Chapter 29

She sobbed silently as Ryu-il slowly withdrew from her body. It was a mess. Both of them. They hadn’t even undressed properly, only clutching each other in desperation. There was no proper name for that time.

What would become of them now? Would Ryu-il keep coming to her for s*x while he was at the site? Would she have to accept this relationship, all l*st on his side and all love on hers, never starting or ending? Was she paying the price for Wigang Home Shopping with this s*x? Was that the cost of their affair?

No matter how she searched her mind, only words like “one-night stand” or “sponsor” came to mind. It hurt to label their relationship like that. Once a relationship fell into the mud, it could never be clean again. She felt sorry for her memories, forever wounded.

Ryu-il looked down at her sobbing. But unlike before, he didn’t try to comfort her; he slowly straightened his clothes. He pulled out a cigarette from his pocket.

“I’m sorry, but—”

She heard the click of the lighter.

“Just one.”

“Uh, huh… i-inside… n-no smoking…”

“If I don’t smoke, I’ll go crazy.”

He ignored her and lit the cigarette.

“Then want to do it again? Honestly, I don’t think I could hold back much longer.”

It was unexpected, but she didn’t have the energy to ask what he meant. He stood at an angle, opened the window, and smoked. Ryu-il and cigarettes still didn’t suit each other. Yet, somehow, the sight was strangely decadent, and she couldn’t look away.

“Sorry.”

After he put out the cigarette, he said something even more unexpected.

“For being so harsh.”

“…What?”

She slowly sat up on the mat. More hot liquid dripped down, making her flustered.

“Sorry.”

“…Senior Executive Director?”

“I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I didn’t come here for this.”

He looked out the window, reaching for his cigarettes again, then roughly shoved them back in his pocket, remembering he’d promised only one.

“I just lost it because you cried.”

He sighed softly, then turned slowly toward her. His gaze landed on her tear-stained face and ruined body. She hurriedly covered herself with the pharmacist’s coat.

They were silent in the worn-out room, now devoid of desire. Birds cried in the distance, construction sounds echoed farther away, and a dog barked nearby. Sunlight reflected off the old lacquer wardrobe, wildflowers she’d put in a glass for prettiness, and old textbooks she’d carefully arranged—all seemed to stare at their ruined selves.

She didn’t want to admit it, but this proud space of hers was the humblest of all the places she’d been with Ryu-il.

“Hee-won.”

In that humble place, Ryu-il spoke with an expression she’d never seen before.

“…I love you.”

Her heart dropped. Her mind went blank. His face was stained with a misery she couldn’t have imagined. He clenched his fist and spoke with self-reproach.

“I didn’t want it to be like this. You probably didn’t either.”

It was so unexpected, she was confused. It was like a fantasy she’d had as a high schooler, when she was still immature.

But even then, she’d never imagined going this far. She’d wished Ryu-il would like her, but couldn’t picture a future beyond that. Everything felt unreal.

“I never wanted Wigang Home Shopping in the first place.”

“Th-then…”

“I know you always wanted a life unrelated to me. But I couldn’t do that, so I acted like this.”

She was silent.

She knew her silence would hurt him, but she couldn’t help it. This room was her first truly precious space, and she knew it didn’t suit him at all. He was just passing through, not someone who could live here forever.

But now she would remain in this space, tracing his traces every day and night. She had to think about that imbalance.

“But still, like this……”

He endured her silence, then closed his eyes for a moment. His voice, wrapped in pain, sounded low.

“Hee-won.”

“…Yes.”

“Have you really never been sincere even once all this time?”

“…”

“Was it all because of money, because Jung Kyung-won told you to, because you felt sorry for your mother, because you felt guilty toward me—was it only ever for those reasons?”

She had so much to say, she couldn’t speak. Pleasure filled her to her toes, as if she might drown.

“When you bowed to me for the first time at twelve years old…”

“…”

“I wanted to get angry, ask who made you do that, tell you not to. I wanted to just take your hand and go to the backyard.”

She gasped for breath. Ryu-il asked the ancient question that had never been spoken between them.

“If I’d done that, would things have changed for us?”

“…”

“Please answer me, Hee-won.”

With the face of the kind older brother she remembered, Ryu-il asked desperately.

“Do I have to regret it from that day forward?”

She became the eight-year-old who’d been scolded by her mother, tears falling from her dazed face. The tears were as old as his question.

* * *

As always, time passed. Staring blankly at the evening glow, she slowly closed the pharmacy and went to her room to make dinner. She microwaved eggs for steamed eggs, grilled a frozen mackerel, and set a simple table with bean sprouts and fresh kimchi given by Grandma Gilsoon.

Ryu-il was probably having dinner at a hotel near the resort construction site. The psychological distance between them was farther than Dubai; he couldn’t even imagine such a meal.

She took a bite and thought of herself at eight years old.

“Don’t call him Ryu-il-oppa anymore. Call him Young Master and be polite. If I see you two together, you’ll get scolded. Got it? If the Chairman hears about it…”

Back then, she nodded because she was scared of being scolded. But she always thought about her mother’s command, and slowly, she started to question it.

“Mom, what would have happened if I kept being close with Ryu-il-oppa?”

“We’d have been kicked out. You and I wouldn’t even have this.”

“There are other kids at Ryu Gil-jae, not just me.”

“You’re the only girl.”

“Is that important?”

“It is. Now go to bed. It’s late.”

As she grew older—nine, ten, eleven—very slowly…

“Hey, Mom. Why can’t I be close to Young Master Ryu-il if the Chairman hears about it? He’s not even his mom or dad.”

“That’s exactly why. The Chairman hates Young Master Ryu-il’s birth mother so much.”

“Really? Why?”

“She was like us. Young Master Ryu-il’s mother.”

Her mom didn’t want to explain, but over time, she told the truth.

Year by year, as the little girl became a young woman, then a student…

“Mom, who does someone like Young Master Ryu-il marry?”

“He’ll marry a woman similar to himself.”

“Not someone who isn’t?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Imagine if you were Young Master Ryu-il. Would you want to raise a child like yourself? He’s constantly looked down on in this family because of his mother.”

“…Because Young Master’s mother was someone like me and you, Mom?”

“Yes. Even when you and the Young Master were close as children, there were people whispering behind your backs that he couldn’t hide his housekeeper’s blood.”

Looking back, her mother must have guessed her feelings even then.

“Mom, when I was close to the Senior Executive Director as a child… was that a burden for him?”

“If you’d stayed close, it would have been. But you cut it off properly, so it’s fine. Now nobody remembers.”

“I do…”

“Then you’re the only one who does.”

So when Kyung-won made that suggestion to her, her mother probably pushed her, saying, ‘You like Ryu-il too, so it’s not all bad.’

“Mom, what if I kept seeing the Senior Executive Director secretly, even as an adult?”

“Hmm… you’d probably be the only one hurt.”

“Really?”

“As a child, it was just friendship, but everything you own put together isn’t worth even one of Young Master Ryu-il’s socks…”

“…”

“He’d probably get scolded a lot too. Maybe the Chairman would’ve sent him abroad early, and maybe he wouldn’t be as successful now. Anyway, people from different worlds only hurt each other if they mix.”

She ate spoonful after spoonful of rice, swallowing all the words she couldn’t say in front of him.

“Please answer me, Hee-won. Do I have to regret it from that day forward?”

Earlier that afternoon, when he asked her that, she had just kept her mouth shut, crying and shaking her head. Ryu-il had stared at her and murmured low,

“Sorry for showing up and messing up your happy ending.”

His face stained with misery, he strode out of the room. She didn’t stop him. She knew how he’d take it, but still let him go. He probably thought she’d never loved him, that she’d only gone to him for money.

Of course, she had been pushed by money, but that wasn’t all.

If anything, it became an excuse to disguise her ugly desire as sacrifice, and there were many nights she’d felt relieved to be alone.