Chapter 4

Jisang, who had been absent from the apartment for three days without a word, finally appeared on the day Hari was leaving for the airport.

“How are you feeling.”

Hari pressed her lips together tightly and shot him a sideways look.

You ask that awfully quickly. If you were worried, you should have come to check on me yourself. Not stayed out three nights in a row.

There was plenty she wanted to say, but she had no choice but to swallow it all.

She gave him the silent treatment and got in the car, only to have Jungwook immediately ask the exact same thing.

“Hari, did you rest well? How are you feeling?”

“The cold is gone and I feel fine. I packed everything I need.”

“Honestly. All this trouble because of that rotten stalker.”

“They wouldn’t actually follow me onto a plane, would they?”

“With how dedicated they are to being awful, who knows. That’s why the bodyguard is going with you.”

Jungwook pulled to a stop at a red light and stretched with the relief of someone about to get a break.

“Ahh. Thanks to you, I finally get a vacation.”

Hari pouted and grumbled.

“You seem very happy about it. Am I some piece of gum you’ve been trying to scrape off?”

But she immediately glanced at Jisang in the seat beside her and let her expression soften. Even if it was a work trip, they would be alone together, and she couldn’t say she minded.

“Take this chance to spend some time with Hyunseo unnie. Before she gets too far along.”

“Please. I know how to take care of my own wife.”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“Oh, well, that’s……”

Jungwook trailed off, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror to glance at the two in the back seat.

“Oh right. Hyunseo asked me to pass something along.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. I’ll give it to you once we get to the airport.”

What Jungwook handed over after they checked in was a thick stack of script, eight volumes.

She had been expecting something personal, not a script. Feeling betrayed, Hari jabbed him in the side and complained.

“How could you do this to me? Who hands someone more work when they’re already going to work?”

“You’ll be annoyed now, but you’ll be grateful once you’re in the air. You have to transfer at Bangkok and then take a domestic flight, right? That’s over twelve hours including the layover. At least you’ll have something to read.”

“You want me to read all of this?”

“Hyunseo said to have a decision made by the time you’re back. Apparently there’s a lot of competition, so if you want it you need to move fast.”

When it came to choosing her next project, Hyunseo generally respected Hari’s judgment completely, but the fact that she was the one who narrowed down the options in the first place meant her influence on Hari’s choices was undeniable.

Today’s delivery, though, offered no choice at all. Eight volumes, but all different episodes of the same project, just a lot of pages. It was puzzling at first, but the moment Hari saw the plain title, Beautiful Girl, she understood why.

“I’d love to solidify that first-love image a bit more.”

Hyunseo had said more than once that she’d love to see Hari in a school uniform one more time, and that a high-teen romance might be the right move.

On top of that, this was a production by the world’s largest OTT platform, and it had been generating buzz as the most anticipated project of the year since the planning stage.

“Still, eight whole volumes handed over like this. I have to carry all of this.”

Hari jabbed Jungwook in the side again and grumbled, and Jisang quietly took the stack from her.

“It’s a bit heavy.”

Jisang lifted it as though it were a sheet of paper, making Jungwook’s comment entirely pointless.

“Please take good care of our Hari.”

“Don’t worry.”

From the moment they passed through the departure gate into the duty-free zone, Jisang went on alert. Perhaps thinking there was a chance someone might recognize Hari and a crowd could form, he was more protective than usual.

“Take my arm as we walk.”

Hari found it baffling. Linking arms in a place this public. Was he trying to start a scandal?

But he tapped his left forearm and pressed her.

“Go on.”

After a long hesitation, Hari carefully took hold of his arm.

With each step toward the gate, her heartbeat seemed to quicken.

The gate was already visible in the distance, yet the walk felt endless, as though it would never end.

‘His arm is incredibly firm.’

He didn’t seem to be flexing at all, but the arm under her hand was solid as a plank of wood.

‘Is that just what men’s arms are like……?’

The desire to do more than just lightly hold on, to actually feel it properly, rose up before she could stop it. Without realizing it, her fingertips kept pressing in a little harder.

Now she wanted to see his bare arm. More precisely, she wanted to touch it.

How firm would it be. There might even be veins showing.

‘It would be incredibly s*xy, wouldn’t it?’

She had never felt anything like this before. The urge to touch, to want, the way her mouth kept filling with saliva.

Then his scent drifted into her without warning. The deep, warm scent she had caught every time she was close to him, every time he came near to protect her.

It was a warm scent rather than a cold one, but paradoxically it felt more like winter than summer.

That was how layered it was, and somehow it suited this man perfectly.

Hari finally couldn’t hold back the question.

“What cologne do you wear?”

But by then they had already arrived at the gate.

“We’ll begin boarding business class now.”

The conversation was naturally cut off as they had their passports and boarding passes checked.

Once Hari found her seat, Jisang set the script he had been carrying down at her feet.

Then he leaned close to her ear and gave her the answer to the interrupted question.

“……The cologne. If you want, I’ll put it on you myself.”

What? At this point he has to be trying to seduce me.

It had only been two days since her fever broke, but her face was burning all over again.

Hari stared at him with something close to a glare, but he sat down in the seat beside her and shamelessly buckled his seatbelt.

She felt wronged and faintly resentful, and she resolved not to say a single word to him for the entire flight.

She had complained to her manager about the script, but the moment the plane was in the air, Hari reached for it first.

The sheer thickness of it made her sigh automatically.

“I don’t want to do this……”

The grumbling lasted only a moment. Once Hari actually opened the script, she brought an extraordinary level of focus to bear.

She didn’t lift her eyes even as she turned pages, and only paused to rub the corners of her eyes when she moved from one volume to the next.

Her initial goal was to read straight through to get a feel for the flow, but every so often she would quietly murmur a line to herself.

“My name is Han Yuju. What’s yours? Oh. Jeong Wuju. Our names are similar, that must mean something. Let’s be close friends.”

The more lines she read, the more weight she gave them, as though she were actually performing.

“I’m saying I love you. You idiot. How can you not see how I feel?”

Hari had no idea how much her murmuring voice was affecting the man in the next seat.

“I’ve only ever liked you, from the very beginning. You’re my first love.”

Reading that line, she suddenly became aware of how deeply she had sunk into it.

Hari rubbed her tingling nose and looked up from the script, feeling oddly self-conscious, and glanced around.

Then her eyes met his.

The man in the seat beside her, chin resting in his hand, was watching her with quiet appreciation.

‘Again…… that look.’

Hari didn’t look away. He held her gaze with a faint smile and spoke.

“I’ve always hated flying.”

His voice was low and unhurried, careful not to break the quiet around them, and it stirred something in her chest.

“But today I’m not bored at all. It’s actually quite enjoyable.”

“What……?”

“Keep practicing your lines. It’s nice to listen to.”

Hari found herself reciting the line from just a moment ago, almost without meaning to.

“I…… I’ve only ever liked you, from the very beginning. You’re…… my first love.”

How had she already memorized it.

It was just a line. So why did it cut so deeply……

Hari knew the reason.

She had known for a while, if she was honest. But she had kept looking away from it.

She hadn’t wanted to admit it.

The feeling inside her that made it impossible to treat Cha Jisang as just a bodyguard.