[Is that really true?] [Hey, why would mom lie to you?]

I couldn’t believe it.

Still, Jae Hyuk didn’t want to think of his mother as a shameless person who would tell such lies.

[Did A Rin really do that too?] [Then who else would have done it? She came with her mother, so wouldn’t they be of the same mind? Anyway, they demanded money. So.]

It was confusing. Still, he didn’t want to think of his mother as a shameless person who lied, and above all, he thought there was no way A Rin would do that.

Because of money, just because of that damn money, he believed she wouldn’t be by his side using the child as an excuse.

However, his expectations were soon shattered into pieces.

On the day he was supposed to meet A Rin, Jae Hyuk secretly hoped she wouldn’t show up.

But she appeared at that place.

He was angry. For the first time in his life, rage surged up and blinded him.

[Did you need money that badly? To the point of trading a life as collateral, did you need money that badly? Ha. I must have terribly misjudged you. I didn’t know you would sell your life for a few pennies.]

Still, with his last, final hope, he asked her.

He deliberately tore at her heart with sharp words.

He hoped she would say it wasn’t true.

She didn’t deny it. No, rather she spoke with an attitude that seemed to affirm it.

[From now on, I’ll do well in my roles as both a mother and a wife.]

His heart sank.

A Rin was like a sacred first love. Her soft face, adorned with a smile, was the only hope in his barren life.

She was also a goal he had to find someday.

Even if he acted as the de facto head, the company was controlled by Lady Jung’s people who held the real power. Jae Hyuk didn’t have enough power to bring A Rin with him by rebelling against Lady Jung.

Jae Hyuk had planned to go and welcome A Rin once he had fully gained enough power to not be kicked out of VAN Group even if he disobeyed Lady Jung’s words.

He hated her.

A Rin was detestable.

But the feeling of love is truly ridiculous.

His love for her, far from cooling, rather grew in size.

After much contemplation, he came to a conclusion.

Although his disappointment in A Rin was great, he loved her more than that.

From the beginning, the option of letting her go didn’t exist for him.

‘Right. The order is just a little reversed. You have to be by my side. When the time comes that I can sort out my hatred towards you, I can tell you everything then.’

Jae Hyuk hid his true feelings and kept A Rin by his side.

Since his earliest memories, she had always been somewhere he could see her. The idea of her disappearing without a trace, the thought of not being able to see her was something he had never imagined even once.

But this time, something felt off.

He was anxious. The anxiety that he might not be able to see A Rin crashed over him like raging waves.

Jae Hyuk put his hand over his closed eyes, pretending not to know the anxiety that had sprouted within him.

It would be fine, just like it had always been… It was just a passing thing.

Jae Hyuk thought.

[This is the timeline separator]

The next day.

As he opened his eyes, the familiar gray ceiling blurrily came into Jae Hyuk’s view.

“Haa.”

Jae Hyuk, covering his eyes with his arm, let out a deep sigh.

He had arrived home at dawn after the gathering that lasted late into the night. As soon as he entered, the place he headed to was A Rin’s bedroom. However, after hesitating for a long time, he turned his steps to the study.

Perhaps it was because he was angry to the core at her words asking for divorce?

His head was unusually throbbing.

After washing up in the bathroom, before going down to the first floor kitchen, Jae Hyuk once again stood in front of A Rin’s bedroom. As he grabbed the doorknob, an inexplicable anxiety came over him.

Every morning, A Rin would wake up at 6 AM and prepare breakfast together with the Chungju housewife. Unable to withstand Lady Jung’s nagging, there was never a time she didn’t prepare breakfast.

So there was no way she would be in the bedroom now. Jae Hyuk let go of the doorknob he was holding and went down the stairs.

“Deputy Chairman, you’re awake? Please have a seat. I’ll serve it right away.”

The Chungju housewife spoke, sensing Jae Hyuk entering the kitchen.

Jae Hyuk’s gaze fell on the empty spot next to the Chungju housewife.

“Where is that person? Did she go to the bathroom?”

A Rin, who always stood there, was nowhere to be seen. The anxiety in his heart instantly grew in size.

Jae Hyuk asked, trying hard to calm his heart.

“She hasn’t come down yet.”

At the Chungju housewife’s answer, Jae Hyuk’s heart sank.

“What do you mean, not yet?”

“Yes.”

He was worried about the situation across from A Rin’s room, where he hadn’t sensed any movement.

“I’ll go check and come back.”

Jae Hyuk moved his steps to exit the kitchen. But suddenly remembering something, he turned his back just before leaving the kitchen.

“Housewife.”

He called the Chungju housewife who was standing in front of the sink.

“Yes. Deputy Chairman.”

“Did anything happen recently?”

The Chungju housewife hesitated at Jae Hyuk’s question. But only for a moment, she soon composed her expression and answered his question.

“No. Nothing happened. What would the First Lady have to say?”

“Tell me honestly. Just because I don’t say anything doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes to see.”

At Jae Hyuk’s cold words, the Chungju housewife opened her mouth that she had kept tightly shut.

“…The First Lady prepared dinner as usual and went up to her room. She didn’t come down at dawn. Some time ago, she did have a conversation with the Old Lady, but she really didn’t say anything out of the ordinary.”

Jae Hyuk knew well that there was no one in the house who would take A Rin’s side.

He was not unaware that the Chungju housewife was also Lady Jung’s person and looked down on A Rin.

At first, he didn’t point out such things. However, as days went by, he became angry at the servants’ attitudes that went too far.

It was truly contradictory.

He could hurt her as much as he wanted, but others couldn’t.

Jae Hyuk despised himself.

As he didn’t avert his eyes of suspicion, the Chungju housewife continued speaking with guesswork.

“Even if you ask if anything happened, there really was nothing. That person is always like that. Wallowing in self-pity, pretending to be a victim. What did we ever do?”

At the Chungju housewife’s words crossing the line, Jae Hyuk’s eyes turned cold.

“Housewife.”

In a chilling voice, Jae Hyuk called the Chungju housewife who was expressing her emotions about A Rin in an unpleasantly overly familiar manner, as if ordering his own servant.

“I think I told you last time.”

At the low voice that seemed to scrape the floor, the Chungju housewife unconsciously swallowed her saliva.

“A Rin is my wife. In this household, she is the person of the highest rank after my mother. Meaning, she is not someone you should treat like a friend. So, I would like you to use the language and behavior befitting that.”

“…I apologize.”

Although the Chungju housewife didn’t like A Rin, it was different for Jae Hyuk. She quickly bowed her head to Lady Jung’s precious only son.

“Next time, I won’t just let it slide with words, so keep that in mind. I’ll have breakfast a little later.”

As if not wanting to hear the Chungju housewife’s answer, Jae Hyuk quickly left the kitchen.

After leaving the kitchen, Jae Hyuk went up the stairs. His heart was pounding with an inexplicable anxiety.

Going up to the second floor, he first headed to the terrace. He went out to the terrace and searched thoroughly, but the person he was looking for was not there. Even looking down at the garden, A Rin was nowhere to be seen.

He quickly checked the bathroom, terrace, and dressing room in order.

“Haa. Where did she go?”

A deep sigh burst out from between his dry lips. As not even A Rin’s shadow could be seen, his heart began to beat abnormally.

With the thought that it was the last, he pushed open the bedroom door.

Jae Hyuk’s hand holding the doorknob trembled.

A note he hadn’t seen last night was stuck on the dressing table mirror. The moment he walked to the dressing table and checked it, a sense of despair instantly engulfed him.

Why is an ominous premonition always never wrong…?

Jae Hyuk reached out and ripped off the note with a snap.

[Let’s divorce. I’m leaving the divorce papers. When you go to court, if you contact me, I won’t avoid it that day. Thank you for everything until now. I’ll wish for your happiness.]

A note full of pen marks smudged by tears was waiting for him in the empty room.

The fist holding the note trembled.

“No, no way…”

He shook his head at the reality he couldn’t accept.

“This can’t be.”

Jae Hyuk messed up his hair.

“Right, she just went out for a bit. Right.”

What was her expression like when she talked about divorce…?

It was different from usual. It was different, but…

I thought that was all.

He believed without a doubt that she loved him. How arrogant of him to think she would love him no matter how much he pushed her away.

Jae Hyuk turned a blind eye to the terrible reality.

“There’s no way A Rin would sincerely want a divorce… Maybe she went to meet Manager Seo.”

Until yesterday, he couldn’t have imagined it. That he would never see her gentle eyes again.

His vision gradually blurred.

“There’s no way A Rin would leave me…”

He noticed A Rin’s last traces, densely written in a neat handwriting.

[Now it’s too… hard, I can’t do it anymore.]

That sentence was written in a place with particularly many tear stains.

“Haa…”

Jae Hyuk buried his face in the note A Rin left behind and let out a deep sigh.

Without thinking deeply about what she must have been thinking while writing this note, it was conveyed to him as it was.

“No. No. A Rin. It’s a misunderstanding…”

Jae Hyuk clutched the area around his heart at the rushing sadness.

He couldn’t express the emotions swirling inside him.

He only knew that the pain of his heart being torn to shreds was unbearably agonizing.

Dumbfounded, Jae Hyuk’s legs lost strength. He plopped down on the floor.

No matter how much Lady Jung mistreated her, even in difficult situations, A Rin was always smiling. So he brushed it off, thinking it was fine.

He hated his past self who had turned a blind eye to her.

[Yun Kyung Sook came with A Rin and demanded money.]

He hated her for ruining his pure first love, yet his heart was endlessly swayed by her still looking at him with a gentle face.

It was painful to have ambiguous feelings towards her, unable to only like or only hate.

While harboring such wishy-washy feelings towards her, he selfishly believed A Rin would be by his side for a lifetime.

He arbitrarily assumed she would never leave his side no matter what happened.

“What should I do? I have to find her. Places A Rin might go…”

No matter how much he tried to think, nothing came to mind. His head was blank. Jae Hyuk, who made accurate situational judgments in any unexpected situation, was now like a person driven to the edge of a cliff, unable to do anything.

Staggering, Jae Hyuk supported himself with a hand on the dressing table and realized.

From the moment he turned a blind eye to A Rin’s pain, it was a predetermined conclusion.

That it was a punishment for his selfish self who denied and ignored A Rin’s pain.

Jae Hyuk picked up his cell phone with a trembling hand.

“Manager Han.”

[Yes. Deputy Chairman.]

The voice of Ju Hyuk Han, Jae Hyuk’s closest aide, came through the speaker.

“A Rin…”

[Yes?]

Just uttering her name made his throat choke up.

“Find her right now.”

[…Pardon?]

Manager Han, not understanding Jae Hyuk’s words, couldn’t readily give the answer he wanted.

There was no time to explain one by one.

“Later. I’ll explain later. For now, finding A Rin is the top priority.”

He had to catch her before she went far away, out of his reach.

“She won’t have many places to go. She probably went to her house or Manager Seo’s house. Given A Rin’s personality of not wanting to worry others, there’s a high probability she went to Manager Seo’s house. But just in case, Manager Han, you go to Yeonhui-dong now. I’ll go see Manager Seo.”

At Jae Hyuk’s urgent words, Manager Han immediately gave the answer he wanted.

[Understood.]

Manager Han was quick-witted.

Sensing what kind of situation Jae Hyuk was in and how anxious he was, Manager Han hurriedly continued.

[I’ll leave right away. I’ll contact you again once I arrive.]

After ending the call with Manager Han, Jae Hyuk headed to the dressing room.

Roughly putting on a jacket, he quickly went down the stairs and headed to the front door.

‘She couldn’t have gone far. So we can find her if we look.’

Because there aren’t many places A Rin could go.

If she was in Korea, if she was under the same sky, he would surely find her.

Even while thinking that, Jae Hyuk couldn’t completely erase the fear that he might never see A Rin again.