Time flew by incredibly fast. Tae Eun hadn’t seen Woo Jin’s face for a week after the family meeting. Of course, she understood very well that he was a busy person. Instead, he often left messages in the evening.

It felt like dating a busy man.

Of course, she had never experienced a proper relationship, but that’s just how she felt. It tickled beneath her heart like a butterfly flying in and flapping its wings, and warm feelings unexpectedly welled up.

In the meantime, Tae Eun calmly organized her surroundings.

First, she had to quit the part-time job she was doing. Of course, it would be better if she could work after getting married, but she planned to start over from the beginning depending on the situation. The part-time jobs she had been doing until now were things she had no choice but to choose due to her situation of having to take care of her grandmother.

As she calmly wrote down her to-do list in her diary, her cell phone vibrated.

It was a message from Woo Jin.

For a moment, Tae Eun blinked in surprise. She was surprised to hear that he had come to see her without any warning like this. But more than that, an unfamiliar emotion surged at the thought of seeing the man. It was so unfamiliar that she had never experienced it before.

Tae Eun quickly got dressed and went downstairs. Ji Eun glanced at her going out late at night with disapproving eyes, but these days, she seemed to be trying to refrain from nagging as much as possible. After all, she was about to lose her hostage-like grip on her grandmother, so it was evident that she was reluctantly holding back, unable to act recklessly towards Tae Eun, who was now marrying into the Woo Sung family.

Receiving Ji Eun’s glares, Tae Eun came downstairs and found the familiar vehicle, getting into the car. Then, the presence of the man, which she hadn’t felt in a while, heavily approached her.

“Has it been a week for us?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy with work that I can’t see you often.”

“It’s okay. I understand. But what brings you here?”

“There’s a place I want to go with you.”

“Can I ask where we’re going?”

“You can ask, but I won’t answer.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a surprise.”

Originally, she was really good at being patient, but when he said that, she was dying of curiosity. However, Tae Eun waited obediently.

Throughout the car ride, Woo Jin asked how she had been doing for the past week. While not talking about himself at all, he was quite curious about her. No, to be precise, he was asking questions to find out if her family had caused her any more harm.

“I told you, I’m good at enduring. So don’t worry about me.”

It was said to reassure him. But at those words, Woo Jin’s brow slightly hardened.

Only when the car arrived at its destination did Woo Jin’s expression relax a little. And Tae Eun could somewhat guess where they had arrived.

“This is…”

“The house we’ll live in after we get married. I thought we should come and see it first.”

Her mouth opened slightly in surprise. The enormous scale of the Hannam-dong villa was magnificent even from the outside. It was a building with only a few units, but the security was strict, and despite being a 5-story building, it had an elevator.

And the interior of the building she entered following Woo Jin was even more impressive. Except for the first-floor lobby, all units had a duplex structure. In other words, there were only two or three households per floor. Above all, the open view and the quite large private garden created in front of the balcony captured Tae Eun’s heart at once.

A house with a garden…

“The house… is so pretty.”

“I’m glad you like it. Otherwise, I would have had to find another house.”

“No, no! I really like it. Wow… but the house is really big.”

“It looks that way because there’s no furniture. It’s a house that’s been empty for 2 years.”

Unaware that Woo Jin was looking at her with a pleased face, Tae Eun ran around here and there with an excited expression. Even though it was an empty house with nothing to see, her eyes sparkled so beautifully.

“I think Tae Eun will be a bit busy from now on. I want to accompany you, but I’m so occupied with the factory relocation issue in China right now that I think I can only join you for the wedding photo shoot and trying on the wedding attire.”

“Ah, it’s okay. I know it’s hard to adjust the schedule due to the sudden marriage. I can do it all by myself.”

“From tomorrow, I’ll assign an expert in each field to you. Go look at furniture and do some shopping too.”

“M-me?”

“Since this is the house where Tae Eun will live, try decorating it as the house you want to live in.”

“Really… can I do that?”

It was like a dream. Not only did she suddenly get such a magnificent house, but she could also decorate it to her taste.

It was a dream that every woman might have once dreamed of, but it had been too far away for her due to her harsh circumstances. That dream had come true in an instant.

Only then did Tae Eun realize once again what kind of man she was going to marry.

A man who could easily lift a woman’s life. Woo Jin was the kind of man who could pull her up from the bottom of the abyss to the heavenly realm in an instant.

After finishing the house tour, Tae Eun watched as he moved his steps toward the garden. That big man’s gait was as elegant as his appearance. Despite being so tall, all his movements were as if calculated, without a single discrepancy, so once you saw him, you would be entranced.

Then, without realizing it, she followed him into the garden. With an intense feeling that she had to follow the man.

But he stepped back and made her stop.

“Don’t come closer. Let me smoke for a bit.”

“Ah…”

Only then did Tae Eun deeply realize why the man had gone out to the garden.

As the sun was setting, the light faded from the garden, and a slow darkness settled in. When the red lights installed in the garden enveloped his back, it looked as if he had light on his back. Thanks to that, his figure with light on his back was all silhouette.

It reminded her of the day she first met him.

−The direction shouldn’t be that way.

That day, too, he was watching her like that from the darkness.

The man’s shadow, which was unfamiliar and frightening at first, felt familiar today. Just looking at him made her heart warm up so much.

It was too short a time to seep in. Especially for her, who didn’t trust people well due to being hurt by none other than her family, it was truly a miracle.

What on earth are you going to do to me?

But she soon realized. The man then and the man now were not different at all. The only thing that had changed was her heart looking at him.

Tae Eun looked at him from a suitable distance with absentminded eyes for a while. She could see him taking out a cigarette and a zippo lighter from his suit pocket. Fixing his slow gaze on her, he flicked the zippo lighter open with a clack and lit the cigarette. Then, the man’s face, which had been dark and invisible, was revealed without filters as the flame flared up, revealing his handsome features.

He took a deep drag on the cigarette, his cheeks hollowing, and exhaled as much hazy smoke as he had inhaled.

The white cigarette smoke spread around, making the man’s appearance even more dreamy.

“Min Tae Eun.”

“Yes.”

Just like their first meeting, she automatically answered his call.

“You know what? Every time you say you endure well, bitter water wells up inside me.”

“…”

“So let’s… stop enduring.”

She didn’t want to miss a single moment of him looking at her, but the hazy smoke kept scattering his figure.

Moreover, his slow, dreamy voice kept making her sense of reality sluggish.

So Tae Eun opened her eyes even wider.

For fear that the man might disappear into the smoke.

“From now on, live as obnoxiously as possible.”

“…”

“Min Tae Eun, you have every right to do so.”

If it was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up.

* * *

“Ah, I really… don’t want to let you go in.”

It was the first thing Woo Jin uttered when they arrived in front of her house.

Just thinking about Tae Eun’s house made him look properly annoyed.

“I told you I’m okay.”

“I know. That you’re okay, Min Tae Eun. But I’m not okay. It’s annoying. It bothers me too.”

He really has a strong protective instinct. Or an overflowing sense of justice.

But anyway, Tae Eun wasn’t displeased with this situation where he was getting angry on her behalf, so she carefully smiled at him.

“Now, if anything happens, I won’t endure it.”

“As if you would, Min Tae Eun.”

She had said it to make him feel a little more at ease, but as expected, it didn’t work at all. But they couldn’t stay in the car all night like this, so Tae Eun said goodbye.

“Then I’ll go in now.”

“Ah, wait a minute. Here.”

“What is this?”

Woo Jin handed her a yellow envelope from the back seat of the car. Looking inside, Tae Eun was surprised.

“This is…”

“It’s the nursing home where your grandmother will be staying. The best facility in Korea with a VVIP room. A personal nurse and caregiver will be on standby 24 hours a day, so there’s no need to hire a separate caregiver. Of course, to ease your worries, I assigned the most experienced veteran.”

“…”

“If there’s anything you’re not satisfied with after looking at it, tell me. I’ll immediately request a correction and adjust what I can.”

Her mouth opened slightly in amazement. She hadn’t expected him to move this quickly.

“Why are you so surprised?”

“No, it’s just… so fast.”

“I’m a man who’s definite once I set my course. Whether it’s your parents or your grandmother. I’ve decided on your grandmother’s side, so hesitating is a waste of time. I moved as quickly as I could within my capabilities. Ah, and I’d like you to quit that part-time job. Since I don’t have time to prepare for the wedding, you need to move around instead.”

“I already told them yesterday. I even found a better teacher to replace me.”

“Good job. Tomorrow morning, go look at furniture for our newlywed home, and in the afternoon, move your grandmother to the hospital with Director Park.”

“Grandmother is moving tomorrow?”

“Looking at it, the facility seems shoddy, so wouldn’t it be better to move her as soon as possible?”

Until now, she had never felt that the facility was shoddy, being grateful just for the fact that she could put her grandmother in a nursing home, but Tae Eun nodded her head vigorously. Her large eyes sparkled particularly with emotion. And eyes sparkling like that were so terribly pretty that he couldn’t take his gaze off them.

What the, why is she looking at me like that?

It makes me not want to let her go in.

Should I kidnap her and run away?

Ridiculously, such thoughts flashed through his mind. Thoughts he had never had once in his life.

Why do I keep having these thoughts unlike myself whenever I see this woman?

Woo Jin was going crazy with these feelings sprouting up like a young child experiencing something for the first time in the world.

What on earth have I been doing with my life so far?

It was a moment when he thought he had lived his life in vain once again.

“You’ll be really busy tomorrow, so go to bed early today.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Then go on in.”

“Okay.”

He said those words because he felt like he would really step on the accelerator and run away with her in the car if they stayed together any longer, but as soon as he finished speaking, she answered like a parrot, opened the car door, and went inside without looking back.

Was she always this agile?

Surprised by her action that was so efficient without any excess, he muttered as he looked at the apartment entrance where she had disappeared with a forlorn gaze.

“No, I told her to go, but she goes without even looking back?”

An unfounded sense of disappointment washed over him.

“Wow, since when did she listen to me so well?”

He was falling.