The Young Boss (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 5

“If you were awake, why didn’t you wake me?”

The moment a warm breath touched her ear, Si Hyeon froze.

“Or, one more time?”

Si Hyeon jumped out of Tae Ha’s arms as if burned by fire.

“Are you crazy? What did we even do to say one more time!”

Tae Ha’s expression hardened as he was pushed away. Wearing a shower robe, he crossed his arms and glared at Si Hyeon.

“Are you saying you won’t take responsibility?”

“What?”

“You’re pretending not to know, aren’t you, right now.”

“What responsibility are you talking about!”

Si Hyeon jumped up. She felt utterly wronged.

“You were drunk and don’t remember, but think carefully. Nothing happened.”

“You don’t remember either, do you, Kang Si Hyeon?”

“I don’t, but…….”

“Then how can you be so sure nothing happened?”

“You’re not a man!”

Si Hyeon shouted. She felt like she was going crazy from frustration.

“You must have some memory mix-up and don’t know, but you and I aren’t in a man-woman relationship. Even if we were stranded alone on a deserted island, or if the world ended and you were the last man left, I wouldn’t sleep with you!”

Tae Ha’s face stiffened. Si Hyeon quickly buttoned the remaining buttons on her blouse and picked up the handbag rolling on the floor.

“Last night, I must have caused trouble while drunk, so I apologize. But nothing happened with you, not even if I died, so don’t worry. Wash up and get to work quickly.”

Leaving Tae Ha behind, Si Hyeon walked out of the room with echoing footsteps.

After Si Hyeon left, Tae Ha collapsed onto the bed as if crumbling.

Last night. While the team was busy discussing where to go for the after-party, Tae Ha turned away. He wandered the streets aimlessly, wherever his feet took him.

[I’m getting married soon. Next week, I’m going to formally greet my boyfriend’s parents.]

In truth, ever since hearing Si Hyeon’s words at the company dinner, he hadn’t been in his right mind.

She was getting married.

Kang Si Hyeon.

He had occasionally sent people to check on how she was doing, so he already knew. That she had been dating that man from six years ago.

But hearing the marriage news directly from her mouth, he couldn’t help but be shocked.

The moment Tae Ha turned twenty, he chose to enlist solely because of Si Hyeon.

At that time, Si Hyeon was already twenty-seven. Fortunately, she had no boyfriend until then, but he was anxious every day, unsure when some guy might take her.

But confessing outright was hindered by military service. Anyway, Tae Ha thought going to the army first was the most urgent.

Si Hyeon tried to persuade Tae Ha to go to university somehow.

[Go to university first, and you can take a leave of absence for the army later. Don’t you feel it’s a waste after studying so hard?]

But Tae Ha ignored her.

The seven-year age gap with Si Hyeon. To catch up with that time, he had no leisure for things like university. He wanted to finish the army quickly, become a proper member of society, and stand before Kang Si Hyeon as a confident man.

[Don’t do anything and just stay.]

The words he said when enlisting were, for him at the time, his best confession.

[I’ll hurry back after discharge, so until then.]

Please don’t date any other man for just two years and wait for me. He said it with a praying heart.

But Si Hyeon didn’t wait even 100 days, let alone two years.

After enlisting, on his first leave after 100 days, Tae Ha ran to Si Hyeon still in uniform. And what he saw was her in front of the house, embraced and kissing another man.

[Do you really have to go in today?] [If I stay out overnight, Aunt will throw a fit. You know that.]

Tae Ha still hadn’t forgotten the expression on Si Hyeon’s face as she looked at the man. He couldn’t forget even if he tried. Having watched her for so long, it was the first time he saw her with such a happy face.

For Tae Ha, the most important thing was Si Hyeon’s happiness. Compared to her happiness, his own heartache was not very important. It wasn’t something that had just started a day or two ago.

So, after that day, Tae Ha disappeared from Si Hyeon’s presence.

When a scouting offer came from Future Bank, the first thing that came to mind was that Si Hyeon worked at Future Bank.

Unable to resist the urge to see her up close, he accepted, though he had no plan for what to do.

But, marriage……

Tae Ha was now honestly looking into his heart.

Just wanting to see her up close? No thought of doing anything?

No, that’s a petty excuse.

In truth, from the beginning, he wanted to steal her from that guy. He wanted to make her his.

……Yet that woman still doesn’t see me as a man!

Tae Ha forcibly swallowed the hot surge rising in his throat.

Last night, even when he brought the drunk Si Hyeon, who had fallen asleep in his arms, to the hotel and laid her on the bed, he had no thoughts. He was just happy to be able to gaze at the sleeping woman all night.

The strange thought came when, at dawn, Si Hyeon suddenly sat up and stripped off her clothes with her own hands. It seemed she couldn’t bear the stuffiness in her sleep.

Startled, he quickly covered her bare body with a blanket, and Tae Ha thought.

Perhaps……

So he deliberately acted like lovers in the morning, but she recoiled in horror and pushed him away.

[Even if we were stranded alone on a deserted island, or if the world ended and you were the last man left, I wouldn’t sleep with you!]

Is that how it is, me. Is there really no possibility at all.

Tae Ha clutched his head in agony.

After sitting and thinking this and that for a while, he stood up. It was time to go to work.

He showered and dressed. Looking in the mirror, he erased emotion from his eyes and tightly hid his aching heart inside his suit.

Looking at himself in the mirror with the face of Headquarters Chief Yoon Tae Ha, Tae Ha vowed.

‘If I’m going to give up like this, I shouldn’t have started.’

Riding a taxi to change clothes at home, Si Hyeon tried to recall last night. She vaguely remembered Tae Ha coming when she was sitting at the bus stop.

The memories after that were just pitch black, but Si Hyeon didn’t think for a moment that anything had happened. Whether she remembered or not, nothing happened last night. She was confident about that.

When Tae Ha was little, he was afraid of thunder and lightning, so on such days, he would call home saying he was sleeping at a friend’s house—a lie—and she had slept over at Tae Ha’s house a few times. Then Tae Ha would cling to Si Hyeon’s arms and fall asleep.

Whether he was a headquarters chief or whatever, no matter how old he was or how big his body had grown, to her, Tae Ha was just the little brother Yoon Tae Ha.

So last night was no different from those old times when they hugged and slept. That’s why she didn’t feel sorry for Woo Jin. Well, there was no good in him knowing, so she wouldn’t say anything.

[Or, one more time?]

Recalling the absurd line, Si Hyeon shuddered. Later, when Tae Ha’s memory returned and he realized he said such a thing to her with his own mouth, he would want to die.

Anyway, since Tae Ha didn’t recognize her, she decided to keep her distance for a while. The Tae Ha she saw was just the child she raised, but the her he saw was probably no different from any other woman.

So when he woke up in the morning and she was beside him, he naturally thought they had slept together.

‘By the way, does he talk like that to a woman he just spent one night with?’

Si Hyeon suddenly thought.

[If you were awake, why didn’t you wake me.]

The moment she recalled the voice sweetly whispering in her ear like lovers, her face suddenly grew hot, and in a fluster, Si Hyeon shouted to the taxi driver.

“Sir, let me off here!”

Her mind was complicated, and she hadn’t noticed on the way, but as she changed clothes at home, her stomach started to feel worse. It was the hangover from drinking too much yesterday.

‘I wish I had a wife who would make me North Eot soup.’

Thinking that, Si Hyeon endured her uncomfortable stomach and left the house again. She wanted to drink at least a cup of scorched rice tea, but she might be late, so there was no time.

The officetel where Si Hyeon lived alone was three bus stops from the company. Around thirty, Aunt’s marriage pressure became too intense, so unable to bear it, she had moved out near the company three years ago.

Taking another taxi to the company lobby, the elevator doors were just about to close.

“Wait a moment!”

Fortunately, inside was Section Chief Jung from the development team, whom she was friendly with. Running panting, Section Chief Jung tsked and opened the doors again.

“Come a bit earlier. A girl who’s all talk always running around.”

“Good morn…… ugh.”

The strong alcohol smell unique to men’s skin care made her greeting cut off with a dry heave.

“Hey, Associate Manager Kang, did you just gag looking at my face?”

Section Chief Jung glared.

“Sorry, Section Chief. I drank too much yesterday, so even the smell of skin care makes me queasy.”

The elevator stopped, but Si Hyeon didn’t get off. She thought she should go to the pharmacy and buy some hangover relief. The skin care smell she just encountered had properly turned her stomach.

The moment she pressed the 1st floor button again, Si Hyeon leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The closed elevator doors opened again, and as someone boarded, a refreshing scent rushed in.

Suddenly, the churning stomach felt much better.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

Si Hyeon grabbed the person’s arm without thinking and buried her face in their sleeve.

She wasn’t sure if it was perfume or fabric softener, but it felt like her chest was opening up. Slightly bitter yet fresh, like a scent mixing pine tree and lime.

“……!”

The person seemed startled and tried to pull their arm away, but Si Hyeon desperately held on. She didn’t know who it was, but if they were on the same floor, it was someone she knew, so couldn’t she owe a favor?

“Sorry. I need to survive a bit.”

Si Hyeon muttered with her face buried in the sleeve.

“I drank too much yesterday and my stomach is upset…… Ah, the smell is really good.”

But the person was neither merciful nor understanding. Ruthlessly shaking off her arm, she thought, too much, and the next moment.

The scent grew much stronger.

The person had pulled Si Hyeon tightly into their arms.

“This might be better.”

Letting Si Hyeon’s face rest on his chest, Tae Ha whispered.

“I sprayed the perfume here.”

Si Hyeon startled and pushed him away, stepping back.

“I-I’m fine!”

Fortunately, the elevator stopped at the 1st floor then. As she hurried to get out, her wrist was grabbed.

“What to do?”

In Si Hyeon’s ear, a low whisper flowed like temptation.

“……Now I’ve become interested.”