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Chapter 29
It was late at night.
After showering, Juyeong, who had been alone in her room, couldn’t fall asleep and went down to the hotel bar.
She ordered a martini and stared out the window.
Lights glowed all over the hotel grounds. The outdoor pool was a vivid blue. By contrast, the sea beyond was pitch-black, nothing visible at all.
Because the hotel was so brightly lit, the ocean beside it looked especially dark.
It felt just like herself, Juyeong thought.
No matter how much she wrapped herself up, pretending to be strong, pretending to be fine, what lay underneath was already broken beyond repair.
She forcibly crammed down things that felt ready to explode at any moment.
Even when wounds oozed and festered, she didn’t look back at them—she ignored them and left them unattended.
This kind of life was exhausting.
But she had never lived any other way. She couldn’t live any other way.
The saying that if you live the way you’ve always lived, life will simply go on that way—it would probably remain true until the day she died.
Really…
“I hate it.”
“I wondered where you were since you weren’t in your room.”
Just as she muttered to herself, a low voice brushed her ear.
Before she knew it, Seonghun was standing beside her. Even at this late hour, he still looked immaculate.
“So you were here?”
“…I was bored. Did the meeting end well?”
“Well, more or less.”
Seonghun sat down across from her. He glanced at the martini on the table, then raised a hand to call a staff member.
“You called for me, sir?”
“I’ll have the same thing she’s having.”
The staff member quickly scanned the table. Though he was serving the floor, he had memorized all the cocktails sold at the bar.
“A martini, correct? I’ll have it ready shortly.”
After taking the order, the staff member returned a moment later with a martini.
Seonghun took only a light sip, just enough to wet his lips. He’d already had plenty of wine greeting VIPs at the event, and martinis weren’t particularly to his taste.
As he set the glass down, he glanced at Juyeong and asked,
“What’s wrong?”
“…What do you mean?”
“By now, don’t you think I know you well enough? Your poker face doesn’t work on me.”
Juyeong reached for her glass, then stopped.
She stared at Seonghun with an irritated look, then swept her hair back and leaned against the backrest.
“So that’s why you gifted me low-heeled shoes and sent cabbage juice to my place?”
“It was my way of being considerate.”
“Unagreed consideration is violence. Or do you know that and do it on purpose?”
Juyeong let out a short, bitter laugh.
“I’ll be blunt. Don’t do that kind of consideration for me anymore.”
“Why not?”
“It makes me uncomfortable.”
“…”
“Someone who knows I’m hurt, weak, a sandcastle that would collapse with just a tap…”
She tried to finish the sentence, but in the end she bit her lip and fell silent.
Then her eyes landed on the martini.
Borrowing the strength of alcohol, Juyeong downed the glass in one go. The sharp presence of alcohol burned down her throat, making her squint, but in that moment the sentence finally came out.
“It’s ugly.”
It was the first time.
The first time Juyeong admitted her weakness to Seonghun.
Seonghun tilted his head.
“That’s unusually honest of you, Ms. Choi Juyeong. Did something change all of a sudden?”
“It’s just… seeing your parents made me think about a lot of things.”
How could Bae Seongwon and Min Yuyeong be like that?
How could they treat Bae Seonghun—who wasn’t even their biological child—with such devotion?
“I’ve always wanted to meet you, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally see you in person and talk like this.”
Min Yuyeong’s hands were soft and warm—probably a reflection of who she was as a person.
“If you’re free tomorrow, how about lunch together before you leave? We can continue the conversation we didn’t finish today.”
Choi Gwon-yong had treated Bae Seonghun purely as a business partner, someone with high utility value.
But Min Yuyeong looked at Juyeong not as the holder of the CS Group title, but simply as the lover of the son she cherished.
Cautious, yet wanting to grow closer—respecting the boundaries that needed to be kept.
Min Yuyeong was a true adult. Bae Seongwon was the same.
“I thought you had wounds similar to mine, but I was arrogant.”
“…”
“You’re different from me from the very starting line. Just like you said, I’m… worse than you.”
After finishing her words, Juyeong made eye contact with the staff and ordered another martini.
The day felt unusually long.
Early morning.
Color slowly seeped into the sea beyond the window, and the sky was turning bluish with dawn.
Seonghun, who had already tidied his bed, carefully opened the bedroom door.
Inside the dark room, with blackout curtains drawn, Choi Juyeong was asleep.
She was covered with a blanket, but the raised outline vaguely revealed her posture.
Juyeong was sleeping with her body tightly curled up.
‘Does she always sleep like that…?’
Curling up as if to protect herself—it was very like Choi Juyeong.
Of course, it wasn’t something he needed to concern himself with.
This was bad.
Seonghun stopped walking and exhaled sharply.
“Haa… haa…!”
He had planned to enjoy a morning run along the walking trail around the hotel, but today was clearly a failure.
What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he stop thinking about Choi Juyeong?
It was strange.
He knew full well that it wasn’t his business, yet the image of Juyeong sleeping curled up wouldn’t leave his mind.
Why?
Because he felt sorry for her? Because she said something strange last night?
He had never said she was inferior.
If she was referring to what happened in the car last week, all he had said was that there was a clear gap between them.
Seonghun brushed back his hair, soaked with sweat.
“Tsk… You really have a talent for getting under people’s skin.”
“Who’s getting under your skin, son?”
Startled, Seonghun turned around to see Min Yuyeong and Bae Seongwon standing there, having approached without a sound.
They were dressed comfortably in training clothes, arms linked.
“When did you get here?”
“When you’d been running for a while and suddenly stopped, looking irritated?”
“Then you should’ve called me. Why didn’t you?”
“You looked like your head was full. I didn’t want to interrupt. Besides, we were on a little date of our own. Right, honey?”
Yuyeong tugged lightly at the arm she had linked and asked.
Seongwon nodded.
“Of course! It’s been ages since we took a walk together somewhere with such a nice view. We didn’t want to be interrupted—even by our son.”
“…I have absolutely no desire to interrupt you two either.”
No matter how many times he saw it, he never got used to their lovey-dovey behavior.
Weren’t humans supposed to be creatures of adaptation?
“So, why is our son’s mind so complicated this early in the morning?”
Letting go of Seongwon’s arm, Yuyeong stepped closer and hooked her hand around Seonghun’s arm.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s work-related. Could it be because of Ms. Juyeong?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on. Do you really think a child can completely fool their parents? If they did, that just means the parents chose to pretend to be fooled.”
Seongwon waved a hand lightly at Yuyeong.
“Honey, let’s not do that. Come here. It seems Seonghun is starting to have things that are hard for him to talk to us about.”
“All right, dear.”
Yuyeong patted Seonghun’s arm before moving back to Seongwon’s side.
As if he’d been waiting, Seongwon took her hand and placed it on his arm.
“We’ll be off to enjoy our date now. Seonghun, don’t overdo it—run a bit more and then head back in.”
“…Yes.”
“Remember this. We’re always on your side.”
Bae Seonghun’s strongest support.
It was his parents.
