Chapter 4(Part 1)

Just a few seconds ago, she should have told him not to meddle with her grandfather and herself.

But the words about letting her paint comfortably felt like a refreshing breeze, as if a hole had been punched in her chest that was always painfully tight.

Had I been hoping for someone to tell me to paint with peace of mind?

In the meantime, Do-jin, who took Seo-hye’s silence as affirmation, spoke again.

“Finish your meal, and on the way to Cheongun-dong, stop by my house for a moment. I’ll give you a painting.”

Seo-hye refocused her gaze.

“What did you say? Please say that again.”

“Finish your meal. On the way home, stop by my house, and I’ll give you a painting.”

Seo-hye picked up the spoon again, her face slightly excited at the thought of being given a painting.

However, she suddenly thought that if she gave the painting to Hyo-young, Hwa-woong, who regularly visited the hospital, might discover it.

It seemed she should show the painting to Hyo-young and then take it to her house in Okcheon.

Seo-hye put the spoon down again and caught Do-jin’s gaze.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do it today.”

“Why not?”

“……It’s a painting for my mom, and I’m uneasy about leaving it at the hospital. It’s too late today, and when I have time, I should show it to my mom and take it to her house.”

“Then I’ll tell Artist Lee that we have another meeting next week. Let’s go to your mother’s together then.”

“Understoo……”

Seo-hye’s eyes widened as she naturally responded.

“What?”

“Let’s go together. We’ll stop by the hospital and move the painting to your mother’s house.”

“No.”

Do-jin was expressionless. It seemed he wouldn’t blink an eye, no matter what she said, as if he intended to refuse any rejection.

“Alright… then just accompany me to the hospital next week.”

“We’ll see. Finish your meal.”

Seo-hye glanced at him, who kept insisting on her eating, and took another spoonful of the slightly cooled soup.

***

As they headed to the hotel entrance, Seok-young, who had been waiting, immediately bowed and opened the rear door.

After seeing Seo-hye get in, Do-jin walked around to the trunk and opened the opposite rear door himself.

Seo-hye suddenly felt worried about Do-jin, who had been with her from lunchtime until now as the day turned dark.

It felt as if she had been hindering his work.

It seemed to signify that she had become closer to him.

So, under the guise of consideration, she drew a line.

“Um, Do-jin. If you haven’t been able to do what you need to today, I can go alone. You can go up and finish your work.”

“I can review the documents at home, but if I don’t see you today, I won’t be able to see you for a week, so this seems more urgent.”

For some reason, her heart pounded at his firm reply.

In the meantime, Seok-young got in, and the conversation between the two was temporarily halted.

The atmosphere in the car, where the two sat side by side, was cold, as if they hadn’t passionately embraced each other during the day.

And the voice that cut through the cold air was once again Do-jin’s.

“I’ll wait only for the month and a half of classes. After that, come to my house.”

“…I’m really curious about something. Right now, everyone except for you thinks you’ll marry my sister. I’m curious about what makes you keep wanting to keep me by your side.”

“Secretary Yoo.”

Listening to Seo-hye’s words, Do-jin suddenly called out to Seok-young, who was driving in the front.

“Secretary Yoo, do you also think I’m going to marry Hae-mi?”

“No. You’ve already told the Chairman that you’ll marry the second granddaughter.”

Do-jin turned his gaze from the front to Seo-hye.

“You heard that.”

Involving a third party so slyly. It was pressure not to ask such questions again.

Seo-hye bit her lips tightly and turned her head somewhat irritably.

She heard his faint laughter in her left ear, but she tried hard to ignore it.

“Anyway, what are you going to do until next week?”

Do-jin reached out and grabbed her hand.

Startled, Seo-hye’s shoulders jerked up as she looked down at the hand he held.

When she tried to pull her hand away, he intertwined his firm fingers with hers.

“Hmm? What are you going to do?”

Under his insistence, Seo-hye answered with her hand clenched tightly.

“That’s such a broad question. What… are you going to do until next week, Mr. Won Do-jin?”

She meant it as a hint not to ask such questions, but Do-jin surprisingly answered sincerely.

“I’ll follow the set schedule for work. In between, I’ll probably think of you, Seo-hye. If I can’t stand it, I’ll handle it myself. This.”

As Seo-hye’s lips parted, the hand he held touched the front of his pants.

Feeling something hard like a weapon, Seo-hye was startled and tried to pull her hand away. But he didn’t let her go until the end.

“So what are you going to do, Seo-hye?”

“……”

“Not going to answer? Should I guess?”

“……”

“You don’t want to face your family, so you’ll skip meals and overwork yourself. And you’ll probably paint pictures you don’t want to paint.”

He was spot on.

He cleverly mocked Seo-hye without openly revealing to Yoo Seok-young that he was painting for Hwa-woong.

“You know… very well. That’s the right answer.”

Seo-hye, unsure of his intentions behind the question, tried to brush it off.

In her indifferent tone, he squeezed her hand a bit tighter and shook it in the air.

It was a signal for her to look at him.

Seo-hye’s disapproving gaze shifted to him.

“How about we meet at night?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Whether I come to your room, or you climb down from the window.”

“No.”

“You won’t know if you really hate it until then.”

At his sincere tone, Seo-hye squinted her eyes and raised her voice slightly.

“No, I don’t want to. Don’t come! Who do you think you are, Won Do-jin? Santa Claus? Just barging into someone else’s window? Just try it! I’ll push you away the moment I see you!”

A chuckle came from the front. Followed by the sound of a clearing throat.

It was clear that Yoo Seok-young had been listening to the conversation and couldn’t hold back his laughter.

Seo-hye’s face flushed deeply.

“They say strong denial is strong affirmation. I understand your feelings, Seo-hye. If I don’t come, you’ll cry.”

“I won’t cry!”

“You must like it so much that you’re dropping formalities.”

“Oh, I don’t like it…”

“Don’t dislike it.”

Seo-hye’s eyebrows drooped helplessly, caught up in his words.

There was no way to counter the man’s wit.

In her frustration, perhaps due to the absurdity, the corners of her mouth threatened to lift upward.

“You look prettier when you smile.”

He had caught that fleeting moment.

Seo-hye bit her lip and shook her head.

“I wasn’t smiling.”

“Then you must look even prettier when you really smile.”

Seo-hye ended up covering her face with her free hand.

She really wanted to hide her face in a hole in the ground.

What kind of man pushes like this without any breaks? 

It felt like being a poor politician who made a slip of the tongue and was then relentlessly attacked in a 100-minute political debate.

“…Secretary, how much longer until we arrive?”

“It will take approximately 12 minutes to arrive.”

Twelve whole minutes. It was driving her crazy.

Seo-hye turned her head completely towards the window so that she couldn’t see him even from the corner of her eye.

Perhaps thinking he had teased her enough, Do-jin didn’t bother her further.

However, he didn’t let go of her hand.

He gently rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, then relaxed his grip to intertwine his fingers with hers, softly shaking them.

Every time her fingers brushed against his joints, which were as solid as steel, her heart tickled in an inexplicably strange way.

“Seo-hye, you have a callus on your left middle finger. You use your right hand when eating. Are you ambidextrous?”

“Ah…”

It was a secret only Hyo-young knew about Seo-hye.

No, on second thought, it wasn’t really a secret.

The people in the Cheongun-dong house were not interested in Seo-hye at all, so they didn’t know she could use her left hand as well.

Yet this stranger who had suddenly entered her life knew her more deeply than her family, despite only meeting a few times.

“We have one more reason why we get along well. I’m ambidextrous, too.”

He smiled, gently shaking their intertwined fingers.

Seo-hye felt as if the whole world had stopped at that smile.

She was used to living without feeling any emotions. It was the only way to endure the humiliation at home and the exploitation by Lee Hwa-woong.

Her heart, which had been trampled down to the point of being no different from weeds, kept trying to let a flower bloom in one corner of its emptiness.

A flower of very vibrant colors. A flower so beautiful that she couldn’t bear to trample it down.