Green, who had been mesmerized by Sun Woo’s eyes through the lens, lowered her camera and looked at his face again. Sun Woo’s gaze as he smiled at Green was no different from usual.

‘Strange. Did I see wrong?’

Green turned to follow Sun Woo as he walked down the path dense with bamboo leaves.

Sun Woo lazily looked around various parts of the garden like an idle man, then entered an empty pavilion and sat down.

“It’s really nice here. Come quickly.”

He closed his eyes, listened to the sound of the valley stream, and cooled off. Green quickly captured Sun Woo’s image on camera from a distance, then scurried over to him.

Sun Woo opened his eyes at the sound of Green approaching and smiled at her, leaning on the railing. Finding that sight too beautiful again, Green kept pressing the shutter.

“Ah, can you stop taking pictures?”

“Who was it that asked to have their picture taken first?”

As Green chattered, Sun Woo smiled sheepishly. When Green put down her camera after climbing up to the pavilion, Sun Woo quickly pulled her into his arms from behind.

“I need comfort right now.”

Green also became serious at Sun Woo’s seemingly dejected expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“I prided myself on creating truly magnificent hanok and gardens in Marseille, working with the best master craftsmen. But coming here, it’s not the case.”

Sun Woo sighed heavily, looking truly upset.

“Even with the best architects and cutting-edge technology, we couldn’t even come close to the harmony of this place.”

As Sun Woo mumbled dejectedly, resting his forehead on Green’s shoulder, she gently stroked his arms wrapped around her waist.

“How could you think to surpass our ancestors with hanok? Sun Woo, your competition is the 21st century’s global architects and construction companies!”

Sun Woo’s arms, which had been limp until just now, suddenly tensed up.

“Show the Europeans. This is the hanok and Korean-style garden made by K1 Construction, you don’t have anything like this? Don’t faint from how amazing it is!”

Sun Woo’s body, holding Green, shook slightly at her increasingly bold boasting. He was surely laughing silently.

Confirming that his mood had improved, Green opened her backpack beside her and pulled out the clothes inside.

“What’s all this?”

“Hurry and change. If you wear this, I’ll take more beautiful pictures of you.”

Urging Sun Woo, who couldn’t hide his bewildered expression, she made him change from his suit into a flowing thin knit top and cotton pants. She had even thoughtfully brought sneakers.

Sun Woo’s natural charm, completely different from when he wore a suit, stood out, but Green seemed unsatisfied as she kept circling around him.

“Even dog poop is useful as medicine when needed! If Hannah were here, she would have dressed our Sun Woo much more stylishly…”

“It’s fine. I have good proportions, so I look classy even in rags.”

Green wanted to sneer at Sun Woo’s shamelessness, but the moment she saw his face, such thoughts vanished.

Even though he was just wearing clothes she had carelessly packed, Sun Woo truly exuded class.

Green chattered away as she followed him around, but whenever Sun Woo let his guard down, she didn’t miss the chance to capture his natural expressions diligently on camera.

Afterwards, the two filled their stomachs with Damyang’s famous tteokgalbi before returning directly to Seoul.

Green flatly rejected Sun Woo’s suggestion to spend the night at a nice hotel. She wanted to get home quickly to edit Sun Woo’s photos.

In the end, the two arrived home close to midnight.

“Sun Woo, I’m going to use the study.”

As soon as they entered the living room, Green abandoned Sun Woo and went into the study, hugging her camera bag like a sacred object.

For a moment, Sun Woo felt as if Green had abandoned him, but being the very person who had neglected her for a year using work as an excuse, he was in no position to complain.

Green was still holed up in the study by the time he finished showering.

“Aren’t you tired? It’s past 1 AM. Let’s wash up and go to sleep now.”

Despite Sun Woo’s urging, Green, thoroughly excited, couldn’t take her eyes off the laptop.

“What are you looking at so intently?”

Unable to contain his curiosity, Sun Woo approached her from behind. Green quickly covered the laptop with her body.

“No. The work isn’t finished yet.”

“Come on, I just want to see my own photos, what’s wrong?”

Sensing something odd about Green’s reaction, Sun Woo forcibly took the laptop. He thought she must have made a mistake and the photos didn’t turn out right.

But when Sun Woo confirmed the photos Green had been looking at just moments ago, he was left speechless.

It was an image of himself staring directly at the camera. The next photo and the one after that were all of him staring intensely at the camera lens. No, more precisely, he was looking at Green beyond the camera.

There were eyes openly revealing longing and obsession for her, and eyes dripping with honey as if he couldn’t bear how lovable she was. Most striking were the eyes looking at Green as if entranced, like a person who had lost their senses.

Sun Woo put down the laptop and covered his reddened face with his large hands. For reasons unknown, Green also became embarrassed, not knowing where to put herself.

She hadn’t thought Sun Woo was looking at her with such eyes normally. She figured Sun Woo must have been shocked by his own blatant gaze as well.

But Sun Woo’s words, flowing through his fingers after he sighed, were different from Green’s expectations.

“Damn. I thought I hid it well, but seems like you can’t fool the camera.”

“W-What did you say?”

Sun Woo then swiftly turned Green’s chair to the side. He bent down and stretched out both arms to grasp the armrests of the chair.

She was now trapped within his arms. He looked Green directly in the eyes.

“Judging by your expression now, it seems I hid it well until now. You didn’t know I liked you this much?”

No longer intending to hide it, Sun Woo’s eyes gazed straight at Green. Now Green could see it all clearly too. The dangerous eyes of Sun Woo she had seen through the lens, she hadn’t been mistaken.

“I never thought cameras were scary, but this is a bit frightening. Is this what they call a truth photo or something?”

“…”

“No, is it because you’re Han Green that you saw right through me?”

He lowered his head and kissed her deeply. After a moment, his slowly parted lips moved to her ear.

“Han Green, we’re in big trouble now. I’m going to keep staring at you with crazy obsession from now on.”

“Why is that trouble? I’m going to enjoy it to the fullest.”

Sun Woo couldn’t help but chuckle at Green’s bold words.

His endless obsession with her was sometimes sickening even to himself, yet she said she would enjoy it to the fullest, so he couldn’t help but laugh.

“How are you going to enjoy it?”

“Since you say you can’t live a day without me, I’m thinking of being terribly picky, capricious, unreasonable, throwing tantrums, and indulging in reckless extravagance.”

Looking at her pretending to be serious, Sun Woo raised one eyebrow while trying to suppress his laughter.

“I don’t remember saying I can’t live a day without you?”

Green tapped the laptop screen with her finger and said arrogantly,

“Huh, it’s all here in the truth photos, you can’t deny it.”

In the end, Sun Woo couldn’t hold back anymore and burst out laughing.

“You’re wrong. It’s not that I can’t live a day without you, I can’t live a moment without you.”

“Hmph, you say that but when you go on business trips to France, you don’t even look back!”

As Green grumbled for no reason, Sun Woo impulsively devoured her lips. Green also, as if she had never grumbled, wrapped her arms around Sun Woo’s neck and pulled him close.

Like parched earth greedily absorbing heavy rain, the two endlessly craved each other’s lips.

Sun Woo carried Green in his arms and strode towards the bedroom. As he carefully laid Green on the bed, she reached out and slowly caressed Sun Woo’s chest.

“You were right, Sun Woo.”

“About what?”

He mumbled as he lowered his head to torment Green’s nape.

“It wasn’t that I wanted to touch your body because it’s mine. You’re so incredibly handsome that I want to keep touching you even in front of the camera.”

Sun Woo immediately caught fire at Green’s words. Showering her eyes, nose, and lips with tiny kisses, Sun Woo embraced Green passionately.

No longer hiding his near-manic obsession and possessiveness, Sun Woo seemed rather unburdened and free.

Green thought to herself how fortunate she was that this man was hers.

Though she had pretended it wasn’t a big deal, she had truly been jealous of Ahn Yong Gi, a man, to the extent that Sun Woo seemed to have not yet noticed that Green’s obsession was no less than his own.

*******

Jin Young Cheol, who had been refraining from going out after losing in the last general election, finally showed his face at the party headquarters in Yeouido after a long time.

The party’s nomination screening committee was busy selecting candidates for the upcoming by-election.

“It’s been a while. Have you all been well?”

“Oh my, Assemblyman Jin. We were worried since you haven’t been around at all. You haven’t fallen ill, have you?”

“No. Thanks to you, I’m very healthy.”

After exchanging brief greetings, Jin Young Cheol got straight to the point.

“Let me be blunt. Give me the ‘Maewon-byeong’ district.”

“Pardon?”

The nomination committee members awkwardly looked at each other. This district, where the ruling party was strong, was a place anyone could easily win, so everyone had their eyes on it.

There was no need to put forward Jin Young Cheol, who had a strong image of old politics, and damage the party’s popularity in such a place. Noticing the committee members’ hesitation, Jin Young Cheol put on a bit of a bluff.

“Although I slipped in the last general election, I didn’t get my four terms for nothing. My organizational skills will be effective in Maewon City as well.”

He said it with a smile, but there was a subtle nuance that if they didn’t nominate him, he could leave the party and run as an independent candidate.

“What connection does Assemblyman Jin have with Maewon City…?”

“My late father graduated from elementary school in Maewon City.”

“Ah…”

It was truly a tenuous connection, but given that Jin Young Cheol’s father had served as the Speaker of the National Assembly, it wasn’t a bad card. His father still had a good image among conservative elderly people.

However, there were too few advantages to putting him forward as a candidate like this. The committee members, exchanging glances, presented him with one condition.

“Assemblyman Jin, your strength is your experience, but what the party needs now is freshness. If you have a weapon that can attract the interest of the MZ generation, we’ll consider it positively.”

Jin Young Cheol was hurt in his pride, but he tried hard not to lose his smile. After all, he had received a positive answer, even if it was conditional.

“Very well. I’ll be back soon.”

Confidently answering, Jin Young Cheol left the party headquarters and called someone. The person who received his call seemed a bit surprised.

“Let’s meet for a moment.”