She was a person whose inner thoughts could not be discerned at all. Startled by his close breathing, Eun Jae leaned back and asked with a puzzled expression.

“Taste…?”

Whether it didn’t suit my taste, or didn’t suit his own taste.

Still trying to find what answer he wanted in his unkind words, Eun Jae struggled. Though it was difficult to grasp his intention at once.

While pondering the man’s words floating in her mind, Sun Woo’s lips, bearing a faint smile above Eun Jae’s shoulder, moved once more.

“I thought you said you weren’t a picky eater?”

“I’m not picky though?”

What an opportunist. Since she said she couldn’t remember, it seemed he was determined to tease her. Eun Jae put her arms around his slender waist and glared at Sun Woo.

“What on earth did you eat in the middle of the night to be like this?”

No sooner had Eun Jae finished speaking than Sun Woo’s gaze dropped sharply towards her.

‘What, where are you looking?’

Eun Jae scanned Sun Woo’s gaze with unpleasant eyes. His eyes were clearly fixed on Eun Jae’s luscious, sparkling lips for anyone to see.

“Well, I wonder what I ate.”

Eun Jae looked up at him with a displeased face. There was no sign of the man’s gaze being withdrawn from her lips.

Eun Jae gradually relaxed her expression. She couldn’t know exactly what it was, but she swallowed hard at the humid, sticky atmosphere like a sweltering summer day.

“…”

Thinking that he was looking at her lips made her mouth go dry for no reason.

A situation where she could neither easily avoid nor move. It felt like being caught in an invisible noose. Her gaze wandered aimlessly with nowhere to rest.

Eyes burning with passion and blazing bright red. Familiar eyes she had seen before.

Yes, your eyes in last night’s dream were just like this. As if they would devour everything. As if they would melt everything.

“Shall I teach you?”

“Wh-what is it?”

As Eun Jae stammered and took a step back, Sun Woo, who had been matching her eye level, straightened his back. Then one corner of his mouth subtly turned up.

“Later.”

The man’s finger brushed lightly against Eun Jae’s nose bridge as if giving punishment. Her cheek earlier, her nose today.

The man’s skinship seems to be getting a bit bolder.

“What is it, really?”

Eun Jae spat out a complaint with a deeply furrowed face. Looking at her like that, Sun Woo smiled as if she were cute, and widening the distance, he casually brought his hand to the third button of his shirt.

“The crime of insolence.”

When she opened her eyes, two buttons of the shirt were already undone. Even with just two buttons undone, the man’s body seemed to be projected through the shirt.

Because it was a body she had already seen, a body her mind remembered.

Without Eun Jae even realizing it, her gaze naturally went to the man’s fingers. The sight of the third button of the shirt being undone was slowly captured in her eyes.

“Go wash up.”

“What…? Suddenly? Why, why should I wash?”

Although it was an extremely gentle voice, Eun Jae cried out in surprise as if she had heard something she shouldn’t have.

Nevertheless, the man’s fingers moved unhesitatingly towards the fourth button. Eun Jae was unable to take her eyes off it, as if entranced.

“Because you and I have something left to finish.”

Finally, when the last button was undone, the man’s abs were clearly revealed between the black shirt. His movement didn’t stop there.

As Sun Woo gradually approached Eun Jae, she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.

“D-don’t come any closer!”

Despite her shout, the sound of the man’s slippers didn’t stop. She sensed intuitively that the man had come right up to her nose. Her already dark vision with closed eyes became even darker due to his shadow.

Heh, the man’s laughter was heard clearly.

“Why are you closing your eyes?”

Only then realizing something was strange, Eun Jae slowly opened her eyes narrowly. Through the narrowly opened view, the man’s movements were faintly visible.

His hand, which she thought would come towards her, was reaching for the bedside table behind Eun Jae. Sun Woo picked up something from there and grabbed Eun Jae’s wrist, personally placing it in her hand.

Eun Jae slowly looked down at the object in her hand. A thin sheet of paper. And Eun Jae’s face flushed hot when she confirmed the title of that document.

“The thing that needs to be finished…”

It was a marriage registration form. She was too ashamed to lift her face, embarrassed by the impure thoughts that had filled her mind until just moments ago.

“I wonder what thoughts you’re having in that tiny head of yours.”

“When you suddenly start undressing and tell me to wash up, of course I would!”

Sun Woo, who had been observing Eun Jae’s flushed cheeks, moved his steps slowly with a smile on his lips.

“I just unbuttoned, and you’re making such a fuss.”

“…”

“I feel uncomfortable, having to sleep without washing because of someone.”

As Sun Woo muttered while passing Eun Jae on his way to the shower, Eun Jae whirled around and asked towards Sun Woo’s back.

“What? What did you say?”

“It would be better if you leave.”

The words that followed after saying he felt uncomfortable were too faint for Eun Jae to hear. She kept asking him, but he was a man who went his own way without caring.

“You just ignore everything I say.”

When the man’s figure completely disappeared, Eun Jae, who had been grumbling, sat down on the bed.

As her gaze fixed on the marriage registration form she was holding, the sound of water flowing was heard in the quiet room. Thinking that the man was washing beyond that door made her feel strange.

The bathroom door she looked at carelessly after turning her head was slightly open.

“What, why are you washing with the door open?”

Such a question was brief, and imagining the sexy sight of the man raising his soaked hair in the misty steam, Eun Jae, with a flushed face, quickly left that room holding the marriage registration form.

Eun Jae took out a headache pill from the first aid kit placed in the living room. She thought she had done well to remember the location when the man had explained the furnishings in the house before.

Perhaps because it was such a well-organized house, it was easy to find anything when looking for it. Holding her throbbing forehead, she swallowed a headache pill with water.

Returning to the room, Eun Jae took a seat in front of the dressing table beside the bed. Then she neatly placed the marriage registration form the man had given her on the dressing table and slowly picked up a pen.

Her heart was complicated the entire time she looked down at the document.

No, should I say it’s ridiculous?

It was something I had already made up my mind about. With permission from both families already received, what’s the big deal about this mere document.

“Haa…”

This is all because of that man.

If he hadn’t been unnecessarily kind, if he hadn’t kept making me waver.

If I could have simply regarded you as just a means to repay my debt, if I could have lightly dismissed it as purely for my mother’s sake, with nothing else. If so, would all of this have been easier?

No, it’s my fault for attaching grand meaning to the manners ingrained in the man.

Eun Jae took a deep breath and placed the pen on the marriage registration form.

She scanned down the man’s personal information already filled in. It seems he had prepared in advance.

Was he in a hurry?

He probably wanted to receive the gift as soon as possible. He would have wanted to end this ridiculous contract too.

“I would have done the same if I were him.”

After filing for annulment of the marriage, return to the beginning as if nothing had happened and with that teacher…

Thud.

Eun Jae, who had barely picked up the pen, put it back on the desk and abruptly stood up from the chair.

Perhaps because of the disorganized thoughts, her headache seemed to be getting worse. The forehead her hand rested on was hot.

I don’t like it.

That woman beside Yoon Sun Woo.

No, I think I would dislike any woman beside Yoon Sun Woo.

I find myself wishing that, at least for the duration of the contract, I was the only one by that man’s side. Further, what if he developed some misplaced affection? Or if this matter went awry and I could stay by his side a little longer?

If not that,

This is really nonsensical, but I imagined a man who fell into a terrible love, clinging to me saying it had to be me.

I wish it were so. Then I’m confident I could stick to him with all my might.

“Why is that an impossible imagination, you never know about people’s affairs.”

I was so brave in last night’s dream. Though it was only possible because it was a dream, I was honest and unaffected in a way unlike my current self.

“Ji Eun Jae, this is a clear violation of the contract.”

The man, always consistent, said something like him even in the dream. Even if it had been reality, he probably would have said the same.

While I can’t remember at all how I got home, why is that dream so vivid?

The words the man had let slip, all his small actions remained clearly in my mind.

Like the words the man had said before that kiss began, which felt like swallowing rich and sweet dark chocolate.

“Stay forever, then. By my side.”

“I have no intention of letting you go until you’ve paid everything back.”

As if landing on the moon, floating, my body and mind wouldn’t work as I thought.

Except for that point, the Yoon Sun Woo in the dream wasn’t much different from reality.

I wonder if it’s possible with the real Yoon Sun Woo. Even if it’s a contractual relationship, wouldn’t he develop some sort of attachment after a year of living together?

If he had been someone I could only look at from afar, I wouldn’t have felt such greed. I wouldn’t have even dared to think of being greedy.

Eun Jae quietly looked down at herself in the mirror.

Honestly, I…

Aren’t I pretty enough?

“Should I just seduce him outright?”

Pfft.

Swallowing the laughter that flowed out at her unnecessarily resolute appearance, Eun Jae picked up the pen again as if she had made a decision.

“As if such a great man would fall for that.”

Neat letters began to fill up the marriage registration form.

Sun Woo, who had entered the bathroom, laughed helplessly as he brushed up his hair. Though his body was tired from not getting a wink of sleep, a smile never left his lips.

The image of Eun Jae from last night, clumsy beyond compare and barely able to breathe properly, yet incredibly eager, kept making him smile.

“What should I do? Does it hurt? Should we stop?”

“It doesn’t matter, continue.”

To think that even the sight of her biting her own lip and not knowing what to do was lovable enough.

Sun Woo brushed his thumb over the small cut on his lower lip. Though his eyes closed involuntarily from the sting, he laughed.

“Aren’t you the one in big trouble?”

It seems my head’s already a bit messed up.

Tired from the long-lasting kiss, Eun Jae fell into a deep sleep in the brief moment he let go.

Because Eun Jae, clutching his shirt tightly with her small hands and mumbling not to go, wouldn’t let go, he spent the entire dawn listening to Eun Jae’s breathing that quietly filled the room, unable to do this or that.

That sound was just like the sound of insects on a summer night in the countryside. He almost dozed off because that regular and subtle sound was pleasant to hear.

When Eun Jae tossed and turned once in a while, he would freeze like a stone. When Eun Jae finally turned to face him at the end…

It was dangerous. Really dangerous.

They say the taste you already know is more fearsome.

At that moment, Sun Woo couldn’t see anything else. All that filled his eyes were Eun Jae’s red lips.

When the sound of his heartbeat became louder than the woman’s breathing, he was also anxious that she might wake up to that sound.

Yet he also carefully brushed aside the woman’s bangs that tickled her eyes because they bothered him. If the woman opened her eyes now, it wouldn’t be bad to kiss her lips again right away.

“I like you, I’m saying I like you.”

He kept repeating in his mind the words Eun Jae had said.

He wished there was a recorder in his head. To play it countless times whenever he wanted to hear it.

When he realized what his feelings towards Eun Jae were, he had already said those words, and now even if he showed his honest feelings, it seemed Eun Jae wouldn’t believe him.

She would have thought he was pulling another trick, and it was obvious she would dismiss it as part of the contract.

It was difficult to easily break a relationship bound by contract.

So he had hesitated and faltered in directly revealing his feelings, but now is there any reason to delay?

Now that he knew Eun Jae’s heart, Sun Woo had no intention of letting her go either. Maybe such a thought never existed from the beginning.

When you, who appeared before me so timely as if it had been foreseen, touched me and I felt nothing, was it perhaps because you and I were destined to be connected like this?

Though he had scoffed at Eun Jung’s words that she and I might be destiny, now he wanted to believe in that destiny.

Ji Eun Jae,

You,

I hope you are my destiny.