“I actually feel a bit upset. I guess I trusted and relied on you a lot, boss. I even hoped that you might catch me. But it seems like you’re trying to push me away as if you’ve been waiting. Am I nothing to you, boss?”
At that time, Kidoeng was not asleep. He just missed the moment to open his eyes.
As always when he drank and returned, he lay on the office sofa, waiting for the alcohol to subside. Then he fell asleep. While waiting, he heard a woman’s singing mixed with sobs and woke up. At first, it was eerie, but he soon recognized it as the voice of Han Gaeul.
When he tried to let her know that he was awake, Gaeul started cursing at me. I didn’t have the heart to hear more, but before Gaeul could do something more embarrassing, I made a sound to let her know I was there.
I thought she would stop when she found me, but Gaeul approached even more. Then, suddenly, she began to pour out her innermost thoughts. When Gaeul talked about why she was in the office at this hour, she suddenly expressed anxiety about meeting her maternal relatives.
When Gaeul mentioned that she had used the money she had saved to repay her debts to repair the kitchen of her uncle’s restaurant, I got angry and almost opened my eyes. But at that moment, what made Daewoon most difficult was the fact that Gaeul was too close.
After muttering to herself for a while, Gaeul seemed tired. When she sat down next to the sofa, Daewoon felt Gaeul’s breath as if it were touching his face. Daewoon tried to convince himself that it was an illusion.
Daewoon’s senses became sharper. Although he had spent many days with Gaeul in this space, the feeling of night and darkness was special. There was nothing between me and Gaeul. If I reached out, I would touch Gaeul’s face.
My hand itched, but Daewoon couldn’t. Not yet, not yet. There seemed to be nothing, but there were many problems to be solved between Gaeul and me.
“I’m actually upset that no one believes me when I say I broke up with Woojin. Now he’s just a guy who used to be a good friend to me. But people still think I like Woojin. Do you think so too, boss? Do you think I still like Woojin? No, really, I don’t.”
Gaeul’s story had suddenly shifted to her relationship with Woojin. As Daewoon listened to Gaeul’s words, the corners of his mouth subtly lifted. If Gaeul noticed, Daewoon quickly lowered the corners of his mouth that had risen without his knowledge.
But then Gaeul’s words abruptly stopped. Daewoon opened his eyes to check if Gaeul had seen my mouth move. Then Gaeul noticed that I was staring at her.
“Boss, how long have you been awake?”
Gaeul looked serious and asked, “What are you doing in the dark? I thought I saw a ghost. I thought my heart was going to stop.”
Actually, his heart was pounding. After hearing Han Gaeul’s confession about her feelings for Woojin.
“Do you laugh when you see a ghost, boss? Did you hear everything I said?”
Anyway, there was no way to smoothly transition. Expecting the interrogation to continue, Daewoon admitted frankly, “I woke up when Woojin was mentioned.”
Still, he didn’t say he heard everything to spare Gaeul from embarrassment.
Leveraging the courage from alcohol and darkness, Gaeul suddenly said what she wanted to say, “Boss, can you hold me back? Don’t let me go to my maternal relatives.”
“Why? Is there a reason not to go?”
Gaeul couldn’t think of a reason not to go. On the contrary, there were plenty of reasons to go.
“The reason they take Winter and me from that house is that they need a successor. If I go to my maternal relatives, I’ll have to live the life they want, and then we won’t be able to live the way we want.”
“Is this how you want to live? Living under debt, working as a lackey for Chairman Seon Jaeho?”
“You knew?”
Gaeul asked with a trembling voice. She had thought he might know, but hearing it from the boss’s mouth made her unbearably embarrassed.
“Since when…”
“From the beginning.”
“Did I seem like such a dangerous person? Unworthy?”
“Yes.”
Gaeul had to go to her maternal relatives. If not, it would disrupt her plans. So, Daewoon closed his eyes tightly and severed the bridge for Gaeul to return. An anxious Gaeul had to know there was no turning back to move forward.
An unmerciful judgment was made. Tears welled up in Han Gaeul’s eyes. Gaeul didn’t hold back the tears. She gave up trying to endure. When there’s no way to stop it, sometimes letting it flow is the best solution.
“I must have been a joke all this time. Foolishly suggesting we date on such a topic. Why did I live like this?”
Gaeul stood up, staggering. The pitiful one was herself, not the boss. It was ironic that she had always thought the boss was pitiful. Why did she live like this? Poor but wanting to live confidently and uprightly.
“Boss, I relayed the conversation you had with Jeong Sehyun to Woojin’s father without missing a thing. Goodbye. I think there’s nothing left for me to do here. I’ll pay the hospital bills as much as I can.”
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
