DH ✦ Ch 17

✦ Chapter 17 ✦

Ga-young was watching TV in the second-floor living room when Mrs. Eom came to find her.

“Madam, there’s someone here to see you. Executive Director Shin’s younger sister has arrived.”

Ga-young already knew that Hyun-jae had a younger sister.

Her name was Shin Se-jeong, if she remembered correctly. She was studying art in Italy and seemed to have returned home for summer vacation.

Ga-young quickly turned off the TV and got to her feet.

“Should I go to see Chairman Kwon first?”

Naturally, she assumed she would be introduced through Kwon Seon-jin, but that wasn’t the case.

“No. She’s downstairs on the first floor. Apparently, she came here first.”

“She came here first?”

“Yes.”

Without thinking much of it, Ga-young smiled.

There was no need to bother the busy chairman just to exchange greetings with her sister-in-law.

“I’ll go down and greet her right away.”

“But…”

Mrs. Eom started to say something, then stopped.

When Ga-young raised her eyebrows as if to ask what was wrong, Mrs. Eom shook her head with an uneasy expression.

“It’s nothing.”

Even before she reached the bottom of the stairs, the smell of cigarette smoke assaulted her senses.

It was obvious who was smoking.

Already in a less-than-pleasant mood, Ga-young stepped into the first-floor living room.

Se-jeong was sitting on the sofa, boldly smoking a cigarette.

Even from the side, her face was strikingly beautiful, while her figure was petite and slender.

Her long legs, extending beneath a tight tweed dress, were casually propped up on the living room table. Soft clouds of white smoke drifted from her red-painted lips.

“Miss Se-jeong.”

At Mrs. Eom’s call, Se-jeong turned her head.

“Hello. I’m Yoon Ga-young.”

Ga-young concealed her displeasure behind a polite greeting.

Of all things, my sister-in-law had to be the kind of inconsiderate person who turned someone’s newlywed home into a smoking den.

Her first impression couldn’t have been worse.

Se-jeong stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray, then stood and looked Ga-young over.

Perhaps she didn’t like having to look slightly upward at her, because she tilted her head to the side.

“Ah. So you’re the baby-maker?”

What did you just say?

Instead of saying it aloud, Ga-young’s expression twisted.

“So you’re the girl who got herself a job as a baby-maker in our family.”

One corner of Se-jeong’s lips curled upward in mockery.

Ga-young wanted to grab that smug mouth and tear the smirk right off it.

A disbelieving breath escaped her, and Se-jeong’s expression immediately hardened.

“Well, look at that. You’ve got some pride after all. Don’t tell me you actually think you’ve become a real daughter-in-law of this family?”

What kind of person is she?

Ga-young clenched down on her anger.

“Wake up and face reality. Who do you think you are, daring to set your sights on my brother? I heard your only use is giving birth to a child. After that, you might walk away with a decent amount of money, but that’s as far as you’ll ever get.”

Should I just fight her? Step on her before she can spew any more nonsense?

If she decided to go head-to-head with her, Ga-young was confident she wouldn’t lose.

But was there really any point in getting into a childish brawl with someone so utterly unreasonable?

Retaliating felt too immature.

“You really shouldn’t speak like that.”

Unable to listen any longer, Mrs. Eom stepped in on Ga-young’s behalf.

“Madam is married to Executive Director Shin, which makes her your sister-in-law. You should show some respect to your elder.”

“Elder, my ass. Mrs. Eom, what’s wrong with you? Whose side are you on right now?”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side…”

“How long do you think she’ll even last in this house? A year at most. Seeing that my brother picked up some beggar like her, he must have temporarily lost his mind. Once he comes to his senses, he’ll kick her out soon enough.”

Fine. Whatever.

Ga-young struggled to calm the anger boiling inside her.

If she took the hidden truths on both sides and twisted them together maliciously, Se-jeong’s words weren’t entirely wrong.

So what would she gain by screaming back at such nonsense? It would only damage her own peace of mind.

Ignoring the argument between the two women, Ga-young walked over to the living room table and picked up the ashtray.

Seeing it, touching it—she hated all of it.

Feeling slightly sick, Ga-young carried the ashtray outside and threw it straight into the trash.

When she returned through the entrance, Se-jeong shot her a deeply offended glare.

“What the hell was that?”

Ga-young’s voice remained calm and firm.

“No smoking indoors. If you’re here to smoke, then don’t come into this house.”

“What? Hey!”

Se-jeong let out a shrill scream and stormed toward her, her face twisting like crumpled paper.

“I’m already pissed enough that I have to live under the same roof as Grandma because of you, and now what? Don’t come into this house? Who the hell do you think you are?

“The first floor was my home to begin with!”

“We’re all living under Chairman Kwon’s roof, so none of us owns this place. But we do have the right to occupy the spaces we live in. And right now, I’m the one living here.”

“You think someone like you has the right to decide that?”

“If I don’t, then I suppose I should discuss it with Chairman Kwon.”

“What?”

Se-jeong’s nostrils flared as she breathed heavily.

Even faced with that furious expression, Ga-young didn’t so much as blink.

“I’ll ask Chairman Kwon whether it’s acceptable for Miss Shin Se-jeong to smoke inside the detached house.”

“What an unbelievable little bitch!”

Se-jeong raised her hand as though she were about to strike Ga-young, but Mrs. Eom quickly stopped her.

“Miss, you can’t do this.”

“Let me go! She said she’s going to run crying to Grandma!”

Mrs. Eom gently coaxed Se-jeong and pushed her toward the door.

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t. I’ll stop her. I won’t let Chairman Kwon find out.”

Mrs. Eom was more than twice Se-jeong’s size, so ushering her outside wasn’t difficult.

Even after they left the house, Mrs. Eom spent a long time patting Se-jeong’s back and trying to calm her down.

“Ugh, this is so annoying. Seriously, unbelievably annoying.”

“Miss, you went a little too far with what you said.”

“How am I supposed to look kindly on her? I’m going crazy because my brother is too good for her!”

“But they’re already married.”

“I’m telling you, my brother must have been out of his mind when he got her pregnant. Mrs. Eom, use some common sense. Does it make any sense that my brother would marry some orphan with no background?”

“Yes, yes, I understand. Please calm down. We can talk about it again later.”

Ga-young stood motionless in the living room, listening to their conversation outside the entrance.

Shin Hyun-jae marrying Yoon Ga-young?

Yes. It didn’t make sense.

Which was why that impossible thing hadn’t actually happened.

And that meant the horrible woman calling herself her sister-in-law wasn’t really her sister-in-law.

That was all she had to think.

But being treated like a baby-making machine by Se-jeong felt uncomfortably close to the truth of who Yoon Ga-young was within this chaebol family.

She couldn’t help wondering whether everyone saw her as a disposable object—something to produce a single child before being thrown away.

And no matter how hard she tried, the humiliation swelling in her chest refused to fade.

After that, Se-jeong continued coming and going from the detached house four or five times a day.

Perhaps because Ga-young had threatened to tell Chairman Kwon, she no longer smoked inside. Instead, after Se-jeong left, the smell of cigarette smoke lingered on the small terrace at the end of the first-floor hallway.

Whenever they happened to run into each other, they simply ignored one another and walked past.

On the sixth night since Hyun-jae had left for his overseas business trip, Ga-young got out of bed and stepped outside the detached house.

She wanted some fresh air.

For several days, a sense of melancholy had lingered over her, and she hoped the night breeze might blow it away.

The night sky was covered in black clouds.

It felt as though she could reach up and touch them.

When she took a deep breath, the damp air filled her lungs, carrying with it the rich fragrance of roses.

For the first time, Ga-young stepped into the thick cluster of rosebushes.

They truly were worthy of being called the queen of flowers.

Even a single bloom was beautiful enough to captivate anyone.

When she was young, Ga-young had once begged her father to buy her a potted rose plant, which she grew in their semi-basement home.

Every day, she watered it and dreamed that the single rosebush would stretch its branches endlessly and bloom with countless flowers.

It had been a pure childhood fantasy.

Roses were greedier than any other flower.

They only bloomed after consuming enormous amounts of sunlight, water, fertilizer, pesticides, and painstaking care.

Later, she learned from her uncle, who worked as a gardener, that roses were among the most difficult flowers to grow.

They were flowers that regarded their endless greed as a natural right and proudly demanded the admiration of everyone around them.

A bitter smile appeared on Ga-young’s lips as she walked through the rose garden.

Back then, the single rose belonging to that poor little girl had withered black before its bud could ever bloom.

But the roses in this chaebol family’s garden bloomed in abundance, flaunting themselves with the splendor of royalty.

It was the stark result of wealth—the nourishment that satisfied a flower’s endless greed.

Once again, Ga-young was reminded of her place.

The beauty of this garden, the atmosphere of this night—it was a dream she shouldn’t allow herself to become immersed in.

Just as Se-jeong had said, it was nothing more than a dream she would eventually have to wake from, once she had served her purpose and walked away with whatever money she was given.

“Don’t forget. None of this is mine.”

After murmuring the reminder to herself, Ga-young’s slow walk came to a stop near the wall.

She hadn’t even realized how far she had wandered.

The detached house was now too far away to reach in just a few quick steps, and at that exact moment, drops of rain began to fall from the sky.

“A shower?”

Ga-young ran beneath a nearby cypress tree to escape the rain.

Water quickly pooled in the palm she held out into the air.

The scattered droplets soon turned into a heavy downpour, until even standing beneath the tree offered no protection.

“This won’t do. I should just go back.”

Instead of taking the dirt path, which had already turned soggy, Ga-young headed for the stone path that stretched straight from the main gate.

She hurried toward the detached house, but as she walked, the thick rain soaked her from head to toe.

She had made it about halfway when, suddenly, she could no longer feel the rain striking the top of her head and shoulders.

Instead, warmth seemed to surround her, pushing back the chill of the rain.

Slowing her steps, she turned her head.

Shin Hyun-jae was standing beside her.

The large umbrella in his hand was shielding her from the rain.

He wasn’t looking at her. His gaze remained fixed ahead.

His steps matched hers perfectly, and his manner was so natural that it was almost as though they had been walking beneath the same umbrella from the very beginning.

As Ga-young stared at him in stunned silence, a faint smile appeared on his face.

“Have you been well?”