50. Snow Piling Up
Seungho, who had been lying unconscious, suddenly tilted his upper body slightly upright and tilted his head back with his eyes closed, as if nothing had happened. Compared to his usual flawless posture, he looked quite slack, but Jihyun didn’t let her guard down and watched him carefully.
Seungho seemed like he would open his eyes any moment and scold her, asking why she was there. Above all, the warmth radiating from his body next to her was unbearably uncomfortable. His drunken heat instantly thawed Jihyun’s body, which had been frozen stiff from the cold.
Trying to keep as much distance as possible, Jihyun moved her body away. Suddenly, a large hand lazily resting on the seat grabbed her hand.
“Ah!”
Startled by the unexpected touch, Jihyun jumped. But the warm hand held her cold hand firmly without letting go.
Noticing Jihyun’s restless movements from behind, the driver glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled reassuringly at her.
“Ah, Jihyun, you don’t need to worry so much.”
“Huh?”
“This is how the director is when he’s drunk. He just acts like nothing’s wrong…”
The driver didn’t see Seungho holding her hand but thought Jihyun was surprised simply because he suddenly sat up.
“…A drinking habit?”
“It’s quite unexpected, right? Someone who looks like they could drink barrels of alcohol without getting drunk.”
Jihyun swallowed dryly.
“That’s right.”
The driver turned the steering wheel suspiciously, and Jihyun looked back at Seungho. One large hand still covered hers while the other covered his eyes. He looked far from being drunk.
“It seems your personality of hating to lose control shows through even when you’re drunk.”
“I had no idea.”
She had never known about this strange drunken habit…
“I’m sure. Actually, no one else knows this side of him except me. Haha.”
Jihyun and the driver were talking about the same topic but from different angles.
“Unlike his friends who like drinking, the director never drank.”
The driver’s voice became distant, as if recalling the past.
“But there was a time before he went abroad when he drank a lot. Back then, he was a complete mess compared to now.”
“Really?”
Jihyun’s ears perked up. Since she left the mansion before graduating high school, the image the driver described was of a Seungho she didn’t know.
“Since then, he’s never shown such a messy drunken state again…”
Before the driver could finish, Seungho’s head dropped onto Jihyun’s shoulder. The idea of him having a mild drunken habit was clearly disproved.
When his head rested on her small shoulder, Jihyun stiffened completely. Seungho’s deep breath smelled strongly of alcohol.
When the traffic light turned red, the driver, glancing sideways at Seungho, was surprised and turned to Jihyun.
“He’s usually not like this, so he must have had quite a bit to drink today.”
“Yeah, seems like it. Ugh!”
Seungho exhaled hot breath and buried his face deeper. When his warm, slightly rough lips touched her skin, Jihyun’s shoulder twitched. His body heat made her feel flushed as well. She couldn’t stay like this any longer.
Even if Seungho woke up, she thought it better to separate their bodies, so she tried to shift away as much as possible, but his heavy body didn’t budge. She looked like she wanted to cry as she stared at the driver’s back, who was driving diligently.
She wished the driver would suddenly brake, but the car moved smoothly with skilled driving. Unable to move even a bit, Jihyun just rolled her eyes and looked at Seungho.
At first, she thought he was teasing her, but unbelievably, he was sound asleep.
‘I think he only drank champagne…’
Jihyun, who had been away from Seungho, didn’t know how much alcohol he had gulped down like water.
Wanting at least to free her trapped hand, Jihyun wriggled it inside Seungho’s large hand, but the tighter she moved, the tighter his grip became.
Giving up on moving, Jihyun’s gaze turned outside the window. The snow, which had been light flakes, was now piling up heavily.
“Oh, really!”
Jihyun nervously grabbed her hair. The party was over, so it didn’t matter if her well-set hair got messy.
The problem was Shin Seungho. The driver struggled together with Jihyun to drag Seungho to his apartment. After barely laying the large man on the bed, the driver ran out, leaving Jihyun behind.
“If the director finds out I came in here, I’m in big trouble.”
“W-What about me, driver?”
Jihyun called out desperately, but the door had already slammed shut. It was past midnight. All transportation home had stopped.
She picked up her phone to call a taxi, but due to the sudden heavy snow, even that was difficult. Sitting at the edge of the bed, she blankly stared at Seungho.
“How am I supposed to get home…”
His face, peacefully asleep, looked so gentle.
Seungho woke up, squinting his eyes. A burning thirst and a splitting headache rushed over him.
‘How much did I drink?’
The last thing he remembered was heading to the car.
He looked outside the frosty window but it was still dark, making it hard to tell the time.
Getting off the bed and putting his feet on the floor, his vision blurred and he felt nauseous. Suppressing the rising sickness, he opened the fridge and gulped down some cold water.
As the cold water slid down his throat, he finally felt a little better. The faint consciousness returning was not pleasant.
‘How did I get home…’
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember. Instead, what dominated his head were strange fragments of memory.
The sensation of a small hand gripping his, and a familiar scent near his nose. Seungho knew well who the scent belonged to: Jihyun.
She smelled of wildflowers — a mix of floral sweetness and bitter leaves.
Even in his hazy state, he sensed the scent, confused. Irritated by the thought that she might be spending time with Hajun without him, he had sent her a text telling her to go ahead without him.
Yet, in the car without Jihyun, he kept smelling her scent.
Usually, it was faint and fleeting, but this time the scent lingered deeply, stirring him repeatedly. With no strength to open his eyes, he assumed it was a drunken hallucination and took in the scent as much as he could.
It was strange — the more he smelled it, the sweeter and stronger it became.
“Damn…”
Shaking off the sweet memory, Seungho ran his hand irritably through his hair. He felt disgusted and annoyed at himself for being so messed up just from drinking some champagne.
Shaking his head unhappily, he stopped as he headed to the living room. There on the sofa, sleeping, was Jihyun — someone who shouldn’t have been there.
‘Is this a hallucination because I’m still drunk?’
Stunned, Seungho closed his eyes and opened them again. Jihyun was still there in his vision.
She was definitely not a hallucination or a trick of alcohol. Remembering his craving for her scent, a sudden thirst rose in him. He quietly approached the sofa where Jihyun lay.
Not in her dress but comfortable clothes, she lay curled up with one arm under her head, fast asleep.
‘Why is she here?’
The scene was still unreal. Standing before her, staring intently, his face twisted with the flood of memories.
The heavy snow falling outside, the hand he barely held onto, and the bitter floral scent.
Then,
“Hmm…”
Jihyun stirred in her sleep, long hair falling along her neck. Seeing her exposed white neckline, Seungho’s face flushed red.
It wasn’t a hallucination. The real Choi Jihyun was there. Not a vision, but the one who had gotten drunk with him in the car and brought him to the apartment.
His heart pounded so hard it felt like it would burst as he watched her eyelids flutter.
Unable to bear the pounding pain, he closed his eyes and bit his lips. Before the peacefully sleeping Jihyun, his solid world was beginning to crumble.
“Jihyun, do you like me?”
That one sentence, which irritated him so much, lingered. Throughout the party, his mind had been on Jihyun.
He had kept her far from the eyes of the trash that was Shin Myungho, but he couldn’t stop looking at her.
Even so, he was annoyed by Hajun watching over her from afar. Whenever he saw them whispering, his throat tightened and his stomach burned.
Since when?
Seeing a girl confess her feelings to him, Seungho thought:
If the person confessing right in front of me were Jihyun… if it had been her…
Even after returning to Seoul, studying in London, and at the party, whenever he heard the tiresome confessions, one thought dominated his mind:
‘What if it had been Jihyun saying those words?’
When the engagement with Chaerin was abruptly canceled due to the secret consultation between Myungho and Chairman Park, the happiest person was probably Seungho himself.
His Adam’s apple moved slowly as he bent his knees and lowered his upper body. His gaze remained fixed on Jihyun. His hand gently brushed his hair back, trembling slightly.
“Choi Jihyun.”
His voice, cracked with heat, was very low and cautious.
“I…”
