# Chapter 57
We fell asleep only at dawn the next day and woke up after less than two hours of sleep.
I didn’t really wake up—I just somehow regained consciousness—so I was planning to go back to sleep.
But then I realized the guy was staring at me intently, and I rubbed my eyes.
“What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? What’s with the ‘what’? When you see someone you’ve been missing right in front of you, you should be excited.”
“I am excited.”
I smiled sheepishly, and he immediately flashed a bright smile.
He’s become even more handsome than before.
Amazingly, this guy somehow manages the impossible every time.
How does he keep breaking his own record every moment?
I pondered this by myself and had a brief dilemma.
Should I sleep a bit more or get up?
But despite being extremely sleepy, my desire to keep looking at him won over that thought.
“If you’re up, try doing something. Like making something to eat.”
“Me? But you’re the host, Hyung.”
“Yeah. Feel free to use anything. It’s okay. Think of it as your home. We’re close enough.”
The guy chuckled and then got up.
Just as he was, without a single thread on his body.
Watching a sight that almost made me gasp involuntarily, I swallowed hard.
If they had lived in the same era, Han Sijin would have been the model for Michelangelo’s David, and the David statue would have looked like that.
“Should I make you coffee?”
“No. If I start drinking it this early, I think I’ll end up drinking too much today.”
“Juice then?”
“I heard juice in the morning isn’t very good for the body.”
“Really? I thought I heard it was good.”
“Are you sure?”
In the end, Han Sijin brewed one cup of coffee for himself and brought me warm cocoa.
“Are you going to the hospital first thing in the morning?”
“No. I made the earliest appointment I could, but it’s late in the afternoon.”
“Is that so? Then do you want to come to the company with me and see my office?”
“Wow. Is that okay? You said you’re a department head? At this rate, aren’t you going to rise to president in no time?”
“That might happen. Though I’m quite young for it, even now it feels like I make most of the final decisions. When I give an opinion, it’s implemented just as I said. At an incredibly fast pace.”
“That’s great news for Seyoung Media.”
Seeing Han Sijin speak like that without a trace of doubt made my heart feel peaceful.
Even in moments when I didn’t know who to trust, I could feel reassured by thinking of the Crop Five members.
Even when I found out that my uncle, whom I had trusted, had actually been drawing a big picture and using me, and had been monitoring Mom’s and my life all this time, I wasn’t completely anxious because of my faith in Crop Five.
I looked at Han Sijin.
I was still in the same position, sitting on the bed to drink my cocoa.
“Do you have something you want to talk about?”
“Yes.”
I talked about my uncle.
And before that, I had to tell him about something that inevitably needed to be discussed first.
The story of when I was kidnapped.
At first, Han Sijin was watching me without any particular tension, perhaps thinking I was going to talk about everyday matters, but his expression gradually changed.
“Hyung, if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. If you want to forget, just forget.”
At some point, he had put down his coffee cup, come over to me, and put his arm around my shoulders as he spoke.
“No. It’s okay. I think I can just talk about it now. Before, when I recalled that incident, my body would tremble uncontrollably, but not anymore.”
“…”
Han Sijin seemed apologetic.
He seemed to think that I had decided to talk about it because of him.
That was partly true.
It was also because I felt bad about not sharing my story with him until so late.
Now, I didn’t want to leave any secrets between us.
“That incident probably left me with trauma. That must have been why. I think I liked you, but I disliked the thought of that kind of relationship.”
“That kind of relationship?”
“Doing it with a man…”
“…”
He just nodded silently.
“But it turns out that the person who ordered my kidnapping was my uncle, and Grandfather apparently didn’t know about me for a very long time. No matter how strong Grandfather is and how many things he can do, he can’t know everything that happens in the world by himself.”
“That’s right.”
“Besides, even if the people around Grandfather had obtained information about me in advance, it might not have been easy for them to tell him. They probably thought they didn’t know how I would influence things in the future. Think about it—even if I were a scoundrel, being Grandfather’s grandson, I might still inherit at least a small company from Seyoung Group. It seems people considered that and didn’t tell Grandfather about me.”
Han Sijin nodded, saying it could have been like that.
“Noona also knew about what my uncle had planned.”
I told him about how she came to find me early in the morning.
Han Sijin’s eyes widened.
“Then maybe the phones she gave us…”
I nodded.
“Ah… So that’s why you suddenly changed phones?”
After that incident, Hyung had all the members change their smartphones, and Han Sijin was now realizing the reason.
“Then…”
As he listened to my story, he seemed to gradually realize that this could be a more serious matter than he had thought.
“Hyung, then maybe…”
“Yes. It wasn’t just my house—cameras were installed at the dorm too, and my uncle knows about us.”
“…”
“Don’t worry. He tried to blackmail me, but Grandfather stepped in.”
“Looking at your face, it doesn’t seem like something to worry about, but it could have been really bad. Wow… Dating you really means I had to think a lot about it.”
“So do you regret it? You still have a chance. Tell me if you want to stop.”
“Who says that? And if you were going to say such things, you shouldn’t have enchanted me in the first place. How can you say that after completely captivating me?”
Then suddenly, the guy glared at me and said.
“Wait, are you saying you could live without me?”
“Who said that? I couldn’t either. Anyway, you don’t have a chance anymore. Despite appearances, once I set my heart on something, I don’t let go.”
“Whoa. So cool.”
The guy said playfully, then asked me to continue the story, and I told him everything until there was nothing more to tell.
“Wow… Both you, Hyung, and the Chairman are amazing. That you could come up with something like that in such a short time is just… But listening to your story, somehow it seems like you resemble the Chairman a lot. In terms of disposition and scale and such things.”
“Really? I don’t see it myself. At first, I disliked him, but as time passed, I started to feel somewhat attached.”
Then I told him the cigarette story.
When I told him that I left because I disliked the smell of cigarettes, and Grandfather quit smoking because of it, Han Sijin’s eyes widened.
“Is that possible? He quit smoking cigarettes that he had been smoking for so long just because his grandson said it smelled bad? Wow. This is truly surprising.”
“I was too. But he asked what the big deal was, and from then on, he really didn’t smoke. When I said there was no point in continuing to smoke cigarettes that aren’t even good for the body, he just made a firm decision.”
Feeling it was about time to get moving, I got up and screamed.
“What? What? What? Does your waist hurt?”
Han Sijin spoke with a guilty look, knowing his crime, and I glared at him.
“Come when I’m done showering. Don’t come in before that.”
I said this because I thought we’d end up being late if we showered together, and he nodded.
But why was he following me?
“I told you to come later.”
“Yes. I heard that.”
“Then why are you coming?”
“To shower together.”
“Didn’t you just nod your head?”
“That wasn’t agreeing to it, but understanding why you said that?”
What should I do with this guy?
In the end, I couldn’t avoid being late.
* * *
Han Sijin couldn’t contain his amazement when he entered the office with its transparent floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a refreshing view outside.
“Wooow!! My goodness. Hyung, is this really your office? You use this entire office by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. One could roll around here. Isn’t it wider than the dance practice room?”
“Of course it’s smaller than that.”
“I don’t think so. It would be extremely focused if one practiced dance here.”
He kept saying things that made no sense at all while walking around everywhere and touching everything.
“Wow…!! The desk is also extremely luxurious. Wow. I should get a study like this too. No. Since I wouldn’t read books even if I made a study, should I just look at you next to you, Hyung?”
“Who would let you do that? I need to work now, so what do you want to do?”
“Ah, come on. That’s not right. Doesn’t Seyoung Media do advertisements? Use us as models. We’ll do it well for cheap.”
That was something Seyoung Media would welcome with open arms.
“I’m planning to proceed with that when all of you return. We need to break records again this time.”
“That’s right. Lee Dagyeong won last time, but we should have another battle. But it doesn’t seem like it would be fun anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because even if I win, my wish won’t be granted. There’s no chance that you’ll ever return as our manager now.”
Han Sijin said with a regretful smile.
He seemed to be remembering days gone by that would never return.
