Chapter 6

It felt awkward, but maybe that’s why people wore makeup. Even her tutoring students would say, “Teacher, if you put on makeup, you’d be a total goddess!” Feeling a bit more confident, she grabbed the notebooks and headed to Ryu Gil-jae. Looking up from the garden, she saw a faint light from Ryu-il’s third-floor room. He was still up.

Of course, there was a chance Ryu-il hadn’t fired her mother yet. She could be wrong. If so, she had even more reason to apologize properly. If he was still deciding, maybe she could beg him to forgive, for old times’ sake.

She entered the mansion through the staff entrance; no one paid her any mind. It was late, and everyone knew she was her mother’s daughter. With the old notebooks in hand, they probably thought she was just visiting her mom. She made her way to the empty third-floor hallway.

She took a deep breath and knocked quietly. She’d never imagined she’d knock on this door, but thinking it was her last time gave her courage. She spoke clearly, though quietly.

“Senior Executive Director, this is Jung Hee-won.”

For all her nerves, there was no answer.

Was he asleep with the lights on? Maybe he was in the Chairman’s room? If she couldn’t see him, she planned to leave the notebooks and a note of thanks and apology at his door. With a sigh, she started to set the notebooks down.

Suddenly, the door swung open.

Ryu-il appeared right in front of her, and she instinctively stepped back. It was the closest she’d stood to him since she was eight. His crisp scent made her flinch. Unlike his usual neat appearance, he was in comfortable clothes, his bangs down, clearly at rest.

He frowned slightly at the sight of her. His eyes slowly scanned her face and the notebooks she held. His expression shifted from baffled to intrigued.

“What are you doing?”

He smirked.

“Come in.”

“…Ah, yes.”

She clutched the notebooks a little tighter and swallowed. But he blocked the doorway, so she couldn’t enter.

She couldn’t bring herself to ask him to step aside, so she took a deep breath, sidestepped carefully, and squeezed through the gap in the door. She did her best not to brush against him.

Ryu-il smiled again, amused, but didn’t move at all. She squeezed through the small space, but her arm brushed his chest. It felt like an electric shock.

“S-sorry…”

Ryu-il said nothing, just looked down at her. She apologized again and again, finally managing to squeeze between him and the door. That brief moment left her sweating. Only after she was fully inside did the door close with a thud.

Ryu-il strode over and leaned against the window. She wished he’d just moved aside in the first place, but couldn’t say so. Meeting his piercing gaze, she hurried to his desk. The room was so big, there was nowhere else to stand.

She took a deep breath, bowed her head, and spoke clearly.

“I’m truly sorry, Senior Executive Director. I was so flustered yesterday, I couldn’t apologize properly.”

Ryu-il said nothing, just stared at her. She forced herself to continue.

“My mother and I both regret it deeply. If you would kindly forgive us, it will never happen again.”

Her heart pounded.

She expected him to say, ‘Didn’t you hear? You’re already fired,’ or something like that.

If he said, ‘Be careful from now on,’ she’d consider it a miracle and bow her head in gratitude.

But Ryu-il said neither. Instead, in a vague tone, he asked,

“Why all of a sudden?”

It took her a moment to realize ‘that’ meant the notebooks she was holding.

“I promised to return them long ago…”

She wondered if he’d even remember, but his eyes said he remembered everything. The moonlight through the window cast deep shadows on his face. He crossed his arms, looking interested, and asked again,

“You waited nine years after the college entrance exam to return them—why now?”

She caught her breath and answered in a rush.

“Because of what happened yesterday… I thought you might fire us. If so, this might be my last chance to return them.”

Ryu-il didn’t reply, and silence filled the room. Even with the distance between them, the air felt tense. She wondered if he always pressured people like this. She nervously looked away, but then he said something unexpected.

“They probably weren’t much help.”

“Pardon?”

“When I gave you those, I didn’t know you’d go to pharmacy school.”

Surprised by the unexpected turn in the conversation, Hee-won blinked and looked at him again. With his arms crossed, Ryu-il continued in a low voice.

“They said you were smart, so I figured you’d go into business and aim for the Wigang Foundation management scholarship.”

The Wigang Foundation management scholarship was a program supporting tuition and living expenses for business students at prestigious universities, in exchange for employment at Wigang. Since Chairman Ryu Won-jong was a Korea University business graduate, it was said that any Korea University business student would be accepted without fail.

Even if she didn’t get into Korea University, as a staff member’s child, her chances of being selected were high. The driver’s son had entered a slightly less prestigious business program but boasted daily about getting the scholarship and a job at once.

Wigang was strict about staff mistakes but offered good benefits alongside high salaries. The kitchen lady’s daughter didn’t have strong qualifications for Wigang, but she managed to get an internship at a related company. Even if she wasn’t hired as a regular employee right away, just getting an internship with her resume was a huge opportunity.

In contrast to the tense atmosphere, Ryu-il’s voice was almost gentle.

“I thought you might join as a junior associate.”

“Ah…”

She bit her lip, letting her words trail off, then lowered her gaze.

“I just… found chemistry interesting as I studied. I’ve always liked medicine since I was a child…”

“Too bad.”

Ryu-il raised his eyebrows and spoke slowly.

“Wigang doesn’t do pharmaceuticals.”

Hee-won blinked, feeling as if he’d hit the mark. That was partly why she’d chosen pharmacy.

If she couldn’t escape the shadow of loan shark debt, she at least wanted to escape the shadow of Wigang.

Everyone has their own way of loving someone out of their league. Some would do anything to watch from up close, others would try to win them over. She was neither.

She just… wanted to let go at the right time and keep it as a beautiful memory. She knew it would never happen, so if her feelings became too painful, she wanted to leave on her own.

If she worked at Wigang, she’d always have to hear Ryu-il’s name. She’d have to know who he married, what children he had, what kind of private life and career he led, even if she didn’t want to.

Her career decision was made when she was still young, at nineteen. Back then, she hadn’t thought her crush would ever end, and her pride was twisted.

Even outside Wigang, she didn’t want to work at a similar company. There would be owners and their children, and she’d always have to realize the gap between their lives and hers. She’d called him ‘Young Master’ and been polite since she was eight, but she didn’t want to keep doing that as an adult.

She’d rather live as someone completely unrelated. She wanted a life on a totally different track.

Just as Ryu-il said, Wigang had no pharma affiliates, and since she’d always liked life sciences and chemistry, she applied to pharmacy school without hesitation. Her mother had always regretted not getting the Wigang Foundation scholarship, but when Hee-won received a full scholarship from a university below Korea University, she was happy, saying she could earn money stably after graduation.

Of course, she couldn’t explain all that to Ryu-il.

When she didn’t respond, Ryu-il glanced at the notebooks she was holding and said,

“They must be heavy. Put them on the desk.”

“Ah, yes… Thank you.”

She struggled over to Ryu-il’s desk. As she set the notebooks down, she noticed some photos on his desk.

The first thing that caught her eye was a glamorous woman and a man who looked mixed-race, kissing passionately in a convertible. The background was abroad. Beneath that were more photos of the couple being affectionate in various places.

She didn’t know either of them, but the photos didn’t fit the tidy desk. Startled, she saw Ryu-il narrow his eyes.

“Oh, those are still there.”

“S-sorry.”

Staff were supposed to hide any reaction to their employer’s things, but she’d clearly looked shocked. But she wasn’t staff, and didn’t have to pretend so hard. She muttered awkwardly,

“I wasn’t trying to look, I just saw them…”

“Don’t misunderstand.”

Ryu-il calmly gathered the embarrassing photos and put them away in a drawer. The last photo, mixed into his hand, showed a nearly n*ked woman with a big ribbon reading ‘Minhee♡Albert’ as she climbed onto the man. The pose was so suggestive, her ears burned, but Ryu-il spoke in a low voice.