Locked in the Dark
As if surfacing from a faint, Jae-kyung's eyes flew open.
"Oh! What time is it?"
She had only meant to rest her eyes for a moment, yet the nurse's office had already gone dark. She must have slept off several nights' worth of lost sleep at once. The school nurse, apparently gone home for the day, was nowhere to be found.
When she stepped outside the building, the athletic events had just ended, and the students were carrying the used equipment into the gymnasium.
"Ms. Seo, how's your ankle?"
Ms. Choi from the neighboring class fussed over her warmly.
"The cold compress brought the swelling right down. What a shame I couldn't take part in the running event. I'll handle the cleanup—the evening performance is about to begin, so you should head to the auditorium first."
"Are you sure? We've already moved all the heavy things. Just take care of the smaller items—balls and bats, things like that—and I'll go check that the children are seated properly."
"Of course. Don't worry, go on."
Inside the gymnasium, Jae-kyung texted Director Kwon to let him know where she was, but he was evidently too busy to respond. With only two percent of her battery left, she powered the phone off.
Badminton rackets, jump ropes, balls. It was simple work: wipe away the dust, disinfect each item, and return everything to its designated box.
Thud.
She heard the gymnasium door close.
"Ms. Choi? Is that you?"
Savoring her first stretch of time alone, free of watching eyes, Jae-kyung had been humming to herself when footsteps approached.
"I'm over here."
"……"
"Ms. Choi?"
"Off with a different man this time. You certainly rotate them without a moment's rest."
A different man? The owner of that low voice was Yu-gam, the one who had trailed her all day long.
"...Chairman."
Jae-kyung stared up at him in surprise. As always, a cold, relentless gaze looked down at her.
"What business brings you here?"
What errand could possibly bring the chairman of the board—a man who belonged in the chairman's office, or moving among the principal, the vice principal, and Director Kwon—to a gymnasium storage room?
"Is your ankle all right? There's no one outside. Here—your lunch."
"Oh..."
"You haven't eaten since this morning. There's no time. Eat, then finish up."
"Thank you."
A delicious smell rose from the white shopping bag on the table, and she remembered that she had been starving all day.
Something had put him in a foul mood again. Yu-gam's voice was colder than usual, his eyes chillingly sharp, as though he were angry.
Moving briskly under his watchful eye, Jae-kyung's palms went slick with sweat, and the plastic bin she was carrying crashed to the floor.
The dull clatter echoed through the silent gymnasium.
"Oh—I'm so sorry."
"Clumsy today, aren't you?"
"I overheat easily. My hands get sweaty."
It was only April. Whether it was because the heating had been running until now, or because Yu-gam made her nervous, heat climbed through her body until a cold sweat beaded on her forehead.
"You do sweat a lot, Seo Jae-kyung. Are you unwell somewhere?"
"Not at all. There's nothing wrong with me."
She had no wish to speak of the fever illness inherited from her mother—the condition she herself had endured for over twenty years, shrugging it off as nothing more than a hot flush.
When Yu-gam's cool hand touched her forehead, her whole body flinched. Perhaps it was because she loved that coldness; the refreshing chill kept pulling her toward his touch despite herself.
Beep. The storage room door swung shut, and a short chime announced the automatic lock engaging.
All at once, every light went out. Beyond the storage room's glass window, the entire gymnasium sank into darkness.
"...Huh? The lights... I think there's been a power outage."
Yu-gam swept one glance around the room, already sizing up the situation, and said curtly, as if it were nothing.
"Emergency lockdown."
"...I'm sorry?"
"They'll release it from outside once the event ends."
"...Then we're locked in?"
"That we are."
Flustered by how casually he answered, Jae-kyung pressed the power button on the phone in her pocket and switched on the emergency light.
She looked past the storage room's glass window toward the center of the gymnasium. A few basketballs lay rolling about, mats sat folded in a pile, and the cheering flags had yet to be put away.
"I need to clear all this and get out of here quickly."
A ball rolled up against her foot. Moonlight spilled through the window, and she could just make it out in the gloom.
"I'd better... deal with these rolling around first."
Jae-kyung hurled the ball toward the basket, but it bounced wider than she expected and rolled toward Yu-gam. He reflexively reached out to catch it; it only grazed his fingertips and, popping up like a volleyball set, sprang back toward Jae-kyung.
"Ah—"
The ball smacked her knee, ricocheted sideways, and rolled away.
"So you're not much of an athlete."
"Are you teasing me right now?"
"Merely stating facts."
Jae-kyung stuck out her lip.
"I'll have you know I used to be quite good at dodgeball."
"Ah. So that's why you fell before the race even started, and why this ball just found your knee."
"Haah..."
Nearly two weeks of close quarters had taught her that this was a man with a rare gift for putting her in a foul mood.
As though he had caught her glaring at him through the darkness, Yu-gam let out a short snort, the corner of his mouth curling upward.
"Don't tell me you're laughing at me?"
"I wouldn't."
"You were. I saw it."
"Well, well. Apparently you can see in the dark too."
Darkness was a taboo word between the two of them—it conjured their marriage—and a subtle tension threaded the air.
Jae-kyung swallowed dryly in the uncomfortable silence.
She shifted sideways, hoping to tidy up one more thing, and startled at the firm, muscular body standing so close that she stumbled back a step before she could stop herself.
"...Oh."
Her sprained ankle twinged anew.
Beneath the moonlit window, Yu-gam saw her slender wrist trembling—and caught her hand.
The moment she strained to twist free of his grip, his large hand pulled her body hard against his.
"Don't hurt yourself again. Stay still."
His was the only voice left in the quiet gymnasium, emptied of the students who had filled it with noise mere hours before.
She had to quiet the heart that pounded in answer.
"Chairman, you're standing far too close."
"And in an emergency, wouldn't keeping our distance be more dangerous?"
Before he had even finished speaking, Jae-kyung's phone—the flashlight she'd left burning—went dead without a sound.
"You're closer than necessary. ...Do you have your phone? Mine's completely dead—please turn on your flash."
Uneasy at how his breath mingled with hers, Jae-kyung laid her hands against that solid frame and pushed, but he didn't budge an inch.
"Isn't it a secretary's job to keep track of her boss's phone? You ought to know my number by heart, at the very least. Go on—look for it."
"And where exactly am I supposed to look? Your pockets?"
Pressed flush against her chest, Yu-gam did not answer.
"Chairman?"
"I don't have one."
In an utterly unbothered voice, an illicit, uneven breath pressed close enough to feel.
Yu-gam's hand traveled up her arm to her shoulder.
The memory of the nights she had spent with her ex-husband seized her, and she went still as one bound—unable to let out so much as a breath.
The hand that had rested on her slight shoulder slid back down, skimming the line of her waist, wandering slowly.
It was an unhurried, unmistakably deliberate touch—enough to make her forget the ache in her throbbing ankle.
"No phone, hmm? Now what shall we do?"
"S-stop it."
With his arm wrapped around her waist and his voice murmuring low at her ear, Jae-kyung's heart felt close to bursting.
"If you insist on staying in my arms, you might as well sit down."
Thank goodness for the blackout. At least he couldn't catch her face burning red.
No—if it weren't for the blackout, she wouldn't be trapped in here at all. What on earth was she thinking? Jae-kyung found herself absurd.
Sitting side by side on the mats, tending to her ankle as it throbbed all over again, Jae-kyung found the silence oppressive. Embarrassed by the sound of her own breathing, she cleared her throat and spoke first.
"The sports festival... do you like it?"
"Not particularly."
"I thought as much..."
He was not a man to whom the word like had ever belonged.
"However."
"However what?"
Keeping the conversation going was far better than a silence in which he could surely hear her heartbeat.
"The moments when the children get swept up and pour themselves into it—I don't dislike those."
For an instant, Jae-kyung's eyes went wide.
"...That surprises me."
"What does?"
"I assumed you'd dislike children. You were always so cold."
Yu-gam paused a beat before he went on.
"I am cold."
"Doesn't seem that way to me."
If the ex-husband with whom she had spent ten months sharing a bed weren't Yu-gam—if they were two people with no ties at all—she could treat him so much more easily.
And if it hadn't been Yu-gam who chased her out five years ago, she might even be able to call him a good man.
Futile, meaningless thoughts prowled through Jae-kyung's head.
Without warning, Yu-gam took her hand. She felt the stinging chill of it—cold enough to freeze solid the heat that burned in her like fire.
"I am cold, and Seo Jae-kyung is hot. Isn't that the very reason we met?"
Withdrawing her hand from his, Jae-kyung offered no further answer.
It was because of that fever illness she had carried since childhood, so like her mother's, that Managing Director Jin had once come all the way to her home to press her into the contract marriage.
Saying nothing, Jae-kyung quietly folded the cheering flags lying on the floor instead.
"Ah-choo!"
Her sneeze rang through the storage room.
"...Excuse me."
For all the fire in her body, colds and flu never released their grip—she was forever fighting off one small ailment after another. It might have been the habit of wearing thin clothes because she was always hot.
"And that's exactly why I told you not to wear short sleeves."
Bluntly, Yu-gam shrugged off his jacket and pushed it toward her.
"Put it on."
"I'm fine. You know how much heat I carry."
"I know perfectly well that Seo Jae-kyung's body burns like a furnace—I've held it in my arms in bed more times than I can count."
"……"
Mortified that he had laid her shame bare as though they were the closest of intimates, Jae-kyung pressed her lips tightly shut.
"I'm already worn thin from complaints that I overwork my staff. And if we live under one roof and you go and pass your cold to me—what then?"