Chapter 3

“Would you like to see the menu?”

The bartender asked again kindly.

A hotel bar like this was bound to be expensive. The thought of her own situation, where she had to worry about tomorrow’s meal, made her shoulders shrink for a moment. But thinking that even this impulsive behavior would be the last time today somehow made her feel bolder.

Seoyun opened the menu the bartender silently held out and looked through it carefully. Liquors priced at hundreds of thousands, even millions of won, filled an entire page. They were prices she could not afford even if her life ended today. Still, if it was sold by the glass, she thought she might be able to drink one or two.

“Could I have a glass of Macallan 12?”

“I’ll serve it on the rocks. Please wait a moment.”

The bartender skillfully filled a whiskey glass with ice, opened the bottle, poured the liquor generously over the ice, and set it in front of Seoyun.

The reason Seoyun had chosen this drink was because it was the only name she knew. It was a whiskey Jeonghun had often enjoyed when he was alive. On days when he was in a good mood, or on days when something hard had happened, he would take this bottle of whiskey out from the display cabinet in the corner of the living room, pour himself exactly one glass, and drink it slowly.

Jeonghun had been her stepfather, but to Seoyun he had been more of a father than her biological one. Even after her mother passed away first ten years ago, he had truly cherished Seoyun like his own daughter.

As she remembered Jeonghun and her mother Jingyeong, who had both passed away, it felt as if her eyes were growing hot.

Seoyun took a sip of the whiskey heavy with its rich scent. The strong, burning liquid warmed her body as it went down her throat.

It felt as though her life, shabby in every way, even down to the sound of her breathing, had become a little more comfortable.

Was it because the alcohol was taking effect? This time, Seoyun turned her head and looked at Ijun a little longer.

He was resting one side of his jaw on his hand, slowly swirling the glass with ice in it. Not much time had passed, but the bottle was already fairly empty.

Could there really be something in his life that made him drain his glass so quickly too? The eldest son of the Daejeong Group, one of the country’s leading corporations, and the Executive Director of Daejeong Electronics. And on top of that, a fiancée at his side with both beauty and wealth.

Could a man who, from the moment he was born, had never felt even the tiniest trace of want have things that tormented him too?

Seoyun gazed at his handsome profile, which she had not seen in a very long time, as if engraving it into her heart.

***

“E-excuse me…. Could you lay him on the bed? Ah, please be a little careful.”

Sweat had formed on the forehead of the bellboy who had come into the room supporting the large-framed Ijun. Only after Seoyun helped from the side and they laid him on the bed did the bellboy let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you. You’ve worked hard.”

“Not at all. Please enjoy your stay.”

Seoyun opened her worn wallet, took out two ten-thousand-won bills, and handed them to the bellboy. Now only a few one-thousand-won bills remained in her wallet.

After bowing politely, the bellboy quietly left the room.

Seoyun put her wallet back into her bag and looked toward the bed. Ijun still had his eyes closed, exactly as the bellboy had laid him down.

So much had happened today, but for the first time, she felt flustered.

She had never imagined Ijun could get so drunk that he would lose consciousness. The Ijun Seoyun had watched, even if only from afar, had always been someone who knew no disarray.

Even when she followed him out from the bar as he staggered away with unfocused eyes, Seoyun had still been able to support him on her own. At least then, leaning on Seoyun, he had still been in a state where he could walk by himself.

No, she did not know. The fact that he had obediently leaned his body against Seoyun when she supported him might have already meant he was barely aware of anything.

While riding the elevator up to the lobby, Ijun’s body had grown heavier and heavier. His height, so much taller than most others, and his solid, heavy build. Seoyun had no way to support a weight that must have been nearly twice her own. In the end, she had barely managed to settle him against a sofa in the lobby and had no choice but to ask a bellboy for help.

She had to pay the check-in cost with the single emergency card she had, one with only a small limit. The standard double room was a modest one Ijun had probably never even laid eyes on before, but there was nothing she could do about that.

“Excuse me…. Senior Cha Ijun. Senior? Can you hear me?”

Seoyun knelt beside the bed and gently shook Ijun’s arm. But Ijun did not stir at all. Judging by the even sound of his breathing, he seemed to be deeply asleep.

Seoyun silently looked at Ijun’s sleeping face. The last time she had seen him was at Jeonghun’s funeral. He had come wearing a black suit, an unexpected mourner.

It had been such a strange day. The very day she realized she had fallen all the way to the bottom of the deepest pit of poverty, and yet it was also a night when she could gaze endlessly at the face of her first love, someone she could hardly even brush past.

A straight forehead and dark, distinct, masculine brows. Beneath them, his eyelids were lowered, fringed with thick lashes. His sharply raised nose bridge, the hollowed philtrum below it, and even the pleasing line of his tightly closed lips.

From his boyhood, when there had still been a delicacy to him, to now, when he had fully taken on the form of a grown man. His features had grown a little stronger over time, but his characteristic beauty had not changed.

Reluctant to waste even the passing of time as she stared endlessly at Ijun, Seoyun suddenly drew her brows together in concern.

The way he was lying flat on the bed looked a little uncomfortable. Seoyun lifted and lowered her hand several times as if hesitating, then at last seemed to make up her mind and rose to her feet.

Taking off his jacket required more strength and time than she had expected. She pulled his arms out of the sleeves, lifted his body this way and that, and with effort tugged free the part of the jacket pinned beneath his back.

She carefully loosened and removed the knot of his tie, and by the time she undid two or three of the buttons of his shirt at the end, her hands were trembling.

No matter how drunk and senseless he was, she simply did not have the courage to undo his belt as well.

Only after she removed even the socks covering his large feet did she finally feel a little satisfied.

Seoyun wiped the sweat from her forehead as she looked down at Ijun, who seemed much more comfortable now.

Now she had to go back. Jiho would be waiting.

Like the little mermaid who saved the prince and then hid behind a rock, she felt strangely sorrowful.

“Senior, seeing you today was so…. so nice.”

The years she had attended university with him had been only two at most. After he graduated, even the chance to see him from afar disappeared.

She whispered words he could not hear to the sleeping man. A hot, rough lump suddenly surged up in her throat.

Now Seoyun might end up becoming the second wife of a man eighteen years older than she was, living while raising lively young boys. Longing for a spring that would never come again, she would probably wither away day by day.

This night, left alone in the same room with Ijun like this, would be the final gift life had granted her.

As she looked at Ijun with eyes brimming with moisture, Seoyun set down the handbag she had been holding.

Normally, it was something Seoyun would never even have imagined doing. She was so shocked by the thought herself that she could hardly believe it had occurred to her.

But if it was the last time, then what did it matter. Fortunately, it was also a time he would not remember anyway.

Seoyun carefully sat down beside the bed where Ijun slept. Even that alone made her so nervous that it felt as though her heart were beating beside her ears. It took her a long time to slowly draw up both legs and finally lie down beside him.

Her chest tightened and her nerves frayed, as if he might suddenly open his eyes wide and rise at any moment.

When she finally lay down beside him, Seoyun let out a long breath.

She turned over to face him as he lay there. A heavy, cool scent like the night air deep in a forest mixed with the sweet smell of cognac and lingered at the tip of her nose. As she looked at him sleeping quietly, this moment felt like a dream. Though, of course, it was not something she had ever even dared to dream of.

Would this memory alone be enough to endure the weary years that still lay ahead of her? Would it become a memory that sweetly covered over painful moments, like candy hidden deep inside a desk drawer and treasured bite by bite.

“Senior, you may never know this moment, but I think I’ll remember it forever.”

She murmured softly, almost like talking to herself. Then Ijun let out a faint groan, “Mm,” and shifted in his sleep. His large body turned over toward Seoyun.

Frozen in place for a moment, Seoyun only carefully let out the breath she had been holding after seeing that Ijun’s eyes were still closed.

Seoyun looked at Ijun’s face before her, never tiring of it. When he drew in a breath, Seoyun drew in a breath too, and when he let one out, Seoyun let one out as well. She breathed in his scent deeply and mingled his exhale with her own.

The time, improper yet tender, flowed slowly. As the second hand passed, counting out time, Seoyun tried to carve every moment of this into her memory.

This unbelievable, gift-like time.