Chapter 1

“Bodyguard. Um, could I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“……Could you kiss me?”

It was a truly absurd request. The fact that it came from Yoo Hari, the greatest actress of her generation, with every last shred of her dignity set aside, made it all the more significant.

“No, I mean, it’s just…… Once we’re back in Korea, drama filming starts right away. I looked at the script and there are a lot of kiss scenes? But, well, I’ve never even, you know, had my first kiss yet.”

“Ah.”

“I need the experience before I can act it out……”

The more she said, the worse it sounded, and she immediately regretted opening her mouth. She should have just pretended she’d misspoken and kept quiet. Mortification burned through her until her face flushed as red as a ripe apple.

Cha Jisang calmly cupped her cheek, anchoring her wandering gaze back to him.

“You’re saying you want to give me your first kiss.”

His eyes pressed into hers with a slow, melting intensity. Hari steadied her trembling heart and gave a small nod.

“Why.”

“……Just because.”

“There’s no such thing as just because.”

It wasn’t as though she could blurt out ‘Because I’ve made up my mind to seduce you!’ right then and there.

Hari hadn’t realized her own nature was this impulsive.

Well, she’d never actually been in the flirting stage with anyone before. How was she supposed to know?

She was so embarrassed she thought she might lose her mind, but since it was already done, she figured she might as well see it through. So she squeezed her eyes shut and went for it.

“You don’t want to?”

Jisang smiled faintly and answered.

“Not a chance.”

With an endlessly gentle touch, he cradled the back of her neck. But the force with which he pulled her into him was something else entirely, bold and unrestrained.

“Ah—”

His lips swallowed hers in an instant. The warm, yielding pressure where their mouths met made Hari’s chest tremble so violently she couldn’t even breathe properly.

She stood there, helpless, feet fidgeting against the floor, until his lips parted from hers with a soft sound.

The fleeting warmth of that moment still lingered on her lips. It was sweet enough to make her dizzy.

Hari was still savoring the feeling, fingers brushing her own lips, when he made it clear this wasn’t over. His arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her flush against him.

Heat passed back and forth between their pressed-together bodies as if in competition.

Hari stared up at him, swallowing hard.

She hoped desperately, and then hoped again, that the look in his eyes as he gazed down at her, tender as if he were watching something precious, was not just her imagination. She waited for what he would do next.

“Don’t you dare say you want to take it back.”

As if answering her anticipation, his sweet lips found hers again. There was no comparing the closed-mouth kiss from before to this one, lips parting fully against hers. A breathless, unguarded sound escaped her on its own.

He kissed her with relentless, consuming focus, drinking in her every breath, and Hari surrendered hers to him, giving it freely.

She felt no guilt about kissing her bodyguard. From the moment she’d reunited with this man in that role, Hari had known it would come to this.

“Then make sure I can’t take it back even if I wanted to. I have plenty of time.”

Her provocation made him sweep her off her feet. It seemed like things might go even further than that.

* * *

[Last night, actress Yoo Hari received a death threat. The perpetrator left a message on the outer wall of the building where Ms. Yoo resides, written in red spray paint……]

[Police are currently tracking the suspect, but the investigation is expected to be difficult, as the suspect had already identified the locations of all security cameras and moved accordingly.]

From early morning, every news outlet ran the same story.

Actress Yoo Hari, who had claimed the title of the next ‘Nation’s First Love’ and even earned the personal nickname ‘Human Forsythia,’ was at the absolute peak of her popularity, to the point where people joked she appeared every time you turned on the TV. Any story involving her was bound to be loud and sensational.

Hari stepped out of her building under the devoted protection of her manager, Choi Jungwook. The front of the old villa was swarming with people trying to get footage of the red threat scrawled across the wall.

“Hari. Don’t say anything, just keep walking.”

“Okay.”

Her bare face, delicate and pale with fear, still drew a handful of shameless admirers who cheered that even this version of her was beautiful.

Others had the nerve to ask why someone who earned so much money was still living in such a run-down place.

“Coming through. Please step aside. Seriously! Stop pushing!”

The crowd pressed in and Jungwook’s voice climbed higher and higher. Hari kept her head down, eyes fixed on the ground. She was the victim, yet she felt like a criminal standing before a photo line. But public attention made no distinction between good news and bad, and she had long since accepted that as the fate of anyone in the entertainment industry.

“Haah……”

The moment she got in the car, the breath she’d been holding came out in a long sigh. She was rubbing her throbbing forehead when the sound of the driver’s door opening made her drop her hand.

“Good grief. The nerve of those people. Why are they all crowding the victim’s home like that.”

Jungwook grumbled as he climbed into the driver’s seat, then turned around immediately to check her face.

“You didn’t sleep at all, did you. Are you okay?”

It was true.

Hari had been struggling with insomnia lately, and last night she’d tossed and turned until nearly dawn before finally drifting off just as the sun was rising. Not long after, the landlady had rung the doorbell with frantic urgency and jolted her awake.

‘Miss actress. Something terrible happened. Come outside!’

Hari had thrown a coat over her pajamas and gone out, and that was when she saw the threat.

‘Yoo Hari. I’m going to kill you.’

Red paint that hadn’t yet dried was running down the cement exterior wall like streaks of blood.

It had frightened her enough to knock the breath from her lungs, but she’d stayed calm, called Jungwook to let him know, and filed the police report herself.

The police arrived, and not long after, reporters who’d caught wind of the incident came flooding in.

She’d retreated inside to wait out the situation and tried to get back to sleep, but her nerves were already too frayed to settle.

She hadn’t managed to fall asleep again since. Her head was splitting, but Hari didn’t let it show, keeping her lips curved in their habitual smile.

“No, I got a little sleep.”

She exaggerated to reassure him, but he knew her gentle nature far too well for that.

“Let’s just cancel the shoot. Given the situation, they’ll understand.”

Hari turned to look at him with an expression that said she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Oppa, dozens of people are waiting for me and me alone. Who am I to waste their time?”

“Still……”

“There’s nothing wrong with me physically. What reason do I have to cancel?”

“Honestly.”

Knowing he couldn’t easily break her stubbornness, Jungwook gave up but kept muttering under his breath.

“You’re allowed to be a little selfish when the police have been called out. Honestly, moments like this make me think Maeng Hyunseo raised you wrong.”

Hari let his nagging wash over her with practiced ease and rummaged through her handbag, deliberately looking elsewhere. It seemed like she was ignoring him just to be annoying, but she had a clear purpose.

From an expensive designer bag emerged a worn, faded handkerchief. It was a men’s handkerchief, thick and plain, covered in the signature logo of the H brand.

Hari usually tied it decoratively around the handle of her bag, though some days she wore it as a headband and other days layered it around her wrist alongside a metal watch.

As a result, the amusing phenomenon of owning a beloved scarf-like item and using it in multiple ways had become a nationwide trend, all because of her.

“Why are you taking that handkerchief out again. Choi Yeonji said she’s been waiting for a chance to steal it and throw it away.”

“Absolutely not.”

A limited-edition designer bag that sold for whatever the seller asked was worth far less to Hari than this worn, faded handkerchief that her stylist begged her to throw out. This handkerchief was what kept her going, quietly fortifying her from within so she could endure the brutal life of a working actress.

‘I miss you, sir.’

Every time she was frightened, every time she felt herself on the verge of breaking, Hari would think of that soldier from long ago, somewhere out there watching over her, and close her fingers around this handkerchief.

Today, too, she was tying it in a knot around the handle of her bag out of habit, when a question suddenly came to her.

“Oppa.”

“Yeah?”

“What do career soldiers do after they’re discharged?”

“Hmm…… I’m not sure. A lot of them become personal trainers or something, I think? I don’t really know, I don’t have any friends who were career soldiers. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

“Honestly. With everything going on, you’re off daydreaming?”