The Pretty Stranger in the Dark

A man in a pinstripe suit stood leaning against the wall outside the door — Yoon Lee-hyun, CEO of BEX Holdings, and his half-brother.

His hair was slicked back immaculately, and his outfit practically dripped with money, but to Lee-gang it was nothing but vanity.

"Father's been rallying investors lately to secure the UFC broadcasting rights, so he's wound incredibly tight."

"……."

"What are you thinking, causing trouble at a time like this? Can't you just keep your head down?"

The tone of the legitimate son, laced with a subtle sense of superiority.

Lee-gang answered with listless indifference.

"Is that why you've been so quietly diligent, sitting at Father's side brewing his coffee and hauling his wine?"

"……."

"What's up, Coffee Prince?"

At the barb, Yoon Lee-hyun drew a short breath and lowered his voice in warning.

"Keep it up and you'll die."

It was the first time he'd heard such a tension-free death threat. Lee-gang let out a thin laugh and shrugged.

"Go ahead and try."

Yoon Lee-hyun shook his head, stepped closer, and brushed the blood from his younger brother's shoulder.

"Where'd you lose your tie this time?"

"……."

"Lee-gang. You may be the son of a mistress, but you're still my brother. I'm telling you this because I worry. As your elder."

Lee-gang slapped his hand away with visible distaste.

"Goddammit."

Spitting the curse low, he headed for the elevator.

Yoon Lee-hyun stood watching him go, his face arranged in sorrowful concern until the very end.

That face was the last thing Lee-gang wanted to see, so he jabbed the door-close button over and over, and the elevator dropped toward the underground parking garage at speed.

Did you think I'd die quietly? Touch me, and we all die together — ugly and slow.

He ground his teeth and yanked open the car door.

"Ha……"

The instant he slid into the driver's seat, a faint scent brushed the tip of his nose. Harin's.

He had only barely sent her home a few hours ago, and yet she'd left her scent behind.

Shampoo, maybe? Sweet. Strawberry, or something like it — he couldn't tell — but the quiet fragrance drifting in with each breath soothed nerves that had been bristling on edge.

Shoulders curled inward as she pulled her collar close, head bowed deep, a face darkened as though crushed under the weight of responsibility and survival. Everything else about her had changed, but……

"Those eyes……"

The look in her eyes when they blazed during sparring — that alone was exactly the same.

Lee-gang closed his eyes and let the past surface.

The high school gym. When the round bell rang, she would shed her fierce focus, lean back against the ropes, and gulp down ragged breaths.

Flushed cheeks beneath sweat-damp bangs, a face that bantered freely with the coach and her friends.

The Jang Harin of those days — innocent, burning bright, seemingly unbreakable.

When they'd reunited, it had needled him that she didn't remember him. But now, it hardly seemed to matter whether she did or not.

Thinking of her, the irritation that had been clawing up his throat seemed to settle. Instead, something else began to react.

Exactly like his younger self, worked up after getting caught stealing glances at her.

"Ha…… fuck. This is not the time."

Pathetic.

He wasn't some naive kid desperate for affection. Back then and now, one look at Harin and his tangled mind didn't just sort itself out — his body reacted first.

At this critical juncture, when he was finally trying to break free of his suffocating father and build something of his own, he found himself absurdly distracted by a woman. The thought made him laugh at himself.

Which meant he needed to cut her loose, and fast.

One useless emotion was all it took to ruin a person, and it could happen in an instant.

But when he actually tried to draw that line, his heart snagged strangely on something.

He remembered her face — that stiff, closed expression that could darken anyone who looked at it — going soft and loose in front of a small child and an old woman.

She used to smile easily enough, once. Her expressions used to be so varied.

Lee-gang scowled. She was getting under his skin for no reason.

Whatever the case, he couldn't even tell anymore whether what he felt for her was desire or comfort. The only thing certain was that this murky feeling was tightening its grip around him.

As the reality he'd been shoving down lifted its head again, he took a short breath and dialed someone without delay. After a few rings, he gave the order in a low voice.

"Tae-shik, I need you to look into someone for me."

Harin sat at the desk after finishing the closing cleanup, tapping the tip of her ballpoint pen against a sheet of paper and staring blankly at the numbers she'd scrawled across it.

We'll need to monitor the aneurysm's progression with periodic brain MRI and CT scans.

The doctor's voice echoed in her head. A single MRI scan could easily burn through several hundred thousand won.

Grandma didn't even have health insurance. And Hayul would start the new school term in August — she could already see the money that would drain away on supplies and preparations.

The savings weren't growing, but the anxiety swelled like a snowball.

Feeling as if she couldn't breathe, Harin leaned back and drew a long, slow breath in, then let it out.

She checked the clock. Almost ten on the dot. She had to go home.

I still have to pay Yoon Lee-gang back.

She'd assumed he would come today, but once again he hadn't shown. Two days now.

Nothing to be done about it.

She slung her cloth crossbody bag over her shoulder and stood, and the bag with its bundle of cash felt heavier than usual tonight.

She switched off the lights and stopped at the door, turning back for one last look.

Expecting…… something?

Her chest felt hollow.

He'd taken Grandma to the hospital as if she were his own family the moment he heard the news, and hadn't hesitated to pay the bills up front. She wanted to tell him she owed him more than she could ever repay, that she was grateful — but she knew nothing about him, not a single thing, and so she couldn't get any closer. All she could do was fill the time with baseless guesses, like he's probably not a bad person.

Her wandering gaze snagged on the sparring mat. Suddenly the memory surfaced — the moment their bodies had tangled and toppled together on top of it.

Their breaths had mingled at close range, and even without touching, the heat of him had seared through to her skin.

His handsome face, and those insufferable eyes looking down at her, flickered through her mind like an afterimage.

I've lost my mind.

She felt heat flood her face, and she swept a hand across her cheek with the back of her wrist as she hurried out of the gym.

Rising on her toes, arm stretched out to lock the gym door, she caught a flicker of tiny light at the edge of her vision. A firefly?

Harin turned her head.

An orange point blinked in the darkness. Looking closer, it was a cigarette, its end burning down.

For one heart-stopping instant she thought it was Lee-gang — but alas, it was a stranger, smoking.

He sat on the steps with his legs crossed, watching Harin quietly as he exhaled a plume of smoke.

A face almost pretty enough to pass for a woman's, his limbs slender yet long and elegant. The sky-blue shirt and ivory trousers suited him so well he could have been a model.

Which was exactly what made it strange. The sight of a man sitting with a cigarette at this late hour, in a no-smoking zone, felt somehow eerily out of place.

Then the man flicked away his cigarette and rose. The click, click of his heels against the steps and pavement rippled out into the silent night air.

He turned slowly, and his gaze locked onto Harin. Long. Relentless.

Her scalp prickled. Instinctively, she clutched her bag strap and pressed her lips shut. The heavy wad of cash inside was suddenly very much on her mind.

Before she could collect her thoughts, the man strode toward her.

He stopped a step away and said nothing. Just stared down at her, expressionless.

Harin retreated a half-step, searching for something to say.

"This is a no-smoking area."

The sign posted on the pillar had caught her eye, and the words slipped out before she could stop them.

"I'm the exception."

He said it lightly.

He sounds exactly like Yoon Lee-gang.

As she looked up at him with suspicion, he glanced around the boxing gym and asked,

"Haven't seen you here before. Do you work here?"

He seemed to have some connection to the gym, so she nodded carefully.

"Yoon Lee-gang hasn't come by, has he?"

At the sound of Lee-gang's name, Harin flinched.

With no answer forthcoming, the man simply went on studying her for a long moment. He looked prepared to hold that silence indefinitely, waiting until she gave him a reply, so Harin had no choice but to open her mouth.

"He hasn't."

"Ah, I see."

"……Do you know Yoon Lee-gang?"

"I do. A friend."

He dug into his trouser pocket and drew out a business card.

Harin took it from him in a daze.

"That's the bastard who did this to my pretty face."

She stared at him, not following, until he pointed at his own right cheek. It did look more swollen than the left.

Was he saying Yoon Lee-gang had hit him?

"That bastard only learned boxing to beat me up, you know."

"……I wouldn't know."

"Hm. Well, either way — if you see Yoon Lee-gang, tell him to take my call."

……Wouldn't there be a reason he isn't taking it?

Harin stood there with a troubled look, fidgeting with the card in her hand.

"Thanks! Appreciate it!"

The man waved and climbed into the flashy sports car parked beside him. With a thunderous roar of the engine, the neon-green car vanished in an instant.