbored such feelings?

He felt so disgusted and despicable, it was horrific. The corners of Hojae’s eyes grew hot.

When he looked up at his face, the faint smile that always lingered there was gone. The straight, firmly closed line of his mouth suddenly felt unfamiliar.

To others, it might have just looked like he was standing there expressionlessly, but Shin Hojae could somehow glimpse the hidden emotions in his eyes.

Murky colors like sadness and resignation, anger and regret, had settled with a cold light. A blue-gray abyss. How could one describe it?

Yes… they were eyes that looked exactly as if they had been hurt.

Shin Hojae quickly turned his head away from his eyes.

So what if he’s hurt? It’s a good thing, isn’t it, since I said it intentionally to hurt him.

It should have been, but why was his heart pounding so chillingly, as if he had made the wrong choice?

Shin Hojae clenched his fists until they hurt.

The humid outside air, tinged with the feel of coming rain, stuck to his cheeks. It was the kind of weather that made one want to quickly go back inside where there was air conditioning.

“If you have nothing more to say, I’ll be heading back first.”

Shin Hojae turned his feet without further delay. He brushed past Kwon Junghyun, who was standing by the door, and pushed the doorknob.

Thud-.

The sound of the door closing echoed with an excessive emptiness.