The Woman Who Stole My Flower
Chapter 21
Chapter 21
#21.
No matter how much she racked her brain on her own, she couldn’t find a single clue to track down his first love. He was so prickly that she was terrified of even speaking to him, but in the end, she had no choice but to ask Kang Joo-heon himself.
I’ll just have to butter him up and get him to say a few more words. After preparing some tea, Yeon-seo carefully knocked on his office door.
“Director, I’ve brought your tea.”
But no answer came. It was the same when she called out once more.
He’s definitely in there, isn’t he? Wondering what was going on, Yeon-seo pushed the door open just a crack and peeked inside through the gap.
‘What? Was he sleeping?’
The sight of him sitting on the sofa with his arms crossed and his head slumping down made her smile.
Jooheon usually came in close to two in the afternoon and left by five. That meant he barely worked a little over three hours a day, and she had always wondered how on earth he passed the time, but…
‘He was just taking naps?’
Yeon-seo stifled a laugh. Then again, after morning training and lunch, he was bound to be tired.
There was no reason to wake someone who was sleeping so soundly. Intending to simply leave the tea and slip out, Yeon-seo tiptoed in, hushing her footsteps.
“…….”
As she quietly set the teacup on the table and straightened her back, something suddenly caught her eye.
…His thighs.
Although he did practically no work at the office, he had always shown up meticulously dressed in a suit and tie. But today, for some reason, he was in sportswear. And not just any sportswear—a soccer uniform with short sleeves and shorts.
If he trained, he must have showered, so why is he still wearing his kit? She had found it a bit strange when she first saw him earlier, but hadn’t thought much of it. No one would dare tell him what to wear anyway, and it wasn’t Yeon-seo’s place to interfere.
The kit bottoms Jooheon wore were cut short for professional athletes—closer to hot pants than ordinary shorts. They were short to begin with, but with him sitting down, the fabric had ridden up, leaving both of his thighs entirely exposed to an embarrassing degree.
“…….”
Their overwhelming thickness made it impossible not to stare.
Mind you, this wasn’t because Yeon-seo harbored any impure thoughts. Anyone, young or old, man or woman, wouldn’t have been able to look away.
After all, the most famous part of Kang Joo-heon’s physique was his thighs. People even hailed them as the most formidable thighs since Cha Bum-kun. But seeing them up close, their reputation was truly well deserved.
‘Wow…’
Yeon-seo swallowed her rising gasp. Without a word of exaggeration, a single thigh was as thick as her own waist.
And it wasn’t merely thick. The sharply defined striations of muscle showed vividly beneath his skin, fascinating her beyond measure. How can a human body look like this?
She wondered, purely out of curiosity, what it would feel like. It was human flesh, after all, so was it soft? Or was it rock-hard, just as it looked?
Of course, just being curious didn’t mean she could go around touching it. As she stared at his thighs in a daze, a voice suddenly drifted down from above.
“……Instead of just staring like that.”
Yeon-seo froze instantly.
“……!”
“Just tell me you want to touch my thighs.”
Jooheon’s lips moved while his eyes remained closed. Anyone looking would have thought he was talking in his sleep.
Never in her life had she experienced such sheer mortification. Blushing crimson all the way to the nape of her neck, Yeon-seo leaped back.
“W-What kind of pervert do you take me for?! Touching s-someone else’s thighs!”
“Why does that make you a pervert? Do you think you’re the only one who wants to touch my thighs?”
Still with his eyes closed, he added:
“I’m asleep, so do whatever you want.”
“I said I’m not touching them!”
“Go ahead and touch them. It’s fine.”
In the end, he caught Yeon-seo’s wrist and planted her hand firmly on his thigh.
“Wai—!”
Would it be soft, or hard? The answer was both. The initial touch wasn’t as hard as she expected, feeling more firm and supple, but the moment he gave a slight flex, the muscle turned rock-hard beneath her palm.
Warm skin, and beneath it, that rock-hard solidity.
In an instant, something surfaced in her mind, and Yeon-seo felt a rush of scorching heat blaze up from her neck.
“E-Enjoy your tea, then!”
Tearing her wrist away as if burned, Yeon-seo bolted out in a panic.
Behind her retreating back, Jooheon murmured with a bittersweet look on his face.
“Didn’t work, huh……”
*
Touching his thigh for a second wasn’t the real issue. Just as Jooheon had said, there were plenty of people who wanted to feel those thighs—not just women, but men too.
The real problem was that the sensation of touching his thigh for that brief moment had dredged up another memory entirely.
Yeon-seo had touched something like this before. Something this hot, this hard. Even amidst that night’s memories that had completely vanished, that single sensation had remained etched into her hands. She had thought she was misremembering because it had been far too thick to be that, but…
…that memory had just roared back to life.
[I want to do it!]
That night. As she threw a tantrum like a spoiled child, Jooheon had held her tight in his arms, soothing her.
[Let’s do it when we sober up, okay?]
[I want to do it now!]
[You’re not the only one.]
With a sigh, he had guided Yeon-seo’s wrist, gently placing something into her grasp. Something impossibly hot, thick, and massive.
There was no need to explain the sheer shock of that moment. After all, even with every other memory gone, that exact touch was all that had remained.
It didn’t take a hundred words. Just by touching it, she could tell all too clearly how desperately this man wanted it.
[If you’re like this, why aren’t we doing it?]
[I don’t want to start things this way.]
Unfortunately, her memory cut off again after that. As for what had happened next, she could only guess.
[When you’re sober, all right?]
Pieced together with the fragments of memory she had recalled before, Jooheon’s attitude had been consistent. Even while being that aroused, he had kept trying to calm the clinging Yeon-seo down, insisting they shouldn’t do it.
That she had ended up stealing such a man’s purity was truly, ten million percent, her own fault. She couldn’t remember, but had things escalated because she had grabbed it and started pawing at it?!
Even after remembering how desperately he had pleaded for them not to do it, Yeon-seo never once imagined that they might not have gone all the way. To someone as practically clueless about romantic intimacy as Yeon-seo, the idea that they had reached that point and didn’t do it was simply absurd. Was there any man on earth who could stop under those circumstances? Besides, with Jooheon being so furious about it, she had no choice but to firmly believe that she was the one who had robbed him of his purity.
She was humiliated, her heart was pounding, and on top of it all, she felt terribly, fatally guilty.
Yeon-seo slumped over her desk.
“I should just die……”
But Yeon-seo jumping off a bridge over the Han River wouldn’t bring Kang Joo-heon’s purity back. In the end, she had to circle back to square one.
The deed was already done. The only way to make amends was to find his first love for him!
To do that, she would have to ask Jooheon, but facing him again required an immense amount of resolve.
I never touched anything like that.
I don’t remember a thing.
Only after doing some serious mental conditioning did Yeon-seo knock on Jooheon’s office door once more.
“Director, excuse me for a moment.”
When she entered, Jooheon was sitting at his desk. Relieved that his thighs were no longer in sight, Yeon-seo brought up the main topic, keeping her face as nonchalant as possible.
“Um, Director. Anything is fine, but could you give me a few hints about your first love?”
Jooheon glared at her as if asking why on earth he should, but Yeon-seo deliberately ignored it. It wasn’t the first or second time, and since he was always like this, she had to adapt.
“You don’t know her name or where she lives, right?”
“I don’t.”
Just as she thought. If he had known so much as her name, he would have found her long ago.
“Then what does she look like?”
When he suddenly stared intently at Yeon-seo’s face, she felt a wave of self-consciousness. What his manager, Ho-jin, had said earlier also came to mind.
“Um… could it be that she looks a bit like me?”
Instead of answering, Jooheon scoffed in disbelief. At his blatantly incredulous reaction, Yeon-seo hastily changed the subject. Oops, guess I was way off.
“Then around when did you meet her?”
For the first time, a proper answer came.
“During my second year of high school.”
Yeon-seo was so surprised she nearly dropped the notepad she was holding.
“Pardon? That was ten years ago?”
She stared at Jooheon in disbelief. Was it for real that he still hadn’t forgotten a girl he met ten years ago in high school, and was still searching for her?
But on second thought, he was a man obsessed with premarital purity in this day and age. It was entirely in character for him. Yeon-seo let out an inward groan. I really messed with the wrong person……
“Why, is ten years ago not allowed?”
Jooheon asked, sounding dissatisfied.
“It’s not that, but… don’t people usually move on and date someone else after that much time?”
“It’s not like I haven’t tried. I went on dates, and I tried my best to like them.”
“And?”
“What am I supposed to do when, no matter who I meet, my heart just won’t follow?”