DH ✦ Ch 21

✦ Chapter 21 ✦

After saying, “I’m sorry. I’ll go prepare breakfast,” Mrs. Eom’s voice abruptly cut off.

Now it was Ga-young’s turn to apologize for barging into his bedroom without permission.

She was about to do just that when Hyun-jae got out of bed.

“Ah!”

She hurriedly covered her eyes with both hands.

With her palms pressed tightly over her eyes, nose, and mouth, she couldn’t see anything—or even open her mouth properly. All she could do was sense Hyun-jae leaving the bed and heading toward the hallway where the bathroom was.

“Isn’t it funny to pretend now, after you’ve already seen everything?”

She hadn’t seen everything.

She wanted to argue, but with her mouth squashed beneath her hands, she couldn’t get the words out.

Then she heard Hyun-jae mutter with a trace of amusement.

“I was wearing underwear, though.”

Then that meant she really had seen everything.

That careless conclusion made Ga-young lower her hands.

She glanced to the side—

“Ah!”

—and immediately covered her eyes again.

He wasn’t wearing anything!

After the bathroom door closed, her hands dropped straight to her chest.

Her heart was pounding like crazy.

The shock was even worse because the man who had just lied so casually had disappeared into the bathroom.

She’d seen it all.

Not just the front she’d seen before, but the back too.

Everything.

Did having a body like that make him want to show it off to other people? Was he really that confident?

Well, she could understand why he’d be confident.

But still. That was just too much.

Even as she silently scolded him for things she could never say to his face, she couldn’t calm herself down.

The moment she squeezed her eyes shut, strange images appeared in her mind.

Like some ridiculous adult movie showing shower water running along certain curves of a naked body.

Ga-young shook her head hard, trying to scatter the image.

Then she kept taking deep breaths.

Ten minutes later, Hyun-jae came out of the bathroom.

Even though he was probably wearing a bathrobe, Ga-young immediately spun around and pressed her forehead against the bedroom door.

Only after Hyun-jae went into the dressing room and returned did she manage to calm down somewhat.

“I’m fully dressed now. You can look.”

At his voice behind her, Ga-young cautiously turned around.

Hyun-jae stood about a meter away, wearing a dress shirt and slacks, with his tie and jacket in one hand.

“Do you have no immunity or something? It’s not like this is the first time you’ve seen me.”

Hyun-jae took another step closer.

Ga-young instinctively stepped back until her back pressed against the door.

And, absurdly, her gaze dropped to his crotch.

Well, it was purely instinct.

Her body was simply trying to avoid getting stabbed by that cone-shaped thing.

Even though the front of his pants was perfectly flat right now.

One corner of Hyun-jae’s mouth lifted.

A short, incredulous laugh escaped him.

“Your eyes are rather naughty. And your imagination is impure.”

Ga-young shrank her neck as though he’d threatened to assault her.

Hyun-jae tilted his head and suddenly turned serious.

“Did I barge into your bedroom?”

“…”

“Did I run my eyes all over your naked body?”

“…”

“Did I try to jump you and strip you?”

“…”

“I’m the one who got victimized here, so don’t you think that reaction is a little unfair?”

“…”

Ga-young felt as though she were suffocating from the pheromones radiating from the freshly washed man’s clean face and aftershave.

Her breathing made no sense.

Her ears burned.

Most of what he said was true, but it still felt unfair for him to act like he was the only victim.

So she struggled to defend herself.

“I-I did make a mistake, but Executive Director Shin, you made fun of me too.”

“Me?”

“You lied.”

Hyun-jae tilted his head, then let out a quiet snort.

“I honestly didn’t think you’d look.”

Ah.

She shouldn’t have said anything.

The shame belonged not to Hyun-jae, who had exposed everything, but to Ga-young, who had looked.

Her face turned red all the way to her forehead.

Hyun-jae looked at her with narrowed eyes.

“So, you didn’t like my ass?”

“It wasn’t that—”

Ga-young abruptly cut herself off.

Why was her mouth running wild today?

She squeezed her eyes shut.

A feather-light laugh drifted over her head.

It was the kind of laugh that sounded genuinely amused—the kind that, if the situation weren’t so embarrassing, might have made even the listener’s heart flutter.

“Fine. Let’s say we both got one over on each other.”

It was a neat conclusion.

Still, Ga-young couldn’t shake the feeling that her shameless inner thoughts had been exposed and turned into a joke.

Hyun-jae stopped laughing and changed the subject.

“You had the lights on in your room late last night, didn’t you?”

“…Yes.”

“And you didn’t close the blackout curtains?”

“…No.”

A belated realization struck Ga-young.

That rude early-morning visit couldn’t possibly have been Mrs. Eom’s own idea.

Chairwoman Kwon must have seen that the lights in Ga-young’s study on the first floor were still on past midnight and given the order.

As a different kind of embarrassment washed over her, Hyun-jae spoke sternly.

“It would be better to close the blackout curtains at night. Don’t completely forget that Chairwoman Kwon is always keeping an eye on our newlywed home.”

“I’m sorry.”

Overwhelmed with guilt and self-reproach, Ga-young lowered her head almost excessively.

“You don’t need to apologize.”

Then, as her head remained bowed, an unexpected touch came.

Hyun-jae’s hand landed on the top of her head and casually ruffled her hair as if she were a puppy.

“Rest a little longer in here before you come out.”

Something soft and strange melted inside Ga-young’s chest.

Hyun-jae’s hand was large enough to completely cover her small head.

From the simple act of having her hair patted, she felt as though she had been pressed beneath the paw of an apex predator—then released.

It was a strange talent.

How could one playful touch awaken her nerves so completely?

Even after she was left alone in the bedroom, the agitation in her heart refused to settle.

That day, Ga-young received a formal apology from Mrs. Eom.

“I’m sorry for interrupting your private time together.”

She also explained why she had knocked on the bedroom door at dawn.

It was exactly as Ga-young had suspected.

Chairwoman Kwon, who was desperately eager to see a grandchild as soon as possible, had given the order.

Hyun-jae had dealt smoothly with the rudeness caused by her impatience.

Instead of protesting directly to Chairwoman Kwon, he had simply established a new rule.

“Executive Director Shin said that from now on, no one is allowed to enter the detached house between eight in the evening and eight in the morning.”

Apparently, Hyun-jae had used the excuse that they were newlyweds.

Mrs. Eom relayed this to Chairwoman Kwon, who reluctantly agreed.

Then Chairwoman Kwon bestowed two gifts upon Ga-young.

The first was herbal medicine.

A Korean medicine doctor even came to the detached house, checked her pulse, and prescribed it personally.

It was supposedly just a health tonic.

But Ga-young could easily guess that it was meant to promote ovulation.

So rather than a gift, it felt like pressure—like being spoon-fed the obligation to get pregnant every single day.

Ga-young didn’t show any reluctance and obediently drank the herbal medicine Mrs. Eom prepared for her.

Taking medicine didn’t mean she would automatically get pregnant, after all.

There was no need to create unnecessary conflict.

The other gift was a black card.

It came with a message from Chairwoman Kwon telling her to shop as much as she liked and take cash advances whenever she wanted.

“One black card, two black cards.”

Ga-young placed the two cards side by side on the table.

The other one was the card Hyun-jae had given her long ago.

Had she not entered into a contract marriage with him, she would probably never have held such a top-tier premium card in her life.

Even its appearance was lavishly golden.

Ga-young rested her chin on her hand and stared at the cards.

There probably wouldn’t be many occasions to use them, but for the moment, she enjoyed pretending she was rich.

Living with Hyun-jae could hardly be called newlywed life.

By the time Ga-young woke up and went upstairs in the morning, Hyun-jae had already left for work.

In the evenings, he usually didn’t return to the detached house until around midnight.

He was far busier than any ordinary office worker.

Whenever she greeted him at the entrance, Hyun-jae always maintained an appropriate distance and treated her with impeccable manners.

“Did anything happen today?”

And every time, Ga-young could only lower her head and quietly answer, “No.”

She didn’t want to be like that.

But whenever she saw Hyun-jae, she became nervous.

He was so tall that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.

Even with a gentle expression, there was something about him that seemed to overpower the people around him.

And his deep, heavy scent reminded her of a dense forest.

All of those things combined made Shin Hyun-jae feel far too male to Ga-young.

He wasn’t simply a man in the ordinary, biological sense—a human being with XY chromosomes, one half of the human race.

He felt like something else entirely.

Whenever Hyun-jae appeared, she found it difficult to breathe.

Whenever his gaze rested on her, a faint heat rose through her body.

And if they so much as brushed against each other, her heart grew damp and strange, as though a haze had bloomed deep inside her abdomen.

Not wanting him to notice her ridiculous excitement, Ga-young was always quick to flee back to her room after greeting him.

They spent barely five minutes together in an entire day.

Yet those brief encounters left her suffering through the long night with an inexplicable, lingering exhaustion.

A peaceful week passed.

Early one morning, Ga-young tidied the bedding as usual and went upstairs, pacing in front of the living room window.

Even after confirming that Mrs. Eom had arrived at the detached house right at eight, she lingered a little longer.

This should be enough, she thought.

Just as she was about to go downstairs to the first floor, Hyun-jae’s bedroom door opened.

Ga-young turned toward the sound.

Their eyes met.

Since she was used to seeing him leave for work at dawn, his unexpected appearance caught her off guard.

“Did you sleep well?”

Hyun-jae asked kindly.

Ga-young hurriedly smoothed away her surprised expression and lowered her head.

“Yes. I thought you’d already gone to work.”

“I can leave a little later today.”

“Oh, I see. Did you sleep well?”

“More or less.”

As she listened to his indifferent answer, the distance between them gradually narrowed.

Hyun-jae was already dressed for work.

He wore a full suit, with only his jacket hanging from one hand.

The clean, fresh scent of him became more distinct, and Ga-young’s shoulders unconsciously drew inward.

Unaware of her private tension, Hyun-jae stopped directly in front of her.

As Ga-young naturally lifted her eyes, his lips curved into a smooth smile.

“Let’s eat together.”

“…?”

“I finally got to say it.”