Between Us is X (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 3

“If you present this coupon, Seon Eun Su will do whatever Kim Ju Han asks.”

The handwriting on the business-card-sized paper was unmistakably Eun Su’s—and chillingly so.

Shaken to the core by the sight of such a childish relic from her days as a lovesick moth, Eun Su shuddered. She couldn’t believe he still had it after all this time. Right before Ju Han’s eyes, she furiously ripped the wish coupon to shreds.

Ju Han watched without blinking as the tiny paper fragments fluttered down like dust—then calmly pulled out another identical sheet.

“That was just a copy. The original’s right here.”

“You crazy bastard, seriously…!”

Eun Su lunged to snatch it, but Ju Han was faster. He flashed the damn wish coupon right in front of her eyes, then stuffed it into his pants pocket.

If it had been in his shirt pocket, she might’ve tried tackling him—but she couldn’t bring herself to reach toward his pants pocket. Fuming, she grumbled,

“Are you insane? What the hell are you trying to pull?”

“Guess you remember what it is, since you’re freaking out like this.”

“…”

She’d rather forget—but the memory came rushing back anyway. He’d given it to her on their 100th day together.

Truthfully, she wasn’t the type to fuss over anniversaries, and since they’d spent years as friends before becoming lovers, she hadn’t quite adjusted to the shift yet. She’d wanted to just brush it off, but Ju Han seemed so disappointed that she’d sketched something half-heartedly and handed it over.

But that was ages ago—that happened when she was twenty-two!

“You’re twenty-seven now—do you really want to pull out something like that?”

“It didn’t have an expiration date. Guess it was worth not throwing away.”

“Are you kidding me? Have you lost your mind?”

“No kidding. I haven’t lost my mind.”

Ju Han’s eyes were as serious as his words—but the faint upward curve of his lips was infuriatingly smug.

“I’m going to use it. Right now.”

Eun Su stared at Ju Han in speechless disbelief, then took a deep, steadying breath. The heat of shock and embarrassment that had threatened to burst inside her head finally cooled.

“Hey, Kim Ju Han.”

Ju Han flinched at the icy look on her face.

“Joking around, fighting—we’ll have people thinking we’re still close friends or something.”

“…”

His instincts blared a bright red warning. Everything he’d learned about Eun Su over their long history together remained engraved in his memory, untouched by time.

Whenever Eun Su looked at him like that…

“Get out.”

He had to run if he wanted to survive.

“Not leaving?”

“I’ll leave.”

Ju Han obediently rose from his seat and quickly headed for the door, saying over his shoulder,

“I’ll contact you.”

Contact? If she heard that, she’d kill him.

Eun Su seemed to mutter something along those lines, but Ju Han pretended not to hear and swiftly shut the door behind him. He then slipped straight out of the building and climbed into his car.

“Phew…”

He’d tried hard not to show it, but facing Eun Su had kept him so tense that his neck and shoulders ached. Rubbing the back of his neck slowly with one hand, Ju Han sank into thought.

When he’d seen Eun Su at the funeral, he’d thought he was hallucinating.

His father had died suddenly in a traffic accident, so the moment he’d heard the news, he’d flown in from the U.S. and plunged straight into arranging the three-day funeral rites without any time to adjust for jet lag. Under those conditions, seeing things while wide awake wouldn’t have been surprising.

Given the setting, they hadn’t exchanged more than a few words—just routine condolences and a thank-you. After that brief, hollow exchange, Eun Su left. That made it feel even more unreal.

He’d been sure he’d never see her again.

Even if they crossed paths someday, he’d assumed it would be far in the future—never in his wildest dreams did he imagine running into her like this, at a funeral, just one year later.

Yet a few days after the funeral, Eun Su called him. It was around 2 a.m.—the unspoken taboo hour for exes.

“Hey. Kim Ju Han… how could you do this to me?”

He wondered what she was talking about—until, slurring and stumbling from being drunk, Eun Su said something even more shocking.

“That Chairman Kim Gyeong Hoon was your father—you never said a word about it! I had to find out at the funeral…”

Still dazed, he reflexively asked if she’d even known his father, and she replied,

“You really didn’t know? I interviewed him myself for a special feature article—in .”

He couldn’t think of a response right away. Her words hadn’t quite registered yet.

To Ju Han, his father was someone he hadn’t seen since he was thirteen. He’d only vaguely heard that his father had opened a fairly large vintage furniture shop somewhere in Seochon—but Ju Han had deliberately avoided paying attention.

So he’d never thought to mention it to Eun Su, either.

Whether or not Ju Han answered, Eun Su kept rambling drunkenly,

“Whatever. Doesn’t matter anymore. I quit everything—my interview, the magazine, all of it. I’m unemployed now. All because of you—I’m broke because of you!”

He wondered if he should ask how this was his fault—but before he could, Eun Su kept going on her own.

“That damn Team Leader Gye… told me to rush over and investigate. Said I should track you down and press for details. Less than a week after the funeral—what kind of person does that? I told him it didn’t seem human… but he just yelled at me, ‘Why do you always resist when I tell you to do something? Who do you think you are?’ Like I’m cursed or something…”

It was pure rambling—but Ju Han got the gist.

He’d already heard similar rumors. People in the industry, collectors—all were curious. What would happen to now that its chairman was gone? What would become of its collection?

Given Eun Su’s personality, he doubted she’d ever pry into a bereaved family’s affairs like this, no matter whose death it was. But maybe she’d refused even more fiercely precisely because it involved her ex-boyfriend.

Her showing up at the funeral alone must’ve been a difficult decision made out of sheer obligation—she certainly wouldn’t have wanted another meeting for an interview.

“Hey! What are you going to do about this? How are you going to take responsibility? I need my salary to pay into my savings and repay my loans, you…! Wait, hold on. Why would you be responsible for me? Who even are you?”

After shouting herself hoarse, Eun Su suddenly switched to a calm, almost detached tone, as if she were a different person.

“Don’t misunderstand. I was taught that even if you can’t attend the celebration, you must attend the mourning—especially for a parent’s funeral. That’s the only reason I went.”

“I know. Thank you.”

That much, he could manage to say. After hearing Ju Han’s reply, Eun Su fell silent for a long moment—then finally said,

“If only we’d stayed friends… I could’ve comforted you more.”

Ju Han couldn’t say a word.

Nothing came from the other end of the line either—just a faint sound that might’ve been her breathing, or maybe the wind.

Unable to hang up first, he listened to the silence until he finally realized, much later, that Eun Su had fallen asleep. He swallowed a bitter laugh.

Still, just in case—maybe, just maybe—he’d hear her voice again—he hesitated before finally pushing the call-end button with difficulty.

That night, of course, he didn’t sleep a wink.

After days of agonizing, Ju Han reached a conclusion of his own.

Maybe they could be friends again.

If he saw her often, treated her casually, shared trivial conversations, and moderately intertwined their daily lives—just like when they first became close.

Today, Eun Su seemed to have no memory of that phone call at all—and clearly wasn’t inclined to go along with his schemes—but Ju Han had no intention of giving up easily.

A faint smile briefly touched Ju Han’s lips as he recalled the embarrassingly childish wish coupon tucked in his pocket—then vanished.

[…How did I end up here?]

Eun Su looked up at the building before her and let out a deep sigh.

[Just one thing—I heard this desk costs around 300,000 won?]

A few days after Ju Han visited Gi Woo’s film PR agency and left, he cautiously reached out again. She’d resolved to ignore him—but the message’s contents were impossible to dismiss, so after much deliberation, she replied.

[Who told you that? You’re missing a zero—should be 3 million.] [One of the staff said they’d take it home at that price. Mentioned a scratch on the corner too.] [You can just sand that down a bit and oil it—it’s not a big deal. Besides, do you even know who designed it?] [No idea. Did you design it?] [We weren’t even born in the 50s!]

Furious at how confidently she answered despite knowing nothing—and suspicious that someone had clearly taken her for a fool—she couldn’t refuse Ju Han’s request to come take a look herself.

“Thanks for coming. Sorry to bother you.”

Ju Han opened the firmly closed door and spoke.

He’d become the new chairman and was temporarily keeping closed until he’d roughly finished handling the legal paperwork and handover.

“Let’s go in.”

Eun Su followed Ju Han inside the building, which she’d visited once before.

From the front, appeared to be a two-story building—but as the land sloped downward toward the rear, a basement level emerged, making it effectively three stories tall. Add to that a rooftop penthouse occupying about half the roof, and the building actually utilized four levels in total.

“The showroom takes up one and a half floors—the basement warehouse still has some items too. It’s pretty empty since we haven’t taken in new stock yet…”

“Got it. You just want me to check if this roughly matches the documents, right?”

Eun Su kept her eyes on the thick file Ju Han handed her as she spoke. He nodded.

“Technically, this is confidential—but there’s a Ms. Jang, a senior manager who’s been here since nearly the beginning… I guess I look like some outsider rock to her. She probably assumed she’d naturally become chairman once my father was gone.”

While Eun Su inspected the collection from the first floor up to the second and then headed down to the basement, Ju Han trailed behind, casually adding context.

“She told me not to let some clueless person mess with things and to hand everything over to her. Even said if I refused, she’d happily teach the chairman herself—so long as I raised her salary. Completely unreasonable demands… Anyway, that’s why I can’t trust the documents I got from her.”

“Sounds about right.”

After a quick look around, Eun Su turned to Ju Han.

“She’s definitely treating you like some clueless outsider.”

The documents themselves weren’t even properly organized, and there wasn’t enough usable information in them anyway. Eun Su muttered almost to herself,

“Guess the chairman had an eye for pieces—but not for people. He couldn’t even keep one trustworthy employee for treasures like these.”

She’d meant it as genuine regret—but worried it sounded overly harsh, she glanced at Ju Han. He gave a bitter smile.

“Yeah. That’s exactly how it looked to me too—which is why I decided to take it on myself.”

Ju Han pulled over a nearby chair and sat down. Eun Su spotted a bright yellow fabric chair she liked and perched lightly on its edge.

“I actually looked up the article you wrote,” Ju Han said.

He hadn’t believed her when she claimed she’d met his father—so he’d searched for it.

And sure enough, there was an article under Eun Su’s name about his father and . Alongside it was a photo of his father—smiling warmly against the backdrop of a place that had meant everything to him.

Spanning perhaps a page or two in the magazine, the brief interview was packed with his father’s passion and love for vintage furniture. These were stories Ju Han had never heard firsthand—but somehow, he could almost hear his father’s voice.

“When I boarded the plane after hearing the news, I’d planned to wrap things up as quickly as possible and head back. But…”

“Once you learned how much effort Chairman Kim put into building , you couldn’t just dispose of it carelessly—is that it?”

“No.”

Ju Han’s unexpected answer made Eun Su’s eyes widen slightly.