Incheon International Airport, corporate exclusive terminal (SGBAC). Dowon’s black sedan came to a gliding stop.
At that moment, paparazzi and reporters who had been lying in wait thrust their cameras forward like a pack of hyenas discovering prey. It was clear that Do Jingyu’s side had deliberately leaked the confidential departure information.
“He’s coming out! It’s Director Do!”
“Is that his spouse next to him?”
It was the instant the car door opened.
A baptism of pouring flashes burned the vision white. In the flash like hundreds of lightning bolts striking simultaneously, Yeohwi unconsciously shrank his shoulders and froze.
He’d been prepared, but he hadn’t known it would be this bad. Just as his vision flickered and he nearly lost his sense of direction, a large, firm hand wrapped around the back of Yeohwi’s head.
“Lower your head.”
It was Dowon.
As soon as he got out of the car, he roughly pulled Yeohwi’s shoulder into his embrace. Then he spread the hem of his wide coat, completely blocking Yeohwi’s face from the world.
“Director Do! Is it true that the purpose of this departure is a honeymoon?”
The reporters who had been rushing forward with their microphones hesitated as if hitting an invisible wall at Dowon’s fiercely sharp gaze.
“Please move aside.”
Dowon, keeping Yeohwi firmly confined in his embrace, snapped in a frosty voice.
“This is an extremely private personal schedule. Thrusting cameras without permission is unpleasant.”
Dowon’s gaze swept as if tearing apart one by one the pupils beyond the lenses.
“If even a single shot of my spouse’s face is exposed to the media, or if speculative articles come out, I will take every possible legal action through KD Group’s legal team.”
A chilling silence flowed. The clamorous shutter sounds abruptly cut off as if it were a lie. The reporters, overwhelmed by Dowon’s dominating presence, parted like Moses’s miracle.
What broke that murderous silence was Yeohwi, who had been held in Dowon’s embrace.
“Honey!”
Yeohwi suddenly lifted his head from Dowon’s embrace and shouted loudly as if deliberately letting them hear.
“I want to go to the duty-free shop first! Okay?”
Dowon’s shoulder flinched for a moment. His flustered state at the surprise attack without warning was evident.
“They say the luxury brand section was newly remodeled. Let’s go look at this season’s watches.”
Yeohwi grabbed Dowon’s arm and rubbed his face against his shoulder. He was the very picture of a thoughtless newlywed groom. But Dowon soon regained his composure and leisurely curled up the corners of his mouth. His hand naturally wrapped around Yeohwi’s waist.
“Alright. Let’s go look.”
“Really? You’ll buy me a watch?”
“Buy whatever you want.”
The surrounding reporters and people murmured. Dowon escorted Yeohwi and moved his steps toward the inside of the terminal. To others’ eyes, it was the back view of the happiest couple in the world, but the muscles of the two people transmitted through their touching sides were tensely strained.
“Three cameras over there.”
Yeohwi, with his smiling face unchanged, whispered softly, moving only his lips.
“And 5 o’clock direction behind the pillar, two in black suits. They keep following. They’re watching everything.”
Dowon affectionately swept back Yeohwi’s disheveled bangs and brought his lips to his ear. To others it would look like he was whispering sweet nothings, but the voice that came was calm and cold.
“Ignore them.”
Dowon’s warm breath tickled his earlobe.
“Your gaze handling is natural. Just keep doing it like this.”
Yeohwi fiddled with Dowon’s tie pin and looked up at him with honey-dripping eyes.
“But, will you really buy me a watch?”
“Wasn’t that what you asked for? And quite blatantly at that.”
“Then can I pick matching couple watches? It’d be nice if we wore the same product together.”
“Seong Yeohwi, don’t talk nonsense.”
“Hey, Dowon-ssi. If you shoot such a murderous look, we’ll be caught right away. You have to smile. Here.”
“Fearless bastard. You’re cocky, really?”
“You can’t curse at me right now. I could just grab you and kiss you.”
“Try it, go ahead. Let’s see what happens.”
The breath touching his ear and the grip of the hand wrapped around his waist were too vivid. As his waist hurt as if it would be crushed, Yeohwi quickly surrendered.
“No, of course it’s a joke…… It’s a joke.”
“Fooling around isn’t fun.”
“Yes sir. Let’s quickly go look at watches, watches!”
The two purchased a Nautilus 5811 model at the Patek Philippe boutique located in the airport duty-free zone. It was a masterpiece with a white gold case set with a sunburst blue dial. Not only did one cost hundreds of millions, but it was a model that was hard to obtain even with money.
And two of them at that.
They came out wearing one on each of their wrists. Then they clearly stamped their presence for those secretly following them.
***
KD Group’s private jet flaunted its magnificence on the runway with gleaming silver wings.
“Please board, Director.”
Upon entering the cabin while receiving the flight attendants’ courteous greetings, a luxurious and comfortable space unfolded like a hotel suite room transplanted as is.
The scent of soft leather and subtle lighting, and the fragrance of top-quality champagne. The door closed, and only after the interior was perfectly isolated from the outside did Dowon let Yeohwi go.
As if tension had released, Yeohwi plopped down on the sofa, but his gaze remained fixed on his own wrist.
The blue dial shone luminously under the lighting.
The same watch as Dowon. Couple watches.
Honestly, he’d forcibly extorted it like robbery, but inwardly he was so happy that the corners of his mouth kept grinning upward. Yeohwi stared blankly at the watch, turning his wrist this way and that.
Sitting across from him taking off his jacket, Dowon let out a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded at the sight.
“You’re happy to death.”
Dowon rolled up his shirt sleeves and brought his hand to the watch buckle on his wrist. He looked ready to unfasten it right away as if it were cumbersome.
“Ah!”
Yeohwi jumped in surprise and covered Dowon’s hand to stop him.
“Don’t take it off. You have to keep wearing it.”
“It’s inside the private jet. There are no watching eyes, so there’s no reason to wear it.”
Stuffiness was intolerable. Dowon furrowed his brow and tried to remove Yeohwi’s hand.
But Yeohwi didn’t let go. Rather, he gripped more firmly and thrust forward his own reasonably valid logic.
“Dowon-ssi, think about it.”
Yeohwi said with a deliberately serious expression.
“We don’t even have something as common as wedding rings. At this rate, we’ll invite suspicion.”
“……”
“Or, would it have been better to get matching rings instead?”
Dowon’s hand stopped.
Wedding rings.
At the strange weight and sense of restraint that word gave, Dowon frowned hard. In the end, he removed his hand from the watch buckle. Rather than that, it was better to have his wrist be a bit heavy.
Picking up a champagne glass, Dowon replied indifferently.
“Then I’ll keep wearing it. If you insist that much.”
Each time his hand moved, the light of the white gold subtly glimmering flickered. Yeohwi stared intently at the watch wrapped around Dowon’s wrist. His heart inexplicably tickled and became happy.
Though he knew this was an act to deceive Do Jingyu……
In the first place, this married life itself was nothing but a time-limited contract……
‘I don’t know.’
Yeohwi swallowed the contradictory emotions and looked outside the window.
Right now, he was just happy. The fact that he wore the same watch as Dowon, breathed in the same space, and was leaving together somewhere. Even if it was fake, it was good enough to be with Dowon. That’s why his feelings were strange.
Just as his throat grew hot with a surge and he was about to become a bit melancholy.
Kuguung.
With a sudden roar, the aircraft shook noisily. It was turbulence.
“Ah!”
Yeohwi reflexively reached out his hand.
But what he gripped tightly wasn’t the cold sofa armrest. It was Dowon’s hand, who was sitting across from him.
Over his cool back of the hand, Yeohwi’s hot, large hand overlapped.
Belatedly coming to his senses, Yeohwi jumped in surprise and removed his hand.
“Ah…… I-it was a mistake!”
Yeohwi hurriedly brought his hand to his lap and made a fist. His face burned.
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“……”
“Really, I wasn’t trying to mess around…… Your hand was there, so without realizing it, well……”
“……Shut your mouth. It’s just airflow change. It’ll pass soon.”
A low, calm voice penetrated through the shaking cabin. Dowon, holding his champagne glass, looked at the thoroughly intimidated Yeohwi.
“And, no matter how much you mess around, I won’t fall for it. Don’t be needlessly conscious over something like this.”
“Ah, I knew it……”
Yeohwi pretended to be nonchalant and turned his gaze outside the window. But subtle force was entering his fingertips gripping the armrest. The blood color in his palm under pressure gradually faded.
