How About Me?
“I thought you’d keep it simple.”
Warm steam curled lazily from the rice and soup set out on the table. Je-yoon nodded toward a chair as if telling her to sit, then ferried over an array of tempting side dishes.
“Looks like you need to eat a proper meal, noona.”
He pressed a spoon into Yeon-ha’s hand and claimed the only pair of chopsticks for himself.
“Rice.”
At his word she lifted the spoon. The moment she scooped a mouthful, his chopsticks moved over it.
“Jeyuk? Egg roll?”
“I’ll do it myself.”
“No.”
Playfulness danced in his eyes as he pretended to deliberate, then split an egg roll in half and laid it neatly atop her rice.
“You probably skipped lunch. We’ll start with something mild.”
“Am I a child?”
Even as she grumbled she obediently accepted the side dish he had chosen for her. Until the meal ended he kept selecting for her, and she had to name whatever she wanted.
“It took fifty whole minutes just to eat.”
After brushing her teeth she checked her wristwatch and lightly scolded him. Je-yoon, finishing the last of the dishes, turned his head.
“Is time spent with me that precious to you?”
“It’s not that, but…”
“Then it’s fine.”
He stepped close. Gently he caught her chin and tipped it upward. When the side of his index finger stroked the soft skin along her jaw, Yeon-ha flinched back a half-step.
“There’s water here.”
“I—I just brushed my teeth.”
She spun away and walked to the desk, pressing a hand hard against her chest. What was that… I thought he was going to kiss me.
Suddenly she was all busy motion. There was nothing urgent, yet she opened and closed her inbox for no reason, tapped at the keyboard as if important work demanded it.
Unable to quiet the tremor in her chest, she forced her mind elsewhere by replaying the meeting she had held that afternoon. They still needed to choose a model.
Everyone seemed to want Je-yoon…
By then he had dried his hands and left the bathroom, settling into the chair directly across from her.
Why sit right in front of me where I have to notice you…
Yeon-ha averted her eyes, only to steal glances at him while she considered the brand’s direction.
Having him do it would be good for her too, but… there were simply too many complications…
While she was lost in thought their gazes locked again. She dropped her eyes as if she had done something wrong.
“Why can’t you look me in the eye all of a sudden?”
The question struck dead center. She deliberately lifted her eyes to meet his, only to whip her head away a second later. The slender column of her neck trembled faintly.
“Me?”
“Yes. Noona.”
Je-yoon pulled her chair backward.
“What are you doing…”
He shoved the keyboard aside, perched on the edge of the desk, and leaned down over her.
“This way you’ll actually look at me.”
With the distance closed, the fist resting on her armrest clenched tight, then slowly opened.
“…”
Je-yoon watched every one of her reactions. The lowered lashes fluttered. His hand covered hers. Startled eyes flew up to his face.
“Did you do something wrong to me?”
Today her expressions were unusually varied; the unfamiliarity of it struck him, yet instinct told him these reactions were a good sign.
“There… can’t be.”
If she had done something wrong… if she had… Yeon-ha fretted silently.
If I’ve started falling for you again…
The words rose all the way to her throat; she sealed them behind tightly pressed lips. It was not a feeling that would do either of them any good if spoken aloud. At the same time she hated herself for being unable to draw a clean, cold line with him.
“Then look at me.”
Je-yoon knelt between her knees. Once their eyes were nearly level she carefully rolled her gaze toward him. The instant they met, her heart refused to be still.
A long silence. Intersecting gazes. The sound of rain beginning outside. Je-yoon’s face drawing closer and closer.
Why… why is he doing this.
His breath brushed her lips as if he meant to kiss her.
“Noona.”
“…”
“How about me?”
“About what.”
She swallowed hard and asked.
How about what? As a man? Plenty of women would throw themselves at Je-yoon. There are beautiful people all around him, and even without looks he’s surrounded by people overflowing with charm…
If I weren’t a divorcée, if I didn’t have to watch the family’s every reaction, if he and I had simply stayed in each other’s orbit…
I might have confessed first.
Her heart had already tilted that far toward him. The feeling had lain quietly inside her for so long she no longer knew when it began; now it rose without warning, like a sudden whirlpool spinning up in the middle of an open sea.
“This.”
A warm hand slipped inside her shirt collar. When his large palm brushed the side of her neck she clenched her thighs together. Unknown heat flooded her body.
“Let me be the model.”
“…”
He toyed with the necklace she had tried on briefly before he arrived. The hand withdrew almost at once. He rose and sat on the desk again.
“Noona?”
Ah. He was asking how I thought of him as a model for our brand.
She had gotten carried away on her own and spun an entire fantasy. But he was the one who had made her heart race. Why the lunch box? Why the water on her chin? Why Jeju? Of course the hasty conclusions had been hers alone, born from how much he stirred her.
Yeon-ha stood up so abruptly her chair rolled back.
Je-yoon had always followed her closely since they were children. Looking carefully, every one of his gestures mirrored the things she herself had once done for him. Past and present overlapped like a perfect decalcomania.
As if he’s simply returning everything I once gave him.
It was only kindness… I was the one who misunderstood.
And don’t forget.
The hottest celebrity of the moment and the chaebol heiress who had just divorced another man.
No one would look at them kindly. To any outsider it would appear an impure relationship. Taking a risk she could not fully own was sheer foolishness.
She did not even know whether she could take responsibility for Je-yoon to the very end; she could not stake his modeling career on top of that.
Her own heart could drag both of them onto a path from which there would be no return.
Biting her lip hard, Yeon-ha twisted free of the wrist he still held and turned away.
“I’ll contact you officially through the agency about that.”
“Noona.”
“Je-yoon, I’m sorry—I actually had plans to meet someone. I’d completely forgotten.”
“…”
She snatched up her handbag with the freed hand and left the studio. The fingers gripping the bag had gone bone-white.
The moment she reached the main road she flagged a taxi.
“Just… start driving, please.”
“Ma’am? You’ll need to give me a destination…”
If she went home, Je-yoon would be there. She thought quickly and settled on the directors’ floor at headquarters. The Songhwa Group headquarters contained a special suite reserved for the owner family. He would never be able to follow her there.
“SH headquarters.”
Rush hour had already begun; the taxi crawled.
Her eyes, fixed on the wide-open sky, had grown colder than usual.
Je-yoon’s easy familiarity was a problem, but the greater problem was herself—unable to distinguish fondness from old habit, unable to govern her own emotions.
All her life her grandfather had told her to cut away every unnecessary feeling, yet none of that training seemed to help her now.
“We’ve arrived.”
Yeon-ha stepped out of the taxi and entered the lobby. Employees who recognized her pecked at her with their eyes the way people stare at a bird in a cage.
She had no energy left to care about stares. She headed straight for the executive elevator. As if it had been waiting on the first floor, the doors slid open at once.
“Ha…”
She only wanted quiet, yet every person who made noise had gathered here. Seo Tae-won, Song Dae-hoon, Song Si-hoon. Yeon-ha waved a hand as if telling them to go on ahead.
“Oh, Song Yeon-ha?”
Her aunt’s son, five years her senior, called out in that easy, thick-skinned voice of his. There was no chance of simply walking past.
“Hi.”
“What brings you to headquarters? Summoned?”
“No. Just…”
She swept her hair up with an irritable gesture. Perceptive as ever, Tae-won blocked Song Dae-hoon the instant the latter opened his mouth to speak.
“If you’re not here for work, we’re heading to Jangmun-gak for a drink—want to come? Or are you skipping because of that bastard Dae-hoon?”
Tae-won pointed a finger left and right between Dae-hoon and Yeon-ha.
“Why are you bringing that guy along?”
Dae-hoon snapped before he could stop himself; his younger brother Song Si-hoon adjusted his glasses and pressed down hard on his brother’s shoulder.
“Don’t start unnecessary trouble. Why are you so eager to create factions? Stop acting like a stuffy old man the way Father does. Hyung, sometimes I wonder if you’re really the same age as Yeon-ha noona.”
True to his prosecutor’s instincts, Si-hoon’s judgment was clear. Yeon-ha watched Dae-hoon’s sulky pout and hesitated.
“If you don’t feel like it you don’t have to come—”
Tae-won, not wanting an ugly scene in a lobby full of employees, tried to give her an out. Yeon-ha shook her head.
“I’ll go.”
Even if she went upstairs, work would never stick to her hands. Better to bicker with Song Dae-hoon and fling her mind somewhere else entirely.