A Familiar Stranger
Her lips trembled as she turned to face him, suspicion clouding her gaze. He tilted his head, both hands buried in the pockets of his dark coat. That innocent expression draped over his handsome face was almost laughably fitting.
"I just got curious about something… Sa Hee-eon, are you higher up than Kim Ui-jae? No, wait… are you someone *above* him?"
Her question seemed absurd enough that the corner of Sa Hee-eon's mouth twitched upward. He rolled his tongue inside his mouth, stepped closer, and leaned forward slightly, looking down at her with interest.
"And if I am?"
"Then… are you close with him?"
"Not close."
*Oh.* She almost let out a sigh of relief before she could stop herself.
Yeon-jae clenched the hand she'd tucked inside her jacket, forcing the tremor from her voice as she spoke.
"Then… keep that bastard away from me. And I'll use honorifics with you."
At that, Hee-eon burst out laughing.
It was only natural. It had been a long time since anyone had called Kim Ui-jae a bastard. Though honestly… calling him a dog wasn't even enough.
But he had no intention of going along with her so easily.
The night before, Hee-eon had made a bet — or something like a bet — with Sa Jae-eon.
He had been in the mood to find a little pleasure in his tedious daily life, and Jeong Yeon-jae dropping into this place was like finding a gacha capsule trapped inside a plastic container right in front of him.
A gacha. You couldn't know what you'd get without opening the lid, without turning the handle.
Hee-eon pressed his thumb against Yeon-jae's furrowed brow and smiled gently.
"A deal should be somewhat equal. Honorifics are too weak."
She blinked rapidly, bit down on her dry lips, and pressed them together. She clearly wasn't calculating the trade-off quickly enough.
He continued.
"Something other than honorifics."
"What else?"
"I'd like you to spend some time with me."
"Spend time?"
"Someone said you look like Jun-hee. But I'm not sure yet. I want to check. See if there really… is something alike."
"Jun… hee?"
"Yeah. My wife."
Yeon-jae was so stunned she couldn't respond. She knew Yoon Jun-hee's face — from their wedding photos and the pictures posted on social media. But the only thing she had in common with that woman was sharing the same XX chromosomes.
What was he saying? That she looked like Yoon Jun-hee?
"Jun-hee was very pretty. Pale, soft, and sometimes red. But you…?"
His tone was mocking, as if asking back: *Like Jun-hee?*
She knew without him saying it. Yeon-jae couldn't for the life of her understand what about her resembled Yoon Jun-hee.
What she couldn't understand even more was the complete absence of affection in the man's eyes when he spoke about his wife. No tenderness, no longing — none of the helplessness that wounded people usually carried.
Just a cold, dry tone and expression, as if describing a stranger. She stared up at Sa Hee-eon — someone she should have been looking up to in every sense — and then suddenly reached out and poked his cheek.
The noble man's eyes flickered with faint displeasure at the gesture, as if someone had poked cream onto his smooth cheek.
She scoffed and slowly buttoned the jacket draped over her shoulders.
"How should I spend time with you? Call you 'darling'? Or 'honey'? Make myself pale, soft, and red like your ex-wife… can I do it better than your grandfather?"
Something unusual flickered in his gaze as he looked down at her. It was a look she'd never experienced before — something she couldn't define.
How should she describe this unsettling gaze? Madness? No, that wasn't it. It wasn't positive, nor was it negative.
Yeon-jae felt as though she was being absorbed into the depths of Sa Hee-eon's dark pupils. Like a black hole in space — the moment you reached out, you'd be sucked in. A dangerous signal pulsed.
A black flag was planted on his back, like a coordinate marking danger.
Her head throbbed, and her instincts detected the prelude to peril.
He stared down at her for a long moment, then mimicked her earlier action — lightly poking her cheek. The corner of Sa Hee-eon's mouth curled into a wicked smirk.
"You and I… we're not strangers, are we?"
The woman had fallen asleep.
Right in front of him, she'd finished a bowl of seaweed soup, taken a clean shower, and then wrapped herself in a blanket to sleep on the sofa.
Why not the bedroom? He couldn't understand why she'd fallen asleep so casually despite having a room of her own.
Wrapped in the blanket like a silkworm cocoon, only her face poking out — it was almost ridiculous.
Thanks to that, Hee-eon could sit across from the sleeping woman and observe her for a long while.
Jeong Yeon-jae.
Why did she feel like someone he'd met before?
Her back view, her ordinary voice — why did they keep circling his mind so annoyingly? Like forgetting a familiar word, that itching sensation that told him he could recall it with just a little effort was deeply unpleasant.
In the quiet house, where nothing existed beyond the white noise of electronic devices humming, he suddenly thought of the single earphone he'd put in his pocket.
Hee-eon lifted it to place on the table, then paused and brought it to his ear instead. A moment passed, and an unidentifiable ambient sound filled his ear.
It was like the sound of sand grains sliding down — the sound of the sea. Waves and wind, with the occasional bird call. Was she sleeping to that?
The small earphone still plugged into one of the woman's ears.
He observed the woman sleeping before him with a strange feeling. He still knew nothing about her beyond her name.
Her pale, small face was full of fatigue, but something unrootable was embedded within her like vitality itself.
Neat eyebrows, long straight eyelashes beneath them. Now that he looked closely, her nose tip was plump and her nostrils small.
She didn't look like the old man's mistress that the family had been talking about. Just an ordinary young woman. And even Sa Jae-cheol had described this woman vaguely.
"How should I spend time with you? Call you 'darling'? Or 'honey'? Make myself pale, soft, and red like your ex-wife… can I do it better than your grandfather?"
Jeong Yeon-jae hadn't asked about his wife.
A man who asked another woman to spend time with him while still having a wife — the answer was obvious if you thought about it even a little. Why hadn't she pushed back?
Because she already knew. You know that Yoon Jun-hee isn't by my side.
He looked down at the sleeping woman silently, then lifted one corner of his mouth.
Just as his grandfather had said — watch her carefully, feed her, bathe her, put her to sleep. Fill whatever she needs, and then… watch her again. That was all he had to do.
Just like when he'd had Yoon Jun-hee by his side.
Shaking off those thoughts, he removed the earphone and placed it on the table in front of the sleeping woman before standing up. As he picked up his coat, a middle-aged woman appeared with soft footsteps and greeted him with a bright face.
"Young master, should I prepare your next meal here as well?"
The woman's name was Lee Yong-hui. She was a fairly high-ranking servant who had come down from the main house in Seoul — directly under the chairman, and the eldest daughter of a family whose bones were entirely his grandfather's. A servant from the marrow up.
With his hands in his pockets, he glanced once at the sleeping Yeon-jae and shook his head.
"Today's enough. I'll come tomorrow or the day after."
"Yes, of course."
"Keep a close eye on her."
"Of course."
"But how old is that woman?"
"As far as I know, she's in her early to mid-twenties."
Early to mid-twenties. The woman was practically a newborn.
Hee-eon changed his mind. He turned back to the woman and picked up the earphone he'd just set down.
If he was going to trust her promise to spend time with him, he'd need collateral.
Wiping a chuckle from the corner of his mouth, he left the detached house and walked toward his own sanctuary — in the direction of the walking path the woman had mistakenly entered.