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Episode 4
You’re, you’re crazy…
Si-hyeon’s hands trembled violently.
She tried her best not to tremble, but Pyeon Soo-wook’s reckless behavior was anything but ordinary. It really seemed like he might do something.
W-what should I do.
“Pyeon Ji-wook. Do you… love me?”
Pyeon Ji-wook’s expressionless face contorted.
It was a completely unexpected remark. She, who was merely an object of amusement, was talking about love.
Love, huh.
“I’m only going to do it with someone I love from now on.”
“You’ve lost your mind, really.”
Finding it absurd, he let out a snort of ridicule.
“Looks like you’ve forgotten, but I’m the representative of Y Airline. Do you think I’d do something like this with you here? Knowing what kind of rumors would spread in the company? The Bae Hyo-joo you knew is gone now. Pyeon Ji-wook.”
A faint tremor was evident in Pyeon Ji-wook’s eyes.
“So, you’re saying you haven’t been with other guys during that time?”
“Do I have to detail my personal life? To you, who shows up after five years?”
Finding her retort amusing, Pyeon Ji-wook laughed out loud.
His incomprehensible laughter made Si-hyeon even more frightened.
“You acting like this is driving me even crazier.”
“…What?”
“What is this feeling that you’re Bae Hyo-joo, yet not like Bae Hyo-joo?”
“What does that…”
In an instant, he restrained both her arms and laid her down on the table. Completely pinned beneath him, Si-hyeon narrowed her brow.
“Let go of me.”
“When you confessed that you liked me, where was that then? Why did you suddenly become so cold? You were a guy who was endlessly kind to me.”
sister confessed?
The hand gripping both of hers tightened.
First, let’s calm down. Bae Sihyeon.
“I said, let go!”
He didn’t budge even at her words.
The moment Sihyeon moved her leg to strike a vital spot, Pyeon Ji-wook deftly dodged and pinned her right leg down. In an instant, their legs were entangled.
“Stay still.”
She struggled with all her might to escape his embrace, but she couldn’t move.
He lowered his head and buried his face in her white nape.
At the touch of a strange man’s breath on her skin, Si-hyeon twisted her body.
“Let go, I said let go!”
“The perfume smells the same, and you are Bae Hyo-joo right before my eyes. But why do you feel like a different person? You weren’t like this originally.”
Her mind went blank, as if turned white, and no words came to her.
He, who had been staring intently into her eyes, lifted his gaze.
Pyeon Ji-wook’s pupils, looking at Sihyeon’s white wrist, shook faintly.
The scar that had been on her wrist had vanished without a trace.
It could have faded over time, and there was the possibility of treatment, but this…
No, was it that it wasn’t there from the beginning?
Haa
“…Have you been lying to me?”
“…”
As if when one problem ends, another waits, her heart raced wildly. An answer should have come immediately, but it only felt bitter, as if she had chewed on a bitter herb in her mouth.
“W-what are you talking about?”
“Are you really asking because you don’t know?”
Pyeon Ji-wook’s eyes, visible through his hair, gleamed sharply.
Si-hyeon resisted out of fear, moving her body roughly.
“Let go of me!”
At that moment, the firmly closed door of the representative’s office flew open, and Secretary Gong Seung-jun entered.
Briefly flustered by the sight of the two stuck together closely, he quickly approached and grabbed Pyeon Ji-wook’s arm. He didn’t budge an inch.
“What do you think you’re doing right now, Vice President Pyeon Ji-wook?”
Pyeon Ji-wook looked at Gong Seung-jun, who had entered the representative’s office without permission.
“Get out.”
“I cannot leave. What is the meaning of this?”
“I said get out.”
“The Chairman is looking for you. Do you intend to show the Chairman this scene as well?”
Cursing under his breath, Pyeon Ji-wook slowly stood up.
As if nothing had happened, he pulled up his loosened tie and even fastened his watch perfectly.
Pyeon Ji-wook looked at Secretary Gong Seung-jun in front of him and crinkled the corners of his eyes.
That eye-smile was strangely eerie.
“If you ever barge in like this again, you’ll die by my hands next time. Understand?”
Pyeon Ji-wook lightly patted Gong Seung-jun’s shoulder and exited the representative’s office. Si-hyeon was so trembled and scared that her heart felt like it would explode.
What on earth was going on?
Had she been discovered?
“Are you alright?”
As she slowly nodded, her hair swayed over her shoulders.
“Did Vice President Pyeon Ji-wook… catch on?”
“I don’t think so.”
Sihyeon caressed her wrist, which had red marks on it.
“Probably because the scar on my wrist is gone.”
“…A scar?”
Sihyeon narrowed her brow.
Only then did she recall the long scars on Bae Hyo-joo wrist.
“I didn’t… think of that.”
Si-hyeon touched her sweaty forehead.
Pyeon Ji-wook was like a huge typhoon that had swept through and left chaos in its wake.
After exiting the representative’s office, a faint smile spread across Pyeon Ji-wook’s lips before disappearing.
“It really feels like she’s not Bae Hyo-joo.”
The first time he met Bae Hyo-joo was at the Griffith Observatory.
His gaze was momentarily drawn to a woman surrounded by several men, laughing. Her face was so similar that his body moved involuntarily.
‘Why are you looking at me so unpleasantly? Do you think I’m pretty?’
‘You’re surrounded by countless guys, but you look uninterested. Is it fun to play around like that?’
Bae Hyo-joo laughed loudly, finding it amusing.
‘Why, want me to squeeze you in too?’
She pushed away all the men next to her and approached Pyeon Ji-wook.
‘Are you, by any chance, Korean?’
‘Do I look like a foreigner who speaks Korean damn well?’
‘Nice to meet you. My name is Bae Hyo-joo.’
As expected. He thought she was completely identical.
Pyeon Ji-wook’s brow slowly raised, and he grabbed the white hand of the woman extended towards him.
That was his first meeting with Bae Hyo-joo.
She was very bright and cheerful, but somehow seemed empty and bitter.
As they met often, she was even more pitiful than he had thought. As if she was struggling because she couldn’t forget someone she loved.
‘You know, Pyeon Ji-wook. You know I love you a lot, right? Stop this and date me, okay?’
Her frivolous demeanor always seemed hollow.
Even on hot days, Bae Hyo-joo always insisted on wearing long shirts.
When he accidentally discovered the marks on her wrist, Pyeon Ji-wook’s expression hardened. She hurriedly tried to hide them, but he snatched her wrist away.
‘What’s… this? Don’t tell me, were you trying to die?’
‘Who’s going to die? I’m not dying.’
‘Then what is it? This.’
‘It’s the work of some crazy bastard who liked me. He kept marking my body. He said it was the price for me sleeping around so easily. Hilarious, isn’t it? Who does he think he is.’
Pyeon Ji-wook cursed.
‘Who’s the bastard who made your wrist like this?’
‘Well, I wonder who.’
A smile spread across Bae Hyo-joo face.
‘As expected, I’ve got a good eye for people. This must be why I like you. Pyeon Ji-wook.’
As those memories surfaced, he stopped walking and turned his head again.
No matter how much he thought about it, Bae Hyo-joo was completely different.
The way she used to freely throw off her clothes and initiate physical contact was nowhere to be seen. The bright smile she always had when she looked at him was also gone.
‘Did you hear? Bae Hyo-joo. They say she fell in her room. Fortunately, she wasn’t badly hurt. But there’s a lot of talk that she came to her senses after that. Rumors are going around that she completely cut off all the men around her.’
But still, could a person change this much?
Even if you can fake things, your true nature doesn’t change.
Strangely enough.
From the Bae Hyo-joo he met again, she overlapped in his vision.
What if… it was Bae Sihyeon?
He was even having such ridiculous thoughts.
No way, why?
Si-hyeon’s heart felt like it would explode.
She spotted Pyeon Ji-wook tilting a glass of wine at the Taesan family dining table.
At Bae Geun-ho’s words that he had something important to discuss, she appeared as Bae Hyo-joo.
“You’re late, Representative Bae Hyo-joo. I’ve been waiting a long time.”
Pyeon Ji-wook, wearing a mischievous smile, swirled the wine glass in his hand. The red wine sloshed and swirled.
He gestured with his chin towards a chair.
“Sit down.”
Si-hyeon unknowingly bit her lower lip.
After pulling that stunt in the representative’s office, his expression hadn’t changed one bit.
“Vice President Pyeon Ji-wook is telling you to sit. What are you doing, not sitting down?”
At Bae Geun-ho’s stern voice, she quickly replied.
“Yes.”
Clenching her fists tightly, she came over and sat down beside him.
Seeing Si-hyeon’s pale complexion, Pyeon Ji-wook raised one corner of his mouth crookedly.
During the awkward meal that followed, Si-hyeon couldn’t tell if the food was going into her nose or her mouth.
Across from her sat her father and stepmother, and beside her sat the most uncomfortable person, Pyeon Ji-wook, who was eating.
He was displaying a demeanor completely opposite to when he had harassed her in the representative’s office, naturally conversing with Bae Geun-ho.
“Chairman Pyeon Jae-hyo certainly did well raising his children, didn’t he? Having such a reliable son must make him very proud.”
Pyeon Ji-wook lifted the glass in front of him and moistened his throat.
“I think the Chairman would probably say the same. I don’t know if it’s because it’s been five years, but Representative Bae Hyo-joo actually looks like a company owner now.”
“Is that so? Well, five years is quite a long time. For all she appears, she still has many shortcomings. Vice President Pyeon Ji-wook, please take good care of her.”
Pyeon Ji-wook’s gaze blatantly lingered on Si-hyeon.
“You heard that, right? Representative Bae Hyoju. I’ll take good care of you.”
Seeing Pyeon Ji-wook even flashing an eye-smile, Sihyeon’s entire body broke out in goosebumps.
