chapter 1

Prologue

People often said the same thing about him.

That he was a madman.

And even madman was considered a softened way of putting it.

He was more than merely arrogant or insolent. He saw the entire world as though it were a spinning top revolving neatly in the palm of his hand.

Kang Cha-hyun, the youngest son of the Yoo-sung Group, was infamous in the area as a playboy who spent twenty out of every twenty-four hours drunk.

There were even whispers that his family had once secretly locked him away because his temperament was simply too much to handle, though no one could ever confirm it.

The higher Yoo-sung Group’s stock climbed, the more infamous Cha-hyun became.

No matter how many times Chairman Kang came at him with a golf club, the young man’s body accumulated tattoos faster than scars.

From a fresh-faced girl who had tearfully appeared in the Yoo-sung Group courtyard claiming she was carrying his child, to married women with families of their own—

And all of this happened while he was still barely eighteen.

Perhaps that was why no one could have predicted what happened next.

Whenever he showed up at school, he had enjoyed sending his teachers into fits by breaking or smashing something, or getting involved in debauchery far too serious to be dismissed as mere mischief.

Then, little by little, he began attending school diligently.

At nineteen, he started having his tattoos removed and stayed away from the things that used to keep him intoxicated.

Whenever withdrawal-like agitation made him restless and feverish, he sought out a woman as a temporary remedy.

Not several women.

Just one.

She was an utterly ordinary schoolgirl.

The only thing remotely unusual about her was that she was so diligent she arrived at school earlier than anyone else.

That alone was enough to make his mornings miserable, considering he was accustomed to waking up stark naked only when the sun was already high in the sky.

He relentlessly followed her around, fascinated by her industrious nature, while she acted as though she noticed him and didn’t notice him at all.

He had thought graduation would finally put an end to that strange routine.

But when she coldly turned away, he caught hold of the hem of her coat and said—

“Let’s get married.”

It wasn’t a reckless proposal spat out in the heat of the moment.

His voice carried the desperation of someone expressing his one and only wish.

“Marry me. Me.”

“……”

“You know, don’t you? I can’t… I can’t live without you. I love you. I love you, Seol-young.”

Kill me if you’re going to reject me.

He clung to her with eyes that seemed to say exactly that.

Seven years had passed since that moment.

And she wanted to ask God one thing:

Had You known that, even after seven years, those eyes would still look exactly the same?

No—

Had You known they would only grow deeper, more desperate, with each passing year?

Because by now, he had spent eight years chasing after her.

“Eight years. I’ve spent eight years chasing after someone like you. Even a dog would laugh like a person if it heard that. I can’t accept it. So take off that rag you’re wearing that looks like pajamas, come lie on top of me, and prove those eight years of mine.”

What kind of cruel joke was fate playing?

O merciless God…