chapter 11
Everything was gray.
Her body shot forward somewhere fast, beyond her control.
Seoha soon realized that she was lying on a hospital bed, being wheeled somewhere.
People were shouting all around her, their voices buzzing painfully in her ears.
“Seoha!”
Among the chaos, one voice—familiar and desperate—called her name.
“Please, wake up. Seoha, open your eyes, please!”
Amid all the noise, only his voice struck straight into her heart.
Lee Seung-oh.
My husband. My first love. And…
“Baby! Seoha!”
What a joke.
That bastard. That mutt was calling her name, screaming like a maniac.
She wanted so badly to sit up and punch him right in the mouth.
She even regretted not doing it back at the café.
“Seoha! Seoha, my daughter!”
It was her mother.
Seoha struggled desperately to open her eyes.
“Seoha, Mom’s here, okay? Please, open your eyes. My baby girl, please… please open your eyes, Seoha!”
Don’t cry so much, Mom. You’ll get a headache.
I’m okay. I’ll get treatment and wake up soon.
“Doctor, please save my daughter! I’ll give you anything you want! Take whatever you need—my blood, my organs—just please, save my daughter!”
Haeseon was sobbing, begging the doctors incoherently.
The woman who had survived losing her husband and held together both a company and a family all by herself—
Seoha had never imagined she could break down like this.
It was all my fault. If only I hadn’t taken the car out.
Regret and guilt tore at her heart.
“7:20 p.m. Yoon Seoha—”
A heavy voice cut through the wailing, speaking her name.
“…is deceased.”
What?
“Seohaaaa!”
Lee Seung-oh let out a deafening scream.
Kim Ok-soon’s shriek followed right after.
“Madam! Please, wake up! Madam!”
“Move! We need to lay her down!”
“Mother-in-law, please!”
Her mother must have fainted.
This was absurd. I’m right here—alive.
She could hear Seung-oh crying, the doctor apologizing, could feel the vibration of their voices, the bright glare of the fluorescent light through her closed eyelids.
She remembered a news story once—someone who was wrongly declared dead and almost buried alive, saved only at the last second.
Her situation was worse. She wasn’t going to be buried.
She was going to be cremated—burned alive.
Mom, I’m alive. I’m fine. Wake up. Don’t cremate me.
Seoha fought with everything she had to let them know she was still alive.
She focused every ounce of will on her eyelids, on her stiff, stone-like fingers.
Move, Yoon Seoha. You have to move!
Even a twitch, just the smallest flinch—anything.
Being burned alive inside a coffin… that was too horrifying.
Maybe her desperate effort worked—
suddenly, a loud cry broke through the noise.
“Doctor, over here! Patient Jo Seoha’s fingers just moved!”
“Confirmed! Prepare for emergency surgery, now!”
Whoever that Jo Seoha was, Seoha envied her desperately in that moment.
Lee Seung-oh was still crying his fake tears.
Her mother still hadn’t woken up.
The overwhelming stress pressed down, and Seoha’s mind began to fade into a deep, irresistible sleep.
“Doctor, wait—patient Yoon Seoha…!”
Half-dreaming, she thought she heard her name being called.
“Ryu Kyung-jun. Ryu Kyung-jun.”
Seung-oh muttered the name as he stared at the barely working phone in front of him.
The name Kyung-jun was common enough—but the surname Ryu wasn’t.
If it was someone connected to Yoon Seoha, there was only one possibility.
“Ryu Kyung-jun, from the secretary’s office.”
“Heh.”
Lee Ji-soo placed a plate of fruit on the table, worry etched on her face.
“You mean your secretary? The tall, pale guy?”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Yes. A few times, greeting you outside the house. And, um…”
“And?”
Pressed by Seung-oh’s sharp tone, Ji-soo hesitated, then went on carefully.
“I’m not totally sure… but that day, at the café… I think I saw him. Sitting at another table. I was really nervous and only saw him out of the corner of my eye, so I might be wrong…”
“What? Why are you telling me this just now!”
Seung-oh shouted before he could stop himself.
Ji-soo’s lashes trembled.
“S-sorry. I wasn’t sure, and everything was such a mess…”
Her downcast, frightened look made him regret yelling almost instantly.
He sighed and softened his tone.
“Sorry. I wasn’t mad at you.”
“I know. It’s okay if you are.”
“I said I’m not.”
He stared at the phone again, lost in thought.
Why had this turned up in Yoon Seoha’s car?
If only he hadn’t removed the black box memory card long ago—to hide his affair with Ji-soo—he’d have more to go on.
“Hey, um… oppa?”
Ji-soo timidly took his hand.
“This is just a maybe, but… if that really is Secretary Ryu’s phone, and it came from her car… could they have been… well… kind of close?”
Her voice grew smaller and smaller, but to Seung-oh it sounded loud and clear.
“…Right. That would make sense.”
He muttered, thinking it through.
Ji-soo’s eyes lit up for a second before she quickly returned to her usual meekness.
“I’m just saying it’s possible. Don’t take it too seriously. She’s really sick right now, after all.”
“Sick? She’s as good as dead—but not quite. How the hell did they botch the job?”
“Huh?” Ji-soo gasped.
“What are you saying? O-oppa, you don’t mean…!”
“Shh.”
He pressed a hand over her mouth, smiling thinly.
“It’s fine. By tomorrow, there’ll be an emergency executive meeting, and who else but me could sit in as acting CEO?”
Ji-soo’s eyes went wide.
“Mm-mm-mm?!”
“You said you wanted to be a designer, right? I’ll make it happen. How does ‘Designer Lee Ji-soo’ sound?”
She nodded slightly.
He lowered his hand.
“Oppa…”
A few seconds later, she jumped into his arms.
“Oppa, thank you! My dream’s finally coming true—because of you! You’re the best! You’re the greatest gift in my life!”
“You’re not stuttering at all.”
“I-I won’t anymore! I’m Designer Ji-soo now!”
So simple.
So cute.
He watched her bounce like an excited kid on Christmas morning, but his mind was already elsewhere—on the unconscious Yoon Seoha, on Kang Haeseon, and on the phone sitting in front of him.
Kang Yoon’s shares were split evenly between Haeseon and Seoha.
If both died, the inheritor would be none other than him.
But if Yoon Seoha wakes up…
It would be best if she stayed dead.
But if she survived and brought out those damned divorce papers—
He couldn’t risk it.
He slipped the phone into a thick envelope and hid it deep in the drawer.
If the worst happened, it would serve as “proof” of Seoha’s infidelity.
Thick casts wrapped her arms and legs.
Scabs crusted her face like barnacles.
An oxygen mask covered what was left of her.
And above it all hung a name tag: <Yoon Seoha>.
The woman who had thrown divorce papers at her cheating husband,
who had smiled at the ocean and spoken of dreams with shining eyes,
who had drunk too much and still walked with those pretty, clicking heels—
now lay before him, broken, barely alive.
“Yoon Seoha.”
Kyung-jun said her name, though he knew she couldn’t hear him.
The sound circled back and punched a hole right through his chest.
Plop—
A heavy tear fell from his chin to the floor.
He couldn’t remember the last time his heart hurt this much.
Maybe it never had.
“This can’t be. It’s not right.”
He closed his eyes, forcing his emotions back into line.
Yoon Seoha had “almost died.”
After being declared dead, faint signs of life were detected—and then she fell into a coma.
Her mother, CEO Kang Haeseon, had collapsed from the shock and hadn’t regained consciousness either.
It had all happened yesterday.
Other executives had rushed in and left again,
but Kyung-jun, having lost his phone, arrived a day late.
He heard the door open behind him.
Quickly wiping his eyes, he turned—and nearly cursed aloud.
“Secretary Ryu?”
That idiot, Lee Seung-oh, looked at him suspiciously.
“What brings you here? The CEO’s room is upstairs.”
Kyung-jun erased every trace of contempt from his face, bowing with his usual blank politeness.
“I came down since I was here. I know Manager Yoon personally.”
“I see. Thank you for coming.”
Seung-oh already knew his phone had been found in the wrecked car,
but suspiciously, he hadn’t said a word about it.
“As you can imagine, between my wife’s accident and my mother-in-law collapsing, I’ve barely kept it together. You must know the CEO’s office best, right?”
“I suppose so.”
Seung-oh pulled the curtain closed around Seoha’s bed and sat on the sofa.
“Since you’re here, I’ll tell you in advance—your replacement will arrive within the week. Start preparing the handover. The secretary’s position needs someone who suits me better. Don’t think of it as a firing—just a transfer.”
He was already acting like the CEO.
Wait—the CEO’s office?
Kyung-jun frowned slightly.
Yoon Seoha had a major accident—
the day after she handed her husband divorce papers.
Could that really be a coincidence?
“Secretary Ryu? Aren’t you going to answer?”
Seung-oh pressed.
There wasn’t a trace of grief in his face for a wife left half-dead.
—I’m a married woman. Don’t come near me. You don’t know what my husband is capable of…
Even drunk, she had waved him off, insisting she was married.
So smart, so self-righteous—yet the biggest fool in the world.
He felt sick.
“Mr. Lee Seung-oh.”
Kyung-jun’s tone was oddly disrespectful.
Seung-oh stiffened.
“That’s all you have to say? Aren’t you curious about anything?”
“What do you mean, Secretary Ryu?”
“Don’t pretend. I know you’re dying to ask.”
Kyung-jun smiled faintly and leaned in, tilting his head to meet Seung-oh’s eyes.
“You picked it up, didn’t you?
My phone—from Yoon Seoha’s car.”
