Love Class

Chapter 4

“Done crying?”

His gaze slowly traveled from her red eyes to her frowning lips.

Eunchae had ended up crying as she’d begged her former teacher for help.

This confused even herself. She had been trying so hard not to look like a child, but this was precisely how she had ended up acting.

“I’m sorry...” she mumbled. She had brought down the walls that Yiheon had never even touched, revealing the raw nakedness inside. Feeling exposed, she apologized and bowed her head.

“Well, you seem to realize your mistake.”

Yiheon leaned back in his chair, his stoic eyes on her. They traveled from the top of her head to her pale, exposed, and round shoulders.

He clicked his tongue, and she looked up.

He was looking at her disdainfully. Memories flew back into her mind; she remembered him holding a ruler and looking around with the same expression on his face after he had seen his class’s grades.

“You have no thought for your grades, do you, boys and girls?”

The memory of a nostalgic time allowed her to relax a little. In fact, she almost felt relieved.

“Mr. Cha, you’re the same as ever,” she said carefully, and he raised an eyebrow.

“And you’ve grown a little strange, Eunchae.”

She bit her lip in embarrassment. He watched her silently.

He had not liked high schoolers, but he had valued the innocence of the students he had met at the time. He had found it rather cute—their awkward, innocent, and naive ways.

“H-hello, Mr. Cha.”

He had found Eunchae particularly cute. Though she pretended otherwise, she had always looked at him expectantly.

He had always found himself handing out a taffy to her even though he didn’t always mean to.

“Thank you, Mr. Cha...”

The heavy makeup on her face now reminded him of the mildness he had seen on her younger face.

He sighed quietly. Clearly irritated, he removed his suit jacket.

His white shirt underneath tightened with his neat movements, revealing his muscular figure.

“Put this on,” he said, handing the jacket to her on a single long, straight finger.

She thought momentarily, trying to figure out what he was doing. She quickly took it before he could frown.

“Thank you...”

When she put it on, it was still warm.

Joy returned to her eyes. Her eyes were as red as those of a rabbit, but her cheeks rose as she smiled.

Yiheon felt nonplussed as he watched her. She seemed to have forgotten that she had been crying a moment ago.

“Forgotten as quickly as a puppy about to be fed, I see,” he said.

He shook his head and added as a sort of compliment, “Well, that’s what makes kids like you cute.”

He was thirty-five. It was natural for him to find Eunchae, who was ten years younger, a cute little girl.

“What...?” she asked.

A... puppy? About to be fed?

She gave him a confused look.

“Excuse me.” He raised his hand to the waitress without a word of explanation.

The woman who had been waiting outside hurried over. This had never happened in the past few months of countless blind dates.

She looked at Eunchae, then at Yiheon.

Eunchae turned her head away, not wanting her red eyes to be seen.

“Is Chef Jung Ilyeong in today?” he asked.

“Yes. He should be here today,” the waitress replied.

“Could you ask him to send up a simple meal for us?”

Perhaps Yiheon knew the chef. Maybe that was natural, since this hotel belonged to the Chawoon Group.

“Eunchae,” he said after placing a simple order.

With her eyes wide, she turned toward him.

“Yes...?”

“Do you drink?”

“Yes, a little...”

“A glass of wine each as well, please. White wine,” he added.

The waitress nodded and left.

There was a momentary silence. Thoughts crowded her mind in that short window—the things that she had wanted from this meeting, the revocable mistakes.

But Yiheon had offered her his jacket to put around her shoulders and actually stayed at the table, which wasn’t like him. He was even offering her a meal.

It’s probably because I cried.

Eunchae wasn’t so naive as to mistake this for anything else. She was smarter than that.

Yiheon saw her as a pupil. His actions were akin to making sure a student’s dress was not too short, that they had eaten, and so on. They were nothing more than that.

“You want me to share a bed with one of my students? I would have to be mad to do that.”

Yiheon was a teacher who had always warned his students harshly. But when the students ignored his warnings, he would speak soothingly to them like they were children.

She smiled bitterly. She had come out here with a bold goal, but she had accomplished nothing.

What are the chances of me marrying someone like Yiheon?

The premise had been wrong from the start. She was not a desirable marriage partner for him.

Resigned, she dropped her gaze to the table.

“We will have some food, then head up,” he said. She grew puzzled.

“Head up? Where?”

He replied nonchalantly, “To my hotel room.”

“What...?” she asked a moment later.

She had heard his voice, but it felt as though she was hallucinating. Perhaps he had lost his mind. How else could he be so calm after saying something like that?

Studying his handsome side profile, she gulped air.

He frowned, noticing her discomfiture. “Were you always this slow?”

She knew he was admonishing her, but she was unable to speak. Even if she had graduated five years ago, Yiheon was still her teacher.

Your hotel room? I can’t very well say “you’re out of your mind.”

And his eyes were too tranquil for this to be some kind of lascivious attempt.

Most men who requested a one-nighter from her had looked at her with gleaming, hungry eyes. Mr. Cha, on the other hand...

She glanced at his face.

There was no desire at all in his eyes. He looked at her like she was a piece of furniture, perhaps a sculpture.

She might as well have been an inorganic object to him.

“Why... should I go up to a hotel room with you, Mr. Cha?” she asked with effort. The statement still puzzled her. Her eyes were guarded.

“Ah,” he said, finally understanding her reaction. The problem was that he had spoken of the hotel room as casually as if it were a classroom.

Given his almost obsessive fastidiousness in this matter, he hadn’t even recognized the problem. He hadn’t realized how mentioning the place might sound to Eunchae, given the circumstances.

“Right. It’s not you. It’s me. I’m the lunatic.”

“Uh...”

“Sorry about that. It was shortsighted of me.”

She found herself laughing at the sudden apology. “Well, I accept your apology.”

It was just like him to act this way. The girls at school had liked him for this reason.

The student dean at the time had liked to touch girls who were young enough to be his daughters with the pretext of “corporeal punishment,” which had made Yiheon look even more appealing in comparison.

“That’s why I like Mr. Cha,” a friend had once said.

“Yeah?” she had replied.

“Yes. It’s obvious that he sees us as hot-blooded, immature youngsters. He seems to be really annoyed with having to deal with us at all, but he’ll sometimes toss us a carrot, so to speak.”

“A carrot...?”

“Don’t even mention the dean. He’s horrible. If the dean ever asks to see you, don’t ever go alone. Take me with you.”

It had been during an advanced placement class that her friend had whispered the words to her. While she was still lost in the recollection, Yiheon said calmly, “Mr. Sung back at the high school did tell me that you lived with adoptive parents.”

She nodded.

“I assumed that you were getting along well, since they sent you overseas and everything. I guess I was wrong. So wrong that you are looking to marriage as an escape,” he continued on, as if not expecting her to say anything in response. “Or perhaps that’s not entirely true? Maybe your adoptive parents are just trying to sell off their twenty-five-year-old daughter to a thirty-five-year-old man?”

The waitress took that moment to move up to the table with a cart.

Eunchae was instantly relieved, since she had nothing to say. The waitress skillfully placed wine glasses in front of them.

“I will fill your glasses now,” she said.

The wine fell in a graceful trajectory from the tip of the bottle, and Eunchae gulped it down rather hurriedly.

She was drinking so quickly that he could hear the liquid sloshing down her throat.

He watched her, taking a light sip. Relishing the flavor with the tip of his tongue and swallowing, he said, “It doesn’t matter which. Maybe you want to marry in order to escape, or perhaps they’re forcing you into this.”

“Right,” she said, not noticing anything strange about that statement.

After all, he was right—it had nothing to do with him. Perhaps he would give her a moment’s sympathy, but there would be nothing more. In fact, she was unlikely to ever meet him again.

I had no choice, but I will be ashamed of today for the rest of my life.

She bitterly ran her fingers over the stem of her glass.

Yiheon said, “About the marriage—or should I say, the contract? Let us discuss further details in my room.”

Eunchae blinked, dazed.

He continued smoothly, “I am actually quite interested in the idea of a marriage that doesn’t require love—and in which both parties get what they need.”

He emptied the rest of his glass.

She was still blinking silently.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he said, frowning.

“Why?” she asked incredulously.

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“What is it that I can possibly offer you?” she asked.

He barked a short laugh. At this rate, it really seemed as if he was giving her an answer to her proposal.

“Who knows?” he replied vaguely, knowing it would make her anxious.

“Right...” she said, put-out. The sight gave him an odd thrill.

“As of yet, anyhow.”

He hadn’t known that it was still in him to be so childish and mischievous.

He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, pondering.