Chapter 9 …
After sleeping deeply while receiving the IV drip, her body felt much lighter. The problem was that she’d slept too deeply. By the time Seyeon opened her eyes, far more time had passed than she’d expected.
“You’re awake.”
“……”
Yujin, who had been leaning against the bed across from her, checked his wristwatch as he spoke.
“I removed the needle.”
Seyeon checked the time on her phone and made an awkward expression. Judging by the situation, all the staff had already gone home, and as the director, the man from next door must have stayed behind waiting.
“I slept way too long. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing for a patient to apologize for. How do you feel?”
“Much better than before.”
She wasn’t just being polite—it really felt like she’d come back to life. Her fever had gone down a lot, and the aches that had wracked her whole body earlier were gone.
“Then let’s get up and go home.”
“Yes. I will.”
Seyeon quickly found her shoes, slipped them on, and hurriedly put on the outerwear hanging on the rack. She’d caused trouble without meaning to—
and of all people, to the man she least wanted to owe anything to.
It was already dark outside. In the hospital parking lot, only his car and hers sat there, isolated and alone. The man was about to get into his car when he turned back to look at her.
She heard an irritated sigh, and then he made an unexpected suggestion.
“Ride in my car today.”
“It’s okay. I can drive.”
“You can drive. You might also end up dead, though.”
In the end, Seyeon went home riding in the passenger seat of his car. She figured she’d have to come back for her own car tomorrow, depending on how she felt.
“Why don’t you just go back to Seoul? There’s no real gain in stubbornly staying here.”
“I’m grateful that you helped me recover and all, so I’d really rather not get into a negative, exhausting argument if I can help it.”
Speaking calmly, Seyeon suddenly turned her head and looked straight at him.
“I want you to know that whether I go back to Seoul or stay here has nothing to do with you, Director. I don’t know what you heard or where you heard it, but please don’t judge me based on that. That’s not who I am. You don’t even know what kind of person I actually am.”
She strongly suspected the one who’d been spreading words was Kim Daehyun, but she didn’t want to say his name out loud.
“I heard you weren’t just pretty, but easygoing and nice, too. Guess that wasn’t true. I understand.”
“…He really said that?”
“Yes.”
“…Nothing else?”
“No. That was all.”
“……”
Seyeon was confused. There was no way Kim Daehyun would’ve praised her to Director Si.
“Even if I don’t know the details, with your background, you could meet plenty of men with great conditions. Why do you want to meet a doctor?”
You just said there was nothing else—
so you even heard about me dating Kim Daehyun?
“Whether someone’s a doctor or not doesn’t matter to me. I just—”
She stopped mid-sentence. She wondered if it was really okay to say something like this to a man who was Kim Daehyun’s acquaintance.
“I just…”
Yujin urged her on with his gaze, telling her to continue.
“I thought we met naturally.”
“What do you mean, naturally? It was a completely intentional meeting.”
He wasn’t wrong. Thinking back, Kim Daehyun had known from the very beginning—when she’d brought her grandmother to the hospital—that she was Chairman Myung’s granddaughter.
The only mistake he made was not realizing that not all of Chairman Myung’s granddaughters were the same.
That’s why he’d switched targets the moment he met Myung Soyoung.
“I think I was foolish, too. I regret it.”
“And yet you were going to keep seeing him?”
“No. It’s over. I don’t have any lingering feelings at all.”
“Then why are you trying to stay here? Isn’t it uncomfortable seeing my face?”
Of course, thinking of him as Kim Daehyun’s acquaintance didn’t exactly put her at ease. Birds of a feather and all—she couldn’t help but view the man from next door through tinted glasses as well.
But more important than that was the thing she needed to do here.
“I have something I need to take care of. So I’d like it if you could forget everything else and just treat me as a local resident.”
“Fine. Then let’s settle it like that. I’ll take it as you rejecting me, Ms. Myung Seyeon.”
“Yes, let’s do that. …What? Rejecting what of yours?”
Seyeon, who had been nodding absentmindedly, suddenly widened her eyes in shock.
“Didn’t we just clear things up between us?”
“Between us? Weren’t we talking about Kim Daehyun just now?”
“Kim Daehyun? What Kim Daehyun?”
“……”
Seyeon was momentarily at a loss for words. Something was wrong—very wrong—but she couldn’t tell where it had all started to go off the rails.
“You came down here to meet me, didn’t you?”
“Me…? Why would I come all the way here to meet you?”
“Then why did you come here?”
“I told you. I came to work at the resort.”
“What are you even talking about now?”
“I mean exactly what I said.”
With a dumbfounded expression, Yujin fell silent. Seyeon, too, was busy sorting things out in her head and didn’t have the presence of mind to worry about him.
Lost in their own thoughts, the two arrived near her house. When Yujin parked the car in an empty lot, Seyeon quickly got out of the passenger seat. As they talked a bit more while walking toward her house, they finally found the source of the misunderstanding.
“Thank you for driving me home, and I’m sorry for making you stay late because of me. But I really hope you’ll clear up your misunderstanding about me. I honestly had no idea who you were.”
Now that she understood the situation and had redefined their relationship, Seyeon spoke to him politely.
In other words, the man from next door had thought she’d come down to Cheonghaeri just to meet him—and had even rented a place practically right in front of his house. He’d mistaken her for a blind date with strong stalker tendencies.
“So you’re saying you really didn’t come here to see me.”
Still finding it hard to believe her, the man asked again in front of her gate.
“I told you I didn’t. Who do you think you are that I’d—”
“…….”
Seyeon cut herself off mid-sentence when she saw the man narrow his eyes.
The only doctor in Cheonghaeri.
“…I mean, I was trying to say that we both misunderstood each other, and now that it’s cleared up, it seems like we can be good neighbors going forward. That the future looks bright.”
“If what you’re saying is true or not, I’ll find out soon enough.”
After saying that, Yujin turned his back and disappeared inside his gate.
Seyeon took a deep breath, exhaled, and then opened her own gate. When Cheshire peeked his head out, she waved at him once before trudging inside.
Now she understood why the man from next door had been so wary and hostile toward her. The whole situation was absurd beyond belief.
It bothered her that she’d mentioned Kim Daehyun’s name, but thankfully, the man didn’t seem to care at all. He’d figure out soon enough that she wasn’t his blind date, so there shouldn’t be any problems going forward.
Life really is exhausting.
Seyeon let out a sigh as she looked at her hollow, worn face reflected in the mirror.
Yujin called his father the moment he got home. It was extremely unusual for him to be the one initiating a call, especially since he often didn’t even answer incoming ones.
—What is it?
Seongseok answered with a tense voice. For a son who never called first—especially late at night—to do so, something serious must have happened.
“Are you sure the woman you mentioned came down to Cheonghaeri?”
—Ah, that girl. I was actually just about to tell you about that…
After a brief pause, Seongseok suddenly erupted in anger.
—She’s an unbelievably brazen and awful girl. Can you believe it? She said she was going to meet you, and then secretly ran off overseas with another man. Does that make any sense? Does it?!
Yujin pressed his fingers to his temple, a headache forming. The harsh words he’d hurled at the woman next door flashed through his mind. Her bewildered, wronged expression rose vividly before his eyes.
“So… that woman isn’t this woman, then.”
—I told you, she didn’t go there. Why? Is someone there? If it’s not that woman, then who is this woman you’re talking about?
“It’s nothing. Forget it. I’m hanging up.”
After ending the call, Yujin opened the window of the small room that faced the house next door and looked outside. Beyond the narrow alley—barely wide enough for a single car—he could see Seyeon’s house, brightly lit.
“Today it’s a five-to-five ratio.”
In the dead silence of the night, the woman was out in the yard. It looked like she was feeding the cat.
“Tomorrow it’ll be seven-to-three. But you should start earning your keep soon, too. Hurry up and get healthy so you can guard the house and keep mice out.”
Yujin watched Cheonghaeri’s strange Alice and Cheshire for a moment, then closed the window.
‘In my opinion, I think there’s something seriously wrong with you—damn it.’
Her diagnosis had been accurate.
A deep sigh escaped him.
