Chapter 11

He smiled purely, like a seven-year-old boy.

Seeing his smiling face made her heart feel full. If she had stood by and watched him get bitten by a venomous snake right in front of her, she would have been weeping with deep regret by now.

“Anyone else would have done the same.”

She replied quietly and dipped her other foot into the lake. Manuel quietly looked down at his own shoes and asked cautiously.

“Um, do you want to wear my shoes?”

Lee Soo stared at his black sneakers. She could guarantee that if she wore those sneakers, they would slip right off her feet even if she tied the laces tightly.

“No, they’re way too big, I can’t wear them.”

Manuel awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. Then, sitting down on a large rock, he asked gently.

“This is our first time talking just the two of us, right?”

Datil-brown eyes slowly swept over Lee Soo. Lee Soo also observed Manuel, who carried an exotic vibe, before nodding.

Manuel smiled gently once more.

“Your body is smaller than I thought. When I saw you from afar, you looked taller.”

“You’re taller than I thought.”

“Well, I am a center-back.”

“A center-back?”

“Football. The central defender is called a center-back.”

“Ah, right. You said you were a football player.”

“Search my name when we get back. You’ll find quite a lot of material.”

Talking with Manuel made her realize anew that all sorts of people lived in the world.

While there were people like Hayden, whose mere existence kept others on edge, there were also people like Manuel, who gave off a comforting, calm lake-like vibe.

“I’ll do that.”

“As a reward for saving my life, I want to gift you season tickets to our team. Come watch a game later. I’ll introduce you to our team’s regular starters, too.”

Lee Soo nodded with an easy mind. Hesitating as if feeling some lingering reluctance, Manuel spoke in a low voice.

“A-And if by any chance you’ve suffered from a crime, I can do my best to help. My father’s a police officer. I also work as a voluntary crime prevention patroller.”

“Just hearing you say that is enough to thank you.”

The mud that had soiled her ankles had already melted away into the water. Lee Soo climbed back up to the lakeside and swept back her hair.

Manuel, who got up right behind her, walked alongside her and gazed at Lee Soo. A white hand was reflected in his brown eyes. Manuel couldn’t just casually brush past the stimulation that had entered his vision.

“Your hands are really pretty.”

“…….”

“Ah, that is, I mean, unlike my rough hands, yours are delicate…”

Fidgeting restlessly, he turned the tips of his ears red. Unlike his appearance, he seemed like a guy with a pure side.

“Thank you. Your smile is cute.”

It was probably the first time since coming here that she had answered so comfortably. Gazing at his dark, blackish-brown eyebrows, Lee Soo headed toward the quarters above the lake.

The football players and Jenna were dismantling the torn tent from the top of the hill. There was a lot of chatter, almost like they were preparing for a charity bazaar.

However, Lee Soo’s gaze was drawn more toward Hayden, who had placed a table by the tent in front of their quarters and was organizing things. She liked his eyes, which weren’t kind but were filled with intense focus. No, perhaps she was instinctively reacting to the man’s sensual body.

A heavier stream of rain fell against her cheeks. Manuel, walking beside her, placed both hands over her head to shield her from the rain.

“It’s raining. Let’s hurry inside.”

Body heat as warm as the Spanish weather settled down right above her head.

At that moment, Hayden, who had been listlessly looking down at the items, locked his gaze onto the position of Manuel’s hands.

The hands hovering over her head. The hands taking the rain in her place. Those hands seemed to annoy Hayden quite a bit. He irritably furrowed his neat brow. Then, he swept a cool gaze over the man and woman in front of him.

If she could, Lee Soo wanted to read Hayden’s thoughts. Was he looking with a completely blank mind, or was there some sort of emotion behind it? And if there was emotion, what on earth was it?

The question she had thrown at him earlier echoed in her ears.

“Is what you’re extending to me just a simple favor?”

The evasive reply that came back was that it wasn’t a favor. If it wasn’t a favor, what on earth was it…?

The steadily intensifying rain churned up her turbulent heart. Feeling as though Hayden’s gaze was piercing right through that gap, she forced herself to look up at Manuel.

“When on earth is the rain going to stop?”

It was a question she didn’t actually care to hear the answer to. Looking up at the sky so earnestly that it made her feel a bit guilty, Manuel replied.

“Judging by the dark rain clouds blanketing the sky, it looks like it’ll rain all day.”

A large, sun-bronzed hand was still shielding Lee Soo’s head. Seeing that sight, Hayden slowly narrowed his eyes.

She thought he looked like a beast wary of an unfamiliar male. Though she didn’t know if it was just because it was exceptionally dark due to the tent rigged up over his head.
Without taking her eyes off Hayden, Lee Soo replied.

“I hope the sky clears up soon.”

She shifted her footsteps and approached Hayden. It was when the distance between them narrowed rapidly and she stood face-to-face right in front of him.

“Lee Soo.”

Hayden called out to her with his brow slightly furrowed. When Lee Soo glanced at him sitting in front of the table, he motioned with his eyes toward the chair opposite him.

“Help me sort the food.”

His expression was like someone who had just gone through an unpleasant experience.

Manuel wasn’t entirely oblivious to that, but with his inherently kind nature, he asked.

“Should I help too?”

Hayden casually yet decisively rejected the offer.

“No, two people is enough.”

Manuel looked awkwardly at Lee Soo sitting across from Hayden, then headed back up the hill.

Lee Soo began receiving a gaze so vivid it made her face burn. Her heart pounded, yet she felt as suffocated as if she had indigestion. It was because he kept leaving room for ambiguity that she couldn’t clearly define.

Perhaps he was a playboy who liked women by nature. But writing him off as a playboy didn’t fit when he had so decisively shut down Jenna’s advances yesterday.

Nor was it likely that feelings of affection had blossomed in just a single day. Hadn’t she done nothing for him? If anything, she was the one who had received things…

Hiding her unstable heart, Lee Soo looked inside the sack on the table.

“You don’t look so good. Did something upset you?”

To describe it merely as not looking good fell terribly short, considering how unfathomably sunken his eyes were. Wasn’t this the look of a gloomy murderer? She instinctively avoided his gaze.

Though he tried to lock eyes with her as persistently as a stalker, he soon gave up, rested his chin in his hand, and replied.

“I did. It looked like Manuel was having dirty thoughts while looking at you.”

The words that reached her ears made no sense to her right at that moment.

People go through various experiences as they live day by day. And based on those experiences, they build a database.

There are feelings that come through that database. Human intuition. That intuition was keeping a heavy guard against Hayden Wyatt.

She was curious about the reason. Was it because Hayden Wyatt was too charming? Or because, in an era where even human relationships were treated like transactions, he was being unconditionally nice to a penniless nobody?

Peering into the items inside the sack, Lee Soo rested her chin in her hand just like Hayden. Then, staring straight into his blue eyes that grew brighter the deeper one looked, she asked.

“Are you worried about me?”

He didn’t seem to have any intention of denying it.

“Worried. Framing it like that sounds quite sophisticated.”

“…….”

“It’d be better for you not to get mixed up with the football players. Most athletes are impulsive to a degree you can’t even imagine.”

From what she felt, Hayden tended to be taciturn and sharp toward other people.

Furthermore, he looked cold enough that he wouldn’t care even if someone dropped dead right beside him.

Lee Soo wondered why a man like that took such special care of her. Did he perhaps have a younger sibling he had looked after with deep affection?

Maybe this man, like Jenna, had an adopted Asian sibling. But thinking that way made Lee Soo’s nerves sensitive. The thought kept creeping in that the reason she received his protection and goodwill was simply because of his younger sister.

“I’m not seven years old.”

Even after receiving a rather prickly retort, Hayden smiled lazily.

“I’m well aware of that.”

His eyes, which had held gentleness, turned explicitly sultry and slowly dropped downward. Then, with his gaze alone, he swept over Lee Soo’s collarbones and caressed her chest.

“The problem is that I’m painfully aware of it.”

She felt as breathless as if she were suffocating under his intensely masculine gaze. Mustn’t an animal being trained by an expert handler feel this exact way every single time?

Lee Soo’s dark eyes shook unstably. Her lips dried up anxiously.

“Don’t play games with me.”

When her lips trembled faintly, he brushed his grayish hair back. Then, gazing quietly at her with eyes like a deep-blue cosmos, he replied.

“I’m not playing games.”

Shifting the gaze that had been slowly roaming over Lee Soo’s body, he rummaged back into the sack. As Lee Soo stared spellbound at his dense, dark-gray eyelashes, she looked down at the green pants Hayden handed out.

“I managed to find pants and slippers, so put them on for now.”

They were medical pants. The length was just right, and the waist was elastic so they looked comfortable.

“That’s great. I’ll return your pants soon, Hayden.”

It would be convenient to go change into these pants right now, but she didn’t want to look like she was running away, cowed by his dominant aura. More than that, she wanted to figure out whether he was enjoying the hobby of teasing an innocent person, or if he was just expressing his interest in a twisted way.

Though her breath was constricted with tension, she forced herself to reply as if it were no big deal.

“I’ll look around the scenery a bit first.”

Leaning slowly back against the chair’s backrest, he crossed his arms.

“You don’t have to return my pants. It’ll be handy to peel layers off one by one when it gets hot, so just wear both.”

The contours of his inverted-triangle upper body were striking. She didn’t want to be indulging in a man’s physique in a situation like this, but she couldn’t help her eyes from dropping to his abdominal muscles.

She must be losing her mind. Getting swept along by a man who seemed sexually depraved was leading her right down the path of being corrupted by it.

Realizing that, Lee Soo worried about her own reputation. But upon remembering that this was an island with hardly anyone watching, no police, and no CCTV cameras, she stopped worrying.

Come to think of it, none of the people on this island were holding back. The football players were old friends, and Jenna was supposedly friends with them too, yet none of them hid their emotions or thoughts.

That seemed to be partly because they were people who had almost died yesterday, and partly because this was an uninhabited island.

Besides, with the possibility of dying tomorrow from a wild animal bite hanging over them, saving face by hiding emotions and stressing out over it would only be their own loss. After agonizing over it, Lee Soo asked straight out.

“Is walking around in your underwear comfortable?”

The patter of rain drifted softly against her ears. Just as her mind was starting to settle, a low chuckle pulled her nerves taut all over again.

“It’s not comfortable. I’m just doing it to seduce you with the body part I’m most confident in.”

Lee Soo’s eyes, which had been wandering aimlessly over the dirt floor, shifted to his sturdy thighs.

Hayden slowly crossed his legs as if blocking her view. It felt like he was saying he had no intention of just letting her look and walking away.

That was why she grew confused. Was he really thinking about romance at a time when struggling to survive in a jungle-like island like this wouldn’t even be enough?