“What the hell is this situation supposed to be?”
Even after breaking into someone else’s home, the man was completely shameless from beginning to end. Gyeo-wool exhaled in disbelief, the breath escaping into empty air.
“Ha. I told you, I didn’t steal your package. That delivery—”
“Let’s just say you did.”
“I’m not saying that! I’m telling you, I really didn’t!”
The man, who had turned his back right after saying what he wanted to say, suddenly came to a stop and looked back.
“Oh, I don’t care about the rest, but can you give me back that… the PlX? I’m bored to death.”
“The PlX? What’s that?”
“There you go again, pretending not to know. The first package you took—it was a PlaystayX 5 Limited Edition.”
God, there’s just no getting through to him.
As Gyeo-wool sighed in frustration, an idea seemed to strike her. She clapped her hands as if it were a stroke of genius.
“Ah! You came at just the right time. Since you’re already here, let’s look for it together—see if it’s in my house or not.”
“You probably already sold it.”
“……”
“Hope you at least knew the market price. If it was unopened and in full packaging, it’s basically new.”
Seriously, what kind of man is this?
At this point, Gyeo-wool felt there was no point explaining anything more to a man who was already convinced she’d stolen it.
Her patience at its limit, she glared at him.
“I swear, I’m going to tell the whole world.”
“And yet you were the one asking for help.”
“I wasn’t asking for help! You barged into my house, okay? Then told me to shut up and keep quiet!”
While Gyeo-wool was getting heated, the man suddenly stepped right up to her, close enough that his presence was overwhelming.
When he reached out his hand, Gyeo-wool flinched and instinctively recoiled.
His hand moved slowly past her shoulder and slid the lock on the sliding door into place.
Then she noticed it—his gaze was lowered.
Just as Gyeo-wool began to follow it with her own eyes, the man took one more step forward.
His lowered gaze drew her attention, and in that moment, he muttered softly:
“I never told you to stay quiet.”
As if to say—you made that choice yourself.
The sudden closeness left Gyeo-wool frozen, eyes fixed on the man.
She gulped.
Then, he gently gathered the collar of her robe and placed it into her hand—
And whispered near her ear,
“I didn’t see anything.”
Only then did Gyeo-wool realize she was still wearing her bathrobe. Her cheeks flushed crimson.
“W-What do you mean, you didn’t see anything!”
“Why ask if you already know?”
“G-Get out! Right now!”
“Let me use your bathroom.”
“Wh-Why the bathroom all of a sudden?!”
Just as the man turned at her question, he blinked slowly and asked,
“What, are you scared I’ll take off your robe next?”
When Gyeo-wool reflexively stepped back, the man let out a silent laugh.
Then his gaze slowly began to sweep across her body. It slid downward, almost like a caress, then came back up to meet her eyes.
The left corner of his mouth lifted into a crooked smirk.
“Where do you get this kind of confidence?”
“W-What did you just say?”
“Well then, should I keep walking around like this?”
He gestured with a nod toward the floor.
Wherever he’d stepped, dirt trailed across her clean living room floor.
“What the…?”
“I’ll pay for the flowerpot.”
At his words, Gyeo-wool’s eyes turned toward the terrace.
The clay pot that had been placed near the boundary shared with his unit was now shattered, soil scattered all over.
Of all things, it had to be her precious tangerine tree.
As she turned around, her expression ready to cry, the man had already disappeared behind the bathroom door.
Apparently, he’d already figured out the mirror-image layout of their homes and headed straight there.
“Forget compensation or whatever—just clean up and get out!”
He was the one who crossed into her house, and yet somehow she felt like she was the intruder.
The way he spoke—so disorienting—left her feeling oddly defeated.
“Why is he acting so confident when I wouldn’t help him even if he begged?”
As she looked down at the bathrobe she’d thrown on over her underwear, Gyeo-wool’s face turned red all over again.
She didn’t even know how far it had come undone—let alone how much he might have seen.
“He… he really didn’t see anything… right?”
Hurriedly, she went to her room, changed clothes, and came back out, grumbling.
“Ugh. The more I think about it, the angrier I get.”
Why had she helped that rude man in the first place?
Her emotions poured into the mop as she scrubbed the floor hard.
That’s when she noticed something. A mark that wouldn’t come off no matter how hard she wiped.
She leaned in for a closer look—and her eyes widened.
“Th-This is… bl-blood?!”
It wasn’t a mistake.
It was clearly blood.
He must have stepped on a piece of the shattered pot.
Just as Gyeo-wool’s face turned pale, the bathroom door opened.
Thanks to his long strides, the man was already right in front of her.
He reached for the mop in her hand, but she quickly hid it behind her back.
“J-Just go. Now.”
“Wasn’t it you who said to clean up and get out?”
“When did you even hear that?”
“Your voice carries.”
As Gyeo-wool stepped ahead to the entrance, she dropped a pair of pink slippers on the floor.
Even before she said anything, the man seemed to know what she intended.
“It’s fine. It’s right next door.”
As he walked to the front door and opened it, Gyeo-wool tugged at his T-shirt.
“Do you have any medicine?”
“……?”
“Ointment. You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
He stood there in the open doorway, still confused, looking at her.
“You don’t, do you?”
Figures.
Muttering under her breath, she placed a plastic bag in his hand.
“If you cross over here even one more time—I swear I’ll call the cops.”
With that, she shoved him out the door and slammed it shut behind him.
__________⋆ 𖤓 ⊹₊˚࿔ ❄︎ᝰ.________
Kicked out barefoot, Eun-woo looked down at himself, then let out a laugh.
How did I even come up with the idea to go over there like that?
No matter how he looked at it, it was a hundred percent his fault—and he felt like a lunatic for doing it.
The terrace door had been open, and the woman standing in the living room in just a robe had been an unexpected twist.
But what surprised him most was how cooperative she’d been.
They’d only met a few times—and yet she let a strange man into her home.
Maybe she really did want to call it even for the package incident.
“What, are you scared I’ll take off your robe next?”
Even more amusing was how expressive she was to every little thing he said.
She’d snap in anger, flush red, then raise her voice again—all like a child whose every thought showed plainly on her face.
He couldn’t tell if she was innocent or just naïve.
Then his thoughts drifted to the moment by the terrace—when she stood there defenseless in the half-open robe.
The image of the curves exposed between the lapels flashed through his mind, and a surge of heat overtook him.
He ripped off his hat.
“Seriously, what a strange woman.”
He opened the bag she’d handed him.
Inside were antibiotic ointment, cotton swabs, and a bandage.
How did she even notice he was hurt?
At first, he hadn’t even realized himself.
He’d been more focused on cleaning up the dirt he’d tracked in.
The bathroom still held the same scent he’d caught when standing behind her earlier.
He didn’t know what the fragrance was—something soft, baby-like, and warm.
“Ugh, what the hell am I even thinking?”
Eun-woo tossed the bag aside.
Then sprawled out on the couch and forced his eyes shut.
__________⋆ 𖤓 ⊹₊˚࿔ ❄︎ᝰ.________
“What do you mean you didn’t see anything?”
“Why ask if you already know?”
“G-Get out! Right now!”
Then— A sudden snort of laughter escaped him, and Eun-woo was taken aback by himself.
__________⋆ 𖤓 ⊹₊˚࿔ ❄︎ᝰ.________
A few days later.
Gyeo-wool had just finished handing out rice cakes her mother had sent.
There were four buildings in the villa complex, each with fourteen households.
Her mom had sent so many rice cakes that Gyeo-wool had no choice but to distribute them unless she wanted to throw them away.
The guy next door didn’t seem to be home.
Even so, she didn’t want to deliberately skip him out of spite.
She pressed the doorbell—but no answer.
Not that she expected much—he probably wouldn’t come out even if he were home.
For houses like his that seemed unoccupied, she tucked a note into the milk pouch along with the rice cakes.
After making the rounds from the closest building to the farthest, she returned home exhausted.
Only to find the elevator broken again.
As she climbed the stairs, she gritted her teeth, thinking of the grinning face of the real estate agent who had sold her on this old building.
Since moving in, nothing had gone right.
“Maybe I should just move again.”
But moving wasn’t exactly easy.
She reached the fourth floor— And saw a suspicious sight: a high school boy loitering in front of her neighbor’s door.
Then, the man’s voice echoed in her memory.
“Ah… it’s you, isn’t it?”
“Huh? What is?”
“You’re the one stealing packages from my place.”
Recalling the day she was wrongfully accused of being the package thief, Gyeo-wool clicked her tongue.
Gotcha.
Pressing herself flat against the wall, she waited until the boy picked up a box from in front of the man’s door— And then stepped forward.
“Hey. Hands where I can see them.”
Startled by her voice, the boy froze with the box still in his hands.
