Spiked Wine and a Strange Dream
Among everyone around him, the only person who had noticed Kim Jeeon’s possession was his grandfather, Kim Jonghyeop. That meant, at the very least, that Jeeon’s recent behavior had not suddenly changed.
Once she knew the timing, she could infer the cause. Heeseo’s eyes flashed as she pressed him hard.
“Don’t talk weird and answer me properly. When and how did you take over that body?”
“Aren’t you trying to wrap this up a little too easily with nothing but words? Drink all of that. Then I’ll answer.”
Yet Jeeon filled her glass with the same unchanging expression. Heeseo stared him down, then drained the wine once more.
Her tolerance was solid; a couple of glasses of wine were nowhere near enough to get her drunk.
This bastard thinks I’m water. If he wants to beat me at drinking, he’d better bring a goblin. The glass emptied so quickly that surprise flickered at the corners of his eyes.
“Ah, of course. Being from France, wine must suit your palate.”
“Yeah. I drank it like water over there. Just poured it into a tumbler and carried it around.”
“Haha. Ah, that’s amusing. I happen to love wine myself. Our tastes match rather well, don’t they?”
“That’s what you think.”
Heeseo answered his banter with icy flatness. Jeeon paid her coldness no mind at all.
She, for her part, concentrated so she would not be pulled into his rhythm. When she exhaled a long breath, the fragrant scent of grapes rode out with it.
Wiping the wine that clung to the bottle’s mouth with a clean cloth, Jeeon replied at his leisure.
“I’ve been here for a very long time. So long I can barely remember—from ages ago.”
“……You’d better be lying. One more question. What are you thinking, occupying that body?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. What kind of grudge made you take that body over?”
At her question, Jeeon’s smile blurred for an instant. The wistful, lonely cast of his face looked like something out of a painting.
He fell silent for a moment and slowly refilled her glass. Every single movement was as elegant as a swan’s. If only the things he said weren’t so outrageous, Heeseo might have lost herself gazing at him all over again.
“You won’t believe me, but I want to be of help to Miss Lee Heeseo.”
“……Ha.”
Even when she tried to hold it in, sheer disbelief kept forcing hollow laughter out of her. A ghost who had stolen someone else’s body, saying something like that?
Yet Jeeon remained unmoved by her scorn.
“But I can’t answer that question easily. I don’t know the reason myself.”
“What are you talking about? You took over a perfectly healthy person’s body and you don’t even know why?”
“Whether you believe me or not is entirely up to you, Miss Heeseo. Still, I’d like you to understand that I’m telling the truth.”
“What kind of nonsense——!”
“Instead of talk you won’t believe anyway, how about another subject?”
“There’s nothing else I want to talk about with you……. Haa—huk.”
Heeseo, who had raised her voice without realizing it, suddenly clutched her forehead. In an instant her vision spun, and keeping her body upright became difficult.
It felt less like wine and more like she had been drugged.
Got me…….
She glared at the wine bottle in Jeeon’s hand. Come to think of it, ever since he had opened it, the level of his own wine had not dropped by so much as a drop.
“……You. What did you put in the wine. What did you do.”
“We’re going on a honeymoon. You and I, Miss Heeseo—just the two of us. We need to keep our condition in check until then, don’t we?”
“What—why would I go on a honeymoon with——”
Her eyelids and her whole body grew heavy. Sleep rushed in without a sound, ready to swallow her whole, yet she could not calmly drift off with a possessed man sitting right in front of her.
I can’t. I can’t show an opening like this……. Heeseo staggered as she tried to rise from her seat and toppled straight over.
Her vision swayed; the floor approached in slow motion. Of all things, she was falling forward instead of onto the back of her head.
Ah, my nose is going to break…….
“Oh dear, Miss Heeseo. Don’t move so suddenly—you’ll hurt yourself.”
Then, contrary to her expectation, a firm arm wrapped around her waist. Feeling her senses slip farther and farther away, she mumbled something like sleep-talk.
“Whether I…… get hurt or not…… what does it…… matter……”
Sleep poured over her. She thought she faintly heard Jeeon’s laughter. His murmur, too.
“……For the first time, something that’s mine—that I actually have. Wouldn’t it upset me if it got hurt? Miss Heeseo.”
Heeseo dreamed for the first time in a long while. It was a very strange dream.
In the dream she was riding an enormous Samoyed. The dog, the size of a house, showed no strain at all carrying her. Racing across the open field, it suddenly leapt.
“Ah!”
The sudden sensation of floating in midair wrenched a low scream from her. At once someone behind her pulled her into a firm embrace. Startled, Heeseo twisted around to look.
A familiar smile greeted her, laughing. Kim Jeeon was somehow already behind her, holding her close and whispering something.
His pleasant voice tickled her ear like a hum. The dog climbed higher and higher into the sky; clouds brushed her cheeks. Because of that, she could not make out his words clearly.
“What?!”
“We ……I, ……to!”
“What are you saying? I can’t hear you!”
At last the dog reached the very top of the sky and barked. Heeseo strained to listen, yet his voice only grew more distant.
Frustrated, she grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
“What…… say it…… properly.”
“Miss Heeseo? Miss Heeseo?! Miss Heeseo, wake up!”
Then Jeeon’s mouth moved as he called her name. The sudden honorific was odd enough, but stranger still was his voice. He was clearly the one speaking, yet the sound that reached her was a woman’s.
What kind of ghost-eating nonsense is this?
Dazed, Heeseo let go of him—and instantly plummeted toward the ground.
“Uwaaaak!”
“Oh my, Miss Heeseo!”
Thud! With a dull impact Heeseo jerked upright, her soul half out of her body.
Looking around, she found no sky at all—she had fallen onto a bed. Beside her stood not Kim Jeeon but her secretary, Director Jo, staring at her as if she had gone mad.
“Mi-Miss Heeseo. Are you all right?”
“……I just have some sleep habits.”
“Yes…… yes. Of course.”
Director Jo forced an affirming expression while carefully hiding her true face.
It was already too late to salvage her image. The woman had surely heard about yesterday’s panty-obsession incident as well.
Heeseo pretended nothing was wrong and swept her hair back. Tangled, messy strands caught on her fingertips. Judging by how violently she must have thrashed, the place where she had been lying was a complete disaster too.
……Spiking the drink—cowardly bastard.
The greater fault lay with her for gulping down the possessed man’s wine without a shred of suspicion, yet Heeseo decided to blame Jeeon first.
Recovering the pride that had been battered nonstop since yesterday mattered more than the facts. And ordinarily she did not consider mental victory a bad thing.
“Cowardly, sly bastard—see if I ever eat anything you give me again……. I will drag you out for certain and throw you into hellfire. Even if I have to swear it by every living thing in creation……”
“Pardon? Miss Heeseo, what did you just say?”
“Nothing. Talking to myself.”
“……Yeees. Of course.”
Director Jo’s face grew even paler. From where she stood, the person who looked possessed was far more convincingly Lee Heeseo than Kim Jeeon. She hurriedly delivered her message as if something were chasing her.
“There is a dinner at the Chairman’s residence this evening. Both of you must attend. The hair and makeup staff will arrive at the mansion by five o’clock.”
Now it was Heeseo’s turn for her face to go pale.
She remembered the nightmarish wedding dress and evening gown she had worn a few days earlier. The waist had been cinched so tightly that ever since that day she still felt as though her digestion had never quite recovered.
“Can’t I just go dressed like this……? Insist it’s French style or something……”
Director Jo, who had been avoiding her gaze the entire time, suddenly changed expression. The look on her face clearly said, Please stop the crazy talk.
Under that razor-sharp aura, Heeseo shut her mouth, looking thoroughly dejected.