Chapter 4.5

The Japanese restaurant was quiet.  

It was well past lunchtime, so despite being located in a district filled with office buildings, the place wasn’t busy.  

“A private room, please.” 

Seojun said.  

The staff smiled politely and led them to the largest room.  

She hadn’t expected him to actually mean it when he suggested they eat together. Being dragged here so casually annoyed Moonkyeong.  

“Are we really eating together?”  

“Were you planning not to?”  

“Let me be clear. This isn’t you eating with me. It’s me eating with you.”  

Seojun chuckled briefly at her remark, clearly still bitter about how he had treated her earlier in the office.  

As Moonkyeong entered the room, she looked around.  

The room had chairs with backrests and a recessed space under the table for their legs.  

Quickly scanning the menu the staff handed her, she decided on the simplest dish.  

Given how busy he was, she figured a one-dish meal would suffice.  

In truth, she loved sushi and multi-course meals, but she opted for udon instead. She wanted to finish quickly and leave, knowing their mutual desire to part ways.  

“This one for me.”  

Seojun snatched the menu from her hands and handed it to the staff.  

“Two A courses, please.”  

“Understood.”  

After the staff left with a smile, Moonkyeong drank some water to soothe her dry throat.  

The A course, from what she had glimpsed, was quite elaborate. It would take at least two hours to finish.  

It felt as though he knew she liked multi-course Japanese meals, which made her suddenly go quiet.  

Before the food arrived, she stared at Seojun.  

“Aren’t you busy?”  

“I am.”  

“Then why order a course meal?”  

“This is my first meal of the day. If I’m only eating one meal, it should be a proper one.”  

It sounded like a lie, but she wasn’t in a position to question it, so she simply nodded.  

The food arrived, meticulously prepared and diverse. For both of them, it was a late lunch.  

Despite being hungry, Moonkyeong’s chopsticks didn’t move much.  

Even after over a year of knowing each other, this was their first meal alone, and it felt awkward.  

Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I felt sorry for him, looking like a child who’d just been scolded, and thought I should at least eat with him.  

But now, sitting here with such delicious food while constantly feeling self-conscious, it felt unfair.  

When her chopsticks lingered too long in one spot, Seojun spoke.  

“Don’t you like it?”  

Moonkyeong shook her head. The dishes were entirely to her taste. She just couldn’t bring herself to say, ‘You’re the problem.’  

“It’s delicious. It’s just…”  

“Just what?”  

“Um.”  

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”  

“Yes.”

Seojun furrowed his brow slightly at Moonkyeong’s brutally honest words. Picking up a fresh piece of snapper sashimi with his chopsticks, he spoke coolly.  

“Should I leave?”  

“……”  

“I’m joking.”  

Moonkyeong gave a half-hearted smile, surprised that he could even make such jokes.  

Although she had admitted to feeling a bit uncomfortable, Moonkyeong soon relaxed. She was someone who generally ate well, though she often restrained herself for the sake of maintaining her figure.  

For both of them, survival was a constant battle, so at least during mealtime, they shared a rare moment of peace.  

Seojun refrained from bringing up marriage, a topic that would provoke Moonkyeong, and she, in turn, avoided mentioning Shin Jueun, a subject that might irritate him.  

After finishing their meal, the two stood facing each other outside the Japanese restaurant.  

It was time to part ways, and it was hard to act like a typical couple on the verge of marriage.  

Having spent two unplanned hours on the course meal, Seojun needed to rush back to the company, while Moonkyeong planned to take the subway home.  

Just before they separated, Moonkyeong called out to him.  

“Managing Director.”  

As soon as his gaze shifted to her, she bowed politely and spoke in a low voice.  

“Please reconsider the matter of marriage. I’d be grateful if you could reject me.”  

Her meaning was clear: since she could never make such a decision herself, she was begging him to end it.  

After bowing deeply, Moonkyeong turned and walked away. Seojun let out a dry laugh as he watched her retreating figure.  

Persistent and unwilling to give up, aren’t you?  

“Foolish.”  

She doesn’t even realize how much I’m accommodating her right now.  

Recalling their first meeting, he returned to the office.  

***

Left alone, Shin Jueun headed to a fortune teller’s shop in Gangnam.  

She visited this place about once a month, whenever she had time, for one reason only:  

To repay Nam Leehyun for all the humiliation she had endured over decades as the Chairman’s mistress.  

Though she had received the Chairman’s love and lived a life of unprecedented luxury, her greed knew no bounds.  

Even after being told that Nam Leehyun’s fortune was like a bamboo grove—unyielding and impossible to displace the legal wife—she couldn’t let go of her lingering ambition.  

Shin Jueun wanted everything: the honor of the Leehan Group, the wealth, and even the position of the legal wife.  

For that to happen, her son, Seouk, had to become the head of Leehan.  

Damn it. 

She let out a sigh.  

“Fortune Teller, what should I do now? Seo Moonkyeong is already out of reach, and the scapegoat I raised, Kim Seojun, is becoming more unruly by the day!”  

The fortune teller, Yeonhwa, whose porcelain-like skin and jade-like voice added to her mystique, was in her fifties.  

Though they were of a similar age, Shin Jueun always bowed and begged whenever she met Yeonhwa.  

“I told you, you absolutely had to keep him close. Sending him off to Russia caused all this trouble, didn’t it?”  

“Do you think I wanted to? I tried to keep him close!”  

Shin Jueun, fuming, briefly recalled the past.  

More than ten years ago, during a dinner, Nam Leehyun’s side somehow brought up the topic of Seojun’s biological mother.  

[Did you kill her?]  

[What? In-law, how can you say that!]  

[Don’t call me In-law. I’ve told you not to.]  

[Madam, I swear it wasn’t me. Right, Chairman?]  

Whenever she was in trouble, she turned to the Chairman, but that day, even he didn’t help her.  

After the death of the first son, Hyuk, and the illness of the second son, Seouk, there wasn’t much she could do.  

She had to break the curse on the family, no matter what, and for that, Seojun was essential.  

Although the Chairman later learned the full truth and was furious, his love for her allowed him to forgive even that.  

He rationalized that the grief of a mother who had lost her child must have driven her to such extremes.  

However, as soon as Nam Leehyun brought up Seojun’s biological mother during that dinner, the Chairman had murmured with a grim expression:  

[Send Seojun abroad.]  

[What? Chairman, no! If we do that, Seouk will fall ill again. We can’t. Absolutely not.]  

Nam Leehyun scoffed, mocking her for believing in superstitions in this day and age. The Chairman, however, rebuked her, saying he wouldn’t repeat himself.  

Shin Jueun should have kept Seojun in Korea at all costs. Sending him abroad might have been where everything started to go wrong.  

Her only son, Seouk, had been visiting more than five urology clinics over the past few years, complaining that “it” wasn’t working.  

Born with weak kidneys, he had recently been told by a doctor to prepare for a transplant.  

His body was failing, and at this rate, even the position of Leehan’s head might be stolen by that scapegoat.  

Because Seojun had left for Russia, Yeonhwa said he could no longer serve as a scapegoat.  

A new scapegoat was needed, and among several candidates, Yeonhwa had handpicked Seo Moonkyeong as her top choice for a daughter-in-law.  

But even that had been snatched away by Seojun. It was infuriating.  

“Marry off your second son first. If there’s no fortune to absorb his bad luck, your son won’t live long.”  

Hearing Yeonhwa’s words, Shin Jueun felt her heart sink. She shook her head.  

She had brought Seouk this far, despite doctors telling her to give up.  

There was no way she could let him go.  

As tears streamed down her face, Yeonhwa handed her another talisman and offered a secret weapon.  

“Take this.”  

The yellow paper bore a birthdate, a name, and several unfamiliar Chinese characters scrawled across it.  

“What is this, Fortune Teller?”  

“I found someone with a fortune similar to Seo Moonkyeong’s.”  

“What?”  

Seo Moonkyeong’s fortune was said to be rare, like a lone flower blooming in winter—stubborn and noble, with an earthy energy that allowed it to thrive even in the cold.  

“This one is oddly similar. If Seo Moonkyeong is a winter flower, this one is a summer flower. She loves to play as much as your son and has a wild streak.”  

“What? A wild streak? For my son?”  

“Do you want him to die?”  

“No!”  

“She’ll absorb all your son’s bad luck.”  

Hearing this, Shin Jueun’s eyes lit up.  

“Who is it?”  

“About a week ago, the wife of Jeesung Group’s Chairman visited me.”  

“Jeesung Group?”  

Yeonhwa nodded discreetly.  

“Their youngest daughter recently returned to Korea. As soon as I saw her, I knew she’d be perfect for your son.”  

“Really? Thank you. Oh, thank you, Fortune Teller Yeonhwa!”  

Shin Jueun knelt, clasped her hands together, and bowed deeply. She quickly pulled a large sum of money from her bag and handed it over—an amount only someone of her status could afford.  

She looked again at the name written on the talisman.  

Jeesung Group, Lee Heejin.  

If she wanted to marry off Seouk before Kim Seojun and Seo Moonkyeong’s wedding, there wasn’t a moment to lose.  

With hurried steps, she left the fortune teller’s shop.