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Chapter: 24
“Mm… I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay. I really won’t touch you. I swear to heaven.”
After thinking for a moment, she looked at him as if he were a thief, then rubbed her eyes with both hands. She really was sleepy. So sleepy that her eyelids kept drooping shut.
With her tongue heavy from drowsiness, she mumbled,
“Really?”
“Trust me.”
“Then… I can really trust you?”
She slowly blinked as she barely managed to ask.
As if asking her to believe him, he confidently raised a fist and answered,
“Yes. Trust me.”
At that moment, as he spoke with such confidence, he had no idea that he would soon develop the shameless heart of a thief.
A famous restaurant located in the alley beside the gallery office.
“So Mu-hyeok is meeting with CEO Da-ong right now?”
Grandmother’s face immediately brightened. Whenever the topic turned to business or her grandchildren’s marriages, color would return to her normally pale face.
“It should probably be over by now.”
Mu-yeon casually answered between bites of meat, sounding completely uninterested.
Mu-yeon, who was always too busy to eat out, had come to the gallery because her grandmother, Kim Myung-sook, and her mother, Lee Hae-sun, were visiting after a long time. The three of them were catching up over dinner.
The conversation only shifted after Mu-yeon mentioned that Mu-hyeok was meeting with CEO Da-ong.
“How old is Mu-hyeok this year?”
“He’s thirty.”
“Really? He’s well past the age to get married… at least by the old standards.”
Normally, Mu-yeon never hesitated to interrupt her grandmother, Kim Myung-sook, whose blunt personality never filtered her words. But perhaps because she herself was still unmarried, she became especially sensitive whenever marriage came up.
“Grandma! People get married later these days. Stop saying things like that.”
Already irritated, Mu-yeon scolded her grandmother like a teacher lecturing a student. The words stabbed at her heart like tiny needles.
There was nothing wrong with still being unmarried.
But ever since she turned thirty, she had heard, “When are you getting married?” almost every week. It made her feel like she’d committed some crime, to the point of developing a complex over it.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get married.
The problem was that she lost interest in relationships too quickly. She would date someone, grow tired of them before long, break up, and never make it to marriage.
“You’re already an old maid! Do you understand? Shouldn’t you get married before your younger brother? Just when exactly are you planning to marry?”
Myung-sook had never lived her life worrying about other people’s opinions. She wasn’t the type to hold back her thoughts just because someone might get hurt. Even if that someone was her own granddaughter.
Hae-sun, who felt even more embarrassed than Mu-yeon, awkwardly waved her hands as she cautiously watched her daughter’s reaction.
“Oh, Mother… it’s fine these days even if people don’t marry.”
At her mother’s words, Mu-yeon puffed out her lips cutely, got up from her seat, walked over beside her mother, bent down, spread her arms, and hugged her tightly.
“As expected~ Mom’s the only one on my side!”
Apparently unaffected by the touching mother-daughter hug, Myung-sook chewed her meat with an annoyed expression before slamming her fork onto the table.
Bang!
The loud noise drew the attention of nearby diners.
“What do you mean it’s fine not to marry? Why wouldn’t she? What’s lacking?”
Ignoring all the stares, Myung-sook even raised her voice.
Feeling guilty for disturbing everyone because of her grandmother, Mu-yeon repeatedly bowed apologetically toward the surrounding diners before sitting back down.
Frowning, she leaned toward Myung-sook, covered the side of her mouth with one hand, and lowered her voice.
“Keep your voice down, Grandma. You’re not the only person here. And it’s not that I’m not getting married because something’s lacking—I just haven’t met the right person yet. Look at Yoon Hae-ru. She isn’t married either!”
Whenever marriage came up, Mu-yeon always used Hae-ru as an example.
Myung-sook trusted Hae-ru so much that simply hearing her name usually reduced the amount of nagging.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk…”
Still dissatisfied, Myung-sook clicked her tongue, shook her head, and gulped down a glass of water.
Meanwhile, Hae-sun widened her eyes curiously.
“Does Hae-ru really not have a boyfriend?”
“Hae-ru? She might have one soon.”
As she stuffed another piece of meat into her mouth, Mu-yeon absentmindedly imagined Lee Kang-hoon standing beside Yoon Hae-ru.
“What? Why?”
Curious, Hae-sun put the piece of meat she’d picked up with her fork back onto the plate and leaned forward.
“I’m going to introduce her to Lee Kang-hoon.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You’re introducing someone? Worry about yourself first!”
Myung-sook shook her head while scolding her.
Her pride immediately wounded, Mu-yeon raised her eyebrows and leaned closer.
“Grandma, I’m popular!”
“Popular? Yet you’re still not married. Tsk, tsk.”
Whenever talking about her unmarried granddaughter, Myung-sook always clicked her tongue at either the beginning or end of every sentence.
“I’m unmarried… because I chose to be.”
“More like you couldn’t.”
“I said that’s not it!”
As Mu-yeon’s voice rose, Hae-sun quickly grabbed Myung-sook’s arm.
At this rate, it looked like another huge argument was about to break out.
“Mother, that’s enough. We didn’t come here to fight. We came to enjoy a nice meal with your granddaughter.”
Truthfully, Mu-yeon and Kim Myung-sook argued every single time they met.
Neither of them bottled up their thoughts, and both had a habit of speaking whatever came to mind.
That was simply the result.
Still, neither of them was a bad person.
Myung-sook shook her head.
“Ah… I wish you had been born a man…”
The topic changed so suddenly that Mu-yeon’s features practically scrunched together in confusion.
“Why?”
“Because Hae-ru would be too good to pass up!”
Myung-sook had always thought highly of Hae-ru.
Whatever Hae-ru set her mind to, she accomplished.
Even when her boss lacked something, she always supported them flawlessly. She was exceptionally intelligent. In fact, when Hae-ru first joined the company, she’d even worked as Myung-sook’s own secretary, so no one knew her brilliance better.
Despite her young age, she carried herself with remarkable maturity.
Sometimes it felt as though someone ten years older lived inside her.
“But Mother, there’s Mu-hyeok.”
As if she’d been waiting for the chance, Hae-sun spoke up.
“She’s older than Mu-hyeok.”
“Mother, that kind of thing doesn’t matter these days.”
Hae-sun had known Hae-ru since childhood because she was Mu-yeon’s best friend.
She liked Hae-ru because she knew how kind-hearted and upright she was.
Mu-yeon, however, clearly felt differently.
She aggressively sliced her steak with her knife and wrinkled her nose.
“Mom, you’re talking nonsense.”
“Why? You don’t like the idea of Hae-ru with Mu-hyeok?”
Excited, Mu-yeon immediately listed her reasons.
“Of course not! Hae-ru deserves better! Besides, I want her to stay my friend forever. I’m not letting that jerk Chae Mu-hyeok steal her.”
“Steal her? Is Hae-ru some kind of object?”
“What if they date and then break up? With that crazy idiot Chae Mu-hyeok’s personality, do you think Hae-ru would keep hanging around afterward? They’d break up, and I’d lose one of my oldest friends. I don’t even want to think about it.”
Shaking her head, Mu-yeon squeezed her eyes shut as though the mere thought was unbearable.
“How dare you call your own brother a crazy idiot!”
Hae-sun clenched her fist and lightly smacked Mu-yeon on the forehead.
“Ow!”
“You deserved that! Calling your own brother a crazy idiot!”
Hae-sun glared at Mu-yeon as she rubbed her forehead in silence.
After arriving at the parking lot in front of her apartment, Mu-hyeok parked the car and turned off the engine.
Then he looked to his right.
The woman who had stubbornly insisted she wouldn’t sleep because she didn’t trust him was now breathing softly, sleeping far more deeply than he’d expected.
Even after the car had stopped, she showed no sign of waking.
Night had already fallen, and the lights from the outdoor parking lot illuminated her face.
Without realizing it, his hand reached toward her.
She was beautiful… and the strand of hair that had fallen beside her ear was bothering him.
As he gently tucked the loose strand behind her ear, his heart began pounding.
His gaze slowly traveled down the bridge of her nose before stopping on her lips.
He swallowed hard.
His eyes drifted once more until they rested on the graceful line of her neck.
He slowly curled every finger—from his ring finger to his thumb—into a tight fist before pulling his hand back.
Instead of embracing her the way he desperately wanted, he gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands.
Lowering his head, he tried to force his racing heart to calm down.
“Ha… Turns out the thief was right here.”
It dawned on him that he himself was the thief.
While she slept, all he wanted was to steal her away.
If only he had a blanket, he wanted to wrap her up like a roll and carry her straight into his bedroom.
By the time sweat had gathered in his tightly clenched hands on the steering wheel, he heard a rustling sound and turned his head.
Just then, she opened her eyes.
Their gazes met.
“Are we here?”
Completely unaware of the turmoil in his heart, she slowly blinked and looked around.
“We got here a while ago.”
“Then you should’ve woken me.”
“I realized… I had the heart of a thief.”
His words made her straighten up from the seatback and stretch before looking at him with puzzled eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I felt like… if I touched you, I’d end up stealing whatever belonged to Secretary Yoon.”
