FC 01

Chapter 1

Even the air was boring.

The damn ninth blind date.

By now, he knew not only where everything in the room was, but even what he would see outside the window whenever he turned his head.

It would have been less painful if the place were at least different.

But all nine blind dates had been at the same hotel lounge.

“How about living in Hawaii for about a year after we get married, Sung-hyun?”

This time, it was a woman whose head was full of flowers.

“You have a condo in Kakaako, don’t you, Sung-hyun? I heard about it in passing.”

She was ignorant,

“It’s not ‘Cocoaco.’ It’s ‘Kakaako,’ isn’t it?”

“Ah…………… haha, haha. I was joking. You take things so seriously, Sung-hyun.”

Arrogant,

“Smile a little. If you want this marriage to work, you have to make me feel good.”

“I don’t know. I’m not in a good mood, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to make you feel good.”

And utterly frivolous.

“Sung-hyun, what did you just………………?”

“Go Ha-na. You like partying, you’re a party animal, and you enjoy threesomes.”

The ninth blind-date woman, whose name he probably wouldn’t even remember.

“When you get home, please tell them that Joo Sung-hyun of Jaewon Group is a lunatic and that you can’t marry him. I’d appreciate it.”

“W-what?!”

“Oh. And before you go on your next blind date, make sure you clean up your image.”

“Hey!”

“Considering that’s what your reputation is like, I have to admire your courage for even coming to a blind date.”

Sung-hyun stood up from his chair before the food had even arrived.

After everything, even a woman like this.

To put it nicely, she was simply unpleasant.

To be more honest, she was hopeless.

Still, he gathered whatever manners he had left and gave the woman a slight bow.

“Then I’ll be going.”

As soon as he turned around, Min-seok, who had been watching from a distance, flinched and his shoulders trembled.

You bastard. Let’s talk outside.

When Sung-hyun sent him a chilling smile, his beloved subordinate rubbed both arms as though he had goosebumps.

Min-seok, Min-seok. Why do you keep pulling this nonsense?

He had teamed up with his mother, who was desperate to get him married, and tricked him into thinking the blind dates were buyer meetings.

He should have realized something was wrong when they were brought to this particular hotel.

He had wasted thirty precious minutes.

Sung-hyun glared at Min-seok and tugged at his tie.

Stay right there.

With his lips twisted into a crooked smile, he charged toward his beloved Min-seok.

Then a shrill voice came from behind him.

“You gay bastard!”

“You’re the one who needs to clean up your image! You looked so handsome, so I came out once to see for myself, but you’re actually gay? Ha.”

Stay calm.

“My reputation isn’t even as bad as yours, okay? What the hell is a guy who likes men doing here, getting angry at the wrong person?!”

Should I stop staying calm?

He shook the tie clutched in one hand like a whip and glared fiercely at Min-seok.

“Oh, really. I heard you and your secretary have a thing going on? Wow—you two really suit each other. Have fun.”

Despite having insulted him first and being the first to get up, the woman was the one who left even faster.

His already terrible mood hit rock bottom, but he suppressed his anger.

And finally, he stood directly in front of Min-seok.

“My beloved secretary. Have you been waiting for me?”

Terrified, Min-seok bit his lip miserably before suddenly looking toward the entrance and shouting,

“No! That’s not true! We’re not like that!!”

2:00 a.m.

Sung-hyun sat at his desk, drinking cup after cup of coffee.

Dimmed lights, a tablet he had been staring at for hours in one hand, and papers scattered haphazardly across the desk.

He was, in every sense, a man obsessed with work.

At an hour when everyone else was asleep, only two sounds could be heard in the study:

The intermittent tapping of a keyboard, and Min-seok’s drunken rambling.

“In the end, in the ennnnd! I got dumped. Me! I got dumped!”

Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

“She says she understands that I’m constantly being called away at all hours, but hic!”

Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

“No matter how much I told her it wasn’t true, even though she knew the rumors were ridiculous, at some point she started to wonder. Haha. She said that even she thought it was weird that I spend more nights with my boss than with my girlfriend. We’re together until dawn all the time! And whenever he answers the phone, the first thing he says is, ‘My beloved Min-seok,’ you son of a—………………”

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap!

“You’re dead the moment you add the ‘l’.”

“B-but……………… damn it.”

Min-seok timidly moved his lips before suddenly jumping up from the sofa.

Phoo—!

He blew alcohol-scented breath into the air and glared at Sung-hyun’s desk.

Something was clearly wrong.

Sensing the murderous gaze moving from the documents on the desk to the monitor, Sung-hyun calmly pressed Ctrl+S.

As expected, Min-seok came charging toward him.

He let out an insane scream before—

“Uaaahhh!!”

—and began scrubbing both hands across the keyboard as though he were rubbing laundry against a washboard.

Despite the shocking behavior, Sung-hyun merely glanced sideways at him.

Rather than stopping him, he moved his chair farther away while remaining seated, giving Min-seok room to vent his anger.

Min-seok covered the entire screen with alien-like gibberish such as ‘ㅇ나 닙증.dfk누 ㅐ’.

Even after that failed to satisfy his anger, he reached toward the documents.

“Min-seok.”

Tilting his chin to the side, Sung-hyun pressed his tired eyes.

“Let’s not touch those.”

“Damn, ugh, sob, damn it.”

“Yeah. Up to there is fine.”

Min-seok, who looked as though his entire world had ended, glared at his boss—someone he found incredibly likable and simultaneously absolutely unbearable.

He couldn’t bring himself to tear the documents, so he continued pounding the keyboard for several more minutes before finally calming his angry breathing.

“Vice President, hic.”

“Yeah.”

Once his venting was over, Min-seok became as docile as a lamb again.

By then, Sung-hyun was leaning back in his chair, admiring the dazzling night view beyond the glass.

“Aren’t you lonely?”

Min-seok had approached from behind without him noticing and suddenly asked the most unexpected question.

Even though he was the one who had been dumped.

Sung-hyun gave a small laugh and turned around.

Min-seok stared down at his handsome face, the very definition of a perfect-looking man, and rubbed his drunken eyes vigorously.

This time, seriously—not ‘damn it,’ but ‘fuck.’ Why does he have to be so damn handsome and act like this?

At this rate, he’s really gay……………!

Min-seok immediately shook his head furiously.

“I’m fine, so don’t you be lonely.”

Sung-hyun had no idea that Min-seok wanted to tell him, I’m so furious inside that I feel sorry for you.

With tears welling in his eyes, Min-seok suddenly grabbed Sung-hyun’s chair and spun it around.

Sung-hyun’s field of vision whirled in a semicircle before the familiar room filled his sight.

“What do you see?”

“A wall.”

“……Not that.”

“A door.”

“No! No! Outside the door!”

The door visible in a straight line from the desk was wide open.

Min-seok pointed toward it and grew increasingly agitated as Sung-hyun glanced at him.

“Light?”

The answer came without hesitation, and it drove Min-seok crazy.

“Waaah! This is driving me insane!!”

He stared at the dry, emotionless man who could sober him up even while drunk, his expression one of utter frustration.

Then he grabbed the headrest tightly and began racing away with the chair at a terrifying speed.

“………………Secretary Han. Han Min-seok!”

“Haa, haa, haa!”

Min-seok escaped the study at full speed, breathing heavily.

He stopped the chair and pushed it around irritably, causing Sung-hyun to spin around once more.

“………………What the hell are you doing?”

Sung-hyun, who was prone to dizziness, held his forehead.

Although he feared what would happen afterward, Min-seok stubbornly continued.

“The place where you live, Vice President. It’s an apartment where only the top 0.1% of membership holders can live. There’s a golf course underground! A sky pool on the top floor! There are even bathtubs on the private terraces! You could strip naked and enjoy the view!”

“But?”

“This place, and yet Vice President, of all people, lives in a penthouse. A penthouse! You deliberately, deliberately! Live in the very best place.”

“Get to the point.”

Sung-hyun’s fatigue was obvious as Min-seok continued his long-winded lecture.

After spinning the chair around and explaining what was in each room one by one, Min-seok finally got to the point.

“Why, whyyy! Do you do nothing but work? Seriously, why? Why do you even live here if you’re going to do that? You pay all that money and don’t do anything! You don’t enjoy your free time—or wait, do you even have free time? And you’re not even living with some pretty woman like other third-generation chaebol heirs! You don’t date anyone, let alone live with a woman!!”

“Even yesterday’s blind date… sob… if you’d just tried to make it work……………, if we had even one article about the Vice President getting married, our Na-yeon wouldn’t have left me like this, hic!”

Min-seok collapsed onto the floor and thumped his chest.

He sobbed loudly, but Sung-hyun merely looked down at him like a machine creaking to a stop.

“Secretary Han, is it really my fault that you broke up with Na-yeon?”

It would have been better if Min-seok had been reckless enough to drunkenly yell at his supposedly untouchable boss.

But this was neither a friend nor an older brother.

And even at a moment like this, Sung-hyun was smiling faintly and speaking as though it were all a joke.

It made Min-seok want to strangle him.

Min-seok grabbed the whiskey sitting on the table and poured himself a generous amount.

It was his boss’s alcohol, left out within easy reach.

He wasn’t even afraid.

“I really am curious. Do you hate marriage, or do you hate women?”

The sudden shift to a question about himself wiped the faint smile from Sung-hyun’s face.

He swiftly took the crystal glass from Min-seok and tilted it elegantly.

“Both.”

What are you going to do with yourself?

Min-seok’s eyes wavered with concern.

This wasn’t an ordinary family.

He was the only son and sole grandson of the Jaewon family.

His father, Chairman Joo Dong-hwan, was becoming increasingly relentless about pressuring Sung-hyun to marry, but Sung-hyun’s attitude was basically whatever happens, happens.

Min-seok couldn’t stand not knowing what was going on inside his head.

“Specifically. Why do you hate marriage and women?”

Normally, Sung-hyun would have remained silent.

But perhaps he found Min-seok’s drunkenness amusing.

Maybe because he knew Min-seok wouldn’t remember it tomorrow, he casually let something slip.

“There isn’t an ideal woman I’d want to marry.”

“Huh?”

“A woman who makes me think, ‘I could marry her.’ A woman who gives me that certainty.”

“There isn’t one.”

Min-seok couldn’t believe it.

So all the women he had rejected until now simply hadn’t met his standards?

“No way. Every single one of them was beautiful enough to rival actresses, rich, from good families. Sure, some weren’t exactly pleasant, but there were plenty of good ones too. How high are your standards……………, Vice President.”

Min-seok stopped speaking with bleary eyes.

He wondered why he had never asked this before.

With a foolish expression, as though a lightbulb had finally gone off in his head, he pointed at Sung-hyun.

“Your ideal type is… hiccup… what kind of woman?”

He needed to hear the answer clearly.

But Min-seok, who was terribly weak when it came to alcohol, was slowly losing the battle to keep his eyes open.

Sung-hyun helped him up and sat him on the sofa.

By then, someone had begun to surface faintly in his mind.

“A woman who wears oversized shirts as pajamas.”

“Eeeh?”

“A woman who makes killer fried rice.”

“Hic.”

“A woman who’s a little pathetic, but beautiful.”

“Phoo—!”

“A woman whose smile makes me feel good too.”

“What are you talking about? Are you drunk?”

Min-seok, falling backward as he scratched his ear, replied with his tongue thoroughly tangled.

“Where is that woman?!”

As he laid the half-unconscious Min-seok down properly, Sung-hyun gave a bitter smile.

“That’s right. Where could that woman be?”

Please be living well, Seong Ji-won.

Otherwise, I’ll resent you even more.