Chapter : 11
‘…What an idiot.’
Seo-jun glanced at the passenger seat through the rearview mirror.
Da-eun was fast asleep, completely oblivious to the world. Her body was secured by the seat belt, but her head kept dropping forward, over and over again.
She looked precarious, like a doll with its strings cut.
“Mm…”
When a small moan escaped her lips, Seo-jun’s brow furrowed.
Just then, the traffic light turned red and the car came to a stop. Seo-jun tapped the steering wheel for a moment before turning his body as though he had made up his mind.
Rustle.
He took off the jacket he was wearing. It was a suit jacket made from the finest fabric, still carrying the warmth of his body.
He carefully draped it over Da-eun. Afraid that she might wake up, his movements were unusually cautious for him.
Da-eun turned her head in her sleep and buried her face in the jacket.
“……”
Perhaps sensing the warmth and the scent of sandalwood, the furrow between her brows slowly relaxed.
Seo-jun’s hand stopped in midair.
The scent of shampoo brushing against the tip of his nose. The musky scent coming from his own jacket.
Inside the cramped car, their scents were strangely mixing together.
Thump, thump.
Amid the steady rumble of the engine, an irregular heartbeat joined in.
It was an unfamiliar agitation he couldn’t control.
He felt disgusted with himself for reacting this way toward a woman who was bound to him by nothing more than a contract—and while he was staring at her sleeping face, no less.
‘…This is driving me crazy.’
He couldn’t understand why he was acting like this, and it was making him restless.
He hurriedly withdrew his gaze and stared straight ahead. The moment the light turned green, he pressed the accelerator again, but his hands gripping the steering wheel were tighter than usual.
When they arrived at the underground parking lot, the sensor lights came on one after another.
Once he turned off the engine, silence returned to the car.
But he didn’t get out right away.
With his arms crossed, he quietly stared at Da-eun beside him.
She was still deeply asleep. The way she clutched his jacket like a blanket made her look like a child.
Her hands were unusually small and pale.
A shabby old bandage wrapped around the tip of her index finger caught his attention. It was a trivial little scratch he normally wouldn’t have spared a glance at, yet strangely, he couldn’t stop noticing it.
She had stubbornly fought back against him, refusing to lose even an inch to him, yet she couldn’t even take proper care of herself.
For some reason, it irritated him.
She was sleeping with her injured hand tightly clutching his jacket collar as though it were a lifeline.
‘She needs to wake up.’
His rational mind was clear.
But the hand that had been about to open the car door didn’t move.
After seeing that bandage, he simply couldn’t bring himself to shake someone who was sleeping so peacefully awake.
‘…Just a little longer. Using this silence as an excuse, I’ll let her sleep for exactly five more minutes.’
He leaned deeper into the seat and closed his eyes.
A contract marriage.
At first, it had merely been a rite of passage required for him to inherit management control. A dry transaction with no room for emotions to get involved.
But now, as he looked at her sleeping defenselessly beneath his jacket, the emotion he was feeling—
‘…This wasn’t part of the calculations.’
It was an obvious error.
A wasteful emotion with absolutely no efficiency.
And yet, he didn’t dislike it.
“…Mm.”
How much time had passed?
My eyelids felt as heavy as lead.
When my trembling eyes finally opened, I saw the dark underground parking lot.
‘Did we… arrive?’
There was no sound of the engine. Everything was silent.
I habitually turned my head, then gasped.
My eyes met Kang Seo-jun’s, who was sitting in the driver’s seat with his arms crossed, staring directly at me.
“…Are you awake?”
“Gasp!”
I suddenly sat upright as though I’d been electrocuted.
Something draped over my shoulders slowly slipped down.
A black suit jacket.
It was Kang Seo-jun’s.
“W-Why is this…?”
“You looked cold.”
He answered indifferently as he unfastened his seat belt.
“We’ve been here for a while. You were sleeping so soundly that I left you alone. You were even drooling.”
“What?!”
I instantly became wide awake.
An even greater horror than embarrassment struck my brain.
‘That’s probably an expensive designer fabric! How much is the dry-cleaning bill if I drooled on it?’
My face went pale as I frantically wiped around my mouth with the back of my hand.
Fortunately, there was no dampness.
It was completely dry.
“…I’m joking.”
He gave a small chuckle and reached for the car door handle.
“Let’s get out.”
“Ah… yes!”
“Wait.”
His hand stopped just as he was about to open the car door.
Seo-jun opened the dashboard compartment, took something out, and casually tossed it onto my lap.
It was a smooth tube-shaped object.
A hand cream from ‘L’ company, the kind of luxury brand you would find on the first floor of a department store.
“What is… this?”
“It was a gift, but the scent is too strong, so I don’t use it.”
He added casually as he turned off the ignition.
“It seemed wasteful to throw it away. Take it.”
“Ah… yes. Thank you.”
The hand cream I had picked up without thinking felt strangely heavy.
It was something I could never afford to buy with my own money without my hands trembling.
My gaze naturally fell to my own hands.
Rough knuckles.
And the grimy ‘Pororo bandage’ stuck to my index finger.
My face grew hot.
‘He noticed.’
He must have seen my hand the entire time he was driving.
The scent was too strong, so he didn’t use it?
Liar.
This brand was famous for making unscented products.
“Director, isn’t this unscented…?”
“Let’s get out quickly. I’m tired.”
Before I could finish speaking, he opened the car door and escaped as though he were running away.
I carefully stuffed the hand cream into my pocket and hurriedly picked up his jacket.
“Wait for me!”
The heavy front door of the penthouse opened.
“Come in.”
He placed his finger against the digital door lock.
I followed behind him, carefully holding his jacket in my arms.
The moment I stepped inside, the familiar air welcomed me.
At first, this place had felt cold and unfamiliar, like a model home.
But somehow, now it gave me the comforting feeling of being ‘my home.’
“Um… Director.”
As I took off my shoes, I hesitantly spoke.
“Thank you so much for today. For helping me with work… driving me home… and the jacket…”
“That’s enough. Consider it a benefit included in the contract.”
He cut me off casually as he loosened his tie.
Then he naturally took the jacket from my hands.
“And.”
He stopped just as he was about to enter the master bedroom and spoke in a low voice.
“I don’t know how things are at the company, but…”
His eyes, illuminated by the soft light in the entrance, looked at me deeply and seriously.
“Here, relax and sleep. Don’t have nightmares or anything.”
“……!”
“It’s your home, isn’t it? It’s a place where you’re supposed to rest comfortably.”
Leaving only those words behind, he coolly disappeared into his room.
Bang.
The door closed.
I stood there blankly, staring at the place where he had disappeared.
Home.
A place where you’re supposed to rest comfortably.
For some reason, those words felt particularly heavy in my chest tonight.
‘…He had been worried about me.’
It seemed that the way I had groaned and talked in my sleep in the car had bothered him.
I had simply answered him in passing, yet he had remembered it enough to say something like that to me.
Without realizing it, I wrapped my arms around my shoulders.
The jacket was gone, but somehow, I could still feel its heavy warmth lingering there.
The tension suddenly left my body.
The nerves that had been on edge all day melted away like snow.
“…I’m home.”
I murmured in a tiny voice that no one could hear.
The living room was empty, but it no longer felt cold.
I sat down on the bed and took the heavy tube from my pocket.
‘L’ company hand cream.
It was the brand I had hurriedly put down after seeing the price tag on the first floor of the department store.
‘This one thing costs as much as a week’s worth of lunch.’
The object resting in my palm suddenly felt even heavier.
I carefully opened the lid.
The ‘strong scent’ he had used as an excuse was nowhere to be found.
There wasn’t even an artificial fragrance.
The only thing faintly brushing the tip of my nose was the scent of the jacket that had covered my shoulders just moments ago.
Clean, unscented.
“…The scent is too strong?”
He couldn’t use something that didn’t even have a scent because it was too strong?
‘He can’t even lie properly.’
A small, amused laugh escaped me.
I squeezed some of the cream onto my rough knuckles and carefully rubbed it in.
The cuts from the paperwork that had been stinging were gently covered beneath the white cream.
My hands, which were always rough and cracked, weren’t the hands of a weary worker today.
They were the hands of a woman being treated like an honored guest.
“…Thank you.”
I whispered softly into the empty air.
It wasn’t simply because it was an expensive gift.
I was grateful because he had treated me not as a wife who existed only on paper, but as a whole ‘person’—someone who deserved to be worried about and comforted.
I slowly clenched and unclenched my smooth hands.
An unfamiliar warmth was sinking deeply into my fingertips.
