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Chapter 11
If she could turn back time, without hesitation, she would go back to that day, that moment.
The moment she had provoked his twisted sense of possession.
When Sunhye, thinking Heejae had broken the dish, scolded her and returned to her room, Heejae knew this was exactly what she had expected.
Sunhye had shown mercy by overlooking the mistake of a servant’s daughter.
“Why did you lie?”
Gyobin’s eyes were filled with suspicion as he asked.
Heejae looked straight back at him.
“Are you going to keep doing this kind of thing?”
Instead of answering his question, she threw one of her own.
From the very beginning, she could tell Gyobin was no ordinary child.
Stories of abuse by his stepmother hinted at a troubled upbringing.
“…If someone asks, don’t say you did it. Say I did.”
So Heejae decided to cover for him.
She knew what it was like to desperately need someone’s help. Perhaps this boy, too, was waiting for someone to help him.
“If they find out it was you, Madam and the Chairman will be furious. But if I say I broke it, they’ll think I’m just pitiful and let it slide.”
Even if it wasn’t much, she hoped she could at least give him a little help.
“You pity me too?”
At the sudden question, Heejae raised an eyebrow in puzzlement.
“Not really.”
It seemed he was so used to being pitied that he mistook her actions for sympathy.
“You probably have your own worries, but I don’t think they compare to mine.”
Heejae was not the kind of person who had the luxury of pitying others.
Raised by a poor single mother, she had once lived on government support.
No matter how badly Gyobin had suffered under his stepmother, he had never known the kind of disasters poverty brought.
He had never bailed water out of a flooded semi-basement, nearly drowning in the process, clinging desperately to survive. Living in a house this grand, he couldn’t possibly know.
So no, Heejae did not pity Gyobin.
“Thanks… for taking the blame for me.”
Gyobin smiled faintly, as though satisfied with her answer. The expression gave him an oddly kind and gentle air.
So Heejae thought: he was not a bad boy—just someone with emptiness inside.
“From now on, I should get close to you.”
She didn’t know then how much darkness he was hiding behind that gentle mask.
From then on, Gyobin was indeed kind to her.
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
“My dream was too frightening…”
“Did you have a nightmare? Want me to stay until you fall asleep?”
During the time when nightmares plagued her from school stress, she could sleep peacefully whenever Gyobin was by her side.
He was that good to her, and she relied on him heavily.
She thought their relationship would always remain supportive and balanced.
But sometimes Gyobin asked her for unreasonable favors.
“Heejae, why’d you break the porcelain?”
He always pinned his mistakes on her.
Sometimes it was so obviously intentional that she was left speechless.
Maybe he just wanted proof that she would protect him. Either way, his antics grew worse over time.
Three years passed, and both entered the same high school.
In middle school, they had been at different schools, meeting only at home—so she hadn’t realized just how obsessive he was over her.
Or how cruel his methods could be.
“…Move.”
Late at night, returning home, Heejae found her way blocked by Gyobin at the gate.
Now much taller than her, he looked down with a haughty gaze.
She turned her head away, avoiding his eyes, but even in the dark he followed her with a relentless stare.
“What’s wrong? Who made you cry?”
Red-rimmed eyes, swollen lids, the tremor in her voice—Gyobin knew she had been crying before coming home.
“I don’t want to talk to you. Just move.”
“No.”
When she tried to slip past him, he blocked her again.
“Do you know how many hours I’ve been waiting here just to see your face? And you treat me like this?”
“Shameless…!”
Unable to hold back, Heejae glared at him.
He only smirked, unbothered.
She bit her lip, holding back her anger.
“I don’t want to be angry with you. So please, just let me go.”
She forced herself to calm down and tried to pass him again—only for her wrist to be seized.
He yanked her back to face him.
“Is this because I’ve been talking about you at school?”
Gripping her shoulders, he leaned in close to meet her eyes.
Ever since they entered the same school, Gyobin had cruelly tormented her.
What made it worse was that it wasn’t direct bullying—but indirect.
Despite being popular among the girls, he made every confession into a declaration that he liked Heejae, turning them into her enemies.
He threatened her friends not to approach her, claiming she was his.
To others, he casually revealed that her mother was a servant in his house.
By the time she realized, no one stood by her side anymore.
“Because of you, I don’t have anyone left.”
Her voice trembled with resentment, but Gyobin only chuckled.
“What do you mean you don’t have anyone? You have me.”
She tried to shake him off, but his grip only tightened.
“If they were true friends, they wouldn’t care whether you were a servant’s daughter or what your past was.”
His eyes burned with intensity as he added:
“They were useless to your life anyway. You should be grateful you’ve gotten rid of them.”
Leaning closer, he whispered in her ear:
“But me? I don’t care about any of that. I like you. No matter where you come from, no matter your background.”
Was this what they called the devil’s whisper?
“So don’t be angry with me. You know how much I like you, don’t you?”
Even knowing that he had indirectly tormented her, pushed everyone away from her—Heejae still felt relief.
Because at the end of the day, he was the only one who stayed by her side.
“You only need me. Throw the rest away.”
At the time, she mistook it for love.
So even though she resented him, she also liked him.
When not a single person at school would speak to her anymore, the only one left by her side was Shin Gyobin.
That illusion sparked a fire—and Heejae mistook it for her first love.
But when she turned twenty and moved out on her own, distance naturally grew between them.
That distance only magnified her longing, her anxiety.
She thought he would visit at least once. But Gyobin never called.
Heejae remained the same, while Gyobin’s world expanded—work, studies, connections.
She began to fade from his memory.
And yet, she missed him—his burning, possessive gaze she had once found suffocating.
“You only need me. Throw the rest away.”
Back then, there truly had been no one else but Shin Gyobin by her side.
So in the end, it was Heejae who sought him out first, with the help of alcohol.
In the old days, when she’d come home late just to avoid seeing him, he would be waiting at the gate.
Now the roles had reversed. She stood at his gate, waiting for him to return.
“Heejae? Did you drink?”
And when she finally saw him again—
“Wanna sleep with me?”
