In the end, Yunjoo’s voice rose with a burst of frustration. Earlier, when Kangwook had said those words to Sihyeong, a single bead of sweat had rolled down her back.

“No, I’m not joking. Have you ever seen me joke around?”

“That’s exactly why I’m saying it.”

“Can’t you just have one meal with me without asking questions?”

She couldn’t help but look at him, this man complaining about food in a way that didn’t suit him at all. There were people who could pull off that kind of talk, but this man was not one of them. Yunjoo watched Kangwook in silence, his eyes fixed straight ahead, not glancing at her once.

Lately he really hadn’t been like himself. And she couldn’t understand why everything he said to her sounded sincere, which only confused her more. Kangwook spoke to Yunjoo as she sat there staring at him blankly.

“Stop staring. Though I’ll admit I’m good-looking enough to warrant it.”

The embarrassment of realizing she had been staring so openly made her snap her head away. She hadn’t known he could feel her eyes on him. Her face burned.

“What, honestly. That’s not why I was looking.”

“No? I’ve been finding Cha Yunjoo pretty lately, so I thought maybe you felt the same.”

“What did you say!”

Heat rushed back to her face. Kangwook still had his eyes on the road, and now she couldn’t bring herself to look in his direction either. Every offhand word he tossed out without even glancing at her felt like teasing, like a light joke, and yet it all landed like he meant it, and she couldn’t read him at all. The frustration of not knowing pressed against her and sharpened into something pointed, aimed right at him.

“Stop joking around! Is this fun for you?”

“It’s not a joke and it’s not fun.”

“Mr. Choi Kangwook.”

Seeing Yunjoo turn fully toward him, ready to fight in earnest, Kangwook decided to call it a day and shifted to a tone entirely unlike anything before.

“I called your father today. Nothing like that will ever happen again.”

“Oh…….”

That one sentence dissolved every question she had carried through the day. Hearing that Kangwook had called her father settled the unease that had been sitting in her chest all day long. She had spent the whole day anxious that her father might show up, tensing every time her phone rang. Knowing his temperament, she had fully expected him to come back today and had even braced herself for it.

Nothing had happened all day, and she had thought it strange, but it turned out Kangwook was the reason he hadn’t come. Yunjoo felt the reality of who Choi Kangwook was sink in, and it left a faintly bitter taste. Her father was not someone who held his temper for anyone, yet he had done it for Choi Kangwook. A rueful smile came to her. He had shielded her from her father completely. Yunjoo spoke sincerely to Kangwook as he drove.

“Mr. Kangwook, thank you.”

At a red light, she turned and gave him a full, open smile as she said it, and something in his chest filled to the brim. He had become her shield, and this smile she was giving him was enough. He was so caught up watching Yunjoo’s smiling face that he missed the light changing, and it was the honk from behind that got the car moving.

“Cha Yunjoo, if you want to thank me, keep that smile just for me.”

“Pardon?”

She turned to look at him in surprise, but he was just driving, expression unchanged, giving nothing away. Yunjoo wondered if she had heard wrong, or if he had misspoken. Kangwook had been throwing her off since she got in the car.

Just moments ago she had been about to get angry over it, but then his face changed and he said something else entirely and she had nothing left to say. Now, watching his face shift again, she shook her head. If he was going to pretend he hadn’t said it and not repeat it, she had nothing to say either. After that last exchange, the two of them sat in silence. Then the car stopped, and Yunjoo looked up in surprise.

“This is our house.”

“Get out. Let’s go in.”

“But you said we were going to eat.”

“Right, let’s eat at home.”

“But if we’re eating at home right now…….”

“Today’s the day the housekeeper comes. I asked her to stay.”

Kangwook loved the way the words our house had come out of Yunjoo’s mouth, and he turned them over to himself several times.

‘Our house, our house, our house.’

Cha Yunjoo and Choi Kangwook’s house. A space that held only the two of them. The corners of Kangwook’s mouth lifted higher and higher as he followed Yunjoo through the door, and he made a quiet resolution.

‘Cha Yunjoo, this will always be our house to you.’

* * *

It would not be an overstatement to say that Yunjoo’s days began and ended at the worksite. For the first time in her life, she was working without watching anyone’s face, doing as much as she wanted, without having to pretend, and the happiness of it kept her from feeling tired. In that way, she was nothing but grateful to Kangwook.

Just as he had said, no word came from her father after that, and nothing happened. She was starting to think that this might be one of the privileges that came with being Choi Kangwook’s wife, and she could see herself genuinely doing what Kangwook had told her to do, using him properly.

Compared to how he had reacted with disbelief and anger when she first said she wanted to get a job, he now watched over her quietly and even encouraged her, and there were moments it made her wonder if she was living with a different person altogether, and she would find herself looking at him. The Kangwook who had changed somehow from the day she first brought up divorce was something Yunjoo couldn’t quite make sense of.

He seemed to be accommodating her, but it wasn’t something she could point to and ask why, because if she did and he said “what do you mean?”, she would have nothing to say. There were quite a few evenings he came home with dinner, he never complained about the simple breakfasts she put out, and on nights she was late he would just check in and tell her to rest when she got home.

Yet the way he said it was so offhand that she couldn’t even tell him not to wait up and to go to sleep first, and he seemed to be staying late himself for work, so at some point it stopped feeling like a burden. In fact, it got to the point where, if she didn’t see him, she couldn’t go straight up to her room and would find herself looking at his door. She would catch herself late at night watching the light seeping out from under the study door, and smile to herself with a touch of bitterness.

‘Why. Why Choi Kangwook?’

He would come just close enough that she thought he was drawing near, and then he would pull back to his usual self, watching her from a distance. With Kangwook neither pulling away nor coming closer, Yunjoo couldn’t do anything either. He confused her, but he didn’t give her reason to cut him off, and he didn’t make living there uncomfortable enough to leave. And more than anything, life was gradually becoming easier.

That was exactly how he intended to keep Yunjoo within his reach. Since visiting the worksite, Kangwook had been watching over her, and her words, that she wanted to work so badly she didn’t even want to die, had lodged themselves in his chest. He had decided that within his world, he would let her do whatever she wanted. Now that he understood something of how Yunjoo had lived, through what he had witnessed with her father, he intended to help her move through life however he could, whether it was something he could see or something he couldn’t. 

But the one thing he could not allow was for this woman to step outside his space.

Having admitted his feelings, Kangwook could not let the first woman he had ever wanted to protect walk out beyond his fence. He was sometimes thrown by the unfamiliarity of his own emotions, but he was doing his best to hold onto both his feelings and Yunjoo.

Throughout his life, Kangwook had never wanted for anything. Whether it was women, money, or people, everything had been in his hands without him having to reach for it, and things came to him without effort. With women in particular, one meeting was enough, and his life had never required him to hold on to anyone or consider their feelings.

But Yunjoo was different. His eyes went to her, his thoughts went to her, he wanted to make her look at him, and he wanted to see himself reflected in her eyes. The initial bewilderment had faded, and now that he had accepted his feelings, all that remained was the desire to make her live as his woman, and he was burning with it alone.

* * *

Having spent nearly all her time at the worksite, Yunjoo had barely been able to stop by Art Entertainment, but today she headed there, exchanged warm greetings with people she hadn’t seen in a while, and sat down across from Sangyun.

“Director, it’s been so long I feel like I should address you more formally.”

“It’s been hectic?”

“Yes, we’re almost done. There’s still work that needs to happen here once we bring everything in, so it’s really just the start of a new phase.”

“That’s true. Yunjoo, you’re remarkable. The worksite can’t be easy for a woman.”

“It suits me just fine. Hehe!”