Not a Child Anymore
“…….”
He had always been a man she had to look up at, given the sheer difference in their heights. But seeing Seo-won looking down at her from above stirred something entirely different.
His features were as sharp and defined as if they had been drawn with the darkest pencil lead. The straight line of his brows, the perfectly sculpted bridge of his nose—it was art. She had even run her fingers over it once, casually, up on the bed.
Given even the slightest opening, Yuju stole another glance at him, black intentions and all. Then she wrinkled her nose as she watched him slip the shoes onto her feet and check that they were properly secured.
“Have you put shoes on a lot of women?”
“What?”
“You’re really good at it.”
Just as Seo-won, having accomplished his purpose, was about to release her ankle, the abrupt question made him let out a short laugh.
The words sounded almost like a judo interrogation, and the absurdity of it between the two of them struck him as faintly ridiculous. They were legally married, after all, but this was not a relationship that had begun with love.
Though maybe it’s not so ridiculous anymore.
Yuju, who had even followed him to this uncomfortable gathering and was throwing herself into the role of wife with such determination, was not someone he could bring himself to dislike.
Seo-won laughed again at the idle thought, then straightened from his lowered stance.
“Stop talking nonsense and hold on. We need to get going.”
He checked his watch and brought the moment to a close. When he offered his arm, Yuju immediately understood the invitation to link hers through it and did so at once, her heart hammering at the solid warmth of his skin against hers.
To anyone looking, they were the picture of a married couple. Only then did the two of them finally leave the suite, heading toward the banquet hall where the event would already have begun.
Even as they walked, Yuju’s gaze lingered for a long while on Seo-won’s easy, pretty smile—the kind she had so rarely seen from him before.
By the time they arrived at the venue, a great many people had already gathered, just as expected.
He would far rather have stayed up all night reading documents; Seo-won had never enjoyed showing his face at crowded functions. He had come only because his grandfather had all but shoved him out the door.
Today the burden of so many stares made it even more uncomfortable. No doubt that was because of his wife—the subject of so much rumor.
After all, he had suddenly announced he was married, without so much as a wedding or any prior word.
“…….”
Somehow the prickling gazes seemed to land more heavily on Yuju than on him. He had worried it would weigh on her, yet contrary to his expectations she looked perfectly at ease.
Everything that followed was equally unexpected.
“Hello, Executive Director. We met last time as well, didn’t we?”
“Yes. I remember.”
They had been making the rounds of greetings for some time when someone approached them first. It was a man Seo-won had dealt with before in connection with a collaboration.
“And this is…”
“Hello. I’m Han Yuju, wife of Executive Director Choi Seo-won of the Osong Group.”
Seo-won had hesitated for a moment, unsure how to introduce her. But Yuju had already stepped in briskly with a greeting and introduced herself.
From then on, no matter whom they met, her responses were so full of composure they practically overflowed with it.
“I enjoy golf myself. Next time you set up a couples’ outing, please include us—I’ll come along.”
Sports that seemed to have nothing to do with a college student would surface, or—
“I’ve been to that gallery. If you invite me, I’ll go.”
—she accepted even invitations that didn’t match her hobbies without the slightest awkwardness. As her conversation continued so naturally, Seo-won’s head gradually tilted.
He had steeled himself to overlook one or two blunders today. This kind of gathering could not be familiar to her.
But she’s surprisingly…
She looked every bit the woman who frequented high-society circles. In fact, in a setting like this she seemed more polished than he was.
She even carried herself with a certain maturity. Her face still looked her age, but the aura that flowed from her was different. She blended among the much older adults without a single jarring note.
There was truly no telling which way she would jump next.
Perhaps every day was simply another lesson that thinking he knew everything about her had been nothing but arrogance.
“Executive Director.”
At some point Seo-won’s entire focus had shifted from the event to Yuju. That was when Secretary Lee, who had stepped away for a moment, reappeared.
The reason they had come today.
In the distance, the chairman of S Group and his wife—valuable contacts for future collaboration—had just arrived.
“Can you stay here alone for a bit?”
“I’m not a kid.”
Not a kid, she said.
Ordinarily he might have treated the words as a joke, but today Seo-won offered no particular rebuttal. Even to his own eyes, Yuju was a long way from being a child right now.
So he left her alone without much worry.
“Eat something, at least.”
“I’ll stay put quietly. Don’t worry.”
That hadn’t been what he meant at all, yet Yuju’s guilty conscience made her answer that way; Seo-won huffed a soft laugh and drifted off with unhurried steps.
Yuju whiled away the empty stretch of time by turning her feet this way and that, admiring the shoes that wrapped them so gently.
The shoes Seo-won had put on her himself.
Earlier she had been too absorbed in his handsome face for it to truly register. But as a little time passed she realized it was the sort of thing that made a heart race. It seemed unlikely Seo-won had ever put shoes on a woman before.
Or maybe not. He did look pretty practiced…
Her spirits would sink, only for her thoughts to veer off somewhere else entirely a second later.
She had been dragged to gatherings like this countless times because of her father. So she was somewhat used to them by now, yet even standing in the same space she still felt as if she alone were cut off from everything.
She was always too tense to eat properly, and she had never been one for alcohol. More than anything, today every last nerve was trained elsewhere.
The conversation’s going on longer than I thought.
Until now she had only glanced at Seo-won in snatches, afraid of making him self-conscious; now she watched him in earnest.
He was still deep in conversation. Dozens of minutes had already passed since he had joined that group.
There was still no sign of the talk ending. If anything, the discussion seemed to grow deeper as time went on, and Yuju found herself growing grave right along with it—though her focus soon landed somewhere completely ridiculous.
He really is handsome.
The man currently speaking with Seo-won seemed to be the star of today’s event. Amid the people clustered around him, Seo-won alone seemed to glitter.
It was as if he alone had been drawn in a different art style.
That was true on ordinary days too, but today the feeling was even stronger. He usually wore only plain, monochrome suits without any particular pattern. The design of what he had on now, however, was lavish.
His hair, swept back with pomade, seemed to make those already vivid features even sharper. He was a man with the ability to make even the ordinary look extraordinary.
“What’s so funny?”
In the end the sulkiness burst out of Yuju’s mouth. Every woman near him was beautiful, and it put her in a foul mood.
She had felt the gazes landing on Seo-won ever since they had begun making the rounds of greetings. A few of them seemed less than kindly disposed toward the woman who had dropped out of the sky overnight.
In truth that might not have been the case at all. It was probably just her own inferiority complex. Every woman here was impressive.
Was that what “adult composure” looked like? Even if they all wore the shell of adulthood, those women were different from her—still only a student.
So she grew needlessly impatient, and watching Seo-won surrounded by them made something surge up hot and hard inside her chest.
That was when it happened.
“……?”
She was still swallowing down her private misery when her eyes met Seo-won’s. In the middle of his conversation with the executives from the other companies, he mouthed something.
It seemed directed at her, so Yuju watched him carefully. A moment later she understood what he was saying.
Suite.
It meant her part was done and she was free to go. She had already shown her face enough, and they had finished greeting nearly everyone who mattered. There would be no strange rumors.
From that single short word Yuju read every bit of what he intended. Yet she remained planted exactly where she stood, unmoving.
In the past, whenever her father had forced her to come to these burdensome, tedious gatherings, she had wanted nothing more than to vanish from them as quickly as possible. Today, every sense sharpened, she did not want to leave this place.
Somehow she simply could not leave Seo-won alone among all those women.
As if they were anything to each other.
The moment Yuju stepped into the suite she let out the breath she had been holding.
He had told her to go in ahead, but she had refused to leave until Seo-won finished his business. She simply could not bring herself to abandon him alone among so many women.
The price of her stubbornness was that she was completely drained. Constant tension plus the restrictive outfit left her feeling twice as exhausted.
The clothes cinching her body were uncomfortable. She tried to lower the zipper the way she had put it on earlier, but her arms would not reach.
When Yuju, still grunting with effort, finally failed to manage it, Seo-won—who had been watching her—stepped in to help.
“…….”
Only then did Yuju’s gaze turn fully toward him. At the enigmatic expression on her face, Seo-won tilted his head, as if he had not noticed anything strange.