BYL 37

Dain had no choice but to take the passenger seat as he suggested. Once she carefully settled in, Taekyung got in a beat later and sat behind the wheel.

After fastening his seatbelt, he reached behind him and handed her a neatly packed drink carrier. Inside were cups of steaming cocoa, each topped with a bear-shaped marshmallow floating lazily on the surface.

“What’s this?”

“You said before that you like sweet things. I bought it for you. You like cocoa, right?”

Dain’s eyes lit up, and she nodded enthusiastically. She remembered having a similar conversation with him at the aquarium, but she was certain she had never mentioned cocoa—or her love for marshmallows in it. The fact that he got it exactly right was uncanny.

“Thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”

“It’s hot, so drink slowly.”

“Okay… fuu…”

When she pursed her lips and gently blew, the marshmallow swayed back and forth like a tiny sailboat. Some had already melted into shapeless blobs. She took a sip—warm, sweet, and comforting, the taste spreading through her mouth like soft light.

‘I was going to say I had to get back soon because of my kid… but I guess that’s not happening now.’

The feeling that crept up was strange. It was almost as if he knew she would say that and had prepared this drink to stop her from leaving.

Even with the faint suspicion in her gaze, Taekyung leaned his elbow against the steering wheel, resting his chin on his hand as he smiled faintly. The orange glow of the streetlight illuminated his already handsome face.

“Tastes good, right?”

“Yes… it’s really good. I actually love cocoa—especially with marshmallows.”

Dain stared down at the drink in her hands, a faint, nostalgic frown forming on her lips. She remembered—she had loved cocoa ever since someone had made it for her when she was little. Marshmallows floating on top, just like this.

‘Who was it again? No… who made it for me?’

It wasn’t her parents. They were always busy working, and every evening they went straight to the hospital to see her older sister.

But she did remember sitting on a big sofa one evening, sharing cocoa with someone while watching a cartoon. The memory was blurry, but it was warm—so much so that she never felt lonely back then. In fact, those moments felt even more comforting than the rare times she had spent with her family.

Her parents had occupied so little of her childhood.

“I know.”

Taekyung’s quiet voice brought her out of her thoughts. Dain turned to him blankly.

“You… know?”

“I had a feeling. I used to drink it often as a kid too. Kids like sweet things.”

He wasn’t wrong. Both Hanul and Yeoreum loved sweets too. But for some reason, his words felt like they carried another meaning, one she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Dain fiddled awkwardly with the warm paper cup.

“Was it… with that friend you said was your first love?”

She didn’t want to sound jealous or defensive—she had no right to—but her heart didn’t move the way she wanted it to.

It was ridiculous to bring it up after rejecting his confession, yet she couldn’t help it.

Even though she had turned him down more than once, the way he kept approaching her—steady and unwavering—had been oddly reassuring. Still, she needed to be clear now. She looked straight into his eyes.

“Please don’t shake me anymore, Director. I don’t even have the luxury to be shaken right now.”

It took courage to say that. Taekyung didn’t interrupt—he simply listened until she finished.

The moment the words left her mouth, regret flooded in. But she managed to keep her expression composed as she waited for his response.

“So… you are shaken by me.”

His voice was still gentle. Too gentle—it made her chest tighten. Even when she stared at him in disbelief, his gaze never wavered.

“I’m glad.”

Dain met his steady eyes, a pang of guilt twisting in her chest. How many men like this would she ever meet again—kind, warm, patient? He was also the heir to a major corporation. To an outsider, she might seem foolish for rejecting someone like him.

“Taekyung, you’re… a good man.”

“And yet?”

“That’s exactly why I’m saying no. You’re too good for someone like me.”

Her lips trembled slightly. Every word felt like another blow to her pride. But if she hadn’t liked him, she would’ve left the car already.

“Anyone would think the same as me.”

She felt embarrassed saying it, but at the same time, she wanted to remember this moment. After tonight, she might not be able to look at him so comfortably again.

“Wouldn’t it be better… to find that first love of yours? You said she was really special.”

Why was she even saying this?

Mortified by her own words, Dain bit down on her lip. She hadn’t realized it, but the conversation she’d had with Sujeong earlier must have left a deep impression—she kept bringing up his first love without meaning to.

Taekyung quietly studied her as she mumbled into her lap. This was why he’d disliked that Sujeong meeting—Dain always seemed affected by it, in good and bad ways.

‘Maybe it’s time I tell her the truth.’

Even now, he wondered if there was a way to make her remember him first. He took a slow breath and rubbed his face with one hand, as if steadying himself.

Since the day they met again by chance, it had felt like an invisible tug-of-war. The problem was that his pull wasn’t strong enough—and she kept trying to cut the rope entirely.

“Take it from someone who’s learned the hard way,” he said quietly. “If you think you’ll regret a lie someday, don’t say it in the first place.”

He needed to pull harder now.

Reaching forward, he gently took the cocoa from her hands and set it in the holder. It caught her attention immediately.

“A lie I’ll regret?”

“Back then, I told the kids it was a ‘bright yellow lie.’”

It was what Hanul had told Yeoreum that day in kindergarten, when Yeoreum had started crying. He still remembered the small boy’s voice, clear and deliberate.

“‘A bright yellow lie isn’t really a lie,’ he said.”

“‘Then what is it?’”

“‘It’s something you say so no one gets hurt. So it’s a good thing.’”

Dain slowly nodded.

“I remember. Hanul said that before…”

“Yeah. A kind lie.”

The car seat creaked as Taekyung straightened. He leaned closer, and his face slipped out of the light—shadow spreading over his features.

‘Right? Uncle told you, remember? That a bright yellow lie isn’t really a lie—it’s okay.’

‘Yeah. A kind lie is okay.’

Hanul’s voice and Taekyung’s overlapped faintly in her mind. Such a gentle memory, surfacing so easily now.

“But in the end,” Taekyung said quietly, “a lie is still a lie. I couldn’t tell a child that.”

His firm tone pulled her back to reality. Dain blinked, dazed, as if waking from a dream.

“I once lied to someone important to me,” he went on. “It must have hurt them deeply. I told myself it couldn’t be helped, that I had no choice back then… but that was just me trying to justify it.”

His brown eyes burned faintly as he spoke. Just remembering the past seemed to pain him.

“But now I know—it was nothing but cowardly self-rationalization.”

“Taekyung…?”

“If I ever saw her again, I wanted to ask for forgiveness. The guilt has never left me.”

Even his nightmares had been the same—Dain crying after hearing the truth, him running away alone.

“I regretted it. Over and over again…”

His face twisted in anguish, eyes trembling shut.

‘Was that lie… to your first love?’

Dain swallowed the question, pressing it down. Curiosity gave way to something heavier, an unease that grew quietly in her chest.

“If I refuse to date you… do you think I’ll regret it someday?”

“You definitely will.”

“What gives you such confidence?”

His fingertips brushed her arm over the center console, but she didn’t notice—her mind was too tangled.

“It’s not confidence,” he said softly. “It’s certainty.”

“Certainty?”

Their noses nearly touched. Dain froze, realizing just how close he’d gotten.

“The certainty that I can make you happy, Min Dain.”

His grip on her arm was firm—unyielding. Their faces were so close a single sheet of paper couldn’t fit between them. His voice lowered to a whisper.

“Enough to make you forget every wound Seo Inhyuk ever left you.”

“…”

“I can do that.”

The words were low, arrogant, and intimate, spilling out between lips that brushed with heat. His hand traced gently over her arm; her lashes fluttered as if trembling with the same tension.

The marshmallow in her cocoa had already melted away completely, sinking to the bottom—like her thoughts, gone blank white under the touch of his lips.