Chapter 4
Teach Me Love
So this is the price of being born into a powerful family.
Yeonhee still couldn’t understand it.
Did that mean he was someone who could fall in love, yet had never even tried?
When the silence continued, Jihan asked again,
“Do you know anything about the research institute?”
His voice burst the balloon of questions filling Yeonhee’s head.
She reluctantly shared what she knew.
“Before it became Damcheongwon, this place was called The Way Research Institute. But it closed down a long time ago.”
“If there’s anything else you know, please tell me. Anything is fine.”
“My parents ran it. It closed twenty years ago. After that, it was left abandoned until I opened Damcheongwon.”
Jihan’s expression brightened a little.
Maybe he could meet her parents and ask them something.
“Then… may I meet them?”
“No.”
Yeonhee’s voice, which had been gentle until now, suddenly turned cold.
“…They died twenty years ago because of the side effects of the Yeon Patch.”
“Ah…”
Without meaning to, they had ended up exchanging the news of her parents’ deaths the first time they met.
Jihan lowered his eyes to his knees, unable to find any words.
“There aren’t any research records left, and I was just a child back then. That’s all I know.”
“…I understand. Thank you.”
“But are you really planning to take the information and just leave?”
Jihan almost crumpled the business card in his hand.
Closing his eyes tightly, he pressed his temples.
“What do you mean? Like I said before, if you need compensation, I’ll pay.”
“No. Like I said before, I don’t need any payment.”
Yeonhee copied his tone as she answered.
Then, for the first time since opening Damcheongwon, she did something she had never done before.
She opened the door in the glass wall and stepped outside.
“W-What are you doing?”
Startled, Jihan quickly stood up.
Seeing him up close, he was even taller than she had expected.
This was the first time she had looked directly at his face instead of seeing him through a television screen or hearing his voice through the glass wall.
Without realizing it, Yeonhee stared at him.
His thick, straight black eyebrows and sharp nose formed a perfectly defined line.
Between his long eyelashes were deep, dark eyes that seemed as though they could swallow her whole.
His full lips were naturally red, like they had been painted with watercolor.
His jawline was sharp, with a slight angle beneath his ears.
Actors really are different.
He’s so handsome it’s hard to breathe…
For the first time in her life, Yeonhee felt as though looking at someone could take her breath away.
She forced herself to lower her gaze.
He wore a white shirt buttoned all the way to his neck, a light gray vest, and a matching jacket.
He looked exactly like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.
She looked back into his dark eyes.
“Please teach me about love.”
“…What did you just say?”
For the first time, Jihan’s cold expression cracked.
His eyes widened slightly.
Yeonhee stepped one pace closer and repeated herself clearly.
“Please teach me… about love.”
Something about her firm voice made Jihan uneasy.
He slowly rose to his feet.
He studied her face carefully, wondering if she was joking.
But the slight crease between her brows told him she was completely serious.
“Were you even listening to what I said?”
“I was. Very carefully. But…”
“…But?”
“That isn’t a reason to hate love.”
“Why not?”
They stood facing each other as though they were opponents.
The calm atmosphere from earlier had completely disappeared, replaced by tense silence.
“What I’m saying is…”
She hesitated.
“That was your parents’ love. Not yours, Mr. Yoon Jihan.”
“Does that matter? Seeing and hearing it was more than enough.”
His voice was as cold as winter frost.
Yeonhee bit her lower lip.
What she was about to reveal was something she had never spoken aloud before.
“I don’t want to be paired with Seo Yeonhee! What if I become a Yeongongin too?”
“You don’t even know what love is!”
“Yeongongin are basically a virus.”
“Isn’t she just a freak?”
“You can love your family, your friends, even celebritiesābut not a lover? Hah… That’s pathetic.”
Even now, when more than half of the population were Yeongongin, people still secretly believed that those called Yeonin, people capable of romantic love, were superior.
When Yeonhee was young, that prejudice had been even worse.
She had been hurt by those words more times than she could count.
Little by little, she hid herself where no one could see.
Even during the hottest summers, she only wore long sleeves to hide the scar on her wrist.
She had chosen to open Damcheongwon because she could meet people while remaining safely behind a glass wall.
But now…
If she wanted what she desired, she had to take a step forward.
Slowly, she rolled up her sleeve and revealed her left wrist.
The scar branding her as a Yeongongin was exposed.
“I’m a Yeongongin.”
She looked directly at him.
“I desperately want to know love… but I can never love anyone for the rest of my life.”
The horseshoe-shaped scar looked as though it had always been part of her skin.
But the pain in her eyes couldn’t be hidden.
“Some people can’t understand love just by seeing it or hearing about it.”
She pulled her sleeve back down, hiding the scar once more.
What could be more miserable than carrying a mark on your body that declared you could never love?
“That’s why I think you’re the right person to teach me.”
“For now, you only know love through what you’ve seen and heard, just like me.”
“But if you choose to…”
“You can still fall in love.”
“No.”
Jihan cut her off immediately.
“I can’t teach you about love.”
“Love isn’t a simple emotion that can be learned.”
“And…”
Closing his eyes tightly, he pressed the space between his brows with his long fingers.
“I hate the emotion called love.”
“I don’t have the right… to teach someone else what love is.”
When he finished speaking, he lowered his head slightly and walked past her.
Is… is this really how it’s going to end?
She had expected him to refuse easily.
After all, he had openly said he hated love.
But she couldn’t let this chance disappear.
Somehow…
If she let him leave now, she felt she would regret it forever.
As he reached for the door, she called after him.
“Or are you just afraid of love?”
Jihan stopped in his tracks.
He slowly turned around.
His deep, unreadable eyes met hers.
Did I go too far?
She hesitated for only a second.
Then she stood her ground.
“How would you know if you’ve never even tried?”
“You decided what love was before ever experiencing it.”
She hid her trembling hands behind her back.
Then she spoke the words she had kept locked inside her heart her entire life.
“…Unlike me, you still have a choice.”
For the first time in her life, she had challenged someone.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
She held her breath, waiting for his answer.
But Jihan said nothing.
The tiny room, barely large enough for the two of them, was swallowed by silence.
Creeeak…
Clang!
The old iron door slammed shut.
