Creak.

“You’re here.”

Tae Un’s brows furrowed instinctively at the voice he heard as soon as he opened the door. Tae Un bowed politely to Chairman Woo and sat down. After the dry greeting, neither of them spoke first. It was quiet, with only a heavy atmosphere in the room.

“What on earth were you thinking?”

“Nothing much. If that’s all you wanted to ask, we could have done this over the phone. Why bother with this meeting?”

As Tae Un raised one corner of his mouth in a mocking smile, Chairman Woo’s face gradually frowned.

“Ah, that was my insistence, so just leave Woo Min Seok alone.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Yes. I’m sure you will.”

Although he felt his insides twisting, Tae Un held back for now. He endured and met the other’s eyes as he exchanged words with him.

To get what he wanted.

“Come back now.”

As soon as he heard Chairman Woo’s words, Tae Un felt his blood run cold. His face hardened, and his eyes looking at Chairman Woo were filled with nothing but coldness.

How could he say those words so easily?

“What can you gain by being in Daehan? Do you think your aunt will give you anything? That woman won’t give you anything. So…”

“How impressive. You’re not even curious about mother’s condition anymore?”

Tae Un tried hard to steady his wavering gaze and trembling voice as he faced him, but in the end, at the mention of Soo Hyun, he could no longer hide it. Tae Un’s eyes wavered, and his voice trembled.

“Woo Tae Un.”

“Don’t call my name. It’s disgusting to even hear it come out of your mouth.”

He finally spat it out.

The thing he should have been most curious about was mom. The words that should have been said before anything else were to ask if mom lying in the hospital bed was okay.

That’s what would make you human.

Looking at Chairman Woo, who hadn’t changed at all, Tae Un wore a self-deprecating smile.

“Do you still think I’m the one who made your mother like that?”

“Do you think you’re not?”

“…”

“Her heart festered, so her body festered too. She’s someone who only waited for you to come just once. Even after all she went through, she’s someone who only waited for you.”

Even knowing he wouldn’t come, Soo Hyun spent half her days in the hospital room just staring out the window. She was someone whose face betrayed her even when she said otherwise. She was someone whose loneliness and bitterness showed through even in the smiles she put on while pretending to be fine upon hearing news of him.

“…”

“The moment I left your house, there was no place for mother and me there anymore.”

“Woo Tae Un!”

Tae Un stood up at Chairman Woo’s outburst.

“I hope we won’t see each other anymore from now on. And if you feel even a little sorry towards me, just leave Woo Min Seok alone.”

Tae Un stormed out of his seat.

He couldn’t understand why they would go this far for something like love. Love isn’t eternal. Love is something that can change at any time. So why do they cling so desperately to something that doesn’t even seem like love?

Both mom and that woman.

Tae Un’s head became complicated as Ba Ha came to mind even at this moment.

He had to stop, and he would stop.

Ba Ha came out to propose to Min Seok that they should forget about this marriage. This is Korea, a Confucian country, not Hollywood.

Therefore, this was like a predetermined answer.

No, even if this were Hollywood, the answer would be the same.

He bitterly wondered if Chairman Han would still seek him out even though the marriage with Yu An had fallen through, but this wasn’t it. Even if it meant going back to that wretched household, this relationship had to end before it began.

This was a marriage that should not happen.

“Woo… Min Seok? Ahem… Mr. Woo Min Seok?”

Ba Ha, who arrived first, sat in the hotel cafe lounge mumbling all sorts of voices.

It was a rejection that had to be made as soon as she saw the other person’s face.

It was a rejection that had to be made for the sole reason that he was Woo Tae Un’s brother. Because this alone was impolite, Ba Ha wanted to reject him in a way that wouldn’t hurt his feelings as much as possible.

Not letting her relationship with his brother Tae Un show was a bonus.

“Ha… again! Argh! Ahem… Hello…”

“Yes. Hello.”

Behind Ba Ha, who was jumping around alone in her troubled state of mind, came a familiar voice. Ba Ha turned her head thinking ‘it can’t be’, and there stood Tae Un with a familiar silhouette, smiling.

Tae Un sat down in front of Ba Ha, who was stunned with surprise at seeing him, raising the corners of his mouth as if this situation was somehow amusing.

“What… are you doing right now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you come here? Please leave quickly. I clearly said I was meeting your brother, the vice president, for a blind date today…”

As Ba Ha spoke with her voice rising a pitch higher in apparent shock, Tae Un chuckled again. Tae Un’s raised corners of his mouth showed no sign of coming down.

It seemed Ba Ha was the only one flustered by this situation.

“Well then. Let’s begin.”

After Ba Ha left like that that morning, Tae Un kept thinking.

Where on earth had he heard it?

From the moment he heard Ba Ha’s name, it felt familiar, and he thought and thought trying to recall, but no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t remember.

Well. He thought it didn’t matter even if he couldn’t remember. He thought if he didn’t know, he could just get to know her again from the beginning, and that it wouldn’t be too difficult either.

Although his head felt dazed as if he’d been hit when Min Seok’s name came out of Ba Ha’s mouth when they met again after the inauguration ceremony.

“What are we starting? Quickly…”

“Shall we get married?”

“Gack.”

“Let’s get married. Ms. Han Ba Ha.”

Ba Ha was so startled by Tae Un’s sudden words that she choked for a moment, coughing repeatedly while staring at Tae Un with wide eyes.

Could it be he was saying ‘We spent one night together so I’ll take responsibility for you’ or something like that?

She was even more surprised because he didn’t seem like the type of person to say such a cliché thing.

What on earth was he thinking to blurt out something like that? Ba Ha wondered if she had misheard because those words were so absurd.

“What did you just say?”

“I said let’s have that marriage you were going to have, with me.”

Tae Un gently pushed a glass of water towards Ba Ha, who was coughing from choking, and said with a grin.

Ba Ha glared at Tae Un, who kept saying strange things, with narrowed eyes.

Why was someone proposing marriage so nonchalant? He didn’t show even a hint of nervousness or excitement. So it was hard to tell if what he was saying was a joke or if he was being sincere.

“Are you serious?”

“I am, but why? Does it sound like a joke?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

“We’re not in a relationship where we would joke about marriage, are we?”

Ba Ha flinched at Tae Un’s words.

If what he said was true, then these words weren’t a joke. So he was sincerely proposing marriage right now.

“Vice President, are you perhaps conservative?”

“Why do you ask that all of a sudden?”

“If you’re trying to take responsibility on purpose, you don’t have to go this far. It’s not like anything happened between us…”

“What if I still want to take responsibility?”

“Pardon?”

Surprised by his words, Ba Ha drank the tea in front of her while trying to think of another topic in her head.

If she kept talking like this, she felt like she would be swept away by his words again.

“Anyway, if you were going to come to this meeting, you should have told me. Do you know how surprised I was? I didn’t know you had a hobby of surprising people.”

“Did you give me a chance to tell you? Who was it that’s been running away here and there for the past few days?”

Ba Ha’s face turned bright red at that slippery snake-like tone.

She had to admit it.

Ba Ha had been avoiding him because she didn’t want to run into him. She was busy hiding every time, afraid they might accidentally meet. On days when she happened to encounter him in the elevator he was riding, she avoided him so obviously that anyone could tell, and the day before coming to this meeting, she even used a vacation day to avoid him.

She hid and hid again as if playing hide-and-seek.

“Let’s stop with the other talk and get married. With me.”

“…”

“Why no answer? Aren’t I better than Woo Min Seok?”

Ba Ha let out a deep sigh. That tone without even a hint of seriousness was confusing her, and even though she knew she would be eaten up by him again if she let her guard down even a little, she felt like she would grab his hand.

Like that day.

“Why? Why me?”

That’s right.

Tae Un couldn’t understand himself either, why he was going this far.

The daughter of Taesan he had only heard about, Lee Han’s hidden woman who seemed to barely exist.

Tae Un was bothered by this woman in front of him. The crying Ba Ha that kept appearing before his eyes was annoying, but one thing was clear.

He wanted to pull this woman out.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out now. Why I’m going this far.”

At a meeting she came to reject, Ba Ha met Tae Un, the cause of the rejection. Watching Tae Un, who was saying incomprehensible things without any explanation, Ba Ha frowned.

“Sigh… What about Min Seok? What did you do?”

One of the words Tae Un didn’t expect to hear from Ba Ha’s mouth after the inauguration ceremony was ‘Vice President’.

One is called Vice President, the other Min Seok.

Thanks to Ba Ha drawing lines in such a strange way, Tae Un’s brows furrowed slightly.

“Why does Woo Min Seok come up here again? And why am I Vice President while Woo Min Seok is just Min Seok?”

“No, Vice President! Stop joking around and be serious! I’m being very serious here.”

At Ba Ha’s words, Tae Un’s eyes, which he thought were full of playfulness, instantly lost their mischievous glint. As Tae Un stared intently with his dark, deep eyes, Ba Ha flinched for a moment.

“I have never been joking. Not for a single moment.”