Chapter 10

Jun-hyeok had been tapping his hand against the desk. Now he pulled a bundle of developed photographs out of one corner of a drawer, turned them over one by one, and let out a snort of self-mockery.

“So I can make even a face like this….”

Inside the square of photo paper sat a face of his own he didn’t recognize, one he had never once caught even in a mirror.

Until he’d had the film developed, he had been on edge, afraid the Principal under his protection had been exposed. And yet, absurdly, every photograph on that roll was of Jun-hyeok, without exception.

The sheer disbelief of that moment.

Those eyes must have been following him for a good long while to catch an expression that lasted only an instant. Yun Seo-ha’s composed eyes, which carried a lie that was not a lie: that for now they could not see.

“So she was shooting me before I’d even registered it….”

There was plenty about it he disliked, but that one thing alone pleased him, though he couldn’t say why.

Jun-hyeok picked up the smartphone lying on the desk, and his fingers unhurriedly tapped out eleven digits across the screen.

By her count there were still about thirty paces left to the garden. But Dodam suddenly barked, and Seo-ha stopped short and carefully bent down.

“Why, is something there…?”

When Dodam did this, it was usually over some obstacle or stumbling block that hadn’t been there before. This time, though, it wasn’t an object. Brisk, striding footsteps approached, followed by someone’s voice.

“You’re Yun Seo-ha-ssi, aren’t you?”

The woman’s voice was one she had never heard before, and Seo-ha took a wary step back.

“I’m Kim Do-hee. By CEO Han Jun-hyeok’s instruction, I’ll be handling Yun Seo-ha-ssi’s protection from today.”

Out of everything the woman said, the one word that lodged in Seo-ha’s mind was, of course, ‘Han Jun-hyeok’. Only then did she remember him saying he would put ‘someone of mine’ on her.

“Protection…?”
“From now on I’ll be accompanying Yun Seo-ha-ssi on all outside activities. It may be a little inconvenient, but it’s a necessary measure given the schedule, so I ask for your understanding.”

Seo-ha couldn’t understand why she, of all people, would need protecting.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s any particular reason for me to be given protection.”
“I suppose not. It looks like you already have a bodyguard with you.”

Seo-ha knew the joke was aimed at Dodam, but she asked anyway, as tense as before.

“Is this… surveillance disguised as protection?”

If it were that, at least, she could accept it.

Perhaps the question was too blunt. For a moment the other woman was at a loss for words.

Just then, a mobile phone rang noisily. Seo-ha always kept her own phone on vibrate, so it wasn’t hers. Ironically, though, it was Kim Do-hee who urged her to answer it.

“Would you take the call, please?”
“Sorry? It isn’t my phone.”

While a flustered Seo-ha could only blink, Kim Do-hee answered the call herself, as though it were the obvious thing to do. She seemed to know already who was on the other end, because she skipped even a brief greeting and went straight to her report.

“Yun Seo-ha-ssi asks whether this is protection or surveillance. How should I answer her?”

That, too, was so blunt that Seo-ha couldn’t help being startled. Then Kim Do-hee pressed the phone into her hand once again.

“He’d like to speak with you.”

With no idea at all what was going on, Seo-ha hesitated before taking hold of the phone, then slowly parted her lips.

“H…hello?”

— Tell me which of the two you like better, protection or surveillance.

She had expected Han Jun-hyeok, of course. Even so, when she actually heard his voice, her pulse quickened of its own accord. Whether it was the nerves of dealing with a man who was always hard to predict, or that vague feeling she got every time she faced him, she couldn’t tell.

Unaware of how confused she was, he pressed her.

— I’ll have it arranged whichever way you like.

“Listen, you really don’t have to do this….”

Her words came belatedly, and she had not even finished them before Jun-hyeok cut in, sounding displeased.

— And who was it that walked out of my house on her own two feet? What kind of husband leaves a runaway wife to her own devices?

…Runaway?

The bizarre choice of word left Seo-ha dumbfounded, and she shot back, flustered.

“I clearly asked for your understanding and told you I had an important engagement. And to put it precisely, you aren’t my husband yet, either.”

— Ah, so you like things definite? In that case, come over here with Do-hee. We’ll start by registering the marriage.

As expected, nothing with this man ever happened in the proper order. None of it made sense, and yet the longer she listened, the more sense it made. Now she understood how people fell for con artists so easily.

Even in the middle of all this, the name ‘Do-hee’, slipping so naturally out of his mouth, nagged at her.

Seo-ha cast a sidelong glance toward where Kim Do-hee must be standing in front of her and let out a short sigh. Short hair, straight posture, and, fittingly for someone who guarded people for a living, quite tall from the look of her. Seo-ha wanted to make her out in more detail, but her eyes would give her no more than that.

With Han Jun-hyeok behaving so strangely, even her own brain seemed to be doing as it pleased, and a stifling pressure rose in her chest.

Getting out of that house was the priority. If anything, him coming at me like this first makes things easier.

After thinking it over a moment, Seo-ha looked back behind her. Laughter was still bursting out inside the foundation. The moment she walked back in there, she would have to become ‘Cha Mi-yeon’s adopted daughter’ again, covering her ears and holding her tongue.

Merely being unable to see wasn’t enough. She had to be the pitiful daughter who lived on her adoptive mother’s love. A being waiting for a miracle. The protagonist of a story others had laid out, unable to decide her own life.

Was it so strange that, in this moment, Han Jun-hyeok’s words sounded like a way out?

Still, this went much too far.

Registering the marriage, out of nowhere….

He really meant for them to become legally married right this minute? Surely he couldn’t be serious. Judging by the way he’d acted so far, it had to be a joke.

Seo-ha shook her head, let out a short breath, and spoke in a voice tinged with resignation.

“And what will you do if I really step up and say I’ll go through with it?”

She had turned it over this way and that before blurting it out, because once the legal procedure was carried out, one benefit was certain to come back to her. Even if Han Jun-hyeok changed his mind partway, he would be stuck with no way out, since a marriage registration in the Republic of Korea could never be cancelled. And compared with living together before the wedding, a registered marriage offered an endless supply of stories that could be dressed up nicely.

After a brief silence, Jun-hyeok gave an instruction.

— Put Do-hee on.

Seo-ha only just stopped herself from saying she didn’t want to. She was ashamed of herself for biting so quickly at what she’d taken for a passing joke.

Struggling to quiet her clamoring heart, she handed the phone to Kim Do-hee, and a crisp voice soon followed.

“The vehicle is ready. Yes, I’ll do that.”

Kim Do-hee gave Jun-hyeok no answer beyond those words and hung up.

“The CEO asked me to give this phone to Yun Seo-ha-ssi, so you may keep it. It runs on iOS, and you can control it by voice through the AI.”

In the middle of all this, Han Jun-hyeok had handed her a smartphone friendly to the visually impaired, and Seo-ha wondered whether that was simple chance or a thoughtful gesture meant for her.

She put out her hand reluctantly and took the phone. Somehow it felt as if she had merely acquired one more smartphone with location tracking installed, which was hardly welcome.

“Shall we go, then?”
“…Go where?”
“I’m instructed to bring you to the Gangnam-gu Office.”

A stiff breath escaped between Seo-ha’s lips. She hadn’t even worked out whether he was serious or lying, and he really meant to go and register the marriage right now? Han Jun-hyeok was truly beyond anything her common sense could account for.

After a moment’s hesitation, she took a firm grip on the harness in her hand.

“Let’s go, Dodam.”

As Seo-ha started forward, Kim Do-hee took her arm lightly and guided her to the car.

A card laid is a card played.

Words already spoken cannot be gathered back up, and an action already taken cannot be undone. The saying applied equally to Han Jun-hyeok and to herself.

Yun Seo-ha, who had never once been in a relationship, was on the verge of becoming someone’s wife. Without love, with a single signature.

Kim Do-hee openly trained her gaze on the rearview mirror.

On a mission she would never do such a thing, whatever happened. Most Principals were hypersensitive to other people’s eyes, so she too had made it a habit never to stare at a VIP.

Can she really not see?

She had stared openly several times over. Anyone else would have met Kim Do-hee’s eyes once or twice by now, if only by accident. But the woman pressed right up against the far end of the back seat never once turned her head, keeping her eyes fixed out the window.

Her brow furrowed without her meaning it to as she recalled that morning, when she had been summoned out of nowhere.

At the time she had been loosening up lightly with Team Leader Park Jae-man.