Chapter : 02
Seong Jihoon was the first truly adult-like adult Eum had ever met.
Eum grew up alone.
Her mother, who had been her entire world, ran away from home before Eum had even graduated elementary school, while her father, Yeon Changshin, left Eum with relatives as though abandoning her.
The sadness and confusion that came from her parents disappearing in an instant, and the fear of being abandoned. Unable to adapt to the environment that had suddenly changed, Eum couldn’t make friends.
“They say she was bullied in elementary school.”
It continued even after she entered middle school, and by the time she became a high school student, she had completely forgotten how to make friends.
She was bullied, too. It had started when she refused a public confession from the school delinquent, Gu Seongjun.
Every day, she pretended to be tough because she didn’t want to lose, but in truth, she was scared and exhausted.
It was even worse at home.
After her father remarried, they began living together again, but with a new stepmother and a younger stepsister added to the family, there was no place where she could feel comfortable.
So she spent a long time at school.
Even after classes ended, she stayed in the school library, replacing dinner with bread and milk she had bought in advance from the school store.
Sitting on the school grounds and listening to the sounds of insects, staring blankly at the dark and desolate athletic field. Dreaming vaguely of a future where she would live differently from how she did now was the only time of rest she had.
“Why aren’t you going home?”
That day, a deep voice drifted toward her.
She might have been startled by the sudden presence of another person, but Eum wasn’t.
There was something strangely reassuring about that voice.
When she turned around, a tall man with long legs was standing there. The streetlamp was hidden behind his back, making his face difficult to see, but somehow that only made the adult man seem even more striking.
“Eum. Your name is Yeon Eum, right?”
But from where he was standing, he seemed to be able to see her perfectly.
“Yes.”
“What grade and class are you in?”
“Who are you?”
Only then did the man seem to remember that he should introduce himself first. He walked over to her and plopped down beside her.
Instead of the sweaty smell that came from the boys in her class, a refined scent of perfume wafted faintly toward her. Just as Eum quietly raised her eyes, the man’s face, illuminated by the streetlamp, finally came clearly into view.
“Didn’t you hear about me? I’m pretty famous at this school.”
Ah.
Even if he hadn’t said that, Eum would have recognized him at once if she had seen his face from the beginning.
Seong Jihoon.
She had heard that he was the owner of Hyeseong Group and an executive director at its headquarters, but after causing some kind of trouble, he had been demoted and sent to this very Hyeseong High School.
In other words, a chaebol. Another class entirely.
Yet perhaps because of his unusual circumstances, Jihoon’s popularity among the students was absolutely explosive.
His overwhelming physique and handsome face alone would have made him famous, but his luxury suits that changed every day and his rough way of speaking made him the very embodiment of the kind of adult man the students couldn’t help but admire.
Neat, smelling good, with eyes that were slightly defiant, Jihoon made Eum’s heart flutter too.
He was seriously handsome.
She bit her lips tightly, afraid that her thoughts might burst out of her mouth.
“Where do you live?”
“Shinhee-dong.”
“Are your parents coming to pick you up?”
She shook her head.
Then Seong Jihoon, the man everyone was talking about, stared intently at Eum before raising his wrist to check the time.
“Do you know why our school doesn’t have evening self-study?”
“……”
“Don’t stay out this late. Even though you’ve grown up, you have to be careful walking around at night, kid.”
Kid……
He was the first adult to call her a kid when she would become an adult in just a few months after taking the college entrance exam. No—throughout her life, when she had always been expected to act mature, this was the first time anyone had ever called her something like that.
Perhaps because of that, she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he lifted his long legs and walked away with loose, swinging strides.
Only after he had completely disappeared into the darkness did Eum slowly place her hand over the left side of her chest.
Could this be what it meant to fall in love at first sight?
For the first time, her heart was pounding.
After that day, she began encountering Jihoon more often.
On her way to school, when she went alone to the cafeteria late, and even when she was sitting quietly in her classroom, she would see him passing by in the hallway beyond the window.
Then one day, he accidentally witnessed her being bullied by Gu Seongjun.
That day, Jihoon turned the classroom—or rather, the entire school—upside down.
Thanks to him stepping in, Gu Seongjun, who had always held his head high, knelt before Eum for the first time. Even his parents, who had always bragged about how wealthy they were, came running and bowed their heads before her.
And that wasn’t all. Thanks to the overwhelming presence of a man named Seong Jihoon, even the group of school bullies who habitually acted like thugs became as docile as lambs.
“Why do you let those guys push you around?”
And when he was the only person who recognized the difficult struggle she had endured until then—
Eum couldn’t help but fall in love with him.
It was difficult because she had never experienced feelings that grew bigger with each passing day. So, like the other students, she went to find him and confessed her feelings.
But Jihoon merely said, as though she were a nuisance,
“Go drink some more of your mother’s milk.”
All of this happened within the short season of summer.
“Eum. Help your father out.”
Time passed, and autumn arrived.
It was less than fifty days before the college entrance exam when Yeon Changshin came to her room.
When she returned at midnight after studying at the library, the living room, which was always dark, was strangely bright, and Changshin was waiting for Eum instead of sleeping.
Her father, with whom she usually exchanged nothing more than simple greetings.
Even before her mother left home, he hadn’t been particularly devoted to his family, so now she had even fewer opportunities to speak with him than she did with her stepmother.
And yet—
“What kind of help do you suddenly need?”
“You know Grandpa has been having a hard time lately, right?”
“I don’t want to. You’re trying to make me do something strange again, aren’t you?”
When she was young and had been passed from one relative’s house to another, she had also stayed at her grandfather’s house.
Probably for more than a year. She admitted that she had stayed there the longest, but she hated being the one who had to sacrifice herself whenever her grandfather needed help because of it.
Wearing a dress and showing her face to strange men. Receiving pocket money as though it were payment for doing so. Even when she felt uncomfortable, having to smile as prettily as possible and say, “Please take good care of my grandfather.”
She really didn’t want to do it anymore.
But Changshin shook his head, saying that wasn’t what she was thinking.
“It’s not like that. This weekend, you just have to meet one person and have a meal with them.”
“Who is it?”
“That is……”
Changshin hesitated, moving his lips awkwardly before finally speaking.
“It’s someone you know, too. You only have to eat a meal and come back, so don’t feel pressured. Always remember that we can only live well if your grandfather’s affairs go smoothly.”
With those words, Changshin turned around and left her room before she even had a chance to refuse.
Left alone, Eum let out a sigh.
‘When will I finally be free……?’
She had to study even more on the weekends.
Did he even realize that his daughter was a student preparing for the college entrance exam?
It rained from early Saturday morning.
Jihoon’s expression was frightening as he strode out of the hotel lounge café.
“It’s just one cup of tea. Okay?”
Secretary Minjae, who was hurrying after him, tried to appease him in a troubled voice.
Ever since his name had been put on the blind-date market, Jihoon had been meeting women every weekend.
The blind dates were like interviews conducted according to a schedule, with only the partner changing each time.
Since he didn’t care whom he married, the fact that he still didn’t have a designated marriage partner was extremely annoying to him. Nevertheless, the reason he quietly followed the orders of his grandfather, Chairman Seong, was because he had committed a sin.
“Don’t even dream of coming back to headquarters until you choose your own partner.”
If that was the case, he would at least have to pretend to play along in order to reclaim his position. He had no intention of wasting his precious time at a school full of kids with milk still on their lips forever.
But of all people, today’s first match was the one woman he least wanted to meet.
Kang Riwon, the person responsible for getting him kicked out of headquarters.
After making such a huge fuss and refusing so vehemently, the fact that she had appeared as a blind-date candidate meant she was no ordinary woman.
“Thirty minutes. No, twenty!”
“Not even one minute.”
Minjae hunched himself up like a shrimp caught between two fighting whales and pleaded with him.
“I understand that you’re uncomfortable, but Chairman told me to make sure you meet every single person without exception. Just for my sake! Just ten minutes—no, five minutes! Please?”
Jihoon suddenly stopped walking and gave Minjae a cold sideways glance.
“Seeing your face makes me want to do it even less.”
“Agh!”
Minjae jumped in place and began whining that the blind-date list had already reached the Chairman’s hands, so there was no way to cancel it.
That was when it happened.
Jihoon’s feet suddenly stopped.
“What is that?”
A woman wearing an ill-fitting mini dress was walking into the hotel.
A slender figure, skin so pale it was almost white, short black hair……
Yeon Eum?
