He had to work to press down the excitement pounding in his chest, telling himself that Yunjoo, who was only now beginning to slowly break free from her shell, could not be allowed to retreat back into it.

“Cha Yunjoo, you know, you’re incredibly clever.”

“How so?”

“Saying something like that when you were about to get a serious scolding. That’s pretty cowardly, don’t you think.”

“Then I’ll take it back. Let’s pretend I never said it.”

“No, you can’t do that.”

“You seemed like you felt cheated, so I was going to let you off the hook.”

“Sneaky. So you’re playing the magnanimous one here? Because I confessed first, I’m the one who has to put up with it?”

“Kangwook, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Isn’t that a little too easy?”

The words had slipped out before she knew it, and she felt embarrassed that her sincerity was showing, but she wanted to be bold about it. Kangwook was changing her. Instead of holding her breath and hiding things away, he had taught her how to apologize with her head held high.

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Why are you asking me? The one who did something wrong should figure that out.”

“What more is there to do besides promise not to do it again?”

“Oh! So that’s how Cha Yunjoo wants to play it.”

“I don’t know. I apologized.”

“Hey… now that I look at you, you’ve got some nerve.”

“You’re the one who told me to be bold. You said even if I do something wrong, I can just apologize, so I should hold my head up and boldly say I was wrong. So I did!”

“Ha… Cha Yunjoo, you really…”

Kangwook’s words brought out a self-respect she hadn’t even known she had, and it swelled without limit. With it, Kangwook no longer felt frightening. She hadn’t done anything right and it was clearly a mistake, but she wanted to be bold about it. Because of the man who told her she could be. Kangwook’s eyes lit up as he watched Yunjoo giggle.

“Yunjoo.”

That was Kangwook’s changed voice. The voice that called to mind rich dark chocolate. When Kangwook called her name in that voice, she had no way of calming the trembling in her chest. The sight of Yunjoo looking up at him, her lips slightly parted, sent a deep, dark desire spreading through Kangwook’s eyes.

Yunjoo had tilted her head up slightly, lips parted a little, watching him. He wanted to pull her into his arms and carry her to the bedroom, but he couldn’t, so he had to do what he could right now. He roughly pulled her by the waist, drew her in tight, pressed his forehead to hers, and held her gaze.

Even her eyebrows trembled with surprise. Thump, thump. Her heart lost its footing and began to race. She kept swallowing her quickening breaths, wondering if Kangwook could hear her heart pounding so wildly, when Kangwook took her hand and pressed it to his chest.

This man’s heart was running at the same speed as hers. She looked up at him with eyes full of wonder and disbelief, and before she could even register what was happening, a warm, soft sensation covered her lips.

The second kiss since Hong Kong. Kangwook swept through Yunjoo’s mouth like a storm, pulling hard, drawing everything out of her, yet he was taking her over slowly, deliberately, pulling her under. Cha Yunjoo was the only woman who made his heart race.

Kangwook had never once felt thirst or longing for a woman, so the fluttering emotion was more than enough to set his own heart pounding. A kiss he had done countless times before, and yet pouring everything into it and swallowing endlessly still left him parched, and it drove him to distraction.

Swept up in the rush of emotion, he felt something like fate telling him he could never let this woman go. It was absurd. Fate. He was the kind of person who wouldn’t even bother reading that word on a page. And yet here he was, thinking exactly that.

Yunjoo had only just taken her first step toward him, and Kangwook intended to wait, as long as she kept coming to him, even if all he did was protect her, hold her, and walk beside her. But what was he going to do? He hadn’t been able to say anything firm to her.

‘I need to put my foot down and tell her it can never happen again. What am I going to do?’

In the end, Kangwook hadn’t said a single word to Yunjoo. A grim thought flickered through him that winning against this woman might only get harder from here on out. His head was a tangle of thoughts as he held Yunjoo, but his heart kept beating without pause. For now, though, he decided to think only of Yunjoo’s confession. Just the fact that Yunjoo had started coming to him was enough to fill his chest to the brim.

‘I’ve started to like you.’

Even after he got to work, her voice played on an endless loop.

‘I’ve started to like you.’

That one line from Yunjoo had turned his entire day into a giddy, racing mess. The fact that Yunjoo had started to see him was the reason Kangwook’s lips refused to stop curving upward. Kangwook felt grateful to Jeongeun. If she hadn’t caused that whole incident, it probably would have taken much longer to hear those words from Yunjoo.

He had to pass along that gratitude. He told Yunjoo to formally invite Jeongeun over. The stunt they had pulled together was enough to leave him speechless, but the fact that she was the one friend who could get Yunjoo to open up like that was more than enough for Kangwook to think of her as a good person. And setting all that aside, she had made it possible for him to hear Yunjoo’s confession, so she deserved to be treated well.

Kangwook enjoyed the small, ordinary moments with Yunjoo. From the first person he ran into when he woke up to sharing the hours all the way until sleep, he was now truly beginning to understand what home meant. And the more he felt that, the more sorry he felt toward Yunjoo. 

She had been the one keeping this house, which had been alone for so long. And the closer he grew to Yunjoo, the harder the sleepless nights became. The bigger his feelings grew, the bigger his wanting grew too.

* * *

Yunjoo sat across from Sangyun for the first time in a while. Both had been busy, and the play was getting good reviews and drawing solid audiences, so Sangyun had been especially swamped. Yunjoo, on the other hand, had actually found herself with more free time once the performances began, but neither of them had found a moment to sit down together.

“Ms. Yunjoo, you know it’s been a while, right?”

“It has. Mr. Sangyun, you’ve been so busy.”

“What have you been up to that you keep heading home so early every day? Yesterday too, after the show everyone was asking for you and you were already gone.”

“Were they? Hahaha.”

She covered the prick of guilt with a laugh.

“If nothing’s going on today, let’s have dinner before you head home.”

“Well… I’m not sure how it’ll go. Let me make a call first.”

Sangyun studied Yunjoo with sharp eyes. She was acting noticeably different from before. She used to jump at the chance to eat together, saying she hated eating alone, but something had changed.

“Ms. Yunjoo, do you have a boyfriend?”

“A boyfriend? Why?”

“You’ve been looking exactly like someone who’s in a relationship lately.”

“Ah, haha. What are you talking about… Oh, right. My friend Jeongeun, the one whose number I gave you.”

“Ah, she kept insisting you two were close. Did you meet up? You didn’t give it out without thinking, did you? I gave it because she works at a children’s theater company and seemed trustworthy. Was it uncomfortable?”

“Thank you. She was a really close friend of mine, but we had lost touch.”

“I’m glad it worked out.”

At Sangyun’s question about whether she had a boyfriend, she quickly steered the conversation toward Jeongeun and shifted to a different topic, turning her head away to catch her breath. Part of it was because of Kangwook, who came home early when nothing was going on, and it was also true that she herself had started to look forward to going home.

“Someone’s looking for you over there, Mr. Sangyun. Go ahead.”

“Wait for me. Today.”

“Ah…”

He was asking that directly, so just leaving without a word didn’t feel right, but if she told Kangwook, she had a feeling he would say no. She hesitated for a long time, turning her phone over and over in her hands.

‘If I call Mr. Kangwook he’ll probably say no. Ugh, but he said it looks strange, and running away doesn’t feel right either.’

After the drinking incident, Kangwook had put his foot down about nights out drinking. She had pushed back and argued, and even tried turning on what little charm she had, but Kangwook was not that easy a man. He said the fact that she had done it once meant she could do it again, and that if it happened one more time, he would use his last resort.

At that, Yunjoo didn’t just back down, she folded completely. The card Kangwook had thrown was the threat to reveal the fact that they were married. He was making very good use of the one weakness she least wanted exposed. So she surrendered with a quiet smile.

She had no idea how infuriating his smug expression had been at that moment. Whatever she was feeling, Kangwook the victor was smiling away, perfectly pleased with himself. But she had made a promise, so she had to make the call regardless.

“You’re not busy, are you?”

– No, go ahead.

“Um, Mr. Kangwook… today, coming home early…”

– Yunjoo, I’m going to be a little late tonight.

“Really?”

– Yeah, why, what’s going on?

“Nothing, I was just wondering if you’d be home early.”