Chapter 18

Still nothing from Ji-an. Is it really all right to leave your boss on read like this?

Thoroughly insolent of her… and cute.

How on earth do I get this woman to come up here? Sa-heon sat on the platform bench, pushed his hair back and looked up at the night sky. Maybe it was because this was the countryside, but every star he’d never been able to see was out tonight.

Want to come up and look at the stars? Should I send that.

Fuck. Just thinking it makes me want to throw up.

‘Act pitiful. Like, really set off her protective instinct.’

Why, of all the moments, did that little brat’s words have to come to mind now? Sa-heon let out a troubled sigh, pushed his hair back again and sent a text.

It’s because something’s upset me.

The message showed as read, and again no answer came. Right. As if an act that cheap and pathetic was ever going to work. But just as he went to turn off the screen, a reply arrived.

What happened?

…This actually works?

Sa-heon could barely keep the corners of his mouth from climbing, so he kept his words to the bare minimum.

Just… having a bit of a hard time.

Are you all right?

The reply came back instantly. Damn it, what am I supposed to say? He’d never once in his life said anything like this to anyone, and the words stuck fast in his throat. He took a good while to answer, and before he could, one more message came.

I’ll come up now, Managing Director.

Ji-an let out a small sigh as she climbed the stairs.

Tonight of all nights, sleep wouldn’t come. She’d been tossing and turning for a long while when Sa-heon’s text arrived.

He’d suggested they have a beer, and she’d figured he was up to his tricks again, so she hadn’t answered. Then he’d said something had upset him.

It wasn’t a lie, was it? The suspicion flickered through her for a moment, but she shook her head. Surely not.

When she came up onto the rooftop, she saw Sa-heon from behind, sitting on the platform bench with both arms braced behind him, looking up at the sky.

She was used to seeing him in nothing but well-fitted shirts, so his back in a loose white short-sleeved T-shirt looked somehow different.

The broad shoulders and solid muscle of his back were as imposing as ever, and yet there was something oddly lonely and distant about him. It struck her that he, too, was only an ordinary human being.

As she came closer, he must have sensed someone there, because he turned around.

“You came?”

His smiling face looked somehow sad, and his eyes looked somehow damp, too. Ji-an sat down carefully beside him.

“Did something happen?”

“No, nothing really happened. It’s just that no matter how hard I try to dig up the memories I’ve lost, nothing comes back at all… Tonight it’s weighing on me more than usual.”

Sa-heon gave a lonely smile and pushed his hair back.

Chief Choi must have told him about the situation he was in: that this was a crucial stretch of his career, and how carefully he’d built up his reputation all this time. Of course his mind was in turmoil.

“Ah…”

Ji-an let out a small sigh and nodded as though she understood.

“Don’t push yourself too hard. The doctor did say it would come back on its own, didn’t he?”

“I never knew that not remembering a single thing would leave me this lost. It’s like I was cryogenically frozen and then woke up.”

It had to feel like that. Honestly, if she were in his place and had lost the memory of her own past, she might have been scared enough to cry for days on end.

And twelve years gone blank. How long a stretch of time was that?

Yet all this while Sa-heon had taken it fairly calmly. Maybe I’ve been too thoughtless.

So Ji-an offered him some comfort, carefully.

“You must be really anxious. But you’re doing more than well enough, Managing Director.”

“Thank you. It’s just that I… I feel bad about you, Ji-an.”

“About me?”

“You have to be here because of me. It’s the weekend again and you can’t even go home. Honestly, being around your boss is uncomfortable, isn’t it? However much it’s your unnie’s house, you have a home of your own.”

“Don’t worry about me, Managing Director. I’m really fine. It’s nice being with my unnie and my nephew after so long. And like you said, going back and forth would be more trouble.”

“Thanks for saying that.”

He slid his hand over hers where it rested on the bench. When Ji-an flinched, Sa-heon murmured with a mournful face.

“You know what? Being with you, Ji-an, puts my mind at ease.”

The gloom in his voice drew a sigh out of her.

Her resolve was weakening, and when she didn’t shake him off, his big hand slid quietly in between her fingers.

“My half-brothers are trying to kill me. And my memory stops at twenty-one.”

“…”

Sa-heon’s thick lashes trembled faintly.

“I open my eyes, and the only people in the world on my side are Chief Choi and you, Ji-an. And honestly, Chief Choi hasn’t got a trace of a smile in him. He looks like a gangster.”

“G-gangster, really…”

Chief Choi Kang-hoon was loyal to Sa-heon without question. While Sa-heon lay unconscious, the chief had been so sick with worry that he hadn’t spared a thought for the stubble growing rough on his jaw.

“I don’t know… It’s just the look of him, isn’t it? And even now he’s off sleeping on his own, snoring at the top of his lungs.”

That was because Chief Choi had been busy cleaning up the aftermath of everything lately, and his face was getting gaunter by the day. Chief Choi probably hadn’t managed even a few proper hours of sleep a day since the accident.

She, on the other hand, had been eating three square meals and enjoying a not-quite-vacation at her unnie’s house for the first time in ages…

“But you, Ji-an, you’re so kind, and I can feel that you’re really worried about me.”

His words gave her a guilty twinge, so she cleared her throat and looked away. Sa-heon was still holding her hand tight.

Yet his touch seemed to be growing more intimate, more lingering. When Ji-an, embarrassed, tried to pull her hand free, he tightened his grip and murmured lonesomely.

“I knew it. When I hold your hand, Ji-an, I calm right down.”

“…”

With him saying a thing like that, she could hardly yank her hand away. And of all things, the scars on the back of his hand caught her eye again.

They were abrasions from the accident. It was a man’s hand, thick-knuckled and hard-boned, and at every finger joint the small wounds had healed into fine little scars.

Sa-heon must have noticed her looking, because he smiled faintly.

“My hand’s ugly, isn’t it?”

“Not at all. How could it be ugly?”

“You really are a good person, Ji-an.”

“That’s not really true.”

“It is. You’re the softest-hearted, kindest person I’ve ever met. The people around me were nothing but devils.”

Maybe because he believed he was twenty-one, those listless, lowered eyes felt genuinely gentle.

What kind of life had this man lived? She looked at him with pity, and Sa-heon met her gaze.

“Want to have a beer?”

Beer, out of nowhere? When Ji-an hesitated, looking doubtful, he let out a long sigh and looked up at the sky. His eyes, dark as the night sky, held the stars and shone with an unusual glisten.

“It’s because my head’s a mess. This whole situation is just absurd… and I thought maybe a can of beer would help.”

“…Then just the one can.”

Sa-heon was on his feet in an instant. He’d moved so fast, as if he’d been waiting for the word, that it felt somehow off, but Ji-an pushed down the suspicion rising in her.

He came out of the rooftop room with beer and the cooler box and handed her a can.

“Here.”

“Thank you.”

She took the cold can, pushed the tab up with her thumb, and with a light pop the gas escaped and a little foam rose.

Ji-an brought the can to her mouth and watched Sa-heon out of the corner of her eye. The manly line of his throat moved without hesitation as he swallowed his beer. It was like something out of a TV commercial, and she kept finding her eyes drawn to it.

Sa-heon pretended not to notice her gaze, set his can down and asked,

“Has your unnie lived here all along, ever since she was little?”

“No, she hasn’t.”

Only then did Ji-an take a sip of beer, her eyes lowered.

“My brother-in-law passed away last year.”

“Oh, no.”

“That’s when she sold the place in Seoul and came back. She bought this house with the proceeds. She uses the first floor for the bakery, and my unnie and Dong-yun live on the second.”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s all right.”

An awkward silence settled. The damp night air kept blowing her hair loose, and Ji-an tucked it back behind her ear as she went on.

“My brother-in-law worked at Hyeongang too.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. He was a researcher at Hyeongang Tech, the company Senior Managing Director Lee Jae-seong runs.”

Ji-an sank into thought over a sip of beer, then smiled bitterly.

“He’s the reason I applied to Hyeongang, too. He and my unnie met in their early twenties, and I was in middle school then, so to me he was just like a father.”

Sa-heon listened without a word. Sadness pooled in Ji-an’s eyes.

“He used to praise Hyeongang so much. He said it was a really good company. It’s not easy for an ordinary office worker to praise the company he works for, is it?”

“I appreciate that. Was your brother-in-law ill?”

“No…”

Ji-an let the word trail off and rubbed at the beer can, beaded with condensation.

“It was suicide.”

The unexpected words stopped Sa-heon short.