Yunjoo’s “No” hit his ears with crisp, perfect diction. The answer knocked Kangwook sideways. He had been sure that if he asked directly, she would have no choice but to say she was married, but she had proved him cleanly wrong. What! She said no. Even as she watched Kangwook’s face twist, Yunjoo didn’t so much as blink. In her mind, the marriage no longer existed.

From the moment she had walked up to Kangwook, laid the contract on the table, and declared she wanted a divorce, she had already considered herself divorced. The fault lay with the one who asked, not with her.

He was furious, but he couldn’t show it, so all he could do was glare. And the woman simply turned her gaze away from him without a care.

Then she went right back to mingling with the theater company members, drinking and laughing, treating him like he wasn’t even there. Kangwook’s mouth wouldn’t close. His reason for coming to the theater company had been to let people know that Yunjoo was a married woman. He didn’t quite understand why he wanted so badly for people to know she belonged somewhere, but the reason didn’t matter.

He couldn’t shake the growing suspicion that this woman was not the same one who had lived with him. But the indignation rising in him was impossible to hide.

‘D*mn it, Cha Yunjoo!’

He hadn’t planned to stay this long, but he changed his mind. He had intended to wrap up a brief appearance and leave, but Kangwook decided to hold his ground and stayed, watching the woman who shone among the crowd. His gaze was entirely fixed on her, and yet Yunjoo didn’t look at him once.

The actresses in the room had a shift in their eyes when they realized Kangwook was staying instead of leaving. Everyone from the actors to the staff, except for the married ones and Yunjoo, wanted to catch his attention. Yunjoo, who had no interest in any of that, actually found it a relief.

It was a little surprising to see the heavy, cold man show a faint hint of warmth, but that was none of Yunjoo’s concern. What was absurd, though, was that while the women’s eyes had gone to Kangwook, the men’s eyes had gone to Yunjoo.

He had expected that if he stayed, she would at least feel some tension, but she was having the time of her life, and his irritation was beginning to simmer. Kangwook wanted to push back from the table and leave, but he couldn’t bring himself to go and leave her here, so he stayed and endured it.

She had planned to leave early. Then Kangwook showed up and ruined everything. She ended up drinking when she hadn’t meant to. Sipping drinks with Sihyeong and Sangyun, Yunjoo let her gaze drift toward Kangwook. Her eyes swept over all the women whose attention was fixed on him. She was showing him. Then she gave a small smirk, and Kangwook’s brow furrowed sharply at the sight. He read exactly what she was saying to him.

‘Mr. Kangwook, you have so many women who want you. Go ahead and enjoy yourself.’

Had he understood what Yunjoo’s eyes were saying? Well, they had lived together for three years. A look like that was more than enough for him to read. His gaze turned threatening and sent her a warning.

‘I’m not afraid of you anymore, Mr. Kangwook. And I don’t care what you think.’

Determined to show him, Yunjoo accepted the drinks the men offered and knocked them back. When she felt her head beginning to blur, she started turning them down. She didn’t want to make any mistakes. Especially not in front of Choi Kangwook.

‘D*mn it! I drank more than I meant to because of that man. Useless as ever. Why is he still sitting there instead of leaving? If there’s a woman he wants to pick up, he should just do it and go.’

Yunjoo looked straight at Kangwook, raised her glass toward him in a gesture that looked like a toast, and smiled. It was a smile like a peony in full bloom.

‘Ha, unbelievable. Honestly! You’re killing me, Cha Yunjoo!’

‘Enjoy yourself. Do what you’re good at.’

In the middle of the crowd, words passed between just the two of them, and they each heard every silent one.

He was reaching his limit in a situation where nothing was going his way. He wanted to make one woman pay attention to him, but that woman was the one looking at him and seeming to enjoy it, while the other women were nothing but a nuisance and an irritation. He swallowed his anger and stayed in his seat.

Even seeing Cha Yunjoo with his own eyes, he couldn’t believe it. Expressions he had never seen, a way of speaking he had never heard, a laugh he had never witnessed. There was nothing left of the woman he had known. Kangwook looked at Yunjoo the way a man looks at someone he is meeting for the first time.

His mind grew tangled with the question of who he had been living with. Cha Yunjoo had spent three years hiding her true self with absolute thoroughness. To Cha Yunjoo, he had been nothing more than a contracted relationship, with no meaning beyond that.

He was the one who had been discarded. The idea that he had served his purpose in a coldly calculated marriage and been thrown away was something he could not accept and could not stomach. Kangwook curled his hand into a fist and swallowed a breath. He had never seen himself look this pathetic. But he couldn’t give a woman who had used him and was now trying to discard him what she wanted. His pride wouldn’t allow it.

Kangwook had no room to examine what he felt toward Yunjoo. His belief had always been that men and women came together out of need. Marriage had been the same. Kangwook thought of love as a trivial game. 

Whatever was going on inside him, that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was that he couldn’t let a woman who was trying to disappear from his life go until he was ready to accept it. So for now, he had to grit his teeth and endure this too. His gaze would not leave Yunjoo.

‘How much is she going to drink! Is she taking every glass the men hand her? Ha, Cha Yunjoo, just get up already.’

Right around the time Kangwook’s patience was hitting its limit, the team dinner came to an end. If it had gone on much longer, he might well have grabbed Yunjoo by the hand and dragged her out himself. She had drunk quite a lot, and yet the woman looked perfectly fine. He couldn’t fathom her capacity. Even at the very end, she stood up without a trace of unsteadiness, said her goodbyes to everyone, and smiled, and he found it all genuinely remarkable.

He had no memory of ever seeing her finish a full glass of wine. At any gathering, she drank water over alcohol, and she never laughed or held anyone’s gaze. Watching her laugh loudly and gesture playfully, everything about her struck Kangwook as something he was seeing for the first time.

‘When she laughs, the corners of her eyes curve up into a crescent. Were her smiling eyes always this pretty? Was she always this beautiful? Why didn’t I ever notice?’

He had never once looked at her seriously. They had lived together for three years, and every small thing about her was entirely new to him.

Yunjoo’s smile carved itself into Kangwook’s chest. Her smiling eyes, and the crescents they made.

The group scattered in their separate directions, leaving Sangyun, Sihyeong, Kangwook, and Yunjoo behind.

“Ms. Yunjoo, I’ll drop you off on my way.”

“I’m fine with a taxi.”

“It’s not safe for a woman to take a taxi alone at night. Come on.”

“No, I…”

She couldn’t even refuse comfortably. With Kangwook watching her, she couldn’t say yes, but she couldn’t brush Sihyeong off either.

“Get in. My manager’s with me, so it’s fine.”

“Your car would be uncomfortable, Mr. Sihyeong. If someone sees, it could end up in photos.”

It was a roundabout refusal. Sangyun, who had been watching from the side, was about to step in. He thought she might be more comfortable with him than with Sihyeong. Being around her had shown him that she got along easily with people and acted freely, but she was also someone who was careful.

“Ms. Yunjoo, I could…”

Yunjoo understood that the concern came from not wanting to send a woman home alone, and just as she was about to slip away on her own, Kangwook stepped in.

“Ms. Cha Yunjoo, we’re headed in the same direction. I’ll drop you off.”

“That’s right, you two are in the same neighborhood. Then go ahead and do that.”

With Sangyun’s words, Sihyeong had no grounds to push further, and Yunjoo ended up in Kangwook’s car. Holding out any longer would have felt rude to both of them.

“No, it’s fine…”

“Get in, Ms. Cha Yunjoo.”

Kangwook stood holding the door open, and with the driver already waiting, there was no more room to resist. But she didn’t want to sit next to Kangwook. She ignored Kangwook standing at the open door, walked around, and settled into the front passenger seat, then rolled down the window and said her goodbyes.

“All right, Mr. Sihyeong, Mr. Sangyun, see you tomorrow.”

The president’s instructions had been not to acknowledge knowing Yunjoo at the theater company, so the driver had been pretending not to know her, but having her sit down right next to him was impossible not to react to.

“Madam!”

“Drive.”

“Go ahead.”

There were still people watching outside, so there was nothing to be done, and the car pulled away. The back of her head burned something fierce, but her mind was at ease. Before long, though, the car stopped.

“Pull over.”

The car came to a sudden halt, and Yunjoo startled and turned around.