Seung Hee, who had returned home, rushed to Young Ran, who was sitting on the living room sofa and arranging flowers.

“Mom. Do you know what I just saw?”

“Which man caught your eye so much today?”

Thinking it would be another nonsensical story, Young Ran focused on trimming the flower stems with scissors.

“It turns out I’m not the only one crazy about men. You know Ji Yeon Woo, right? She’s really having an affair.”

Young Ran, who had stopped cutting, turned her head to the housekeeper who was wiping a flowerpot in the corner of the living room.

At Young Ran’s glance, the housekeeper disappeared into the kitchen, taking the hint.

Young Ran parted her lips again, arranging the stems of the flowers.

“Was she seeing Seo Jin Won, the CEO of JIN you mentioned?”

“Mom, how did you know?”

The reason Young Ran didn’t even blink an eye at the news of Ji Yeon Woo’s affair was that she had already heard the news.

“Do you think I wouldn’t have someone keeping an eye on her?”

There was already someone Young Ran had planted inside Ji Yeon Woo’s company office.

What she was doing and even what she was eating were reported to Young Ran every day.

Young Ran cut the end of the stem diagonally and told her to keep her mouth shut.

“Don’t even mention it to anyone else. It will lower our company’s reputation.”

“You’re going to tell Dad, right?”

“The same goes for your father.”

Seung Hee jumped up furiously.

“Why! We should tell Dad right away and kick her out!”

“It’s not a matter to be thought of so simply.”

Young Ran, who was sitting with her legs crossed elegantly, admired the flower in her hand.

“If your father finds out, he’ll obviously give her some money and divorce her because he doesn’t want to see such a dirty sight.”

To Ji Yeon Woo, what was just a few pennies to Jong Pil would be enough money to live on for a lifetime.

It was a marriage she had endured, rotting inside.

But now that she had disgustingly even had an affair, they couldn’t just let her live comfortably for the rest of her life.

“They’ve only been living together for a year. There will be hardly anything to divide in terms of property, but if she dares to file a lawsuit, we need evidence to shift the blame. Just stay quiet until we gather that evidence.”

Seung Hee, who was sitting close to Young Ran, clapped her hands intensely.

“Mom, you have it all planned out?”

“The only thing not in my plan was you.”

“Those are really hurtful words.”

As if she had heard it often, Seung Hee acted indifferent, chewing on her words like gum.

Young Ran mercilessly snipped off the head of a wilted Juliet rose.

***

Before meeting Young Ran in Samsung-dong, Seung Hee had sent a message to Do Hyun.

When the message arrived, Do Hyun had just stepped into the entrance.

Do Hyun took out the cell phone he had put in his jacket pocket. As soon as he opened the message from Seung Hee, a photo popped up.

Although the photo was shaky, he could tell from the side profile that it was Ji Yeon Woo.

And the man hugging Ji Yeon Woo seemed to be Seo Jin Won, if he wasn’t mistaken.

Do Hyun’s steps, which had been passing through the hallway, stopped for a moment.

The corner of his heart strangely stung. It also seemed to ache strangely.

While staring intently at the screen containing Ji Yeon Woo, a message suddenly flew in out of nowhere.

[What they’re doing is a dating business or something like that?] [They were stuck together like glue and wouldn’t let go of each other.] [You really need to get it together. Ji Yeon Woo is no ordinary fox, I’m telling you.]

Without needing to see more, Do Hyun put his cell phone back into his jacket pocket and entered the living room.

At that moment, along with the sound of the front door opening, a presence was felt.

Soon, Ji Yeon Woo approached Do Hyun, who was standing in the living room.

“You’re here early?”

“I just got here.”

Ji Yeon Woo didn’t want to show Do Hyun that she was hurt, so she hurriedly untied the handkerchief wrapped around her hand and shoved it into her pants pocket.

Do Hyun turned to Ji Yeon Woo, who was preoccupied with hiding her wound.

“You ran into my younger sister, I heard.”

It wasn’t surprising.

If it was Seung Hee, she would have informed Do Hyun immediately after running into her.

“Yes. By chance.”

“I’ll tell her to keep her mouth shut, so don’t worry about it. I’ll tell her it was for work and that I already know about it.”

Do Hyun’s reaction was so dry and tasteless that it was almost disappointing.

If it were Seung Hee, she would have added lies to the truth to incite discord between Do Hyun and her.

Nevertheless, Do Hyun only cared about shutting Seung Hee’s mouth.

“Sunbae… Aren’t you bothered at all?”

“Are you asking if I’m not bothered at all?”

She wanted to ask if he really didn’t know.

Her heart felt like it was about to burst at any moment, and the sound of her pounding heart was so close to her ears that it made her dizzy.

“Even if I meet CEO Seo, aren’t you jealous?”

“Do you want me to be jealous and pay attention to you?”

“…Yes. I wish you would, sunbae.”

She couldn’t hide it anymore, so her honest feelings came out of her mouth.

Her clenched fist was trembling secretly.

“I wish you would regret telling me to see other men and blame yourself.”

It wasn’t too late, even now.

She hoped that Do Hyun would take back the thoughtless words he had said.

Then it seemed like this pain piercing her heart would stop.

“There’s no reason for me to do that.”

Even though he knew, Do Hyun’s attitude, which was only resolute, was like rubbing salt on her torn heart.

“If you want to seriously date CEO Seo Jin Won, I can take care of the paperwork earlier than the set period.”

“Are you saying you’ll divorce me?”

“If that’s what you want, I’ll do that for you. But the article will come out even later.”

It seemed that Do Hyun had already had divorce in mind since the time he told her to see Jin Won.

It would have been easy for him to decide on divorce. To Do Hyun, this marriage was nothing more than a means to an end.

They were facts that could no longer be ignored.

“Talk it over with CEO Seo Jin Won.”

To the end, it was CEO Seo Jin Won.

To the end, I was just sunbae to him.

Do Hyun moved his steps to the room behind Ji Yeon Woo, passing by her.

Ji Yeon Woo turned her body towards Do Hyun, who was walking away, and reached out her hand.

As their hands overlapped, she was able to hold Do Hyun’s steps for a moment.

“The one I like is you, sunbae.”

“……”

“I said I like you, not CEO Seo Jin Won.”

She couldn’t stand it any longer.

She thought if she poured out everything she had been holding in, she would feel refreshed, but when her eyes met Do Hyun’s as he turned around, her heart seemed to harden instead.

The faintly distorted eyes quickly loosened.

“Your confession surprises me every time, both a year ago and now.”

“Is it that surprising that I like you, sunbae? You’ve received a lot of confessions.”

“It’s different because it’s you.”

As Ji Yeon Woo said, he had received countless confessions.

Most of them would just approach him first without thinking or talk to him with an excuse when they developed feelings for him.

But Ji Yeon Woo was different. She had declared that she had never once thought of him as a man.

As she said, Ji Yeon Woo had always maintained a certain distance while sharing a house with him.

The confession had to be sudden because he couldn’t even guess.

“I’m just telling you how I feel. I’m not saying it because I want to hear your answer.”

It was purely to let him know her feelings.

How Do Hyun would think of her or a sudden change in their relationship was not Ji Yeon Woo’s concern.

“Stop it.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean don’t waste your time liking me.”

She was just going to like him, but he told her not to do even that.

If it were up to her, would I not have liked him?

It doesn’t seem like that either.

“People’s feelings don’t always go the way they want.”

“That emotion you’re feeling towards me is just a feeling of wanting to lean on someone. Because you need my help, you might be mistaking it because it happens to be me.”

“I’m not at an age to be mistaken about such things.”

“Or you might be confusing the emotion you felt after our lips touched a bit with love.”

How can he only say things that stab at my heart like this?

Although it was a confession she made without thinking about the consequences, it was by no means words she had let slip easily.

But Do Hyun was saying that the emotion felt by a person named Ji Yeon Woo was fake.

“Do you know that you’re rejecting me in a very painful way right now, sunbae?”

It was as if he was engraving pain with a very dull knife, like someone who knew how rejection should be painful.

How much must he dislike me, how much must he want to get rid of me, to make even rejection hateful?

“I’m saying this because I want you to quickly meet someone else.”

“I’m telling you that I like you right now, but how can you say such a thing?”

“Because I don’t like you.”

The focus of the two wide-open eyes wavered.

It felt as if her heart was tattered and fluttering in the direction of the blowing wind.

As he said, there was no need to lavish care and devotion on someone he didn’t even like.

But she didn’t know that she was such a trivial existence to Do Hyun that she couldn’t even receive a shred of respect from him.

She clenched her fist, putting strength into it. She didn’t even know that her fingernails were digging into the wound.

“I knew my confession would be burdensome and uncomfortable for you, but there’s no need to be so heartless.”

It wasn’t a burden, but a concern.

Ji Yeon Woo was someone who deserved to be loved fully. She was someone who had the right to be.

But she was helplessly spending her youth tied to debt.

No matter how unfortunate, the kindness that Ji Yeon Woo wanted was something Do Hyun couldn’t give her.

Because he knew that false hopes would be poison to Ji Yeon Woo.

“I’m going back to Clark soon.”

In two months, he would be leaving Korea.

Ji Yeon Woo needed someone who would be by her side, not someone who would soon turn his back on Korea.

He wished for her to receive the love she hadn’t been able to receive so far, to her heart’s content, to the fullest, to the utmost.

“You’re… going back to Clark?”

She knew he was going back to Clark, but she didn’t know he would be leaving so soon.

Unlike Ji Yeon Woo, to whom everything was sudden, Do Hyun seemed to have planned it long ago and was only indifferent.

“When I go back, the emotions you’re feeling now will also disappear as if they never existed.”

As if he knew everything, he compared Ji Yeon Woo’s emotions to fleeting clouds.

Emotions that would fly away and disappear with a single gust of wind.

Was the confession she had made with courage so light to Do Hyun?

The door to the room Do Hyun had entered closed with a thud.

At the same time, the door to Ji Yeon Woo’s heart also closed tightly with a thud.