Yiyoung turned around. Though they could by no means be called close, standing there was someone who, at least in this moment, was welcome enough to relax his stiffly hardened expression.
“Director Jin Gicheol.”
It was his secretary, whom he’d seen a couple of times when with Chahyun.
They’d only stopped by briefly during a date because Chahyun had some documents he urgently needed to confirm, so they hadn’t properly conversed. Yiyoung had thought it a bit strange that a deputy general manager had a secretary and left it at that.
Director Jin showed a momentarily surprised expression at Yiyoung coming all the way here. Soon, as if pondering while staring intently at Yiyoung, he took out his phone from his suit jacket’s inner pocket and said.
“Please wait a moment.”
Then he moved far away from Yiyoung and called someone. It wasn’t a distance where he could hear the words clearly, but because the ward was so quiet, the conversation faintly reached his ears.
“……-nim, Bae Yiyoung-ssi is here.”
It probably wasn’t Chahyun. If he could take calls, Chahyun would have called Yiyoung first.
‘Then who is he talking to?’
In dramas, they mainly used that kind of speech when talking to people like chairmen. At the ominous premonition he couldn’t name, Yiyoung’s palms broke out in sweat.
Soon finishing the call, Director Jin returned and said to the security guard.
“This is the deputy general manager-nim’s guest. Let him in.”
Then the security guard erased his wary gaze toward Yiyoung and stepped back with a polite gesture.
Yiyoung followed Director Jin toward the elevator. During the wait for the elevator, feeling awkward because Director Jin didn’t offer any particular greeting, he cautiously opened his mouth.
“Thank you. Somehow it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to get in by myself.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
At the same time Director Jin answered matter-of-factly, the elevator doors opened. Just before boarding the elevator, Director Jin turned his head to meet Yiyoung’s eyes and asked flatly.
“Do you have no idea at all what kind of person the deputy general manager-nim is?”
“……What kind of person is Chahyun-ssi?”
Hmm, Director Jin let out a sigh of difficulty.
To be precise, he’d never particularly thought about it. Of course, it was amazing that at the young age of twenty-eight he’d been promoted to deputy general manager of a large corporation, and he did feel he was wealthy. But rather than such things, the fact that he was simply a kind and affectionate man struck him more strongly, so he hadn’t thought much of it. Because that had been enough.
But perhaps he should have paid a bit more attention. Yiyoung grew increasingly anxious.
Meanwhile, the elevator reached the 21st floor. As Yiyoung followed Director Jin through the corridor that was as dazzlingly white as the lobby, he became increasingly intimidated. By the time he stood in front of the hospital room door, he had shrunk considerably.
Director Jin grasped and turned the doorknob of the hospital room, saying.
“Try not to be too shocked.”
The door opened, and the hospital room scene, bright with the splendid morning sunlight, came into view.
He could see Chahyun sitting on a bed in a place closer to a luxurious hotel room than a hospital room. Except for the gauze covering his forehead, he looked exactly as Yiyoung knew him.
Just seeing him looking healthy was endlessly reassuring, and Yiyoung unconsciously opened his mouth gladly.
“Chahyun-ssi.”
But something was strange.
“……”
Even though he’d called his name, Chahyun only stared at Yiyoung almost glaring, without answering. Moreover, it was a puzzled expression like one might show when a stranger on the street acts familiar.
Chahyun had a look in his eyes as if saying to Yiyoung, ‘You’ve mistaken me for someone else.’
While Chahyun looked Yiyoung up and down, the woman sitting in the chair beside the bed said.
“Do you remember this kid? He’s someone you’ve been meeting recently.”
Only then did Yiyoung look at the woman sitting in an upright posture with her back to him. As if sensing his gaze, the woman slightly turned her head, showing her profile. Yiyoung involuntarily swallowed dryly.
Moon Igyeong, Chairwoman of Moongang Group.
He should have searched the name “Moon Chahyun” on the internet at least once. No matter how much it was a company no one in the Republic of Korea could be unaware of, Yiyoung didn’t have complete knowledge of all the members of that owner family.
From right after Chahyun’s accident, the puzzle pieces that had been coming to him one by one finally completed into a picture at this moment.
He was the youngest sibling of the Moongang Group chairwoman.
Even in his shocked state, Yiyoung thought.
‘What does she mean by asking if he remembers me?’
He couldn’t readily understand what Moon Igyeong had just said.
But before Yiyoung could reflect on Igyeong’s words, Chahyun’s eyes widened in disbelief as he reacted in shock. Chahyun asked his sister in a disgusted voice.
“You’re joking, right?”
Chahyun’s expression looking over Yiyoung grew increasingly distorted. Yiyoung was dumbfounded by Chahyun’s gaze that even seemed to look at him with contempt.
***
Chahyun glared sharply at the unfamiliar man standing dazed in his hospital room.
‘I was meeting a man?’
It was already absurd to have become a twenty-eight-year-old man overnight, but to be told that a man he’d never seen before in his life was his lover was truly something to make him faint in shock. Chahyun couldn’t believe it at all and glanced at the man with suspicious eyes. He asked Igyeong again.
“Did you see it, Noona? Me dating him. You’re not just thinking that based on what he said, right?”
Chahyun had never felt romantic feelings for anyone until now. For his family members, romance and marriage were naturally business, so that was better. Chahyun had thought that when the time came, he would of course marry a woman from a family suitable for discussing business together.
But a male lover? What the hell use would something like that be?
The more Chahyun looked the man up and down, the more his expression distorted. Well, he was a pretty and cute man. If he himself had awakened to a new sexual identity at twenty-eight, he might have felt quite favorable. But.
‘Even giving a hundred concessions that he’s a man, his appearance……’
A worn hoodie jacket over a plain cotton t-shirt, faded jeans and cheap sneakers.
The word tacky was an evaluation that could only be given when there was an intentional style. The man seemed to wear clothes merely to cover his body and maintain body temperature. Even the expression shabby was too generous for him. The man was impoverished.
‘Is this what they call poverty that I’ve only heard about?’
He’d only glimpsed people like this in documentaries. Chahyun scrutinized the man doubtfully and spat out the most reasonable conclusion he could think of.
“He could be lying to extort something from us.”
Then the man, whose face was already white, turned pale as the blood drained away.
The man’s small, plump lips, not even a mouthful, trembled. His clasped hands, tense with apparent fluster, were the same. In his large eyes beneath rapidly blinking eyelids, tears were brimming.
Seeing the man make a hurt expression, Chahyun became even more displeased.
‘What a show.’
Just as he was thinking that, for some reason Igyeong let out a snicker. Then she said to the man behind her back in her characteristic authoritative tone.
“Leave now.”
It was an order, not a farewell. Igyeong didn’t even look back at the man.
Chahyun didn’t find the man before him pleasant either. However, at that moment, Igyeong’s high-handed attitude, no different from usual, strangely grated on him. Because he didn’t know the reason, he showed no particular reaction.
The man spoke urgently as if coming to his senses with a start.
“Wait a moment. Still, since I came all the way here, you should at least explain to me a bit about what’s going on……”
“Director Jin.”
Instead of answering the man, Igyeong called Director Jin Gicheol in a low voice. Then Director Jin carefully grasped the man’s elbow and shook his head toward him.
It was a gesture meaning there was no use being stubborn here. Nevertheless, the man looked at Chahyun with eyes dripping with lingering attachment.
“Chahyun-ssi.”
The man had an expression expecting Chahyun to hold onto him.
And naturally, Chahyun was also curious about the man’s identity. He wanted to hear directly about how this man came to know his name and face, and came all the way here.
But not in front of Igyeong. No matter that they were siblings, having been born into the Moon family, he couldn’t comfortably reveal his weaknesses.
Thinking it would be better to send him out for now, Chahyun met the man’s gaze with cold eyes.
“Didn’t you hear? Chairwoman Moon told you to leave.”
At Chahyun’s cold treatment, the man abruptly pressed his lips shut.
“……”
The man soon turned around with a resigned expression. Chahyun gazed at the man’s back as he followed Director Jin out of the hospital room, and somehow felt restless. It was the same feeling as when Igyeong had tried to carelessly send him away.
Frowning in bewilderment at that unfamiliar emotion, the hospital room door closed.
