For Ruby – Chapter 16: Amended House Rules

Once they'd finished eating, the two of them sat side by side in front of a blank sheet of paper. The plan was to formalize the house rules that Ruby had somehow ended up agreeing to.

Looking it over now, the whole egg rice clause struck her as even more ridiculous than it had sounded out loud. But what could she do? It was already House Rules, Item Number Two.

Ruby tapped the tip of his index finger against the third rule, which Haeseo had written out in round, pretty letters with her name-brand marker.

"Hey. This one — we can change it later, right?"

Haeseo, who had been holding her pen and pondering what rule might come next, tilted her head. "Would there ever be a reason to change it?"

It's just common sense, she thought, though she swallowed the words. After all, just this very morning he had barged into her room and fallen asleep there.

Granted, he'd probably only wandered in half-asleep on his way back from the bathroom at some ungodly hour.

"Of course. Besides, with a rule like this, if you ever wanted to sleep with me, you'd feel weird about it for no reason."

"Wh-what? Why would I — why would I want that?"

Don't tell me my feelings are already showing. Haeseo's heart lurched into a sprint. She could feel her pulse hammering at her wrist — and then Ruby caught that wrist and leaned his face in close.

"If I win you over, I mean."

Those light brown eyes gazed at her so clearly, so steadily, that she was afraid her heart might actually burst if she met them a second longer. With her free hand, Haeseo planted her palm square in the middle of his face and shoved.

"Ugh."

The force against his eyeballs and the bridge of his nose sent Ruby stumbling backward.

"What — what is wrong with you lately……?"

Since yesterday — no, ever since he lost his memory, he had been unmistakably strange.

Of course, she knew she was splitting hairs. The Ruby of now was a version of him she'd never met — the twenty-year-old. He was closer to the young master she'd grown up beside at Baekrimjae than to the boss she'd weathered years of office wars with, so it was only natural he'd feel like a stranger.

Wait. Could it be……? A hypothesis she had never once allowed herself to consider came charging through Haeseo's mind.

"Ruby. You had a crush on me when we were kids, didn't you."

She'd tossed it out with an honest whatever the answer is, I can take it attitude. Instead, Ruby let out a strangled groan and flopped face-down onto the floor. He lay there covering his face with both hands for a moment, then sprang upright like a released spring.

"You're only figuring that out now?"

The whole mood shifted. Whether the Haeseo of those days had known and pretended not to, or genuinely hadn't known at all — Ruby couldn't be sure.

She knew. No, she didn't. She knew. No, she didn't. Like reading a daisy, his guess flipped with every petal. The moment he began to suspect she had known all along and simply dodged it, his mind frayed like a man who'd lost at Russian roulette.

Gong Jigang, who'd been running with Ruby since high school, always clicked his tongue when this season rolled around.

Aigoo, Baek Ruby's idiotic puppy-love season is back again.

Haeseo dropped her gaze under that impossible stare — the one with eyebrows cocked at a slant, boring into her — and scrambled to excuse herself.

"I mean, I just thought you liked me the way you'd like an older sister. And you were the young master of the main house, so……"

"Ugh, forget it. Let's not do this."

Ruby cut her off like a blade coming down, then whipped his head away with a sullen expression. Why was it so impossible to ignore him when that was all he was doing? Pouting with every fiber of his being while refusing to budge even an inch from where he sat glued to her hip, like some dog……

Haeseo scratched the back of her neck awkwardly.

"Uh. Right. It's all ancient history anyway. Heh. No point dredging it up."

"Ha."

Now he's even more miffed. So that wasn't the right answer, huh. In that case —

"You might get a little swept up in old memories, but you can't, Ruby. When you get your memory back, you'll regret it so much."

Like a good secretary, she steered him onto the correct path — and Ruby shot her a sidelong glance through narrowed eyes.

"Fine, say I didn't know back then. You're telling me you still don't know?"

"Huh?"

"Twenty-nine-year-old Baek Ruby likes you too."

"Wh-who does?"

"The boss you served so faithfully."

Ruby said it without a shred of doubt, his serious gaze pointed straight and true at her.

Had she and Ruby ever faced each other head-on like this before? His eyes were so intense they belonged in a melodrama, ready to start filming any second.

But Haeseo could only blink. The subject of that sentence was, admittedly, the man himself — but pitting Baek Ruby, who'd lost nearly a decade of memories, against Wi Haeseo, who had spent three years waiting on him hand and foot, the question of who knew Team Leader Baek Ruby better wasn't even a contest.

"No, he didn't. Team Leader Baek never liked me."

Though there had been a moment — after the failed rose delivery on the Busan business trip — when she'd allowed herself to read between the lines of his feelings.

But then, wounded pride or whatever it was, he'd turned cold and distant and reverted right back into the trained attack dog he was. For roughly a year afterward, Haeseo was worked over and over again so relentlessly that even the other TF Team members started worrying about her. Trying to keep up with his demands at her side left her unable to handle outside schedules that required her to move alone. What kind of man torments the woman he likes like that?

So whatever lingering attachment he'd had — if you could even call it that, that summer mirage of a crush — had evaporated fast. That was the right way to read it.

On top of that, she'd learned the origin of the rose bouquet he'd brought into the restaurant after transferring to Baek Yoon-ah's team. He'd bought out an entire street vendor's stock so the grandmother selling flowers in the sweltering heat could go home early. How very Ruby of him.

Maybe, with the bouquet already in hand, some strange feeling had simply crept up on him. As Baek Yoon-ah said, summer beaches swarmed with passions on the hunt for a partner. Ruby might just have gotten swept up in that energy too.

Viewed that way, President Baek's foresight in sending the two of them on that business trip together was admirable all over again.

"There's zero chance. None."

Haeseo stated it flatly, like she was explaining a scientific fact. Twitch. The clean lines of Ruby's eyes warped, just slightly.

"You're not lying about not remembering, are you?"

"Obviously not. Do you have any idea how hard I worked you? You don't treat someone you like that way."

Haeseo shook her head as the past years flashed before her eyes like a lantern parade.

"C'mon, he totally must've tried something. Like some pervert trying to grope you every chance he got?"

"Nope. Never laid a finger on me."

Haeseo answered with wide, guileless eyes and a nod. Given the nature of their work, they'd spent all that time practically glued together, yet Ruby had never once crossed even the most incidental touch.

Most of her daily life passed through his instructions, but he never ordered her to do anything requiring physical contact — not even something as innocent as helping him into a jacket. In those moments, he'd seemed like such a gentle, proper gentleman.

Which, from the position of someone secretly pining after him, was shamefully disappointing.

He got that drunk, and he couldn't even manage to put a hand on my forehead.

Haeseo's mind drifted naturally back to that night. When the alcohol had ambushed her and she'd panicked, Ruby fussed over her in a frenzy — and even then, all he managed was to press two knuckles to her brow.

A man like that — so why, in bed…… Aaaaah. Stop. Stop thinking.

Feeling her heart pick up a frantic rhythm, Haeseo grabbed her head with both hands. As long as this memory belonged to her alone, getting any closer to him was absolutely off the table — for her sake, not Ruby's. What scared her most was the thought of falling head over heels for him all over again.

"Still sounds like you're making the amnesia up."

"Why would I lie about that?"

Ruby, his expression back to that earlier sulk, twisted the corner of his mouth. It wasn't just when he smiled — even that crooked pout of his dimpled his cheeks, and honestly, it was adorable.

"Then I'm not getting my memory back."

"Wh — what?"

Haeseo, who had been absently admiring his face, shot upright in alarm. Rising onto her knees, she pressed her small hands together at her chest.

"Turns out I was way more of a bastard than I thought. I hate the idea of going back to being that guy."

"Why does it keep coming back to that?"

"Because what's the point if you don't even like me? That version's a knockoff. My whole identity is Wi Haeseo-obsessed."

"That's — you never liked me that much……"

Haeseo muttered, dumbfounded, and Ruby stared back with an expression that said you're the ridiculous one here.

"See, this is — tsk. Fine. You need to move out. No wait, I'll be the one to leave. I'll just tell everyone: the bastard Baek Ruby is dead, and from today a brand-new Baek Ruby takes his place."

He actually looked ready to walk out on the spot, and a startled Haeseo scrambled to rise with him. But she'd been kneeling, so she couldn't get up in one motion — she ended up frozen half-crouched, palms braced against the floor.

At the same moment, Ruby's steps carried him past before her eyes, and in her panic she grabbed one of his legs in a tight grip. She could not let him out that door.

This boy — this boy is basically a werewolf right now.

"Ruby — Baek Ruby, wait! You just need to get your memories back and prove it. Where do you think you're — aaagh!"

He'd taken exactly one step, and she was dragged along after him, sprawling across the floor in a slide. Haeseo craned her head up to look at him, her desperate eyes practically shooting beams of light.

Ruby stood over her, looking down at the sight of her sprawled on the floor with her fists clamped around his pant leg. The shadow of his bowed head fell across her face. At that briefly blank expression, Haeseo swallowed hard.

"Right. So that's how it is."

Ruby's eyes curved into a smile — deep enough to sink those dimples in all the way, the same ones she'd been calling adorable just moments ago.

"Then it also counts if I woo you right now and prove my feelings that way, doesn't it?"

"Huh? How does it count that way?"

"Because if I want you badly enough, I figure I'll find a way to get my memories back. Right?"

Oh, so NOW the eyes go all innocent — like that changes anything……