DWR 4

Chapter 4

* * *

At dawn, Eunjo, who had been lingering in front of Troyple, stared blankly at the ambulance carrying her body away.

Where are they taking it?

Will they do a proper autopsy?

No—Kang Jinwoo would never allow an autopsy. They can’t let drugs be detected in the body.

“No, it was completely shattered, so there isn’t even a body left to autopsy. They’ll just…… take it straight to the funeral hall.”

Getting into a taxi, Eunjo went straight to the funeral hall at Yeonhui University Medical Center.

Kang Jinwoo would hold her funeral there. Since CX Soft donated a huge amount every year, it would be convenient to control things in many ways.

Arriving at the funeral hall like that, Eunjo greeted the morning in the funeral hall courtyard.

Mid-September—the morning air was cold, but not unbearable.

Rubbing her arms with both hands, she couldn’t bring herself to step inside, and instead watched the familiar faces she knew, one by one, enter the building.

Every single one in black clothes, with grim expressions.

College classmates, seniors and juniors, artists from the same gallery, apartment neighbors, CX Soft executives…….

Curled up in a flowerbed, Eunjo carefully scanned the faces of the people who had come to her funeral.

It felt strange.

No—none of it felt real.

Even after seeing her own corpse directly—torn apart so badly it couldn’t even be recognized—she still couldn’t believe it.

Even the white blouse she’d been wearing before she fell was soaked in blood and didn’t look like it belonged to her.

Nothing was hers, and yet they were roughly gathering it up and insisting it was her, holding a funeral—she was dumbfounded. So not even tears flowed.

She wasn’t angry either. She was just dazed, and somehow hollow.

Still, seeing classmates and people from the art world crying for her made somewhere in her chest ache.

On the other hand, the sight of CX Soft executives leaving the funeral hall with mournful faces made bile rise in her throat. They were batlike bastards who had clung to Kang Jinwoo the moment her father died.

“Disgusting people.”

As she spat the curse and followed their shadows with her eyes, a taxi blocked those shadows.

A face she knew well stepped out of the taxi.

With a shocked expression and a pale face without a hint of makeup, she looked truly innocent. The kind of appearance that would stir any man’s protective instinct, making him want to shelter her.

But to Eunjo, she was nothing but a devil.

Because she was Kim Nain, Kang Jinwoo’s mistress—the other woman who had driven her to death.

Stepping out of the taxi, she covered her face with a handkerchief she’d prepared in advance and sobbed.

“Unni. What do I do. Hngh…….”

Wiping her reddened eyes again and again with the handkerchief, Nain staggered. Drawing all the surrounding attention to herself alone, she disappeared into the funeral hall.

At the utterly disgusting sight, she could only be speechless.

“Crazy…….”

Unable to spit out a curse, Eunjo bit her lip until it bled.

That was when it happened.

A long shadow fell over her face.

The sound of slow footsteps tapping the ground rang out heavily.

“Ms. Na Eunjo?”

Na Eunjo.

Was it because the name was the same?

Even though he wasn’t calling her, her gaze moved on its own.

At the end of her gaze, someone stood with the sun behind him, looking down at her. A tall man, with long legs to match.

Slowly lifting her head to meet his face, she narrowed her brows. The shadowed face wasn’t easy to see.

“Who……?”

The moment she asked, she regretted it.

Even if he told her who he was—would she know?

Pressing her lips tightly shut, she merely frowned and waited for the awkward answer he would give.

“Ms. Na Eunjo, are you sick?”

The man shifted slightly and stepped into the shade. Then, reflecting the light, the figure that hadn’t been visible until now gradually became clear.

As his face came into view, her expression also stiffened.

It was a face she knew.

“Park…… Jooheon?”

The vibe was a little different, but the man speaking to her now was definitely Park Jooheon.

Her father’s favorite disciple, and a beloved student of the professor of engineering at Korea University—and the one who had learned painting from her…… her first love.

Does that Park Jooheon recognize Na Eunjo? How?

“Ms. Na Eunjo.”

Jooheon’s voice was rough.

With a deep vertical line carved between his brows, he said coldly,

“No matter what, isn’t it proper manners to use honorifics for an investor in your agency? It’s not like I’m your friend.”

In an instant, her mind was washed white.

She had no idea what to do, what to say.

While she floundered without being able to say anything, Jooheon opened his mouth again.

“How did you get here?”

His voice was still rough.

“Don’t tell me you…… came to see me?”

Jooheon’s gaze touched her funeral hall for a moment, then fell away.

Then his dry eyes swept over her coldly.

A short silence turned icy, and Jooheon spoke again.

“If it’s because of that last time, we already finished talking. Didn’t you understand when I said I had nothing more to say?”

The voice he spat out was sharp as a finely honed blade.

“If you keep doing this…….”

“Me too.”

She couldn’t know exactly what kind of relationship Jooheon had with the owner of this body.

But one thing was clear.

Yeonhui University Medical Center funeral hall, VIP building. Today, there was no other funeral room here besides hers.

“Me too—I knew her.”

In other words, it meant Jooheon had come to pay his respects to the deceased Lee Eunjo—to her.

“Me too…….”

Eunjo, rising from where she’d been crouched, answered without meeting Jooheon’s eyes.

“I knew her.”

At that moment, it felt as if a cold wind blew from Jooheon.

With his mouth set firmly, he stared at her without blinking even once. The gaze was so sharp that even without meeting his eyes, it felt as if her breath might be cut off.

“You knew her……? Na Eunjo knew Lee Eunjo?”

Was it her imagination? The end of Jooheon’s voice, as he swallowed her name, seemed to crack slightly.

She was curious.

Was Park Jooheon truly mourning Lee Eunjo’s death?

Eunjo lifted her eyes and looked at Jooheon. But she regretted it immediately.

Because it felt like the whirlpool of emotions in his black eyes would swallow her whole.

Hurrying to drop her gaze, she looked at the tips of her own shoes and parted her lips.

“Yes. We knew each other.”

For no reason, her throat tightened.

“I heard the news and came to pay my respects, but…….”

A single tear fell onto the sneakers she was wearing.

“Because I’m dressed like this.”

She couldn’t say any more.

Because she couldn’t hide the dry foreign sensation, as if something were stuck in her throat.

“I’ll be going now.”

So Eunjo left the spot as if fleeing.

* * *

After leaving the hospital, Eunjo couldn’t decide where to go.

She could no longer return to Troyple in Seoul Forest under her name. Lee Eunjo was no longer a person of this world.

Then should she go back to the home of Na Eunjo, the owner of this body?

‘Do you even know where it is?’

A hollow sigh slipped through her teeth.

At dawn today, she had run out of Na Eunjo’s home, and she’d never imagined she’d have to go back there. No—she hadn’t had the presence of mind for that.

Because confirming her mangled corpse wasn’t something as easy as saying the words.

Besides, she didn’t even know Na Eunjo’s address.

The siren of the ambulance she’d heard when she ran out, the high-rise apartment complex of Seoul Forest rising between buildings.

Since she had run straight and reached Troyple, all she knew was that it was somewhere around Seongsu-dong—just that much.

She could head to Seongsu-dong at random and try to trace her memory, but the money she had was already all spent on the taxi fare to get here.

Letting out a long sigh, Eunjo covered her face with both hands and collapsed to the ground.

‘What are you going to do now.’

It asked whether she would intervene in fate, and she said she would, but if it’s like this, how is she supposed to intervene in fate?

Then, at a thought that suddenly came to her, she snapped her head up.

‘Right. It asked whether I would intervene in fate.’

In the confusion, she had completely forgotten. The only being that could explain this enormous reality to her.