RAA-09

CHAPTER 9

After sleeping deeply while receiving an IV drip, Seyeon woke up feeling much lighter.

The problem was that she had slept too deeply.

By the time Seyeon opened her eyes, far more time had passed than she had expected.

“You’re awake.”

“…….”

Yujin, who had been leaning against the bed across from her, checked the time on his wristwatch as he spoke.

“I removed the needle.”

Seyeon checked the time on her phone and made an embarrassed face.

Judging by the situation, all the employees had already gone home, and only the owner of the clinic, who was unfortunately the Director, seemed to have remained behind to wait for her.

“I slept for too long, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

“You’re the patient, so there’s nothing for you to apologize for, but how are you feeling?”

“Much better than before.”

She wasn’t just saying that to be polite; she really did feel like she could live again.

Her fever had gone down considerably, and although her entire body had been aching earlier, those symptoms were gone now.

“Then get up and let’s go home.”

“Yes, I will.”

Seyeon quickly found her shoes, put them on, and hurriedly slipped into the outerwear hanging on the rack.

She had ended up causing him trouble against her will.

And of all people, she had caused trouble for the man she least wanted to be indebted to.

Outside, it had grown dark, and in the parking lot in front of the clinic, only the man’s car and her own were sitting there.

The man was about to get into his car when he stopped and looked back at Seyeon.

After a brief, irritated sigh, he made an unexpected suggestion.

“Ride with me today.”

“It’s okay. I can drive.”

“You can drive, sure, but you might end up driving yourself to the grave.”

In the end, Seyeon went home with the man in the passenger seat of his car.

She would probably have to come back tomorrow to pick up her own car, depending on how she was feeling.

“Why don’t you just go back up to Seoul? You probably won’t gain anything by continuing to stick around here.”

“I know you’ve helped me recover my condition, so I’d rather not get into a negative and exhausting argument with you if I can help it.”

Seyeon began calmly, then abruptly turned her head to look at the man.

“I want you to understand that whether I go back up to Seoul or stay here has nothing to do with you, Director.”

“I don’t know what you heard or from whom, but please don’t judge me based on that.”

“Because that isn’t who I am.”

“You don’t even know what kind of person I actually am.”

She had a strong suspicion that Kim Daehyun was undoubtedly the person who had passed those words along, but she didn’t want to mention his name.

“I heard that you weren’t just pretty, but that you had a straightforward and pleasant personality, too.”

“But I guess that wasn’t true.”

“I understand.”

“Really… he said that?”

“Yes.”

“…Didn’t he say anything else?”

“No.”

“That was all.”

“…….”

Seyeon became confused.

There was no way Kim Daehyun had praised her to Director Si.

“Even if I don’t know much about you, with your background, you should be able to meet any number of men with good prospects, so why do you want to date a doctor?”

He had just said there was nothing else he had heard, yet apparently he had heard all about her dating Kim Daehyun.

“It doesn’t matter whether he’s a doctor or has some other profession.”

“I just….”

Seyeon stopped speaking.

She wondered if it was really okay to say this much to a man who was Kim Daehyun’s acquaintance.

“I just….”

Yujin urged her to continue.

“I thought we had met naturally.”

“What do you mean, naturally?”

“It was an intentional meeting.”

The man was right.

Thinking back, Kim Daehyun had known from the very beginning that she was the granddaughter of Chairman Myung when she came to the hospital with her grandmother.

The only mistake he had made was not realizing that not all of Chairman Myung’s granddaughters were the same.

That was why he had switched to Myung Soyoung the moment he met her.

“I think I was foolish, too.”

“I regret it.”

“And yet you’re saying you intend to continue?”

“No.”

“It’s already over.”

“I have no lingering feelings whatsoever.”

“Then why are you trying to stay here?”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable seeing me?”

Of course, if she thought of him as Kim Daehyun’s acquaintance, she wasn’t exactly comfortable.

She couldn’t help viewing the man from next door through colored glasses, thinking that birds of a feather flock together.

But more important than that was the work she had to do.

“I have something I need to do here.”

“So I’d like you to forget everything, too, Director, and just treat me as an ordinary neighbor.”

“Fine.”

“Then let’s settle it that way, and I’ll take it as though Myung Seyeon rejected me.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

“What?”

“What did I reject you over?”

Seyeon had been absentmindedly nodding when her eyes suddenly widened in surprise.

“Didn’t we just settle things between us?”

“Things between us?”

“Wasn’t that about Kim Daehyun just now?”

“Kim Daehyun?”

“What Kim Daehyun?”

“…….”

Seyeon was speechless for a moment.

Something had clearly gone wrong, but she had no idea where or how the misunderstanding had started.

“Myung Seyeon, you came all the way down here to meet me.”

“I did…?”

“Why would I come down here to meet you?”

“Then why did you come here?”

“I told you I came here to work at the resort.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m saying exactly what I mean.”

Yujin looked utterly dumbfounded and said nothing after that.

Seyeon, too, was too busy trying to sort out the situation in her head to pay attention to him.

The two of them, each lost in their own thoughts, arrived near their homes.

When Yujin parked the car in the vacant lot, Seyeon quickly got out of the passenger seat.

Through the additional conversation they had while walking to their houses, they finally discovered the source of the misunderstanding.

“Thank you for driving me home.”

“And I’m sorry you had to work late because of me.”

“But I hope you’ll clear up the misunderstanding you have about me.”

“I genuinely had no idea who you were, Director.”

Having understood the situation and redefined their relationship, Seyeon politely offered him her farewell.

In other words, the man from next door had misunderstood that she had come all the way to Cheonghae-ri specifically to meet him and had even rented a house right in front of his.

He had mistaken her for a blind-date prospect with serious stalker tendencies.

“You really didn’t come here to meet me?”

Unable to believe Seyeon’s explanation, the man asked once more for confirmation in front of her gate.

“I told you I didn’t.”

“Why would I….”

“…….”

Seyeon inadvertently added the rest of the sentence and immediately regretted it when she saw the man narrow his eyes.

The only doctor in Cheonghae-ri.

“…I mean, I was going to say that since we both misunderstood each other, and now that we’ve cleared up those misunderstandings, I think we can be good neighbors from now on, so our future looks bright.”

“Whether what you’re saying is true or not, we’ll find out.”

With that, Yujin turned around first and disappeared through his gate.

Seyeon took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before opening her own gate.

When Cheshire cautiously poked his head out, she waved once before trudging inside.

She finally understood why the man from next door had been so guarded and hostile toward her.

The whole situation was so absurd that she was speechless.

She was a little bothered that she had let Kim Daehyun’s name slip out, but fortunately, the man didn’t seem to care about it at all.

He would also confirm that she wasn’t his blind-date partner, so there shouldn’t be any problems going forward.

Life was truly exhausting.

Seyeon sighed as she looked at her haggard face in the mirror.

Yujin called his father as soon as he entered the house.

It was highly unusual for him to make the call himself when he normally didn’t even answer incoming calls properly.

“What’s going on?”

Seongseok answered in a tense voice.

His son, who would never call first, had contacted him late in the evening, so something serious must have happened.

—You mean that young woman?

“Is it certain that the woman you told me about came down to Cheonghae-ri?”

“Ah, that young lady.”

“Actually, I was just about to tell you about her….”

After pausing for a moment, Seongseok began pouring out his words, filled with anger.

—She’s an incredibly brazen and nasty young woman.

—Can you believe it? She said she was going to meet you, then secretly ran away overseas with another man.

—Does that make any sense?

—Does it?!

Yujin pressed his fingers against one temple, already developing a headache.

The harsh words he had thrown at the woman from next door flashed through his mind.

He remembered the woman’s bewildered face and her aggrieved expression.

“So you’re saying that woman isn’t this woman.”

—She didn’t go there.

“Why?”

“Is someone there?”

“Who is this other woman besides her?”

“Since you’re saying it isn’t her, that’s enough.”

“I’m hanging up.”

After ending the call, Yujin opened the window of the small room overlooking the house next door and looked outside.

Across the narrow alley, barely wide enough for a single car to pass through, he could see Seyeon’s brightly lit house.

“Today, it’s a five-to-five ratio.”

In the deathly quiet night, the woman had come outside into the yard.

It seemed she was feeding the cat.

“Tomorrow, seven to three.”

“But you need to start earning your keep now, too.”

“Get healthy quickly and guard the house so mice and things like that can’t get inside.”

Yujin watched the strange Alice of Cheonghae-ri and Cheshire for a while before closing the window.

‘In my opinion, there seems to be something seriously wrong with her.’

‘Damn it.’

The woman’s diagnosis had been accurate.

A deep sigh escaped him.