BT 07

Chapter 07

The Runaway Maiden’s Wanderings

Normally, Eun-chae would have already exploded in a loud voice by now.

But she was so completely dazed that she didn’t even blink.

Do-hyeok reached an arm out from the bed and lightly tapped her cheek.

Only then did Eun-chae jump in fright, hurriedly scrambling backward.

“You really are a sex addict!”

For the record, as she had repeatedly pointed out, she was not the one who had shown anyone her naked body.

He was.

It was troublesome when she kept acting like the victim.

Because whenever she did that, it made him want to tease her even more.

“Is that what you want?”

As Do-hyeok sat up, Eun-chae screamed and covered her face with both hands.

“KYAAAAH! I didn’t look because I wanted to! I really didn’t want to see it! Don’t do it! You sex addict!”

Do-hyeok was fully dressed.

All he could do was find it ridiculous that Eun-chae was acting as though she had encountered a flasher.

Do-hyeok knelt down in front of Eun-chae, who was still acting like someone suffering from severe persecution paranoia, and asked seriously,

“Are you, by any chance, a virgin?”

At that moment, Eun-chae felt like the biggest idiot in the world.

And she was standing in front of the most evil man in the world—Kwon Do-hyeok.

Eun-chae shoved Do-hyeok’s large body away with all her strength, snatched up her bag like a hyena, and fled the room.

Listening to the sound of Eun-chae’s footsteps gradually fading away, Do-hyeok let out a hollow laugh.

“If that was acting, she deserves an Oscar.”

Assuming she absolutely wasn’t his half-sister, the most plausible theory had been the idea that Lee Eun-chae was a gold digger.

But the more time he spent with her, the more she seemed less like a gold digger and more like an immature girl who simply wanted to spend her life singing.

And once he began thinking that she wasn’t a gold digger, Do-hyeok felt a strange sense of relief.

Which made the situation even harder to solve.

What was there to be relieved about?

If Lee Eun-chae hadn’t deliberately approached his father first, then it meant his father had known her before that.

But how could his father possibly have known a woman who was nothing more than an indie band singer?

Could she really be his half-sister?

Did he actually need to conduct a paternity test?

Do-hyeok shook his head, already feeling disgusted just thinking about it.

There had to be some other relationship.

He simply hadn’t figured it out yet.

She absolutely could not be his half-sister.

If they shared blood, how could someone like that possibly have come from the same genes?

It didn’t make sense genetically.

* * *

Eun-chae couldn’t immediately open the front gate and go inside.

Instead, she hid behind the wall and cautiously observed the house.

She had been certain that her father would be wandering around the yard holding a wooden club, but there was no one in sight.

She couldn’t hear a sound either.

Could he have gone somewhere?

Her father wasn’t the type to go sightseeing around the neighborhood because he was busy working at the restaurant.

The possibility was extremely low.

But judging by how quiet everything was, perhaps he had gone to bed unusually early the night before and didn’t know she had spent the night elsewhere.

That’s right. Dad is getting older, so he’s been sleeping more at night.

Thinking optimistically, Eun-chae slowly slipped into the house.

She did everything she could to avoid making a sound and headed toward her room.

Finally reaching her bedroom door without incident, Eun-chae sighed in relief and opened it.

Rattle—

“You little brat!”

The moment the door opened, a roar came from inside.

Eun-chae immediately slammed the door shut and ran for her life.

The shiny object her father had been holding was unmistakably a hair clipper.

If he caught her, she was finished.

It was still too early for the sun to rise, so there weren’t many friends who would answer their phones.

The only people close enough for her to show up without calling first were the members of her band.

But Hoya was living with his girlfriend, and Ryu had never told her where he lived, not even his nationality.

So Dongwoo’s place was the easiest option.

That didn’t mean Dongwoo was living comfortably, though.

He lived in a rooftop room with nothing but a spacious yard, sweltering through the summer heat and shivering through the winter cold.

“What happened?”

Dongwoo looked surprised when Eun-chae showed up so early in the morning.

“My dad chased me with a hair clipper because I spent the night out. I was so scared that I ran away. I spent years taking care of this hair!”

She had actually experienced having her hair cut with her father’s clippers once before, which was why she’d run away even more desperately this time.

She had to protect her beautiful hair from those clippers.

No matter how pretty a woman was, if her hair ended up looking as though a rat had gnawed at it, she would simply become ugly.

Hair was precious.

And her father was terrifying.

“Why did you spend the night out?”

The only time Eun-chae normally stayed out overnight was when the band had a performance somewhere outside Seoul.

But she hadn’t even been with the other members last night.

So from Dongwoo’s perspective, the situation was difficult to understand.

She couldn’t exactly tell him that she’d gotten drunk with a man and passed out, then seen that man’s naked body.

So she lied.

“My high school friend Sunhwa broke up with her boyfriend and was bawling her eyes out. So I drank with her to keep her company.”

Sunhwa was the goddess of keeping multiple men on the hook.

She was absolutely not the kind of person who would bawl her eyes out over breaking up with a boyfriend.

But Dongwoo didn’t know Sunhwa well enough to realize that.

“Oh. I guess she was a really devoted type.”

If being a devoted type meant not going on dates with two men at the same time.

“Can I stay here for a few days?”

Dongwoo readily agreed.

“Sure. I can sleep at the club.”

“Just sleep here. It’s not like we’ve only known each other for a year or two.”

Although Eun-chae couldn’t bear the thought of spending a single night under the same roof as Kwon Do-hyeok even if the house had a hundred rooms, she could sleep in the same room as Dongwoo.

He was a fellow band member she trusted.

“No way. If your father finds out, I’m dead.”

Dongwoo complained about being afraid of her father, but Eun-chae knew that he was actually being considerate of her.

Because of Dongwoo’s kindness, Eun-chae would stay at his place for only that day and would have to find somewhere else to stay tomorrow.

The thought was daunting.

But she decided to worry about tomorrow when tomorrow came.

* * *

Once the sun rose and office workers began heading to work, Eun-chae sadly had to return to Do-hyeok’s Tower Palace, the place she had escaped from.

Do-hyeok hadn’t left for work yet.

He naturally welcomed her back of her own accord as though nothing had happened the night before.

“You came to work early.”

Eun-chae glared at Do-hyeok with an expression that said she couldn’t possibly endure another second of this.

She couldn’t specifically say that any of this was his fault.

But somehow, everything felt like it was his fault.

The moment she saw his face, she exploded.

She wondered just how far she would have to go to hear Do-hyeok say those three words:

I’m sorry for being such a jerk.

“Since you came early, I’ll add another task. Pick out my clothes.”

What the hell?

“Why should I pick out your clothes?!”

“If you don’t like it, give me back the three million won right now.”

Now that she thought about it, he was an exploitative employer.

But Eun-chae didn’t have three million won to throw in his face, so she grumbled as she charged into the dressing room.

You want me to pick your clothes? Fine. I’ll pick them.

It’s not that difficult.

But Eun-chae soon realized that it was definitely not that simple.

“Is that really the best taste you have?”

Do-hyeok immediately criticized the clothes she had picked.

They’re the clothes in your closet!

Didn’t you buy them because you liked them?

“They’re your clothes. Aren’t they all things you like?”

“I’m not free enough to walk around shopping for clothes.”

Not a single thing in the house had been personally purchased by Do-hyeok.

Of course, Eun-chae didn’t know that.

She grumbled and went back into the dressing room.

He was only going to sit in his office and sign papers once he got to work anyway.

Couldn’t he just wear anything?

Eun-chae stood in front of the neatly arranged ties and stared at them as though she were guessing the answer to a multiple-choice exam.

She had hated taking tests when she was in school.

And now she had to guess at ties too?

She finally shouted,

“What color do you like?”

There was no answer.

Eun-chae wasn’t blessed with an abundance of patience.

She turned around to ask again, only to flinch when she found Do-hyeok standing right in front of her.

With him standing so close, she felt overwhelmed by his height.

If he fell on top of her, she might actually die.

She felt uncomfortable under his downward gaze and tried to take a step backward.

But the wardrobe was directly behind her.

There was nowhere to go.

“……Did you say you wanted a ring if you wanted a kiss?”

Those were lyrics from the song she had sung at the club.

Even though Eun-chae herself had written the lyrics, she flinched.

But those lyrics were meant for lovers.

They absolutely did not apply to her and Do-hyeok.

Do-hyeok lowered his head a little more and whispered,

“I don’t have a ring. How about a bracelet?”

“I’m asking what color you like!”

Eun-chae shouted like a cat with all its fur standing on end.

Apparently irritated by the volume of her voice, Do-hyeok raised only his left eyebrow.

“I don’t have a favorite.”

“Of course you don’t, because you make other people do everything for you! At least pick out your own clothes!”

Eun-chae hurriedly pushed Do-hyeok away and left the dressing room.

The little sleepiness she still had vanished completely.

She only had to endure one short month.

If she let her guard down, Do-hyeok might really take advantage of her.

Eun-chae decided she needed to stay sharp.

When Do-hyeok came out of the dressing room, he was already fully dressed.

In the end, he had picked out his own clothes.

And clearly, the outfit went together much better than the mismatched pieces Eun-chae had selected.

It suited him too.

The razor-sharp shoulders of the black suit emphasized Do-hyeok’s broad shoulders and gave him an intensely masculine air.

The angle beneath the lapel rose sharply upward, while the waistline was tailored slim, enhancing the suit’s elegant silhouette.

He had even matched it with a black shirt, making him look chic and clean.

He favored wearing black.

To Do-hyeok, black was the complete color.

“See? It looks better when you dress yourself.”

“Are you trying to dress up your own incompetence?”

If only she could detach that mouth from his face, stick it in the freezer, and freeze it solid.

“I’ll be back.”

As Do-hyeok walked toward the entrance, Eun-chae suddenly felt strangely unsettled.

Her father had spent his entire life working at the restaurant attached directly to their home.

She had never once heard him say goodbye when leaving for work.

Somehow, hearing those words made her suddenly feel closer to Kwon Do-hyeok.

A strange tingling sensation slowly spread beneath her skin…

“Can’t you even say goodbye when you’re incapable of picking out clothes?”

But the moment Do-hyeok looked at her with an expression that clearly said, What a pointless thing to ask, the strange feeling disappeared like a mirage.

* * *

“The overall layout will make use of the site’s natural characteristics, which consist of flat ground and high hills. The nine-story main building will be placed on the flat ground, while the public spaces will be arranged from the first through fourth floors, centered around the main lobby on the third floor. The accommodation spaces will begin from the fifth floor upward.”

Do-hyeok had never formally studied architecture.

He had become the representative of Sejin Construction because he was a major shareholder of Sejin Group.

As the company’s representative, he was carefully listening to the design team’s overall plans for the resort they were currently developing.

If mistakes weren’t identified and corrected from the beginning, the resulting losses could be enormous.

His job was to make sure the project was heading in the right direction.

“I’d like to see a more open space where the exterior areas, natural trees, and interior spaces connect seamlessly with one another. How will the third-floor lobby connect to the accommodation floors?”

The meeting, which had begun in the morning, ended sometime after lunch.

He often had meetings scheduled during mealtimes, so he usually ate outside.

When he didn’t, the secretary’s office prepared a meal separately for him, which he ate alone.

There was a company cafeteria, but Do-hyeok had never used it even once.

“Cancel my schedule this afternoon. Let’s go to Gangwon Province. I need to take a look at the ski resort.”

Manager Park immediately replied that he understood.

Rescheduling everything would be rather complicated, but that was Manager Park’s job, so he needed to handle it quickly.

“And…”

When Do-hyeok seemed about to say something else, Manager Park quietly listened.

Do-hyeok didn’t speak immediately.

He seemed to be thinking about something before giving the instruction in a low, almost muttered voice.

“Find out what happened at the company Lee Eun-chae used to work for.”

“Why?”

“We’ll know once we investigate.”

It could have been something she had simply said while drunk.

But the fact that she had apparently thrown three million won at a manager kept bothering him.

Usually, money handed over in that manner was likely to have been some kind of settlement.

It had nothing to do with their contract, so there was no particular reason for him to know.

Still, he couldn’t simply ignore it and pretend it didn’t bother him.

* * *

Having slept poorly the night before, Eun-chae decided to take a nap first and clean afterward.

But perhaps she slept too long.

She heard the ringing of the phone and needed to wake up, but her eyes simply wouldn’t open.

With her eyes barely open, Eun-chae answered the phone.

“Hello?”

[Sounds like you slept really well.]

At the sound of Do-hyeok’s voice, Eun-chae instinctively began making excuses.

Just as she did with her father.

“No, it’s not like that. I just yawned. I was cleaning really hard!”

[Forget it. I might not come home tonight.]

The moment Do-hyeok said he wasn’t coming home, Eun-chae’s half-closed eyes snapped wide open.

What a stroke of luck!

“Really?”

[Were you just happy about that?]

Do-hyeok’s voice suddenly dropped lower.

Eun-chae immediately denied it.

“No. Of course not.”

But her lips were already curling into a smile.

If he didn’t come home, that meant she could sleep here tonight without worrying.

She had felt bad about taking Dongwoo’s place to sleep, so this was actually perfect.

It would be even better if Kwon Do-hyeok stayed away on business for a long time.

[I changed my mind. I’ll definitely come home, even if it’s late.]

Did this man seriously call just to mess with her?!

“Then I’ll keep my eyes wide open and wait for you. If you’re not home by midnight, I’ll lock the front door!”

[Good. Make sure you wait. If I come home and find you sleeping, you’ll be in big trouble.]

After hanging up, Eun-chae realized something was strange.

She was now apparently supposed to wait in this house until Do-hyeok came home from work.

Why?

Why did she have to?

In the end, she told Dongwoo that she had found somewhere to sleep and decided to remain at Do-hyeok’s house.

But Eun-chae couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling.

Do-hyeok had said he would return, even if it was late, and she kept feeling as though he might suddenly open the front door and walk in at any moment.

When she became suspicious and casually called Manager Park to ask, he clearly said that it was a business trip requiring an overnight stay.

He said it would be extremely difficult for Do-hyeok to return to Seoul that day.

He won’t come back, right?

Come on. He wouldn’t actually come back just because I said one little thing, would he?

Eun-chae decided to relax and made up a bed on the sofa.

Perhaps because she had already spent one night there, the sofa had become the most comfortable place in the house.

There was actually an advantage to sleeping there.

She wouldn’t have to wake up early and rush over to the house at a specific time.

Unlike her anxious thoughts before going to sleep, Eun-chae was the type of person who could fall asleep within ten minutes of putting her face against a pillow.

Her breathing quickly settled into a deep sleep.

Even though she was taking a secret nap in someone else’s house, insomnia was not a problem for her.

Unlike the owner of the house.

* * *

Beep-beep-bee-ri-ri-ri-ri—

Do-hyeok opened the front door and entered his house at three in the morning.

There was a troubled expression on his face.

He could have simply come home the next day.

He didn’t know why he had bothered making Manager Park, who wasn’t exactly young and whose health wasn’t great, work through the night just so he could return home.

Since when had he become so attached to his house?

It wasn’t as though he had anything to gain from returning before midnight either.

As he entered the house, Do-hyeok thought he had been incredibly foolish to become so obsessed with coming home.

But when he saw Eun-chae sleeping on the living room sofa, his thoughts changed.

“……”

This is incredible.

I actually predicted this.

The truth was, he had simply disliked the way Eun-chae had spoken to him on the phone.

He had never expected that she had actually planned to sleep at his house that night.

He felt as though he had unexpectedly discovered the enemy’s base by sheer luck.

He stared down at the sleeping Eun-chae.

Still, there wasn’t much he could do in this situation.

If he woke someone who was sleeping peacefully just to scare her, wouldn’t she simply call it a childish prank?

And he couldn’t actually pounce on her and behave like a genuine sex addict.

He might have had a bad personality, but he wasn’t a criminal.

More importantly…

She really slept well.

Do-hyeok had suffered from insomnia for his entire life.

So he looked down at Eun-chae in fascination.

She was secretly sleeping in someone else’s house, yet she didn’t even wake up when the owner came home and stood right in front of her.

Now that he thought about it, she must sleep extremely well even when she wasn’t drunk.

He still had absolutely no idea what kind of relationship existed between his father and Lee Eun-chae.

He had thought that spending time around Eun-chae would help him figure things out.

Instead, he understood even less than before.

Her genes seemed completely different from his father’s for her to be his child.

And if she were his father’s mistress, Lee Eun-chae knew far too little about men.

Nor could his father possibly be a secret fan of India Red.

His father was absolutely not the kind of person who would be.

What on earth was going on?

“La la la.”

A sudden sound came from Eun-chae’s sleeping mouth.

Do-hyeok was startled and took a step backward.

Eun-chae hadn’t woken up.

She was still fast asleep.

And yet her mouth was mumbling.

No.

She was singing.

She was singing in her sleep.

“This is getting scary.”

Amazed by this new technique of the enemy, Do-hyeok decided to abandon his attack for tonight.

He was also extremely tired after forcing himself to return home.

He turned around and started walking toward the bedroom.

But perhaps Eun-chae heard his footsteps.

She stopped singing and frowned.

At that moment, Do-hyeok stopped in surprise.

He watched her reaction carefully.

She hadn’t woken up.

But by his standards, she should have already been awake and calling a security company.

Do-hyeok carefully walked toward the bedroom without making a sound, afraid that Eun-chae might wake up.

Like a thief sneaking into someone else’s house.

After finally reaching the bedroom, Do-hyeok closed the door.

He sighed in relief.

Then immediately became irritated.

I’m the owner of this house.

Why am I the one sneaking around?

Feeling as though he had lost to Eun-chae even though she was doing nothing more than sleeping, Do-hyeok frowned.

Who would have thought that being able to sleep anywhere could actually become a weapon?