His eyes were clear yet strangely subdued, resembling the heavy dampness of the rainy season. His nose bridge rose high enough to cast a shadow across his face, giving him an arrogant yet peculiar air, while the flawlessly defined line of his nose was almost artistic.
He was the most handsome man Eun-gil had ever seen, even by chance.
And Eun-gil saw it—the moment the corners of the man’s eyes curved coldly.
“You should hit the ball. Not me.”
His moderately red, full lips slowly parted. A faint smile lingered between them. His tone was like someone gently scolding a pet that had recklessly caused an accident.
“…What?”
Her head was spinning.
“What should I do about this? The bridge of your nose is turning red.”
The man refrained from touching Eun-gil. Instead, he slowly rolled his thumb around, almost as though idly turning a walnut between his fingers. There was something strangely relaxed about the gesture.
“Come to your senses. And stop crashing into me.”
He leaned down and whispered.
“…!”
Eun-gil was instantly dragged back to reality.
Thump. Thump. Thump…
It was the sound of the ball she had desperately tried to save falling helplessly to the ground.
No, wait.
This wasn’t just another embarrassing incident for Gong Eun-gil.
Today, she had literally collided with a man’s legs while trying to save the ball.
The shocked reactions of the crowd, the strange silence…
Everything finally made sense. She hadn’t slammed her face into the cold floor. She had crashed into something much warmer and considerably less forgiving.
Enough!
“…I’m sorry.”
The moment she understood what had happened, she apologized.
This was basically a traffic accident. She was the one who had caused it, and he was the one who had been caught off guard.
But why was this man still so composed?
His expression hadn’t changed in the slightest, as though he hadn’t been affected at all. Somehow, that made Eun-gil, who had completely lost her composure, feel even more ridiculous.
“…Are you hurt?”
Don’t talk to him. Just get back to the court! The staff will handle this! Just hurry back!
Her common sense was screaming at her, but despite all the strength and flexibility her body possessed, she had frozen completely and couldn’t move.
The man tilted his head and studied Eun-gil. His gaze traveled slowly from her forehead to her eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips, and chin, as though examining every feature.
The look was unmistakably direct.
“I’m a little sore.”
He smiled deeply.
Eun-gil unconsciously held her breath.
At the same time, the men in suits surrounding him sprang to their feet.
“Oh my goodness, sir! Are you all right?”
“What an accident! How can anyone watch safely if things like this happen? I’ll have the safety manager brought over immediately.”
“I told you repeatedly! Even if it’s a home game, we should just skip Windmarker matches!”
“Do you even know who this man is?!”
The last man glared fiercely at Eun-gil.
Eventually, the whistle announcing a stoppage sounded.
“…!”
A stoppage? Why?
They hadn’t even stopped the game when a spectator had been struck by a ball and started bleeding. At most, medical staff had quietly been sent over while the match continued.
So who exactly was this man?
Eun-gil frowned as she looked at him. Perhaps sensing the slight dissatisfaction in her expression, the man suddenly smiled as though he found it amusing.
“It isn’t the first time I’ve been hit by a woman, so don’t look so frightened. I can’t exactly blame a tired player for an accident like this.”
“…What the hell is he talking about?”
The words slipped out under her breath, and this time the man laughed aloud.
Maybe she’d taken one too many bad serves to the head. She couldn’t seem to get her thoughts straight.
Only after the man briefly signaled to the officials that he was fine did the whistle for the match to resume sound.
“Now go on back. You have a game to play.”
“……”
“Relax and enjoy yourself.”
His voice was gentle, but his words were rude.
What a jerk.
The man had never actually shown his teeth, but Eun-gil couldn’t shake the feeling that she had somehow fallen right into his trap. So instead of saying goodbye, she abruptly turned her back on him.
As if she never wanted to see him again.
As if the spectator was completely insignificant.
Back on the court, Eun-gil fought on while feeling the man’s inexplicable gaze fixed on her. It was harder to shake off his persistent attention than to deal with the opposing team’s attacks.
Every time she saw the ball fly into the air, she remembered his voice.
You should hit the ball. Not me.
The sensation from that collision remained vividly in her mind.
No, no, no. Don’t think about it again!
Gritting her teeth, Eun-gil kept running.
It’s just a ball. A volleyball! My round little ball. The thing I love most! Right, like an egg—
No! Damn it!
That day, Windmarker suffered a crushing defeat.
“Today at 3 p.m., an unbelievable incident occurred during the women’s volleyball match between Black Fury and Windmarker. Let’s take a look at the footage first on Sports One-Minute Clip!”
The screen changed along with the cheerful female announcer’s voice.
A player in a sky-blue uniform miraculously saved the ball, then lost her balance and crashed face-first between a man’s legs.
To make matters worse, footage from 0.1 seconds before the collision was repeatedly played backward and forward in a ridiculous loop, making Eun-gil on the screen look almost like she was performing a traditional dance.
“Ugh… This is insane!”
Bzzz. Bzzz.
She answered the phone without even checking the screen. There was only one person who would call at a time like this.
“Is there a basin of water somewhere? I need to dunk my face in it!”
“P-Player. P-please don’t put your face in anything. Y-your face has had enough…”
“Argh!”
As she struggled in embarrassment, Cheol-yong walked past behind her, chuckling.
“You really have terrible luck. Drinking, assault, and now sexual misconduct? When it comes to controversy, you’ve definitely got the triple crown.”
“This was just an accident!”
“Sure. A careless driver distracted by her phone ran into an innocent pedestrian.”
“Then should a volleyball player just give up on the ball when someone’s life is at stake?”
“Good grief…”
Cheol-yong sighed deeply. Watching this third-rate player, who somehow lacked common sense while constantly skating dangerously close to the line, was enough to make anyone sigh.
“Anyway, there was something weird about him. I can’t explain that strange feeling I got.”
The man’s flawless, cool features had seemed to melt into something strangely captivating whenever he smiled even slightly. His expression had contained the contradictory mixture of sharp interest and gentle hostility.
It made her feel strangely frustrated.
“What you see isn’t everything.”
“Whether it is or isn’t, what do you have left if you take volleyball out of your life? Scandals, that’s what.”
“Well, it isn’t quite that bad…”
“Don’t act modest when it doesn’t suit you. But you’re a veteran. Can’t you get over a little incident like this? You ruined the whole match because you lost your composure after one fall.”
“……”
His words weren’t wrong, and they stung.
But the bigger problem was—
“Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the victim in this video is none other than Black Fury owner Seo Ha-hyun. After taking office in 20xx, Seo Ha-hyun became the man responsible for creating the monster team that has never surrendered the number-one spot.”
She had somehow managed to collide with the owner of Black Fury himself. And she’d done it with her own face!
“Hey, Eun-gil. Couldn’t you have picked a worse opponent?”
“P-Player, please don’t go online for a while.”
“The player being jokingly labeled the perpetrator, Gong Eun-gil, was once the youngest member of the national team before becoming an unfortunate figure in sports history following the coaching assault scandal that rocked the sports world nine years ago—”
Here we go again. Again!
Eun-gil frowned and frantically searched through the sofa for the missing remote.
“On the other hand, Seo Ha-hyun has attracted considerable attention in business circles despite being the eldest son of the chairman of Jaekyung Group, thanks to his rather unusual career in sports management. In particular, his relatively young age of thirty-two and actor-like appearance have earned him enthusiastic support from volleyball fans—”
Click.
The sound abruptly stopped.
When the radio was turned off, silence and darkness settled inside the car.
“Why’d you turn it off?”
The man, Seo Ha-hyun, asked casually with his eyes closed.
“Are you all right?”
“You mean whether I was hurt, or whether something else happened? You need to be more precise.”
Secretary Nam hurriedly corrected himself.
“I mean your reputation, sir! You’ve been thoroughly humiliated!”
“That’s all?”
He gave a quiet chuckle.
“You keep appearing in the media over something embarrassing. Everyone is treating it like entertainment and making jokes about it. Aren’t you going to put an end to this?”
His words clearly implied: Wouldn’t you normally do something about this?
“Secretary Nam, you’ve developed quite a nasty personality.”
“I’ve been corrupted from working under you.”
“You’ve become competent.”
Seo Ha-hyun smiled leisurely and rubbed his chin. His secretary felt frustrated by his boss’s remarkably relaxed attitude.
“Do you know how entertaining this is for them? These days, ruining the image of a mysterious celebrity is worth far more money than embarrassing a comedian. Do you have any idea what a delicious story you’ve handed the media today?”
“……”
“Eligible bachelor! Between the legs! Face-first collision!”
The secretary shouted the words like an election slogan.
“I’ll shut down every media outlet! Unfairly abusing my power! Extremely unfairly!”
“Forget it.”
“Why?”
“Everyone else may be enjoying themselves, but there’s one person who’s going to suffer. It’s entertaining to watch.”
“The person who crashed into you?”
Seo Ha-hyun silently touched his lips.
“…The impression was stronger than I expected.”
The Windmarker player had seemed almost dazed, breathing heavily as though her mind had completely stopped working. She had been running around the court nonstop, so her breathing had been quite ragged.
Thinking back, the whole encounter had lasted only a few seconds.
Yet Seo Ha-hyun had noticed an extraordinary number of details during that brief moment—right down to things as insignificant as the number of creases around her lips.
