DERH 09

Chapter 9

Do You Believe in the Way?

“Why Ryu Kang-hyun all of a sudden while we were talking about the condition? He’s just a senior from university.”

“Bring Lawyer Ryu Kang-hyun home and introduce him to us.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster if you did that instead of me, Dad? You could bring him home tomorrow and have dinner with him.”

Sena answered casually, thinking he had suddenly brought up something completely unrelated.

“I mean, bring him home as the man you’re going to marry.”

“Keuk……! Cough, cough……!”

The orange juice she had been drinking without thinking suddenly came back up and hit the back of her throat. Sena coughed violently, her eyes wide open.

What man?

For a moment, she thought she had heard wrong. She wiped the yellow liquid from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand and repeated her father’s words in her mind.

“……Who is marrying whom? Do we have another hidden daughter besides me?”

“Gi Sena. Your father isn’t joking.”

“Neither am I, Representative Gi Jang-su.”

“If you can’t even do that, don’t even dream of becoming a partner lawyer. If you can’t even handle one man properly, how are you going to run a company? Tsk. Otherwise, leave and open your own office.”

“No, what does that have to do with this?! Everything was going well, so why Ryu Kang-hyun of all people?!”

“As a representative and as your father, I can’t think of anyone better.”

“What do you know about that man?”

“You can tell when you see him. Do you think I’ve only dealt with people once or twice? If anything, Lawyer Ryu is too good for you.”

“He probably has a woman already, doesn’t he?”

“I heard he doesn’t.”

“Dad!!!”

“I’ve said everything I have to say. If you don’t like this condition, bring me another proposal that we can negotiate.”

Completely speechless, Sena stared at Gi Jang-su’s empty seat.

“Ha…… seriously…… he’s crazy. This makes no sense.”

She muttered to herself before grabbing her hair with both hands and screaming.

When she finally came to her senses, she realized she was standing alone in the huge living room.

Sena stood there blankly like a toy that had suddenly stopped moving. Her head, which usually worked perfectly, felt completely empty.

This wasn’t simply a matter of whether she should date him or not.

Not only was he the one person she had been openly hostile toward during college, he was also the person who had witnessed countless embarrassing moments of hers.

And why would Ryu Kang-hyun ever like her?

From the beginning, they had been like oil and water that could never mix.

The chances of Gi Sena and Ryu Kang-hyun getting married—or even having a conversation as a man and woman, let alone dating—were about as high as this:

If a stranger approached the iron-walled Ryu Kang-hyun and asked,

“Do you believe in the Way?”

And he smiled kindly and answered,

“Yes. I do. Shall we have a deep conversation about our Way?”

That was how impossible it was.

In other words, it was never going to happen.

Standing in front of a full-length mirror, Gi Sena pulled the corners of her mouth up as high as she could.

Then she narrowed her eyes and forced herself to smile.

The muscles in both her cheeks trembled.

“Phaa—”

The breath she had been holding, filling even her chest, burst out all at once.

This wasn’t right.

Ryu Kang-hyun would immediately notice that her smile was fake and that she was hiding some ulterior motive.

I, Gi Sena, have looks and abilities that I can be proud of anywhere.

She firmly believed that if anyone seriously approached her, nine out of ten—or even all ten—would develop feelings for her.

If Representative Gi Jang-su had pushed some new man in front of her and told her to have either a strategic marriage or a love marriage, she could probably have done it right away.

But she had never imagined that the connection to the bad relationship she thought she had cut off would be this persistent.

What kind of sin had she committed in her previous life to be tied to someone like this?

……Maybe she had been a traitor who sold the country.

What were the chances that Ryu Kang-hyun would see Gi Sena as a woman?

Even a humanities student who was terrible at math could easily find the answer.

“Zero.”

What could she do to raise that zero probability even a little?

Should she start greeting him every morning and evening from now on and make up for her mistakes from the past?

“Are you crazy? I can’t even control my expression when I see his face. Why would I go greet him every day? I’m not some maid trying to get into the king’s good graces. Ah, seriously. That expression sounds terrible.”

Unable to get her confused thoughts under control, she collapsed onto her desk.

This was the hardest problem of all.

Marriage and dating came later.

First, it seemed urgent to improve her relationship with him.

Since she couldn’t find an answer by sitting there worrying, she headed toward the second floor.

There was a saying:

“Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will win every battle.”

She already knew herself very well.

So she needed to figure out what kind of person her opponent was.

After climbing the stairs, she quieted her footsteps and carefully approached Ryu Kang-hyun’s office.

It was still early in the morning, but several senior lawyers were already gathered in his office for a meeting.

Like an amateur thief spying on a rich family’s house, Sena peeked inside the office.

She had heard that he had been given several major cases as soon as he arrived, and he certainly looked busy.

Ryu Kang-hyun was leading the meeting, while the other lawyers listened carefully to everything he said.

He had come to the firm as a partner lawyer, but unlike the other partners, he had come from the prosecution rather than another law firm.

More importantly, he had never worked with the people at K Law Firm before.

Yet he showed powerful leadership and gained the support of the other lawyers in a short time.

Seeing with her own eyes what Prosecutor Park had said about him being respected by his juniors, Sena could finally understand just how capable he was.

His eyes quickly scanned the documents piled on the desk, sharp and focused.

As he discussed the direction of their arguments, he pronounced difficult legal terms clearly, with strength in his voice.

His pleasant, deep voice continuously recited articles of criminal law as smoothly as a walking legal dictionary.

Most of all—

The way the space between his eyebrows narrowed whenever he concentrated.

The large hand supporting the side of his face.

And the pen held between his index and middle fingers.

Everything about Ryu Kang-hyun—the atmosphere around him and the energy that seemed to follow him—naturally drew the eye.

“What is this? Looking at him like this, he seems like a completely different person.”

Sena was startled by her own voice and quickly covered her mouth.

That was when it happened.

Ryu Kang-hyun, who had been focused on the documents, suddenly raised his head.

Through the glass window of the office, Sena’s eyes met Kang-hyun’s.

She had been caught spying on him.

Her heart dropped.

Sena immediately turned around and hurried toward the representative’s office.

The secretary of the representative asked what was going on, but her heart was pounding so loudly that she couldn’t even answer.

She simply hid inside the representative’s office.

Secretary Kim followed her inside and looked at Sena strangely.

Worried that Ryu Kang-hyun might follow her, she quickly closed the door.

Anyone looking at the situation would have thought it extremely strange.

Sena gave an awkward smile and said whatever came to mind.

“Representative Gi must have gone somewhere?”

“He had a golf appointment this morning, so he didn’t come to work.”

“Ah……. I see.”

That sly old man!

He dropped such a huge bomb on her and then went off to play golf as if nothing had happened?

No matter how much he was her father, curses naturally rose up in her throat.

“I was wondering what happened……”

“That…….”

Bzzzz—

Her phone suddenly vibrated.

Sena jumped in surprise and let out a small scream as she pulled her phone from her pocket.

[If our eyes met, you should at least have said hello, Gi Sena.]

[Make some time. I have something to say to you.]

It was a message from Ryu Kang-hyun.

‘We were standing right in front of each other. I should have at least nodded and said hello. Instead, I ran away. Like I was scared of him. How embarrassing. Ah. What am I supposed to say?’

As she stared blankly at the open messaging app, Secretary Kim spoke in a worried voice.

“Lawyer Gi. Is something wrong? You don’t look well.”

Sena couldn’t figure out where or how she should begin dealing with this situation.

She wanted to ask how other people would handle something like this, but there was no one she could ask.

“Secretary Kim……”

Secretary Kim Jung-han was the first legal secretary her father, Gi Jang-su, had recruited when he founded K Law Firm.

He had known Sena for more than fifteen years.

When she was young, she had even called him Uncle instead of Secretary Kim because they were so close.

“If you have some time right now, would you like to have some tea with me?”

Sena dropped onto the sofa in the representative’s office.

While Secretary Kim Jung-han prepared the tea, she couldn’t keep pretending she hadn’t seen Ryu Kang-hyun’s messages, so she replied first.

[I’m quite busy this week because my schedule is already full.]

She chose avoidance instead of acceptance for now.

She wasn’t ready to meet him yet.

But his next message was firm.

[Make time, even if you have to make it.]

Make time for what?

I said I don’t have any.

[Can’t you just tell me what you want to say by text?]

But even after waiting for a long time, there was no reply.

“Ah……. I hate this. Seriously.”

“You must have a lot on your mind.”

Secretary Kim Jung-han brought two cups of tea and placed one in front of Sena before sitting across from her.

Sena quietly watched his expression before carefully starting the conversation.

“Secretary Kim, do you have someone you dislike too?”

“Is there anyone who doesn’t have someone they dislike?”

“But what if you had to see that person every day?”

“I see mine every day.”

“What? Who do you dislike?”

“You already know. Why are you asking?”

“No way……”

Sena’s eyes moved toward the small table beside the sofa.

She glanced at the nameplate that read:

‘Representative Gi Jang-su, K Law Firm.’

Instead of answering, Kim Jung-han gave a faint smile and took a sip of tea.

“Why do I suddenly understand Secretary Kim’s feelings so well today?”

“We’re all doing this because we want to make money. Even if I went somewhere else, it would be hard to find a job with this kind of salary.”

Sena had thought he was joking, but judging by his expression, he seemed completely serious.

“Anyway, what kind of problem made Lawyer Gi ask me to have tea with her?”

“Haa……”

Where should she even begin explaining?

She could only let out a sigh first.

She couldn’t possibly say,

‘There’s someone who’s basically my enemy, and my father, who doesn’t know anything, told me to bring that person home and introduce him.’

So instead, she vaguely explained her situation and asked for advice.

“So, in short, you have to get along with someone you absolutely can’t get along with, but you don’t know how to do it. Is that right?”

“If I had to summarize it in one sentence, yes.”

“Hm……”

Kim Jung-han hummed thoughtfully, tilted his head, and put down the teacup he was holding.

“But that’s not like you, Lawyer Gi. I didn’t expect you to worry about something like this.”

And there was a reason for that.

Gi Sena was popular at K Law Firm.

She got along easily with people she had just met, and whenever a new employee had trouble adjusting and came to her for advice, she comforted them without ever showing any annoyance.

She was someone who never made enemies, whether they were juniors or seniors.

If the movie industry had a ‘Kind-hearted Geum-ja,’ then K Law Firm had its own ‘Kind-hearted Sena.’

“He knows my weakness.”

At the word weakness, Secretary Kim raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“He knows Lawyer Gi’s weakness? Who is this person? He must be quite something.”

Secretary Kim laughed as if he found it amusing.

Sena gave him a sharp look.

“I’m not joking.”

“Then did he threaten you with your weakness?”

“Ah, it’s not that……”

“Then did he use it against you?”

“No, that’s not it either……”

“Then what is it?”