Chapter 2

Seong Ji-hoon was the first truly adult-like adult Eum had ever met.

Eum grew up alone.

Before she had even graduated from elementary school, the mother who had been her entire world ran away from home, and her father, Yeon Chang-shin, left Eum in the care of relatives as though abandoning her.

The sadness and confusion that came from her parents disappearing in an instant, along with the fear of being abandoned. Unable to adjust to her suddenly changed circumstances, Eum could not make friends.

“I heard she was bullied in elementary school.”

It continued even after she entered middle school, and by the time she became a high school student, she had completely forgotten how to make friends.

She was bullied, too. It had started when she refused the public confession of the school delinquent, Gu Seong-jun.

She acted tough every day because she didn’t want to lose, but the truth was that she was scared and exhausted.

Things were even worse at home.

Her father remarried and they began living together again, but with a stepmother and a stepsister added to the household, there was nowhere Eum could feel comfortable.

So she spent long hours at school.

Even after classes ended, she stayed in the school library, replacing dinner with bread and milk she had bought in advance from the cafeteria.

Sitting on the school grounds and listening to the chirping of insects, staring blankly at the dark and desolate athletic field. The time she spent vaguely dreaming of a future in which she would live differently from now was the only rest she had.

“Why aren’t you going home?”

That day, a deep voice drifted toward her.

She might have been startled by the sudden presence of another person, but Eum wasn’t.

There was something strangely reassuring about the voice.

When she turned around, a tall man with long legs was standing there. The streetlight was hidden behind him, making his face difficult to see, but that only made the adult man seem even more striking.

“Eum. Your name is Yeon Eum, right?”

From where he stood, he seemed to have a very clear view of her.

“Yes.”

“What grade and class are you in?”

“Who are you?”

Only then did the man seem to remember that he should introduce himself first. He walked over to her and plopped down beside her.

Instead of the sweaty smell that came from the boys in her class, a subtle, sophisticated scent of perfume drifted toward her. Just as Eum slowly lifted her eyes to look at him, the man’s face, illuminated by the streetlight, finally became clear.

“Haven’t you heard the rumors about me? I’m pretty famous at this school.”

Ah.

Even if he hadn’t said that, Eum would have recognized him at once if she had been able to see his face from the beginning.

Seong Ji-hoon.

She had heard that he was the owner of Haesung Group and an executive director at its headquarters, but after getting into some kind of trouble, he had been demoted and sent to Haesung High School.

In short, he was a chaebol. In another class altogether.

Yet perhaps because of his unusual circumstances, Ji-hoon was incredibly popular among the students despite being a chaebol.

He would already have been famous simply for his imposing physique and handsome face, which were difficult to see every day, but his luxury suits that changed daily and his rough way of speaking made him the very embodiment of the kind of adult man the students admired.

Neat, smelling good, with a slightly crooked look in his eyes, Ji-hoon made Eum’s heart flutter too.

He was really handsome.

Afraid that the thought might burst out of her mouth, she tightly bit her lip.

“Where do you live?”

“Shinhee-dong.”

“Are your parents coming to pick you up?”

She shook her head.

Then Seong Ji-hoon stared intently at Eum before raising his wrist to check the time.

“Do you know why our school doesn’t have evening self-study?”

“……”

“Don’t stay out any later. No matter how grown-up you are, you need to be careful on the streets at night, kid.”

Kid…….

He was the first adult to call her a kid, even though she would become an adult after taking the college entrance exam just a few months later. No—throughout her life, when she had always been expected to be mature and responsible, this was the first time anyone had ever called her something like that.

Perhaps that was why she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he effortlessly rose on his long legs and walked away with a loose, swinging stride.

Only after he had completely disappeared into the darkness did Eum slowly place a hand over the left side of her chest.

Could this be what it meant to fall in love at first sight?

For the first time, her heart began to flutter.

After that day, she began running into Ji-hoon more and more often.

On her way to school, when she went alone to the cafeteria late, even when she was simply sitting quietly in her classroom, she would see him passing through the hallway beyond the window.

Then one day, he happened to discover her being bullied by Gu Seong-jun.

That day, Ji-hoon turned the classroom—no, the entire school—upside down.

Thanks to his intervention, Gu Seong-jun, who had always held his head high, knelt before Eum for the first time, and even his parents, who had always flaunted their wealth, came running and bowed their heads before her.

And that wasn’t all. Thanks to the powerful presence of Seong Ji-hoon, even the group of school bullies who had made a habit of acting like thugs became as docile as lambs.

“Why do you keep letting those guys push you around?”

And when he was the only person who recognized the difficult struggle she had endured all this time.

Eum couldn’t help but fall in love with him.

She struggled because she had never experienced feelings that grew stronger with each passing day. So, like the other girls, she went to him and confessed her feelings.

But Ji-hoon said dismissively,

“Go drink some more of your mother’s milk.”

All of this happened during the brief season of summer.

“Eum. Help your father out a little.”

Time passed, and autumn arrived.

It was less than fifty days before the college entrance exam when Yeon Chang-shin came to her room.

When she came home at midnight after studying at the library, the living room, which was usually dark, was strangely bright, and Chang-shin was waiting for Eum instead of sleeping.

Her father, with whom she rarely exchanged more than simple greetings.

Even before her mother left home, he had not been particularly devoted to his family, so now she had even fewer opportunities to speak with him than with her stepmother.

But then—

“What kind of help all of a sudden?”

“You know Grandpa has been having a hard time lately, right?”

“No. I don’t want to. You’re going to make me do something weird again, aren’t you?”

When she was young and moved from one relative’s house to another, she had stayed at her grandfather’s house as well.

Probably for more than a year. She acknowledged that she had stayed there the longest, but she hated how that meant she was always the first person sacrificed whenever her grandfather needed help.

Having to dress up in a dress and show her face to strange men. Receiving pocket money as though it were payment for doing so. Even when she felt uncomfortable, having to smile as prettily as possible and say, “Please take good care of my grandfather.”

She truly didn’t want to do it anymore.

But Chang-shin shook his head, saying that wasn’t what he had in mind.

“It’s not that. You just have to meet one person this weekend, have a meal with him, and come home.”

“Who is it?”

“Well……”

Chang-shin moved his lips awkwardly before finally speaking.

“Someone you know, too. It’s just a meal, so don’t feel pressured. Always remember that our family can live well only if your grandfather’s affairs go smoothly.”

After saying that, Chang-shin turned around and left her room before she even had a chance to refuse.

Left alone, Eum let out a sigh.

‘When will I finally be free……?’

She was supposed to study even more on weekends.

Did he even remember that his daughter was a student preparing for the college entrance exam?

It rained from early Saturday morning.

Ji-hoon’s expression was grim as he strode out of the hotel lounge café.

“It’s just one cup of tea. Okay?”

His secretary, Min-jae, hurried after him, trying to calm him down in a troubled voice.

Ever since his name had been put on the blind-date circuit, Ji-hoon had been meeting women every weekend.

The partners changed, but the blind dates were conducted like interviews scheduled one after another throughout the day.

Since he didn’t care who he married, the fact that he still had no marriage partner selected was extremely annoying to him. Nevertheless, the reason he obediently followed his grandfather Chairman Seong’s orders was because he had something to atone for.

“Don’t even dream of coming back to headquarters until you choose your own partner.”

If that was the case, he had to at least pretend to play along with the game in order to regain his position. He had no intention of wasting his precious time forever at a school that reeked of youthful immaturity.

But the first woman he was supposed to meet today happened to be the one woman he absolutely did not want to see.

Kang Ri-won—the person responsible for getting him kicked out of headquarters.

He had made quite a fuss refusing her, yet here she was appearing as a blind-date candidate. She certainly wasn’t an ordinary woman.

“Thirty minutes. No, twenty!”

“I don’t even want one minute.”

Min-jae pleaded, hunching himself up like a shrimp caught between two whales.

“I understand that you’re uncomfortable, but Chairman told me to make sure you meet every single person on the list. Please, just for my sake! Ten minutes, no—five minutes! Please?”

Ji-hoon abruptly stopped walking and gave Min-jae a cold glance.

“Seeing your face makes me want to do it even less.”

“Eek!”

Min-jae jumped and began whining that the blind-date list was already in the chairman’s hands, so they couldn’t back out now.

That was when Ji-hoon’s feet suddenly came to a halt.

“What is that?”

He saw a woman walking into the hotel wearing a mini dress that didn’t suit her at all.

A slender figure, skin so pale it was almost white, short black hair……

Yeon Eum?