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Chapter 37
In the end, Seonghun ended up using the room Juyoung had used when she was little.
Since it was cleaned regularly, there wasn’t any dust piled up, but they still needed to put a sheet on the mattress and take out a spare blanket and pillow.
Somehow, preparations for sleeping were finished.
“Are you really… going to sleep here?”
Even as she left the bedroom, Juyoung couldn’t believe the current situation.
The Oido summer villa was a place Juyoung came to whenever she was exhausted—so-called a sanctuary, a kind of secret base.
When she came here, she could put everything down and didn’t have to hide her weak side.
It was the only place where she didn’t have to struggle desperately just to survive.
And in that place, Bae Seonghun was there.
In that place, Bae Seonghun was sleeping.
Originally, it was something that could never happen, and something that must not happen.
And yet, it had happened. How things had come to this point was something no one knew.
“Is that really something the person who prepared everything for me to sleep should be saying?”
“Well, you said you were sleeping over, so I did it for now—but I still can’t believe it.”
“What can’t you believe?”
Seonghun leaned one hand against the desk Juyoung had used as a child, standing with one leg crossed over the other.
How should one put it?
The arrogance felt in his attitude seemed to say that he had seen right through all of Juyoung’s thoughts.
“…It’s nothing. Let’s just sleep.”
If she added anything more, she would only get dragged into Seonghun’s pace, so Juyoung roughly wrapped up the conversation and turned away.
Just as she was about to close the door, a low voice flew at her from behind.
“Good night, Ms. Choi Juyoung.”
Juyoung couldn’t say a single word.
And that night, she tossed and turned for a very long time, unable to fall asleep.
Juyoung pressed the button on the bedside table to open the blackout curtains.
Light slowly began to seep into the room that had been in darkness.
They say the sky is clearest after rain, and beyond the window there wasn’t a single cloud to be seen.
Still half-asleep, Juyoung got out of bed and, without thinking, tried to leave the bedroom.
But the moment her hand touched the doorknob, she remembered that she wasn’t alone in the villa right now.
Juyoung hurriedly checked her full-length mirror.
Her hair was a mess, crushed by the pillow, her face looked dry and dull, and there wasn’t a hint of color on her lips.
If she had gone out looking like this and run into Seonghun… ugh, just thinking about it was horrifying.
Juyoung rushed into the bathroom attached to the master bedroom, quickly washed her face, and fixed her hair.
Then she put on some makeup.
There weren’t many cosmetics at the villa, so all she did was even out her skin tone and apply a tinted lip balm.
“Mm. That’ll do.”
Only after confirming that she looked presentable enough did Juyoung turn the bedroom doorknob.
She had vaguely heard cooking sounds while getting ready in the bathroom, so she headed straight for the kitchen.
She saw Seonghun’s back, wearing an apron.
It was only the second time she had seen this sight, but it felt nothing but unfamiliar.
If they got married and lived together, it might be a scene she would see often.
But no matter how many times she saw it, the combination of Bae Seonghun and a kitchen didn’t seem like something she’d ever get used to.
“Good morning.”
Sensing her presence, Seonghun turned his head.
“…Good morning.”
“You slept in. Do you usually sleep a lot?”
“No, I usually don’t sleep well. Even when I do, I wake up easily.”
Juyoung took a glass from the upper cabinet and placed it under the water purifier.
Ding—when she pressed the button, water began to pour into the glass.
While drinking the lukewarm water, Juyoung watched Seonghun prepare breakfast.
It was a yogurt bowl with bananas, peaches, and various nuts.
“There was yogurt at the house?”
“I bought it.”
“When? Yesterday?”
“Is there any other possible answer?”
“……”
Juyoung was left speechless.
Buying breakfast food while shopping for dinner yesterday meant—put another way—that he had planned from the start to sleep over.
This… sly, slippery man.
“All done. Take it.”
After finishing the breakfast by drizzling honey over it, Seonghun handed the bowl to Juyoung.
There was a lot Juyoung wanted to argue with him about, but because he had made breakfast for her himself, she held it in, took the bowl, and sat down at the table.
Soon after, Seonghun brought his own bowl and sat across from her.
As he picked up his spoon, he said,
“Enjoy.”
“…Thank you for the meal.”
Juyoung put a bite-sized piece of peach into her mouth, chewed, and then glanced sideways at Bae Seonghun.
She had shared meals with Bae Seonghun several times before.
At the blind date where she first met him, and later at the meeting where they exchanged the marriage contract.
But why was it?
The time she spent eating with him yesterday and today felt different from those past times.
It was quiet, comfortable, and she didn’t have to be on edge.
It really was… strange.
Lunchtime.
Go Hyena arrived in front of the restaurant that Jin Taekyung had sent her by text.
At his instruction to dress in luxury from head to toe without obvious logo play, she had done the best she could.
“Why isn’t he coming?”
Hyena took off her sunglasses and checked the time on her phone.
Five minutes had already passed since their scheduled meeting time.
“That bastard didn’t bring me here just to mess with me, did he…?”
If it turned out to be all show with nothing important inside, she wasn’t going to let Jin Taekyung off easy.
But just as people say a tiger appears when you speak of it, Jin Taekyung showed up not long after.
Despite being ten minutes late, he didn’t say a single word of apology.
“Shall we go?”
“…If this is some weird place, you’re dead.”
“Oh dear, how scary. Let’s go in first, then you can decide whether to kill me or not.”
Jin Taekyung greeted the two guards standing at the entrance as if he were familiar with them, then went inside.
Hyena followed him into the restaurant.
The interior was a high-end restaurant commonly seen in Gangnam.
The customers dining inside also looked ordinary enough.
However, Jin Taekyung passed by the diners and walked further toward the back of the restaurant.
What is this?
Did they not come here to eat?
As Hyena was wondering, Taekyung stopped in front of a door with the words “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” written on it.
Knock knock knock.
When Jin Taekyung knocked on the door three times, a staff member immediately came out from the adjacent kitchen.
But rather than a kitchen staff uniform, his outfit looked just like the guards they had seen at the entrance.
“Mr. Jin Taekyung, thank you for visiting our ‘Noir 7’ again today. Are you here with a companion today?”
“Yes, my girlfriend. We’ll be coming often, so take good care of her.”
“Ah, I see. If she is Mr. Jin Taekyung’s girlfriend, then she is a VVIP to us as well, so we will serve her with the utmost care. I am the manager of Noir 7. Please just call me ‘Manager.’”
“Ah, …yes.”
“Welcome to Noir 7. Then, I will open the door for you.”
At the manager’s signal, one staff member came out, placed a sign reading “Cleaning in Progress” in the hallway, and drew the curtain.
The manager took a key out of the inside pocket of his jacket and inserted it into the keyhole on the doorknob.
Click.
Clack.
Turning the key once to the right, then twice to the left, the lock was released.
Why did opening the door have to be so complicated?
There was only one answer.
Because it was a dangerous place.
Security being this tight meant secrecy had to be strictly maintained.
For example, what could that mean?
Right—something “illegal” was going on.
“Then, Mr. Jin Taekyung, and….”
“Go Hyena.”
“Thank you, Ms. Go Hyena.”
The manager smiled brightly as he opened the door.
Inside the depths of the restaurant, moments of joy and despair were crossing paths by the second.
“Nice!”
“Ah, nooo…!!”
What spread out before their eyes was an illegal gambling den.
A place where the flow of money—and people’s lives—could change in an instant.
“Please enjoy your time.”
Hyena would only realize the true meaning of the manager’s smile much later.
