Chapter 7
“If we’re going to maintain this relationship moving forward, I think you need to stop acting like a robot. What do you think?”
“I’ll try…”
“How strange. You didn’t tremble like this in front of me at the office. Not even during presentations.”
“Haha…”
While it was true that she liked Woo-seok a little too much, Hye-joo also subconsciously feared being alone with men. It was a lingering trauma caused by a few male classmates who had once used her as the subject of a cruel bet.
In short, being completely alone with her team leader was triggering that deep-seated anxiety.
Hye-joo tried to shake off the memory, recalling the faces of the three male classmates who had given her that trauma back in college.
Hye-joo’s College Days
Back then, she was a naive fool—an absolute idiot who stubbornly believed the classic lie told by adults: “You’ll get a boyfriend once you go to college.” Having devoured countless web novels, she was a delusional girl who fully expected a line of handsome guys to be waiting for her on campus.
“What the heck? There’s no one…”
As it turned out, Hye-joo’s major was overwhelmingly female-dominated, and no matter how hard she looked, there wasn’t a single good-looking guy on the entire campus.
Just as she was settling into a mundane, repetitive college routine, a year passed. Right when she decided that having fictional paper boyfriends was more than enough, something straight out of a web novel actually happened to her.
Three different men approached her at the same time.
What felt even more like a dream was how they acted. They behaved exactly like the characters from her favorite reverse-harem novels: the textbook tsundere, the sweet guy, and the aloof guy. Her heart wavered constantly between the three, leaving her utterly flustered and confused.
That was, until she discovered the truth.
One afternoon, while she was killing time in the student lounge, one of those guys had snuck up behind her, looked at the novel she was reading, and proposed a wager to the others: “Let’s see who can win her over by acting like this.”
“Fuck, did you see Shin Hye-joo blushing today?”
“Does she seriously think three guys would hit on her at the same time? It’s fucking hilarious.”
“Shut up, it’s disgusting. I’m just waiting for the day I can clear out my phone’s photo gallery.”
“Just get your money ready. I’m definitely winning this.”
She still vividly remembered the night she accidentally stumbled upon the three of them gathered in the smoking area, overhearing their conversation. That scene had permanently burned itself into her mind, tormenting her ever since.
“…Hye-joo.”
Snapping out of her thoughts, Hye-joo blinked in surprise and quickly responded.
“Yes, yes! I’m listening.”
Trying desperately to shake off the past, she forced the corners of her mouth upward. Woo-seok raised his water glass and spoke.
“Let’s have a brief discussion about how we’ll proceed while we eat.”
“Ah, yes.”
“It goes without saying that you must keep our arrangement strictly confidential. Moving forward, I’d like you to help me practice dating.”
Hearing those words, Hye-joo finally began to visualize it concretely. She imagined going to the movie theater with Woo-seok, looking at spring flowers, and driving along the Han River.
But her vivid imagination quickly deflated, leaving her gloomy.
The thought of sincerely coaching him in romance just so he could be happy with another woman made her chest ache. It hurt to know she wasn’t his actual partner, and that she never could be. She felt a wave of sorrow, realizing that once the dating coaching was over, she would be cast aside as if they were nothing more than strangers.
“…Understood.”
“Oh, and I also need you to act as my stand-in girlfriend when necessary.”
Hye-joo stiffened at his next words. This was entirely different from what he had initially told her.
“A stand-in girlfriend? Y-you never mentioned anything like that!”
“As I told you, due to personal circumstances, I urgently need to find someone to marry. Until I find the real person, I need you to accompany me to various events to buy me some time.”
“Th-that’s impossible…!”
“If you teach me well, I should be able to win her heart in no time. So it shouldn’t be an issue, right?”
No, it was a massive issue. She didn’t have any dating experience either, so there was no guarantee she could act naturally if she accompanied him to formal events.
“If you don’t want to, we can stop right now.”
“A-ah, no! Until when… do I have to teach you?”
“Let’s see. I’d like this arrangement to continue until I successfully win over my marriage prospect.”
“Who knows how long that will take…”
“I wouldn’t know. But if I fail to date her, it would mean you didn’t coach me properly. So I think it’s only fair to take responsibility up to that point.”
“What on earth does that mean?”
Stunned by his thunderbolt of a statement, Hye-joo lost her grip while trying to cut her steak, her knife slipping uselessly. Witnessing this, Woo-seok immediately took her plate, efficiently sliced the steak into perfect bite-sized pieces, and slid the plate back to her.
“Even when you buy a product, there’s a warranty period. So you need to guarantee your work, Hye-joo.”
“It might not be my fault! It could be that you just can’t follow my coaching properly, Team Leader!”
“If you teach me right, there’s absolutely no way I won’t be able to follow.”
It all happened in an instant. She didn’t even have time to process how surreal it felt to witness a chivalrous side to him that never existed at the office.
“Consider this the start of our date, and teach me. Tell me what I should do.”
Faced with Woo-seok’s direct demand, alarm bells went off in Hye-joo’s head.
Dating coaching, a lesson warranty, and acting as a fake girlfriend…
It was a ridiculous set of conditions, but as the saying goes: Even if you enter a tiger’s den, you can survive if you keep your wits about you. Hye-joo recalled the resolve she had made while standing outside the hotel room door. At the end of the day, her team leader was the one asking her for help to learn how to love. There was no reason to be intimidated.
While Hye-joo was lost in thought, carefully choosing her words, Woo-seok simply watched her determined expression with a cool, unreadable gaze.
“Team Leader. If this were your first date with her… you’d need to capture her attention immediately to have the highest chance of winning.”
“Is that so?”
The moment Woo-seok sat across from a woman and opened his mouth, his blunt, cold words would probably drive her away. Therefore, he had to use his physical appearance to his advantage. Of course, Hye-joo personally found his cold demeanor deeply attractive, but still.
Then, an idea struck her.
Few women disliked a man who looked good in a dress shirt. Hye-joo stared blankly at her team leader’s flawless physique, silently praying that the woman he liked also had a thing for sexy men in well-fitted shirts.
“First, button your shirt all the way up again.”
“Does it look bad right now?”
“No, I want to teach you how to avoid looking overly perfect and rigid. Let’s call it creating an ‘approachable’ impression.”
When he obediently fastened the top button at his throat, Hye-joo delivered her next instruction.
“Now, you slowly undo the buttons, one by one, while speaking. Say something like, ‘Ah, it’s a bit warm in this restaurant.’”
Of course, this request was largely driven by her own selfish desires.
“Like this?”
Woo-seok brought his long, thick fingers to his top button and popped it open with a light clack. With every movement of his fingers, the veins on the back of his hands and forearms pulsed subtly beneath his shifting sleeves.
Hye-joo swallowed hard at the sight.
“A-and… I think it would be good to roll up your sleeves, too.”
“Understood.”
As if unfastening cufflinks or a surgeon preparing for a procedure, he lifted his arms, undid the buttons on his cuffs, and rolled one sleeve up, completely exposing the firm musculature of his forearm.
“Y-you did great, Team Leader.”
To hide the fact that her mouth was watering, she picked up a sour pickle with her fork and popped it into her mouth.
“F-for the beginning of the date, just doing that much should be plenty.”
“…Are you feeling sick?”
“Pardon?”
“Your voice sounds a bit faint. That’s why I asked.”
Woo-seok stood up, lightly placed his hands on the table, and leaned his upper body deeply toward her. He then pressed the back of his hand firmly against Hye-joo’s forehead to check for a fever.
“You definitely seem to have a temperature.”
She couldn’t exactly tell him that her body heat was skyrocketing precisely because she was with him. Her forehead, already burning, grew even hotter the moment his hand touched it and pulled away.
“I-I’m fine! Really.”
“But why aren’t you eating?”
“What?”
“Just now, you only ate a pickle. The food is going to get cold. Why aren’t you eating the rest?”
Since things had already turned out this way, she decided to push her luck a little further. Hye-joo stuffed a piece of the neatly cut steak into her mouth and made a shameless request.
“In times like this… it’s good to say, ‘Eat a lot,’ while transferring some food from your own plate onto hers.”
“Is that so?”
Following her command, Woo-seok took her appetizer plate, scooped up some of his pasta and meat, and offered it to her.
“Like this?”
“Th-thank… thank you.”
Hye-joo accepted the plate awkwardly with both hands, treating it like a sacred offering. Even so, her eyes instinctively drifted back to the firm forearms holding the plate. She wasn’t even aware she was staring.
“Is there anything else I should watch out for, Hye-joo?”
“You did wonderfully, Team Leader. Excellent job.”
“You sound like you’re flattering me.”
“No, I’m serious. You’re actually really good at this…”
