Don't Curse in Front of Me

Seol-hee glanced around her. Chae Eun-mi had definitely come with someone — she remembered the woman who had been introduced as her manager.

"Excuse me—Ms. Chae Eun-mi came here with a companion, and she should be somewhere nearby. Could you help me look for her?"

After asking the nearest staff member, Seol-hee turned to soothe Chae Eun-mi.

"Ma'am, my name is Woo Seol-hee, from the Shinwol Foundation. Why don't we go find the person you came with? I'll help you."

"Find... them?"

"Yes. I'll be right with you."

When Seol-hee approached with a gentle voice, the woman's wariness softened, and she rose carefully from her seat.

Seol-hee also offered an apology to the male guest who had been waiting.

"Thank you for your patience. I'm sorry for the disturbance — please, enjoy the rest of your evening."

Perhaps embarrassed at having lost his temper moments before, he coughed awkwardly and returned to his seat.

Seol-hee hurried Chae Eun-mi out of the banquet hall. The place she headed for was the restroom.

Then Chae Eun-mi's body went rigid.

It was exactly that moment.

A familiar scene overlapped with the present.

What had happened in the middle of that event hall before her regression.

And slowly, the black fabric of Chae Eun-mi's trousers began to darken.

"What... what's happening to me?"

Her gaze dropped downward.

On that day, Chae Eun-mi had lost everything.

Her early-onset Alzheimer's disease had been exposed to the entire world. Journalists, rabid for an exclusive, had spread photos of the day's incident far and wide, and the media sneered at her as a genius felled by illness.

Seol-hee reassured her.

"It's all right. Let's go into the restroom — change your clothes and wait inside, and I'll take care of everything out here."

She carefully guided the woman — eyes hollow and helpless, unable to grasp her own reality — into a stall. Then, making sure no one was watching, she opened the janitor's closet and washed the traces away with water.

Seol-hee called the hotel manager's number she'd gotten earlier and requested everything they'd need.

"Ma'am, are you all right?"

She checked on the woman inside the stall.

"What is all this...? Why do I keep... doing this?"

Her voice, returned now to its proper self, trembled. At the edge of those tear-choked words lay pure despair.

Seol-hee soothed her first.

"No one saw. You were rushing to the restroom and simply had an accident — that's all it was."

However she could, she made it clear that this wasn't the woman's fault.

"It's a secret between you, me, and no one else. You can rest easy."

Through the stall door came the sound of Chae Eun-mi letting out a long breath.

Just then, someone outside the restroom called for her.

"Professor? Professor Chae Eun-mi, are you in there?"

From inside the stall, Chae Eun-mi made her request.

"That will be my manager. Could you call her in for me?"

"Of course."

Seol-hee stepped out quickly, found the manager pacing helplessly in the corridor, gave her a rough outline of the situation, and brought her back.

"Are you serious?"

"You seem shocked. Go on in and see her."

While the manager went inside, the hotel staff member handed over wet wipes and a pair of uniform trousers. Whether out of a sense that something must be going on, or simply following hotel protocol, the employee asked no questions and slipped away at once.

"Thank you."

After a bow, Seol-hee passed the clothes and wipes to the manager, along with the hotel key she'd received.

"Thank you so much. This is the first time our professor has ever had an accident like this... You'll keep it confidential, won't you?"

"There's no need to worry. It will remain a secret known only to her, you, and me."

With those words, Seol-hee gave a final bow and set off to return to the banquet hall.

She hadn't come back to the past to save only herself.

"Not this time... I won't let it happen again."

Seol-hee glanced back over her shoulder. A scene from a news broadcast flashed through her mind.

A woman who had always stood at the summit, bathed in applause and adoration, had in a single instant become an object of pity and ridicule. Many had even argued that those humiliating photographs were what drove her to end her life.

Seol-hee was tidying her crumpled clothes and had just reached the entrance of the banquet hall when—

"Hm?"

At the end of the corridor, she caught a familiar figure slipping into the staff office.

Why is that man here?

It was definitely him. The man she'd seen on the day of the festival.

Did HR have a hand in this event too?

Turning the thought over in her mind, Seol-hee opened the door to the banquet hall.

She had barely taken a single step inside when someone lunged at her from behind the door.

"Jin Dong-chan?"

He seized one of her wrists in a crushing grip.

"Hey. Where the hell did you run off to?"

Seol-hee tried to wrench her wrist free.

"Let go. This is my workplace."

Inside the hall, a performance of gratitude was underway, and mercifully the music drowned out their exchange.

Determined not to cause a scene, Seol-hee struggled against his grip, but Dong-chan dug in, as if he had no intention of letting her go as easily as before.

"Make a scene here and you're the one who loses her job. Sounds like a win for me. Go ahead — try kicking up a fuss!"

Even his threats were as self-serving as the rest of him.

Dong-chan began dragging her toward the main doors — but a procession of children carrying lanterns had just filed in to continue the celebration, and he had no choice but to circle around the edge of the hall toward the passage behind the stage instead.

Seol-hee, who had gone along obediently enough, waited until they were deep in the deserted corridor before wrenching his hand away with all her strength.

"Ow — I said let go."

Looking down at the livid red marks his fingers had left on her wrist, she felt her irritation boil over.

"This counts as assault, you know."

"You like violence, do you? F***ing hell. This is violence? Want me to show you what hitting someone actually looks like?"

Bloodshot eyes blazing, Dong-chan advanced on her in a menacing posture.

But watching him close in, seething and intimidating, Seol-hee felt nothing remotely like fear. If anything, she refused to be the one to back down — squaring her shoulders, she strode right up to him.

"I told you not to curse in front of me. You piece of s***."

The one caught off guard by her unexpected reaction was Dong-chan.

That single line shut his mouth. Without lifting a finger, with nothing but the look in her eyes and that low, level voice, she made him forget even the reason he'd been so angry.

Seol-hee exhaled a long sigh and surveyed the spot where they stood.

They'd arrived at the very place.

So the stage stays the same — only the players can change.

It was without question this location.

In the past, she had caught Jin Dong-chan and Ryu Ah-reum sneaking off here, hidden away, kissing.

Which means—

Seol-hee stole a glance at the far end of the corridor.

Could someone else be hiding there right now? Someone who isn't me? And could it possibly be—

The fluorescent light overhead cast a shadow from whoever lurked at the corridor's end.

If Ryu Ah-reum is there...

Seol-hee looked Dong-chan dead in the eye.

Her mind was racing.

"So. What did you want?"

The no-nonsense invitation to get to the point finally pulled Dong-chan out of his daze, and his eyes hardened.

"How did you get into the Shinwol Foundation?"

"I submitted an application, did an interview, and got in."

At her what else is there? tone, his suspicious gaze raked over her face, dissecting every expression.

"Who told you to apply? Don't tell me... did you meet that bastard? Did you meet him?"

Seol-hee's eyes narrowed.

"I asked if you met that bastard!"

"And which bastard would that be?"

"Don't play dumb with me."

How long was this farce supposed to drag on?

Seol-hee's patience had run dry.

"I don't have time for this nonsense."

She turned to retrace her steps — and from behind her, Dong-chan suddenly wrapped his arms around her.

A shudder ran down her entire body.

Recoiling in revulsion, Seol-hee thrashed against him.

"Are you insane? Let go of me — now!"

Unlike usual, he was unyielding. His arms around her didn't loosen even a fraction.

"No. No way. You can't live without me. I can't give you to that bastard. The way I won you... everything I did to get you—"

He muttered words she couldn't begin to make sense of.

"I said let go. Let. Go."

"Seol-hee. Woo Seol-hee. Are you really going to live without me? You think that's possible? You're deluding yourself. That's arrogance. You don't have to do this over a little tantrum. I forgive you — I forgive all of it."

All the things she wanted to say crowded at the back of her throat, lining up to spill out — but then Seol-hee caught sight of a shadow stirring at the far end of the corridor, and decided on a different approach.

"Dong-chan. Let go. I have something to say."

She spoke quietly, surrendering into his embrace without another struggle, and Dong-chan — clutching at hope — released her.

Before turning back to him, she confirmed once more the corner at the corridor's end, then met his eyes straight on.

"Do you love me?"

"Of course I do. I love you. I'd seriously die without you. I'd die right here."

"Then what about that woman?"

"What?"

"Ryu Ah-reum. The girl you were crazy about."

Dong-chan shook his head violently.

"No — I was never into her. She's nothing compared to you. I just kept her around to play with. It's just... my mom said... yeah, Mom said if I slept with her, the stagnant blood in my body would clear, so I used her. You know how Mom is — blind faith in everything shamanic. She was disposable. A one-time-use thing I'd toss out when I was done."

Watching him scramble for excuses, the corner of Seol-hee's mouth curled upward.

"You worthless son of a b****!"

Her ringing voice echoed down the corridor.

Her gaze swung toward the far end.

Just as she'd predicted. From around the corner burst Ryu Ah-reum, sharpened nails raised, murder glinting in both her eyes.