🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 03
It seemed his body had completely recovered.
Chae-yoon thought of Mu-hyeon’s shoulders, which seemed broader than they had been three years ago, and his strikingly handsome face.
The last time she had seen him, he’d been sitting in a hospital room wearing a patient gown. Pale and sharp-featured, his head tightly wrapped in bandages, he had snapped irritably,
“Just because I can’t remember a few things, do I have to accept visits from every Tom, Dick, and Harry? Secretary Kim, get this woman out of here.”
Perhaps because that image had never faded from her memory.
Seeing Mu-hyeon now, looking far healthier than before, she couldn’t help but feel relieved—even after having heard such ugly words back then.
Still, she wished they hadn’t met like this.
Muttering bitterly to herself, Chae-yoon turned around and slowly walked toward the large rock that jutted out at the end of the villa’s driveway.
The first time she truly encountered Mu-hyeon was three years ago.
Even when they were children, Mu-hyeon would come to the villa every vacation and stay for a month at a time. Back then, however, her grandmother had enforced strict rules, so they never ran into each other.
Her grandmother repeatedly warned Chae-yoon, several times a day, that she must not wander around while the “young master of the villa” was staying there.
Wanting to be a good child, Chae-yoon followed her grandmother’s words and didn’t budge from inside the house.
She liked reading fairy tales and playing with dolls anyway, so staying in the annex until her grandmother returned from work wasn’t difficult.
Sometimes, when she heard a boy’s voice from the garden, she would secretly peek out—but that was a secret no one knew.
Mu-hyeon, who had visited the villa every vacation until elementary school, stopped coming frequently once he entered middle school.
After being absent for a long time, he reappeared at the villa three years ago, when Chae-yoon was a senior in college.
One day in May, after finishing her classes and returning home, she saw an unfamiliar man standing in the garden.
She stopped unconsciously when she saw the tall, handsome man standing there with crutches.
Normally, her grandmother always informed her in advance whenever someone was coming to the villa. It was to help her avoid running into the employer’s family.
So Chae-yoon assumed the man had simply wandered in by mistake. Everyone in the village knew who owned the villa, so she figured he must be an outsider who had lost his way.
“This is private property. You’re not allowed to enter without permission.”
The man stared at her silently, his gaze rather rude. Still, taking into account that he was injured, she spoke as politely as she could.
“If you go down the driveway and take the road to the right for about ten minutes, you’ll reach town.”
There was an unfamiliar sedan parked at the edge of the yard, presumably his. When she even told him the way out, he looked incredulous.
“And who are you?”
“Pardon?”
“You said this is private property. Are you the owner?”
“No. I’m… an employee.”
Strictly speaking, she wasn’t.
Her grandmother was the employee, and Chae-yoon was just a dependent living with her in the annex.
But there was no reason to explain all that to a stranger, so she answered simply. And honestly, “employee” sounded better than “freeloader” when explaining her presence.
At her reply, the man tilted his head slightly.
As if surprised by her answer, he raised his left eyebrow.
His brow was tightly furrowed, yet his face was so handsome that even that looked attractive.
She thought she had seen plenty of good-looking men during college, but compared to this man, all the others seemed like nothing—
“Young master, you must have been waiting a while. You came down so suddenly that it took some time to prepare the room…”
At that moment, her grandmother, Jae-suk, came out of the villa, breaking the strange silence between them.
She had rushed out, flustered and apologetic for keeping him waiting, but when she spotted Chae-yoon standing face-to-face with Mu-hyeon, her words trailed off awkwardly.
“…It took a bit longer. It must be hot—please come inside.”
Mu-hyeon replied as if nothing had happened.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Oh, no need to thank me. If there’s anything you’d like for dinner, just let me know. I’ll make it nicely for you.”
“Ha-ha. Everything you make is delicious.”
The two of them turned and walked into the villa as if Chae-yoon didn’t exist at all.
Watching the man’s back as he walked away, relaxed even while leaning on crutches, Chae-yoon finally realized that he was the “young master.”
The boy she used to secretly watch through the living-room window as a child had appeared again, now a perfectly grown man.
“I wonder how long he’ll stay this time.”
She muttered with a sigh, yet her heart fluttered as the image of the young master’s handsome face resurfaced.
From that day on, Chae-yoon left for school at dawn and returned home on the last train.
No matter how much time passed, her grandmother’s rules never changed.
“He was in a traffic accident recently and came down here to recuperate. Looks like he’ll be staying at the villa for a while, so be careful to avoid running into the young master as much as possible.”
No matter how handsome he was, Chae-yoon had no intention of disobeying her grandmother. So she decided to minimize the time she spent at home.
Though she didn’t have many classes as a senior, she was preparing for the teacher certification exam, so there was plenty to study.
Living as if she were back in high school—coming home only to sleep—was a bit exhausting, but once the young master returned to Seoul, it would all be over. It wasn’t something she couldn’t endure.
About a week later—
That day as well, Chae-yoon got off the last train and trudged up the villa’s driveway with her heavy bag slung over her shoulder, thinking only about getting home, showering, and sleeping.
Then—
“You said you’re a college student—what do you do that you come home at this hour every day?”
An unfamiliar voice greeted her the moment she stepped into the yard.
She stopped short in surprise when she spotted the young master casually perched on the rock at the end of the driveway.
“Were you avoiding me? Why are you so startled?”
“I thought no one was here…”
Seeing her flustered, trailing off mid-sentence, Mu-hyeon chuckled and stood up.
“There will be someone from now on. I’m planning to stay here for quite a while, so don’t be too shocked when we run into each other.”
Before Chae-yoon could figure out whether he meant staying at the villa for a long time or waiting in the garden every time she came home, Mu-hyeon had already gone inside.
From the next day on, she ran into him sitting in the garden every evening when she returned home.
As she responded to his casual remarks, his presence gradually became familiar. And as it became familiar, the time they spent talking grew longer.
At some point, Chae-yoon found herself sitting beside him, trading jokes.
Each time she looked at Mu-hyeon and smiled, her heart pounded wildly, and she quickly realized she had fallen in love.
That didn’t mean she dreamed of a future with him.
No matter how close they grew, he wasn’t a college senior or a guy from the neighborhood—he was the young master of the villa.
Chae-yoon never forgot that fact.
Not even after the night in June when they accidentally shared their first kiss, and she learned that Mu-hyeon had feelings for her too.
A sad smile crossed Chae-yoon’s face as she recalled her first kiss with Mu-hyeon.
She still remembered that night vividly.
The fresh scent of grass, the loud chirping of crickets, their heated lips pressed together, sweet breaths mingling, her heart pounding as if it would burst, trembling fingertips, the cool breeze brushing her nape, and even the clean scent she felt at the edge of that wind—everything.
Mu-hyeon, who had seemed prickly on the outside, became the most gentle and warm person once he became her boyfriend.
That was why, when she later heard that he’d lost his memory in yet another traffic accident, she couldn’t accept it for a long time.
There was no way Mu-hyeon had truly forgotten her. She believed it was just temporary confusion from the shock and that he would remember her soon.
Just as she loved him, he loved her too.
But contrary to her hopes, Mu-hyeon never remembered Chae-yoon.
He erased not only her, but the entire five months he had spent at the villa—as if he had completely driven Song Chae-yoon out of his life.
And his mother even seemed relieved that Mu-hyeon had lost his memory.
“The accident is tragic, but forgetting Song Chae-yoon is actually for the best. Don’t ever appear in front of my son again.”
