Late into the night.

It was revealed that Kwon Seung Joo was quite the drinker.

While trying to get Seung Joo drunk, Kim Sun Ah ended up passing out first. From Yoon Eun Seo’s perspective, it was clear that Seung Joo had drunk much more, yet he remained unaffected while only Sun Ah got drunk.

“What is up with this guy……”

Leaving those last words as if they were her dying message, Sun Ah buried her forehead on the table with a thud.

“You’re really not affected at all?”

Eun Seo, who had been watching with fascination from the side, asked.

“Yes. It’s my first time drinking, but I think I can handle it.”

The man who had easily downed two bottles of soju answered with a composed face.

Eun Seo suddenly recalled when she first met Seung Joo two years ago. Even then, there was the smell of alcohol on him, but he didn’t show any signs of being drunk.

At that time, Seung Joo was wearing a black suit with a black necktie. It was undoubtedly an outfit worn to a funeral. Seeing how lonely he looked, perhaps it was someone close to him…

She was curious about it now, but asking the current Seung Joo would be pointless. Eun Seo decided to drop the thought there.

“We should take her inside to lie down. Can you carry her?”

“Of course.”

He was a man with an imposing physique to begin with. As strong as his build suggested, Seung Joo easily lifted Sun Ah as if she were a sheet of paper and got up.

It was a pity that Sun Ah was too drunk to be aware of it. If she knew that she was being carried on ‘Mr. Seung Joo’s’ back, she would have been thrilled, saying she hit the jackpot.

After sitting for a while and looking up at the moon, Seung Joo returned from taking Sun Ah to the room to rest.

“She seems like a kind elder sister.”

“Yeah. You can trust Sun Ah. She’s your fan, you know.”

Eun Seo spoke with confidence.

“When the notice about your sick leave came out, Sun Ah was genuinely worried about you.”

“Didn’t she say I’m the type that loses charm quickly?”

“I guess Sun Ah doesn’t think that way.”

“Why?”

“You’ll have to hear that directly from her later.”

Recalling the legendary shareholders’ meeting incident, Eun Seo chuckled and looked at the meat cooling on the grill.

“Sun Ah is truly a good person. I don’t eat well on my own, so she occasionally buys meat like this and comes over to feed me. Even this grill and burner were bought and left here by Sun Ah.”

After saying that, Eun Seo regretfully put the last piece of meat into her mouth.

“Shall we start cleaning up now?”

As she was about to put down her chopsticks, suppressing the desire to eat more, Seung Joo placed more meat on the grill.

“I want to eat more.”

Eun Seo thought to herself that it was a good thing.

Once again, the delicious smell of grilled meat spread throughout the yard. Despite saying he would eat more, when the meat was fully cooked, Seung Joo only put the meat on Eun Seo’s plate.

He caught on. Feeling embarrassed, she hesitated to pick up her chopsticks. Seung Joo quietly spoke as he flipped the meat.

“I’m glad to see you eating well, Eun Seo. I was worried because you never ate much.”

He asked cautiously.

“Are you on a diet by any chance?”

“No, it’s just that living with my mom made me this way.”

After losing Yoon Eun Ho, her mother felt guilty about eating delicious food. No, she had an aversion to the very act of eating. So she barely ate just enough to avoid starving to death.

The problem was that Eun Seo was different from her mother. While it was true that she missed and worried about her younger brother, it didn’t cause her to lose her appetite. When it was time to eat, she felt hungry, and when there was a delicious smell, she wanted to eat.

However, with her mother being like that, young Eun Seo had no choice. She would eat if her mother gave her food, and starve if she didn’t. As a result, Eun Seo grew up without being able to eat properly. She had never even ordered and eaten a whole chicken by herself.

“I’m barely 160 centimeters tall, you know? Thinking about it now, I didn’t grow taller because I couldn’t eat well when I was young. With this beauty, if I were just a bit taller, I could have entered the Miss Korea pageant.”

The tall man looked at Eun Seo, who spoke jokingly, with sympathetic eyes.

“I think it was in my third year of middle school. I had saved up money from delivering newspapers and bought a whole fried chicken from the market with great determination. My mom scolded me all day for that.”

[How can you swallow this? We don’t even know where your brother is or what he’s eating or if he’s starving right now!]

After that day, Eun Seo never bought food again.

That hardened habit didn’t change even after her mother passed away. Even now, Eun Seo didn’t have the habit of eating properly. She ate whatever was available, starved when she could, suppressed her cravings, and held her breath and walked faster when she smelled something delicious.

She wouldn’t even eat the rice while it was still warm right after cooking. Instead, she would intentionally let it sit for a long time and make cold rice to eat. Just like her mother always did.

“You’d think I would have gotten used to it by now, living like that all this time. But I can’t.”

“……”

“Actually, I still really enjoy eating. When I see delicious food, I salivate, and when a mukbang comes on TV, I find myself watching as if I’m enchanted… I just keep suppressing it over and over.”

Eun Seo laughed dryly.

“Pitiful, isn’t it? I don’t even know where my younger brother is or what he’s been doing all this time, yet here I am, his elder sister, indulging in my appetite.”

“What do you think Eun Ho would think?”

Seung Joo, who had been quietly listening, suddenly spoke up. His face, illuminated by the moonlight, looked somewhat sorrowful.

“If he knew that his sister wasn’t eating properly because of him.”

She had never thought about it that way before. For the first time, Eun Seo pondered it.

Well, what would Eun Ho say if he knew?

[Sis, let’s eat this together!]

Even with his favorite chocolate, he would save it without eating it, and when Eun Seo came home from school, he would break it in half and hand it to her. That was the kind of child her young brother was.

So if he knew about this, perhaps…

When Eun Seo didn’t answer, Seung Joo asked again.

“What if Eun Ho is thinking, ‘Our sister must not be eating well now, worrying about me,’ and he’s also not eating because of that? How would you feel then?”

“……”

“So eat. Eun Ho would want that too.”

The moment she heard his voice filled with certainty, her eyes somehow felt hot. No one had ever said that to her before. Not even her mother.

With the added influence of alcohol, she felt like crying, but as an elder sister, she had to maintain her dignity. She was nine years older than Seung Joo, and she was his guardian. Eun Seo knew from countless experiences how much showing weakness as a guardian could make the one being protected feel anxious.

To hide her tears, Eun Seo gave Seung Joo a suspicious look.

“You’re like an old man in a young body… Be honest. You’re not really eighteen, are you? You’re deceiving me, aren’t you?”

Seung Joo laughed.

“Actually, I was like that too. At first, I starved a lot because I couldn’t bring myself to eat, not knowing where my mother was or how she was doing.”

“……”

“But then I realized that the person who would be most upset if I didn’t eat would be my mother. If my mother saw me, she would be heartbroken, asking why our Seung Joo had gotten so skinny.”

“……”

“So later, when we met again, I made sure to eat well so that my mother wouldn’t be upset. I tried my best not to eat things like instant noodles, and even if it was bothersome, I cooked and ate rice.”

So that’s why he knew how to cook rice. Come to think of it, even if a high school boy was left alone at home, he would usually just buy and eat cup noodles or gimbap. She had thought it was strange.

The child, who was too mature and dignified for his age, was admirable yet also pitiful. Eun Seo knew well the reason why a child grows up too quickly.

How it ended up that way.

Why it had to be that way.

“So let’s eat a lot of delicious things.”

As Eun Seo looked up at the distant sky, her nose feeling sore, Seung Joo placed the perfectly grilled meat on her plate.

“Eat a lot, stay strong, and wait.”

*

The next morning, Sun Ah, who had passed out from drinking soju the previous night, woke up like a zombie and slowly got up.

“Ugh, I’m dying.”

“You should have taken it easy. Why did you go so hard?”

Eun Seo handed her honey water and gave her a side-eye.

“I had a grand plan in mind. I wanted to steal a kiss from Seung Joo, pretending it was an accident while he was drunk. It would have been his first kiss, right?”

Hearing her say the same thing even after sobering up, Eun Seo’s heart sank for some reason. You’re really planning to make a move on Seung Joo, aren’t you, Sun Ah?

“But who knew he could handle his alcohol so well… As expected, our Mr. Seung Joo is perfect.”

Suddenly, Sun Ah poked Eun Seo’s side.

“Aren’t you affected at all, Eun Seo?”

“By what?”

“When a young man and woman live under the same roof, don’t they develop feelings even if they didn’t have any before? That’s what I mean.”

Sun Ah was now looking at Eun Seo’s face with serious eyes, all playfulness gone.

“Honestly, don’t you find him attractive too? Am I wrong?”

Eun Seo couldn’t deny it right away.

The man she had briefly seen two years ago. That lonely-looking back, that dream-like handsome face, had occasionally come to her mind even after that.

It was the same after meeting him at the company. Her heart would race for no reason when she saw his face, and she was secretly disappointed that he didn’t remember her. So it would be a lie to say she hadn’t harbored even the seeds of affection.

However, Eun Seo had no intention of letting those seeds sprout in the first place, and now more than ever, she couldn’t afford to do so.

While Sun Ah thought Kwon Seung Joo was Kwon Seung Joo despite temporarily losing her memory, Eun Seo was different. She believed they were separate people no matter what. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to live with him.

She couldn’t live with a man for whom she had personal feelings. There was no reason for her to become the guardian of the man who had uttered cruel words and tried to kick her out of the house.

So the person in front of her eyes right now was an eighteen-year-old, innocent boy. He just happened to look like an adult on the outside.

“You know who I am, Sun Ah?”

That’s why Eun Seo could answer firmly.

“Don’t worry. I don’t have any other feelings for Seung Joo.”

Only then did Sun Ah smile.

“I believe you, Eun Seo!”