“It’s dangerous!”

The bodyguard tried to stop her, but Ga Eul didn’t hear. As she burst out the front door, she saw the boss swinging a shovel. Oh Myeong Se’s gang couldn’t approach the boss.

Dae Un saw Ga Eul run out the front door. She didn’t seem to be hurt. Relief spread through his entire body.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

Dae Un muttered thanks to no one in particular. He threw away the shovel. Then he charged at Oh Myeong Se. Dae Un used the momentum of his charge to plant his fist in Oh Myeong Se’s jaw. Unable to dodge, Oh Myeong Se flew backwards.

Dae Un didn’t stop and immediately knocked down the guy standing next to Oh Myeong Se with a roundhouse kick. Meanwhile, the remaining thug picked up the shovel Dae Un had thrown.

“Boss!”

As Ga Eul screamed and tried to run over, Dae Un raised his hand to stop her. Seeing the thug with the shovel approach Dae Un while swinging it, Ga Eul anxiously stamped her feet.

The shovel swished past Dae Un’s front. Dae Un didn’t miss the opening and dove in, striking the shovel-wielding thug’s chest with his elbow. The thug staggered. Dae Un followed up with a knee kick to the thug’s abdomen and finished with a front kick. The thug fell far away.

The thug who had been knocked down by the roundhouse kick tried to get up again, but was subdued by a bodyguard who had rushed out.

As Ga Eul ran towards Dae Un, she saw Oh Myeong Se, who had been sitting on the ground, pick up a large decorative stone from the garden.

Oh Myeong Se raised his arm to throw it at Dae Un. Ga Eul frantically ran over and struck his arm with a pool cue. Immediately after, Dae Un’s kick connected with Oh Myeong Se’s jaw. Oh Myeong Se fell backwards.

Ga Eul threw herself into Dae Un’s arms with the momentum of her run. Dae Un caught and embraced her.

“Boss, waaah.”

Ga Eul burst into tears, hugging Dae Un tightly.

“Boss, waaah, why did you, waaah, come so late.”

Ga Eul didn’t know why she was crying. She thought it was probably relief that she was now safe.

She saw a group of people rushing in, but they seemed to be bodyguards so she paid no attention. She only cared that Dae Un held her even closer.

“I’m sorry I came late.”

Dae Un held Ga Eul deep in his chest. He could feel Ga Eul’s body trembling.

“I thought I was going to die. I thought I was dead. Waaah.”

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Han Ga Eul.”

Dae Un comforted Ga Eul while holding her. He felt like his chest would burst from pity and regret. But more than that, the relief of not having lost Ga Eul was greater.

After some time passed, Ga Eul came to her senses. She just remembered that the man she was embracing had a fiancée. Still, Ga Eul didn’t leave Dae Un’s arms.

Because today was a special day. Just today… she wanted to be held even by a man with a fiancée.

Listening to Dae Un’s pounding heartbeat, Ga Eul realized a frightening fact. It seemed she liked the boss.

No, she definitely liked him. She didn’t know since when. Seeing how she hated the thought of leaving this man’s arms, it was certain she liked him.

Ga Eul’s body stiffened in fear. Her crying also stopped abruptly.

Her life was complicated enough as it was, why did she have to… a man with a fiancée, why did she have to… a man who put up walls against dating her, why did she have to…

Feeling Ga Eul tense up, Dae Un released her from his arms.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

Suddenly embarrassed, Ga Eul couldn’t raise her head and shook it lightly.

“I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

Dae Un cupped Ga Eul’s face with his hands and looked down at her, then suddenly became aware of his actions. What was he doing right now?

Just then, police cars arrived with sirens blaring. Seeing the police entering the garden, Ga Eul shouted to no one in particular.

“In the basement, there are videos on the basement computer of women being sexually assaulted by these bastards. Videos… in the basement…”

As the tension left her body, Ga Eul slowly collapsed to the side.

“Ga Eul!”

Dae Un caught her body, but Ga Eul didn’t feel it. Ga Eul lost consciousness without even realizing she was losing consciousness.

* * *

While a storm raged in the outside world caused by Oh Myeong Se, the hospital room was as quiet as could be. It was the room where Ga Eul, who had been brought from Shin Myeong Hwa’s villa, had been hospitalized for several days.

Ga Eul’s heart was not as calm as the quiet hospital room. Ga Eul was caught in an uncontrollable storm of emotions.

Ga Eul repeatedly sat up abruptly in the hospital bed, then collapsed back onto it after a while.

“It’s a serious illness, a serious illness.”

Her chest was so hot she couldn’t bear it. It was fortunate that no one else was around. If anyone saw her current state, they would try to admit her to the psychiatric ward.

Why did the boss have to be so diligent, to inflict such pain on her? How could such a lazy sloth be so diligent in making a fiancée?

One day, she thought it was absolutely wrong to like a man with a fiancée. It goes against morality. Just as there is business ethics in commerce, there is dating ethics in romance. Never covet another’s man.

The next day, she firmly decided never to have unrequited love. If the boss liked her even a little, he would have agreed when she begged to date. He wouldn’t have coldly refused when she asked him to keep her from going to her maternal family’s house and stay at the office.

And the day after that, she felt that there was nothing wrong with liking someone on her own, even if her feelings weren’t reciprocated. She wanted to treat him as best she could until the fiancée came. There would be no chance after that.

Then the next day, she cycled through three days’ worth of thoughts in one day.

So it was hard to maintain a normal state of mind.

The problem was the boss. Why was that boss who set fire to her heart acting so affectionately these days? Seeing how the boss treated her since she was kidnapped and rescued, imagination could become reality. The imagination she was having was that the boss…

Ga Eul collapsed with a thud and shook her head. She was really confused.

As she thought of the boss, he appeared. Well, she had been thinking about the boss all day lately. Perhaps that’s why the boss visited the hospital room faithfully every day. Some days he came twice. Though his intentions didn’t seem purely innocent.

Today too, as soon as he entered, the boss’s eyes turned to the table. There was a lunchbox that grandmother had packed. Now even that didn’t look hateful to Ga Eul’s eyes, which had grown rose-colored. That made her even more upset.

“What brings you here?”

Ga Eul tilted her head and looked at Dae Un. There were thorns in her words too.

Regardless, Dae Un paid no attention and approached the bedside, looking down at Ga Eul quietly. With Ga Eul’s mood swinging several times a day, he was now used to it.

There was a kind of implicit agreement between the two. Avoiding mention of Oh Myeong Se or Ga Eul’s kidnapping. So Ga Eul hadn’t heard about how she was rescued either. Perhaps because of this, their conversations always skirted around the issues.

“Why are you alone? You seem to have a fever.”

“I asked grandmother to bring me my book. I told her to rest at home while she’s at it. I’m worried grandmother might collapse while taking care of me.”

While she was talking, the boss didn’t move his face away. Don’t bring your face so close, you boss. The heart that had been in such turmoil now started to flutter. A blush began to bloom on Ga Eul’s face.

Why was the boss so handsome? Today especially, his thick eyebrows looked like curved branches in an ink painting.

His forehead was like a sheer limestone cliff. How the curved branches from an ink painting and a sheer limestone cliff harmonized was not her concern. So don’t argue with me. Ga Eul snickered inwardly.

But suddenly the boss’s large hand covered Ga Eul’s forehead.

“Eek, what are you doing?”

Ga Eul cried out in surprise.

“You have a fever.”

“Take your hand away. I’ll get a fever because of you, boss.”

It was true. Her body temperature was inversely proportional to her distance from the boss. So when they were excessively close like this, her temperature was bound to rise.

Ga Eul turned away from Dae Un. For some reason, she couldn’t look at the boss. It was the same face she saw every day.

Dae Un didn’t remove his hand. His gaze was fixed on the pink lips visible beneath his hand that half-covered Ga Eul’s face. On the lips that were slightly parted as if about to reveal their inner flesh.

His hand grew hot as if the fever had transferred from Ga Eul. Dae Un slowly stroked Ga Eul’s hair with that hand.

Otherwise, his hand seemed like it would move of its own accord towards Ga Eul’s lips. But though he sent his hand to her hair, his eyes couldn’t do the same. Dae Un’s Adam’s apple moved visibly.

Just then, Ga Eul snapped sharply.

“Boss, did you just stroke my hair? You know this is sexual harassment, right?”

Ga Eul blurted out whatever came to mind. It was because she was startled to find her eyes roaming over the boss’s chest. She had been looking at the boss’s chest without realizing it.

The memory of being held against the boss’s chest came alive throughout her body. Each and every cell of her body remembered how firm, how warm that chest had been.

“This girl is talking nonsense.”

Dae Un hastily removed his hand from Ga Eul’s hair.

“I was just checking if the place you hurt last time was alright. It’s fine. Your head is so hard after all.”

Ahem. Dae Un fumbled and went to the table to open the lunchbox. The motion was as natural as flowing water.

Even while opening the lunchbox, his eyes glanced at Ga Eul’s body wrapped in the thin blanket. Oh Myeong Se, that bastard, thinking about what he tried to do to that fragile body made a fireball rise in his chest.

That son of a bitch.

Dae Un filled his mouth with rice and side dishes, chewing them vigorously as if they were Oh Myeong Se.

Ga Eul watched Dae Un eating intently.

She should normally find the boss, who came to eat lunch under the pretext of visiting her in the hospital, detestable. But that… even his eating looked handsome. She felt full just watching him. So it was maddening.

Han Ga Eul, get a grip. You knew the boss was handsome. He’s the boss you’ve been bickering with in the same tiny office for over a year.

He’s that food monster you knew. The one who goes crazy at the sight of food. The one who steals his subordinate’s lunch. The sloth who flops down on the sofa as soon as he comes down dragging his slippers. That’s the boss.

Ga Eul scolded herself, trying to compose her heart. It had no effect. How could she help it when the scene of him sending Oh Myeong Se and his gang flying with a single kick overlapped with the boss eating lunch?

“Boss, was there no one to feed you when you were young?”

Ga Eul asked, giving up on denying herself. She wanted to hear about Dae Un’s fiancée. It was meaningless to write and erase stories on her own without touching on the fiancée issue.

Until now, he might not have mentioned having a fiancée because there was no opportunity. He couldn’t just blurt out ‘I have a fiancée.’ She thought she might create a natural opportunity for him to bring up his fiancée.

“Of course there was. I’m a precious child. The son of a chaebol family.”

The boss answered half-heartedly, busy eating.

“Then why are you so obsessed with food? For a chaebol, you look too needy.”

She couldn’t bring herself to ask ‘Why are you so crazy about food?’, so this was a softened version.

“Let’s speak correctly. I’m not obsessed with food, I’m obsessed with delicious things.”

Dae Un answered after drinking the last drop of cucumber cold soup from the thermos.

So he must not have tasted delicious food when he was young. For the son of a chaebol family, did he grow up unable to eat delicious food? Ga Eul didn’t ask further. If she did, it would really become prying.