Chapter : 05
Ever since the day she had been half-embraced by Jihoon, Eum felt as though she had been placed under a spell.
Even when she looked up at the bright blue sky, she saw his face, and in the rustling fallen leaves carried by the wind, she could smell his scent. Even when she listened to English listening exercises, she heard them in Jihoon’s voice.
To Eum, the entire world was Seong Jihoon.
Eum knew that what she had was lovesickness, but although she could make the diagnosis, she couldn’t find a cure.
Her symptoms gradually became worse in that state, but strangely enough, around that time, she suddenly stopped running into Jihoon.
Meanwhile, there was only one month left until the college entrance exam. The real countdown had begun.
“All right, there’s one month left now. From this point on, rather than thinking about doing something new, you need to maintain what you’ve already been doing. Everyone understands?”
“Yes!”
As expected of Hyeseong High School, which produced more successful applicants to prestigious universities than any other school in the country, the atmosphere of the school changed.
Except during classes, students of every grade were prohibited from using the athletic field, and they received demerit points if they talked loudly, whether in the cafeteria or the school store. The latest popular songs that had played during lunch were also replaced with classical music that helped students concentrate.
The entire school was doing everything it could to help the students preparing for the exam, but none of it helped Eum.
‘I didn’t see him again today.’
It was because Jihoon had disappeared without a trace over the past few days.
She went to the principal’s office every day as well, but every time she went, there was no sign of anyone inside. She couldn’t even see his shadow around the school grounds or in the hallways.
At this point, she would have believed it if someone told her he had shot up into the sky or sunk into the ground.
One day, while she was wondering whether she should at least ask her homeroom teacher about his whereabouts, someone came looking for her.
“Yeon Eum.”
When she raised her head, it was Gu Seongjun.
“I have something to say. Can you come outside for a moment?”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“It’ll only take a moment.”
Eum didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t simply ignore him.
Part of her was curious about what he wanted to say. He was supposedly leaving to study abroad soon, and it didn’t seem likely that he had come back now just to bully her again.
“Here.”
But what he handed her after taking her all the way to an empty staircase was a small, cute-looking pouch.
“What is this?”
“To wish you good luck on the college entrance exam.”
“……What?”
When Eum looked at him in great surprise, the rims of Gu Seongjun’s ears turned red.
“Why are you so surprised? It’s so you can get into the university you want. You’re good at studying, aren’t you?”
Eum touched the pouch.
Judging from the hard and crinkly things inside, it seemed to contain chocolates and a letter.
“Did the teacher…… no, did the principal make you do this?”
“Hey, do you really think I’m that much of a piece of trash?”
“I’m asking because that’s how you look.”
Seongjun looked wronged.
“This is really how I feel. I even knelt down and apologized to you before, didn’t I? And the principal isn’t even at school right now.”
But then, something he said caught her attention.
“Isn’t at school?”
“You didn’t know? I heard he went back to the company where he originally worked. That’s why the kids in our class went crazy for a while.”
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.
It felt as though something heavy had struck the back of her head.
When?
Jihoon hadn’t said anything to her all this time.
“Anyway, this is one hundred percent from my heart. Honestly, the reason I bullied you before was because I was embarrassed about being rejected in front of everyone. But I really did like you. So, I was wondering, after graduation, could we keep in touch……”
But Seongjun couldn’t finish his sentence.
Eum had bolted down the stairs like a shot.
Her heart was pounding violently. She stumbled several times and nearly fell, but Eum didn’t stop.
She ran down the long hallway and finally reached the principal’s office.
She had knocked every day and turned away because there had been no response, but this time she grabbed the door and pushed it open with all her strength.
Click.
But it wouldn’t open.
Eum stood frozen for a moment, still gripping the doorknob, when a teacher passing by noticed her.
“What are you doing there?”
“Where is the principal?”
But the teacher clicked his tongue when he saw the color of Eum’s name tag.
“What is a senior doing here? Hurry back to your classroom.”
Eum couldn’t believe it.
The thought that she might never see Jihoon again suddenly made her feel as though she was about to cry.
At the same time, Jihoon was sitting across from his father, Seong Giljun.
Not long ago, he had suddenly been summoned back to headquarters.
It was because word had reached the Chairman that he had caused a scene at a hotel restaurant over the weekend.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Giljun asked while pressing his forehead.
“Is it really that difficult to live according to the Chairman’s orders?”
“Would it be easy?”
At his shameless reply, Giljun slowly raised his head.
He now wore the expression of a father who had given up on his only son.
The grandfather’s order to his grandson had been to stay away from the company for the time being, keep a low profile, and choose a woman to marry.
Rather than being grateful for a relatively light punishment considering the trouble he had caused, Jihoon had gone and beaten a member of the National Assembly into a pulp. It was an incident serious enough that he would have had nothing to say even if they decided to remove him from the family register altogether.
“Assemblyman Park was furious and said he was going to press charges.”
“That bastard can’t press charges.”
“How do you know that?”
“He offered alcohol laced with sleeping pills. And to a minor, no less.”
As Jihoon recalled that day, the muscles in his jaw tightened.
He should have broken the man’s wrist or something, and he regretted simply letting him go because Minjae had strongly stopped him.
Of course, he had also been concerned about Eum, who had tightly shut her eyes like a frightened chick.
“Let’s say that’s true. What does that have to do with you?”
“That’s almost like telling me to give up on being human.”
“How did you even know and get into that place?”
It had been a private room.
The fact that he had searched through every single room like a madman until he found it must already have become known through someone’s testimony.
“I heard she’s Assemblyman Yeon Honam’s granddaughter.”
Jihoon was uncomfortable hearing Eum’s story come directly from Giljun’s mouth.
“What are you to her?”
“What do you mean, what am I to her? She’s just a student at our school.”
“Since when did you become so attached to your school?”
Until the very moment he had been kicked out of headquarters, the guy who had complained that school was boring and that he would rather be sent somewhere in the countryside was now calling it ‘our school.’
“I asked Chief Joo, and he said you even took her home yourself.”
“Then should I have just sent a kid like that home in the rain when she wasn’t even properly dressed?”
“The important thing is that you considered that more important than meeting Riwon. The Chairman arranged that meeting so you could apologize to Riwon.”
Jihoon leaned his head back in frustration.
Ever since returning to headquarters, his trapezius muscles had been aching. It was undoubtedly a sign of stress.
“Father. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but she’s a minor.”
“She’ll be twenty in less than two months.”
When Jihoon narrowed his eyes as if asking what exactly his father was trying to say, Giljun let out a low sigh before speaking.
“That girl is going to marry Assemblyman Park. Apparently, they were meeting that day to discuss that very matter.”
“……”
“If you interfere with that as well, they won’t stay quiet. So stop. How far do you intend to be demoted?”
Even after he had beaten a person—an assemblyman, no less—into a bloody mess, what happened that day still hadn’t been mentioned in the media.
That was proof that the company had exerted considerable influence behind the scenes.
But from the moment the word ‘marriage’ came out of Giljun’s mouth, Jihoon stopped hearing anything else he said.
“Is it okay if I pretend I don’t know what happened today?”
“Can I hide behind you, teacher?”
Remembering Yeon Eum from that day, Jihoon quietly clenched his fist and asked,
“Does she want that, too?”
Giljun’s gaze shifted toward his son’s bloodshot eyes.
“Does she want to be sold off to a man thirty years older than her? Just like Mother.”
“What?”
Jihoon didn’t wait for Giljun’s answer. He abruptly stood up and stormed out.
“Seong Jihoon!”
Giljun called out angrily, but Jihoon didn’t stop and left the vice chairman’s office.
The waiting secretaries spotted him and immediately sprang to their feet, while Minjae came rushing out. Jihoon tossed him the car keys.
“You drive.”
“What?”
Ignoring Minjae’s confusion, Jihoon stepped into the elevator and drew in a hot, agitated breath.
The world was going insane.
The words that Eum was going to marry Assemblyman Park kept spinning around inside his head.
