Chapter 1

TJ Hotel’s lobby café had a casual atmosphere.

Perhaps because of its easy-to-access location, most of the people occupying seats were ordinary visitors rather than hotel guests.

The sort of people who wanted a place that was moderately upscale, but not so refined that it made them feel out of place.

In any case, this slightly distracting setting, and the way Ijun sat there in a tailor-made vicuña suit with his long legs crossed at an angle, did not suit him very well.

Quietly watching Harin as she had just arrived, Ijun took a sip of blended coffee, something he normally would not even touch.

“Why ask to meet in a place like this instead of the lounge. It lowers the tone.”

As always, Harin appeared after the appointed time had already passed and sat across from Ijun with a dissatisfied expression.

A handbag that easily cost as much as a mid-sized car, a blouse and jacket sold as this season’s limited edition, even the hairstyle and makeup that had clearly just been done at a salon.

Harin, too, did not suit this place any better.

But Ijun only smiled leisurely.

“Still, it’s really been a long time since I saw you, Oppa. I heard you’d been so busy, so what happened today that you actually had time?”

“You seem to have been pretty busy yourself.”

“Me? What would I be busy with…. Uh, Oppa, are you mad at me by any chance?”

Only then, perhaps sensing that something was off, Harin narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at Ijun.

He was still smiling, his expression unchanged, and yet for some reason he gave off a cold air.

“Harin. I think that’s your problem.”

“What is?”

“The fact that you think I would get angry because of you. No, that you think you’re capable of making me angry.”

As if her pride had been hurt, Harin bit her lip hard.

The corners of her eyes, lined sharply with eyeliner, rose fiercely.

Ijun was the only person who could speak to Harin like that so casually.

And he was also the only person who could say such things to her and leave her unable to answer back.

Ignoring Harin’s expression, Ijun calmly placed his clasped hands over the knee of his crossed leg.

Then he continued in an even tone.

“I’m not angry at you. We’re both busy, so I thought it’d be better to clear things up quickly. That’s why I asked to see you.”

“Clear things up? What do you mean, clear things up?”

“The engagement. Let’s end it.”

His tone had not even carried much force, and yet the single word ‘engagement’ struck the ear with startling clarity.

Ijun said it as dryly as if he were signing off on approval papers.

It was Harin whose eyes widened.

She was so flustered that her face flushed bright red.

Forgetting even where they were, Harin raised her voice.

“What are you talking about, Oppa. We’ve already been engaged for eight years. My mother and your mother said this year they’d finally bring me into the family, so what do you mean by ending it now?”

“That’s exactly why. Tell your family quickly before things go any further. I’ll speak to my parents myself. Don’t make a fuss for no reason, and let’s end this quietly.”

But Ijun answered quietly and firmly, without the slightest sign of agitation.

“What on earth is this about. I should at least know the reason. Oppa, because you were busy, I endured for years without even getting any attention over our engagement, living like a nun. If it was going to be like this, you should’ve broken it off from the beginning so I wouldn’t feel so wronged.”

“Well. I don’t think you were exactly living like a nun.”

“…Is this because of Sunwoo? Even so, I was going to start wrapping that up soon. Didn’t we agree that before marriage, something light and casual like that would be mutually excused?”

Harin spoke as though she had been wronged.

She had no intention of apologizing over something like that.

It did not even occur to her to feel sorry.

Wasn’t everyone entitled to that degree of fun before marriage.

She had never expected Ijun to remain chaste either.

The reason he did not indulge was because he was such a workaholic.

No, it wasn’t that he could not indulge because he was busy.

The truth was that he was a perfect man to the bone.

As someone who always walked the proper path and the royal road in all things, he would never do anything even slightly questionable, and there was a certain dignity in that.

He was a man with frighteningly strong pride.

“Haah, Harin.”

At last, a faint crack appeared in Ijun’s calm expression.

With irritation seeping into his face, he let out a short sigh.

“If only you really had kept it light. Do I have to tell you why you went to the OB-GYN last Monday too?”

“H-how do you know that…….”

“It’s stranger that you thought I wouldn’t know.”

Harin’s face, which had been flushed red just moments ago, turned deathly pale in an instant.

All Harin had wanted was to enjoy herself a little before marriage.

Once she entered the Daejeong family as a daughter-in-law, there probably would not be much fun for a while.

Sunwoo was an actor who had suddenly become a popular star after playing the male lead in a drama that had ended recently to great success.

He was handsome, but unlike Ijun, he was warm and attentive, and he was willing to act as though he would do anything Harin said.

The pregnancy truly had been an accident she herself had never expected.

They had been careful with contraception, so she had no idea how something like that had happened.

She had not even been able to tell her parents.

From finding a hospital to undergoing the procedure, she had guarded the matter so thoroughly.

How Ijun had learned of it so easily, she could not understand.

This whole situation had been hard for Harin too.

Harder than anything she had agonized over in her life.

It made her resent Ijun for trying to cut her off at once without making any attempt to understand how she felt.

In fact, she thought the cause of everything was Ijun.

With resentful tears welling in her eyes, Harin glared at him.

“You just had to pay me a little attention, Oppa. During our engagement, how many times did you even meet me? Not official events, just the two of us spending time together. I could count them on one hand and still have fingers left. Have you ever thought how empty and miserable I must have felt?”

“Harin. Why are you talking like that about us? Were we ever that kind of relationship to each other? Was that what our engagement was? It wasn’t.”

But Ijun closed his eyes as if he were tired.

His tone, like he was gently admonishing a child, only made Harin feel more miserable.

He was gentlemanly but not warm, courteous but not affectionate.

And he treated everyone the same.

Harin, his fiancée, was no exception.

That side of Ijun left Harin thirsting.

She was someone who could not rest unless she was always the most special, the one who stood out the most.

The reason she had maintained this dry engagement to Ijun for eight years was because she knew the place beside him was the best place of all.

And yet after enduring and enduring for so long, that place, now finally within reach, was about to vanish in a single moment like this.

Her breath trembled as it rose, unable to contain her fury.

But Ijun merely looked at her from an angle.

“The truth is, I don’t care what you’ve been doing.”

“Then why…?”

“The problem is that your little entertainer friend has now started looking down on me. Just imagining a nobody like that getting full of himself because he got involved with the Daejeong family’s fiancée and even got her pregnant. Harin, does that make any sense?”

“I-I’m sorry. Oppa, I’m sorry. But….”

“Tell him to restrain himself too if he doesn’t want to get hurt. I don’t have time to bother with something that trivial.”

For the first time, anger colored Ijun’s voice as he cut off Harin’s excuse.

Only then did Harin understand.

He had no interest in what happened to her.

He simply could not bear the fact that his pride had been damaged.

In a low voice through clenched teeth, Ijun whispered,

“If you don’t want to hear dirty rumors spreading, keep your mouth shut and end this. Take care of yourself and recover properly.”

“…….”

“You leave first. It doesn’t look good to leave a woman sitting here alone.”

With trembling hands, Harin gathered up her handbag.

Part of her wanted to escape this humiliating place at once, and another part of her wanted to lash out at Ijun and scream at him.

But all she could do was exactly as he said, turn around and leave.

Watching Harin’s retreating figure as she walked away, Ijun sighed and swept a hand back through his hair.

Exchanging unpleasant words in a hotel lobby café like this, where just anyone came and went, was irritating after all.

Still, it had been the perfect kind of place to declare a broken engagement to Seo Harin.

Even after sending Harin away, his mood did not ease.

Folding his arms, Ijun furrowed his brow.

***

“You haven’t come to places like this before, have you? You’re at just the right age to enjoy yourself too. Wouldn’t it be nice to come somewhere with a good atmosphere like this, have some tea, go to a department store, buy pretty clothes and wear them?”

Seoyun only smiled faintly without answering.

It had been barely one year since her father died.

Before the company had begun to collapse so rapidly, Seoyun too had lived without envy of anyone.

A hotel lobby café like this was not some place beyond her reach.

Department Head Go Changseok, sitting across from her, had been her father’s right-hand man and had watched Seoyun grow up since childhood, so it was not as if he did not know that.

Her sorrowful circumstances now, and Changseok, who had moved to a rival company after her father’s company faltered and took on the title of Department Head.

All of it felt bitter.

“Even after I moved to Sehan, I always worried about you and Jiho. We’re practically family, aren’t we.”

Why had he called her all the way here just to say such meaningless things.

Seoyun felt uncomfortable and stifled.

Then it happened.

Someone swept past Seoyun, stirring up a rush of air beside her.

Without meaning to, her gaze followed.

And Seoyun’s eyes widened slightly.

It was Harin.

It had been a long time since she had seen her, but she recognized her at once.

Seo Harin, the cherished daughter of Seomyeong Construction, who had been two years her senior in both high school and college.

And Cha Ijun’s fiancée.