The Villain Is Too Good at Cooking C11

Chapter 11

Yoon Mujin keenly noticed the fleeting regret in Jeong Iwon’s expression and wanted to shout right then and there, “I’m not leaving for good. I’ll be back soon.”

But as an empty shell with nothing to his name, such a promise would only become a burden and a shackle for Jeong Iwon. Mujin forcibly swallowed the words welling up inside him and merely nodded silently.

“Hey, Kwon Heeseong. Get up, too. Give me a ride to Seoul on your way back.”

“What? You crazy bastard, why would I play chauffeur for you?!”

With his healthy left hand, Mujin roughly grabbed Kwon Heeseong by the back of his neck. He couldn’t leave Kwon Heeseong alone beside Jeong Iwon like this.

Ignoring Kwon Heeseong’s furious protests as he was dragged along by the collar, Mujin left Jeong Iwon’s house.

In the end, unable to resist Yoon Mujin’s forceful insistence, Kwon Heeseong’s sports car headed toward Seoul with Mujin inside, kicking up a cloud of dust behind it.

Jeong Iwon stood watching the car disappear into the distance, unable to take his eyes off its retreating figure for a long time.

Several hours later, in a steep hillside neighborhood on the outskirts of Seoul.

Yoon Mujin climbed the suffocatingly steep slope and stopped in front of a familiar, shabby house.

The elderly landlady, who had been sitting on a wooden platform in the yard peeling garlic, spotted him and jumped to her feet in surprise.

“Oh my goodness, Mujin! Where on earth have you been all this time?! You stopped answering your phone and disappeared completely. I was so worried! I thought you might have gone somewhere and died!”

The old woman hurried over, gripping Yoon Mujin’s arm with tears in her eyes.

Despite her own difficult life, she had always treated the orphaned Mujin like her own grandson.

“I’m sorry, Grandma. I’m sorry for worrying you. I had somewhere I needed to go, so I couldn’t contact you.”

“Oh dear, and what happened to your hand? What on earth were you doing to get yourself hurt like this?!”

“It was just a minor accident. It’s almost healed.”

“Then you’re all right now?”

“Yes. That’s why I came back—to sort things out. I’ll pay the rent I owe soon as well.”

“If you’re all right, that’s all that matters. Still, you look healthier than before.”

That was because Jeong Iwon had been feeding Yoon Mujin so well.

After reassuring the old woman, Mujin went around the back of the house and opened the door to his tiny room.

It was a cramped, shabby room that barely received any sunlight.

On the cheap low table sitting forlornly in one corner was an old smartphone that had been left there ever since Hamin had thrown it down on his wedding day. It was now covered in dust.

With his left hand instead of his casted right, Mujin fumbled around until he found the charger and plugged it into the phone.

Bzzzt.

After a moment, the empty battery began charging, and the screen that had been completely dead suddenly lit up.

Dozens of missed calls and message notifications flooded the screen, vibrating incessantly.

Calls from the gym owner.

Messages from his former training partners.

And overdue payment reminders.

Mujin scrolled through them with an indifferent expression.

Then his eyes stopped on the most recent message at the very top.

[Baek Hamin]

A name he could never forget.

His first love.

The only person for whom he had ever risked everything he had.

His sole salvation.

The aching pain he had buried deep inside his heart resurfaced.

With a hardened expression, Mujin tapped the screen and checked the message.

Mujin. Do you have some time? There’s something I want to talk to you about.

Why would Baek Hamin, who had smiled brightly while pledging himself to another alpha for eternity, come looking for him again?

In the dark, cramped room, the bluish glow from the phone illuminated Yoon Mujin’s cold, expressionless face.

The next day, at a quiet, upscale private café in Gangnam, Seoul.

Yoon Mujin arrived early and waited at the table.

Eventually, the door opened, and a familiar figure entered.

“Mujin.”

It was Baek Hamin.

The radiant smile he had worn on his wedding day, as though he had possessed the entire world, was nowhere to be seen.

Although he was dressed in expensive clothes and jewelry, his gaunt face and shadowed eyes made it obvious that he was far from happy.

Baek Hamin sat down and forced a faint smile.

“How have you been?”

“I’ve been well.”

“Your hand… You hurt it. What happened?”

“It’s nothing serious. It’s almost healed, so you don’t need to worry.”

“But still. You got hurt.”

They didn’t get straight to the point.

For a while, the two made small talk as they waited for their drinks. Once they had something cold to drink, they both seemed to relax a little.

And then, around that point, Baek Hamin finally began to unravel the words he had kept tightly bottled up.

“Mujin. You know…”

His voice trembled.

“I thought everything would be over once I got married. Once I was finally with Taeon. I thought all the difficult times I’d gone through would be compensated for, and that I’d finally be happy.”

He lowered his head gloomily.

“But that wasn’t what happened.”

The Kang Taeon family was one of the most powerful chaebol families in South Korea, and his proud, haughty in-laws openly looked down on Baek Hamin, an omega of ordinary background with nothing particularly impressive to boast about.

“Taeon hyung says he’s going to cut ties with his family to protect me. But watching him turn his back on his family because of me is unbearable. I feel like I can’t breathe from the guilt.”

Hamin’s voice trembled.

“I even keep going to the hospital because I thought… maybe if I had a child soon, the elders might finally soften toward me. But even that isn’t going the way I hoped.”

Baek Hamin had originally been a beta before becoming a recessive omega, and his chances of becoming pregnant were extremely low.

Watching Hamin’s shoulders begin to tremble, Yoon Mujin silently turned his glass between his fingers.

If this had been the Yoon Mujin of the past, he would have immediately taken Hamin’s hand and sworn to destroy every person and everything that was hurting him with his own hands.

He would have desperately tried to wipe away Hamin’s tears, even if it meant tearing himself apart in the process.

But the eyes of the Yoon Mujin sitting here now were eerily calm.

“I wanted you to be happy.”

At Mujin’s low, firm voice, Hamin abruptly raised his head.

A flicker of hope appeared in his tear-filled eyes.

“Mujin…”

Hamin hurriedly reached across the table and grabbed the edge of Mujin’s sleeve.

“I’m having such a hard time. I need somewhere I can breathe. Like before… Even if it’s only occasionally, could you stay by my side and be on my side? You’re my closest friend, after all.”

At the word friend, a hollow laugh escaped Mujin before he could stop it.

What kind of friend would sacrifice everything and cling to someone like that?

Baek Hamin was still precious to him.

But he no longer wanted to fulfill Hamin’s demands.

It was a selfishly pitiful and blindly dependent kind of clinging.

A cruel dependence that reached for Mujin’s devotion only whenever Hamin needed it.

In the past, Mujin would have endured even that selfishness.

But as he looked down at Baek Hamin’s slender, pale hand, a completely different image flashed through his mind.

Jeong Iwon, sweating profusely beneath the scorching summer sun as he stubbornly worked the fields, then mixing rice in a rough metal basin and stuffing it into his mouth until his cheeks were about to burst.

His mouth might have been foul, but he possessed a fierce, stubborn vitality unlike anyone else—a force that seemed determined to keep living with everything he had.

The moment Mujin recalled that vivid warmth, he realized where he truly wanted to find peace and remain.

He wanted to sit on the sun-drenched wooden veranda of that countryside house and smile while watching Jeong Iwon.

“Hamin.”

Yoon Mujin gently, but firmly, removed Baek Hamin’s hand from his sleeve.

“This is the path you chose. Whether it’s problems with your in-laws or conflicts with your husband, that’s your reality. You have to face it and resolve it yourself.”

“Mujin!”

“There’s nothing I can do for you anymore.”

Baek Hamin’s face went deathly pale.

Then—

BANG!

The café door was thrown open, and a man carrying an icy presence strode inside.

It was Baek Hamin’s husband, Kang Taeon.

Having heard that his wife was secretly meeting her former lover, he had rushed over immediately.

His eyes shifted between Baek Hamin’s tear-streaked face and Yoon Mujin before blazing with fierce hostility.

“What are you doing here?”

Kang Taeon wrapped an arm around Baek Hamin’s shoulders and growled at Mujin.

The atmosphere was so vicious that it seemed as though a fist could fly at any moment.

But Yoon Mujin didn’t flinch.

He slowly stood from his seat, his expression completely devoid of jealousy, defeat, or anger.

With the indifferent gaze one would reserve for a complete stranger, he gave Kang Taeon a brief, dry bow.

Then he walked past Kang Taeon, who was holding Baek Hamin protectively, and left the café without a trace of hesitation.

“Mujin…!”

Baek Hamin’s desperate call followed him from behind.

But Yoon Mujin never looked back.

Yoon Mujin returned to the narrow, dark room in the hillside neighborhood.

He shoved the old smartphone deep into a drawer.

A dead relic of the past that he would never turn on again.

The only belongings he had left were a few changes of clothes that could fit into one large sports bag.

“Grandma, thank you for everything.”

As he handed her an envelope containing the rent he owed, along with every last bit of money he had left, he said his farewell.

The landlady repeatedly wiped away her tears as she blessed him and wished him well on the road ahead.

As Yoon Mujin walked down the steep hillside, his footsteps felt almost weightless.

It was as though he had finally thrown away the enormous boulder that had been crushing him for years.