‘Oh no! What am I thinking!’

The moment Juhee realized her subconscious had gone wandering somewhere it had no business going, her face flushed hot in an instant.

She turned her burning face quickly away from Ihyun.

Ihyun let out a quiet laugh, released the mouse, and straightened up. Then he stepped around to the front of her desk.

“I told you to forget it. You really don’t listen.”

“Is that easy to do? I’m going out of my mind over here.”

Ihyun looked at her face in silence for a moment. His expression seemed to darken slightly.

“Are you that afraid of what might have happened between us?”

“……!”

The brief seriousness on Ihyun’s face gave way to a light smile again.

“Don’t worry. Nothing happened between us.”

“Is that…… really true?”

Ihyun raised one eyebrow with a shameless expression at her suspicious look.

“Isn’t it obvious? If you had slept with me, there’s no way you wouldn’t remember.”

Juhee looked at him with an expression that said she had no idea what he was talking about.

“……?”

“It would have been so overwhelming and intense that no matter how drunk you were, you would have remembered.”

Juhee’s mouth fell open.

What kind of toe-curling nonsense was this? She studied his face with a look of disbelief.

Ihyun was still looking down at her with that unhurried, thoroughly pleased smile.

“Oh my god! Where does that confidence even come from?”

“You don’t think so?”

“What if we actually did, and I just can’t remember because it was so forgettable?”

“Absolutely not.”

The sheer decisiveness of it, clean and without a trace of hesitation, made Juhee want to scream.

“Ha, unbelievable. Then why on earth……?”

Her face flushed again. Bringing up the state she had woken up in that morning was too mortifying to say out loud.

“Why what?”

“So…… when I woke up in the morning, my dress was off……”

“You think I was the one who took it off?”

“Weren’t you?”

“Do I strike you as someone with that kind of self-control?”

“……?”

“You were whispering for me to stay, holding my hand. You think I would have just taken your clothes off and left?”

Juhee’s mouth fell open.

She didn’t know where to begin.

I was holding your hand and asking you to stay? No way! Absolutely not!

You think I’m pretty? Don’t say things like that to confuse people!

The words tangled up inside her and came out as nothing but sputtering, and then Ihyun suddenly burst out laughing.

“Why, why are you laughing? You’re flustering me.”

Ihyun braced both hands on her desk and leaned forward. Juhee instinctively pressed back against her chair.

“I don’t think you should drink with any man other than me. You get too endearing and too bold at the same time.”

“……!”

Juhee sat there blinking her wide eyes without a word, and Ihyun straightforwardly stepped back.

“Stop being so tense. Regrettably, I wasn’t the one who took your clothes off. You looked uncomfortable sleeping in a dress, so I asked a female hotel staff member to help. And since coming home in a dress first thing in the morning would have been awkward, I asked them to buy a change of clothes and put it in the wardrobe.”

“There were sneakers too.”

“The hotel staff have good instincts. A tracksuit with heels would have been a funny look.”

“The l*ngerie…… are you saying you didn’t pick that out?”

“They threw in underwear too? I’ll have to find that staff member and give them a commendation.”

“……Then what about the note?”

“I asked them to pass along a few words. The staff must have written it down as a note.”

“……”

“Satisfied now? All your questions about the night you can’t remember, answered?”

“Yes. More or less……”

Nothing happened. That’s a relief. So she should feel at ease. And yet, for some reason, Juhee didn’t feel particularly good.

She couldn’t tell whether it was Ihyun’s matter-of-fact attitude about nothing having happened that bothered her, or whether it was herself she was bothered by for feeling disappointed about his nonchalance.

“All right, get up. Let’s go eat.”

“Why do I have to go eat with you?”

Juhee’s voice came out flat.

“Today was your first day. It must have been rough.”

“……?”

“I found a good kimchi stew place.”

The words kimchi stew made Juhee’s mouth water instantly.

“Kimchi stew……?”

“On days like this, you need soul food to soothe a tired soul.”

“……”

“What are you waiting for? Get up.”

***

Hoo hoo!

She lifted a well-fermented strip of kimchi onto a spoonful of white rice and blew on it to cool it down.

Then she opened her mouth wide and popped it in.

The tangy, salty flavor and aroma of kimchi spread through her mouth.

“Mmm! So good!”

Juhee shook her hands with pure happiness, her expression like a child’s, and chewed away enthusiastically.

Ihyun watched her with a look that was equal parts baffled and fond.

“Where did the person who didn’t want to have dinner with me go?”

“I still don’t want to have dinner with you.”

“Then what’s this? You’re enjoying it so happily, so deliciously.”

“It just means the happiness the braised kimchi gives me is greater than the discomfort of being with you. Mmm! So good.”

Ihyun burst out laughing again at Juhee humming contentedly to herself.

This time a plump piece of meat disappeared into her mouth along with the kimchi.

“Exactly! You need meat with braised kimchi!”

“Yes. Please eat plenty. You worked hard today.”

Juhee tilted her head with a curious look partway through her meal.

“Oh? But why aren’t you eating, Director?”

She blinked at Ihyun’s spotless chopsticks and untouched bowl of rice.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You still need to eat at mealtimes. We work to live, after all.”

“So Juhee-ssi works to eat. I eat to work.”

“Wow! What a bleak way to think about things. Don’t you know how great the pleasure of eating is?”

“But doesn’t working just to eat make life seem a little too small? Working for nothing more than food.”

“Why do you have to think about it so seriously? Anyway, try a bite. The braised kimchi here is an absolute masterpiece.”

Juhee placed a piece of well-fermented kimchi and a slice of meat on top of Ihyun’s rice.

Ihyun’s brow twitched involuntarily.

Juhee caught it immediately.

“Oh? Do you not like braised kimchi?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your face scrunched up just now.”

“Did it?”

“People can’t hide what they like, but they can’t hide what they dislike either.”

“……”

“You should have said something if you don’t like it. We could have gone somewhere else.”

“You said you prefer kimchi stew over fermented soybean stew.”

“Oh? Did I say that too?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember that either.”

“Oh…… right.”

Juhee let out an embarrassed laugh and dropped her gaze, looking sheepish. Watching her, Ihyun recalled the image of Juhee wiping away tears that night.

‘You know what? You know more about me now than Park Doyun does.’

‘That man doesn’t know whether I prefer kimchi stew over fermented soybean stew. And we dated for five whole years. …… How did things end up like this? …… It’s so unfair.’

And she couldn’t remember those tears.

“That’s good, then.”

“Excuse me?”

“Anyway, eat plenty. I brought you here because I wanted to feed you.”

“……”

Juhee’s expression went blank for a moment. I brought you here because I wanted to feed you—the words landed with a warmth that was tender, and somehow a little bittersweet.

“I heard Assistant Manager Ko gave you a hard time today.”

The mention of Assistant Manager Ko snapped her back to attention.

“Oh, yes. A bit. Did you hear from Chief Secretary Kang?”

Ihyun nodded.

“Assistant Manager Ko is dependable, but he’s quite stubborn.”

“He did seem that way.”

“How are you planning to handle it?”

“I explained things thoroughly today, so I’ll have to see how tomorrow goes.”

“If it gets too difficult, let me know. I’ll move Assistant Manager Ko to a different team.”

Juhee gave him a mildly reproachful look at the suggestion and shook her head.

“If that’s how I solve things, there’ll be no one left on my team. The solution is simple. I just need to show him I’m useful, that I have something to offer. And as for the misunderstanding that you brought me here because you have feelings for me……”

“Excuse me? What misunderstanding?”

Ihyun’s eyes went wide.

His reaction made it clear he hadn’t known, and Juhee, suddenly awkward, let the words out in halting pieces.

“Oh…… that rumor is already going around.”

“……?”

“That you’ve had feelings for me for a long time and scouted me to keep me close…… Someone must have overheard what you said to Jinkyung at the Ministry banquet and passed it along.”

Ihyun’s eyes went wide.

Then again, there had been more than a few people at that event, so it was perhaps inevitable that a rumor like that would find its way into Sungju. Not anticipating something so inevitable had been his own oversight.

“I see. And how did you explain that misunderstanding?”

“What was there to explain? I said I don’t know anything about it, and that they should ask the Director about his own feelings.”

Ihyun let out a short laugh.

“What? Did I hand you a bomb and now you’re in trouble?”

“No, why would I be in trouble? What I said made its way into my own company. That’s only natural. I should take responsibility for it.”

“……”

“It seems like we’ll need to expand on our arrangement to pretend to be a couple.”

“Expand?”

“Thinking about it now, it never made sense. Only pretending in front of Park Doyun and Ma Jinkyung.”

“……?”

“Just like what happened in front of them found its way into Sungju, what happens inside Sungju will find its way back to them.”

“Oh……”

“So the conclusion is that we need to act like a couple regardless of time and place.”

Juhee nodded in agreement.

“When you put it that way, you’re right. This is going to be more exhausting than I thought.”

“There’s an easier solution.”

“An easier solution?”

“Let’s stop making it complicated by pretending. Let’s just do it for real.”

Juhee’s eyes went wide.

“Do, do what for real? What?”

“Date me, Cha Juhee-ssi.”