HDITYFM 3

Chapter 3

“Are you here alone? What about the others? Did you go to the bathroom or something?”

After pouring out questions in rapid succession, he tilted his head slightly toward the bathroom and then straightened it back up.

Then, with only his eyes wide open, he pressed Jae-hee, who was frozen, asking word by word as if emphasizing.

“Where are the others?”

“What are you talking about…—?”

Jae-hee couldn’t make heads or tails of Yoo Ji-hwan’s words.

Between this man’s scantily clad appearance and the way he was gripping her wrist tightly.

Above all, Yoo Ji-hwan’s voice was so fast and loud that it felt threatening. Because of that, before she could even understand the situation, Jae-hee was startled.

Whether she was or not.

Yoo Ji-hwan asked once more.

“I told them to send three people, so why are you alone?”

Ji-hwan scanned the back of Jae-hee and then immediately dropped his gaze onto her.

Then he frowned hard.

“And what is this boring style? Did Kim Su-wan, that pervert bastard, even make you wear a uniform costume?”

Who on earth was Kim Su-wan, and what nonsense was a uniform costume?

She didn’t understand everything, but one thing was certain: this man was confusing her with someone else.

Having figured out the situation, Jae-hee hurriedly opened her mouth to clear up the misunderstanding.

“Excuse me, Mr. Yoo Ji-hwan. There seems to be some kind of misunderstanding, I—”

“Misunderstanding, my foot. Let’s go up. The kids have been waiting with their necks stretched since earlier.”

Ji-hwan firmly re-grasped Jae-hee’s wrist, which kept trying to slip away, and pulled her toward him.

Judging by the direction they were walking, it looked like he was trying to go up to the second floor.

“Mr. Yoo Ji-hwan, just a second!”

Struggling not to be dragged along by Yoo Ji-hwan, Jae-hee endured and tried her best to escape from his grip.

“Please listen to what I have to say, Mr. Yoo Ji-hwan. I am not the person you are waiting for.”

However, the man’s strength was stronger than she thought, and his tightly clenched hand was savagely brutal.

“So, let go of this hand…—?”

“My, you’re awfully noisy.”

Ji-hwan seemed to regard Jae-hee’s words as a minor, fussy resistance.

Perhaps even noticing that she was anxious.

Yoo Ji-hwan, who let out a deep sigh, stopped walking and spoke in a soft voice, unlike a moment ago.

“You must be scared because you’re alone, but I’m going to call more girls so you don’t have to worry. Neither am I, nor the guys playing upstairs, are bad guys like that.”

Call more girls? The guys playing upstairs…—?

It seemed there were more of this man’s companions on the second floor.

At that moment, warning bells began to ring in Jae-hee’s head.

A chilling feeling arose that if she were led up to the second floor in Yoo Ji-hwan’s hands like this, something bad would happen.

Maybe tomorrow morning’s news would decorate a single paragraph with the name ‘Victim Han Ms. So-and-So.’

At the suddenly surging delusion, Jae-hee’s complexion turned pale.

“No, I am—”

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing to be scared of.”

Ji-hwan smiled broadly at Jae-hee and started marching forward again.

It might have been a smile she would have considered handsome if she had seen it through the media, but in Jae-hee’s current situation, it felt scarier than the smile of a psychopath.

“Let go of this hand, you damned bastard!”

Jae-hee, who barely managed to regain her senses at that moment, let out a loud shout right at the back of Ji-hwan’s head.

Yoo Ji-hwan was a member of the DK Group’s founding family.

That meant he was a person who held her livelihood in both hands and could reign above her at any time.

However, that didn’t matter to Jae-hee right now.

Her only wish was that there would be no unfortunate incident where her three-syllable name appeared on tomorrow morning’s main news.

“What?”

Faced with the sudden harsh words, Ji-hwan, who was walking ahead, whipped around. The corners of his mouth were twisted menacingly in the meantime.

A tiny woman who couldn’t even reach his chin had dared to mutter ‘damned bastard’ toward him, so it was only natural that he was dumbfounded.

“Did you just call me a damned bastard?”

When she asked back, wondering if she had heard wrong, the woman even shook off the hand that was being held and raised her eyes.

Her large pupils were filled with hostility toward him.

As he stared down blankly because it was so absurd, the woman answered with clear pronunciation.

“Yes, I called you a damned bastard.”

“Ha.”

A breath akin to a sigh leaked from Ji-hwan’s mouth.

His gaze remained coldly frozen.

“Why am I a damned bastard?”

“Because you wouldn’t listen to what I had to say and dragged me away recklessly.”

“Okay. I admit I dragged you away recklessly.”

Yoo Ji-hwan crossed his arms in front of him and tilted his head crookedly.

The glaring gaze was fierce.

“I’ll listen, so say what you’re going to say. Well?”

Taking a deep breath, Jae-hee quickly straightened her expression and attire.

Having dealt with many difficult customers so far, returning to a professional appearance wasn’t all that difficult.

She had momentarily forgotten her duties and hurled curses and informal language at Ji-hwan, a member of the owner’s family, but she couldn’t show a flustered side anymore.

“I am not the person Mr. Yoo Ji-hwan is waiting for.”

“Then, what are you?”

Irritation mixed into Yoo Ji-hwan’s tone.

Jae-hee introduced herself with a composed expression and clear pronunciation.

“I am Assistant Manager Han Jae-hee, working as a personal shopper at DK Department Store.”

“Personal Shopper?”

Jae-hee nodded her head with dignified grace and continued right away.

“The purpose of my coming here today is to meet General Manager Do Kang-jun.”

“What kind of nonsense is that? My hyung is away on a business trip to New York.”

It seems nonsense is coming from you, Mr. Yoo Ji-hwan, not me.

Jae-hee managed to swallow the words she wanted to say and explained calmly.

“I wasn’t told that General Manager Do Kang-jun is away on a business trip. And the person who guided me here also told me that the General Manager would arrive shortly.”

At the mention that Kang-jun was arriving, Ji-hwan flinched for a moment, but soon regained his composure.

It was because he judged there was no way that could be true.

“What kind of absurd talk is that? I clearly even checked with the secretary’s office—”

Before Yoo Ji-hwan could even finish his sentence, someone called out to him from the second floor.

“Ji-hwan-ah! Kim CEO’s kids can’t come today. They said they got into a minor traffic accident on the way.”

Turning her head, two men who seemed to be his companions revealed themselves from the railing side.

They must have been the guys playing upstairs that Yoo Ji-hwan had mentioned.

Swimsuits and robes.

Judging by the fact that they were dressed similarly to Yoo Ji-hwan, it seemed there was indeed a pool upstairs.

The other of the two men raised his voice.

“What’s up with that hot chick? Totally my style. Did you call her separately?”

“A guy with good preparation, too. But why is there only one? Where are the others?”

Whistling, the two men’s gazes scanning Jae-hee up and down were blatant.

Jae-hee felt unpleasant, but she managed her expression and opened her mouth once more toward Yoo Ji-hwan with a clean attitude and tone.

“It seems this confirms that I am not the person Mr. Yoo Ji-hwan was waiting for.”

Jae-hee lifted the hard case she had put down on the floor and stared at Ji-hwan with a straight gaze.

“Then I will take my leave now.”

First, she needed to go outside and check whether General Manager Do Kang-jun was really on a business trip.

If not, it seemed better to wait in the car until he arrived.

Just as Jae-hee, who had even finished giving a polite bow to Ji-hwan, was about to reach out her hand to the mobile clothing rack.

Before she could even do anything about it, with a sound of lightly scraping the marble floor, the mobile clothing rack rolled away over there.

Yoo Ji-hwan had kicked the rack away.

Jae-hee’s straight pupils, which had been following the clothing rack moving away from her with a desolate gaze, quickly stretched toward Ji-hwan.

It was a gaze wishing for an explanation and an apology for the current situation.

However, the words that returned from Ji-hwan were not an explanation.

Of course, it wasn’t an apology either.

“Just play for an hour and go.”

Jae-hee was so dumbfounded that she was actually left speechless.

The kind of power play she was seeing was different from what she had experienced so far, to the point of being embarrassing.

Standing still without finding a proper answer, Ji-hwan pointed a chin gesture at the clothing rack and the hard case.

“Just play for exactly an hour and go. Then I’ll buy this and this, all of it.”

“……?”

“Judging by the looks of it, it’s a suit and a watch. I’m saying I’ll buy them all.”

Jae-hee suppressed her rising anger and replied as calmly as possible.

“This suit and watch are for General Manager Do Kang-jun.”

“What did you hear earlier? My hyung is away on a business trip to New York.”

Yoo Ji-hwan pointed at the rack once more.

“You have to sell those things anyway. So I’m saying I’ll buy them all. Every single one of them, without leaving a single one.”

“Isn’t this a profitable business for you?”

Though her heart wanted to shout, ‘I won’t sell to you, you asshole,’ Jae-hee replied with as much courtesy as possible.

The disheveled side she had shown earlier was already more than enough.

“If you need a suit, you can place an order with the DK Department Store Personal Shopper Team. Then a dedicated manager will be assigned, and you can make an appointment with that manager.”

“…”

“I will be going now.”

After giving a polite and upright bow, Jae-hee twisted her body halfway.

However, she was blocked by Ji-hwan this time as well.

Yoo Ji-hwan grabbed Jae-hee’s white, slender left wrist with a slightly stronger grip than before.

Just as Jae-hee, who could no longer condone his power trip, was about to turn her body to spit out a word.

“What is going on?”

A heavy bass tone cut through the air and flew in, embedding itself accurately into the ears of the two people who were bickering.

The power to bind the opponent with just the voice emerging while scratching the vocal cords.

At the end of the low-flowing voice without highs and lows, there was a man standing with two attendants trailing behind him.

Do Kang-jun. That man.