Chapter 24
“Why is it that you sleep so well at someone else’s house, but you can’t sleep in the chairman’s office?”
Seonghan asked casually, as if it were nothing, while looking at the stiffened Sea.
Sea’s face twisted even more at the question. Seeing that, a faint smile appeared on Seonghan’s lips.
“You don’t have to worry so much about that day. It seems like you have a habit of falling asleep when you drink. You said one sentence and immediately passed out. Even after coming to my house, you just kept sleeping.”
“Ah… that day.”
— You’re really not curious at all? About what happened yesterday?
Sea recalled the day she had slept at Seonghan’s house and even left wearing clothes he had given her.
The day when the dried pollack soup had tasted unbelievably good.
And the warm atmosphere that had filled Seonghan’s home.
Even the reproachful question he asked her the next day.
“Then why did you ask me something like that?”
“Because teasing Han Sea is fun.”
Seonghan laughed playfully before closing his mouth again.
Sea couldn’t understand why he kept acting like this. She avoided his eyes.
Then Seonghan’s low voice reached her ears.
“Get some sleep. Or at least rest beside me.”
“No, this is my work.”
“Technically it’s Manager Park’s work. Do you know what Manager Park is doing right now?”
While continuing to type, Seonghan spoke as if it were nothing.
“Right now, that colleague of yours—Manager Park—is drinking with Manager Kim, Manager Lee, and a few others.”
“What? He told me it was his daughter’s birthday.”
Sea’s brows furrowed automatically.
“You don’t know what kind of person Manager Park is? He can’t say unpleasant things to people directly, but he lies and gossips as easily as breathing. Don’t trust someone like that. He’s dark inside.”
“I… didn’t know.”
Hearing those words, Sea felt a dull ache at the back of her head from the sense of betrayal.
She had genuinely liked him. She had thought he was different from the other department heads, including Manager Kim from the Environmental Cleanup Department.
“Don’t trust people too easily. Though I suppose I’m not really in a position to say that.”
Seonghan glanced back at her with a subtle look.
“Coming from someone like me.”
Sea flinched slightly. Seonghan gestured toward the sofa again.
“Rest. Or lie down.”
“N-no, it’s fine.”
“Then read a book or something.”
His eyes pointed toward the bookshelf.
“No, I’m fine.”
“So you’re just going to sit there feeling awkward? Or are you trying to get closer to me?”
Seonghan joked again.
At that, Sea had no choice but to stand up.
Why does he keep making jokes like that? I’m already confused enough… why make me even more confused?
Just sitting next to him made her head spin from the faint scent surrounding him.
It wasn’t perfume but aftershave—each time the cool woody fragrance reached her nose, her heart pounded uncontrollably.
“Then… I’ll do some studying.”
Sea pulled a book titled The Duties of a Teacher from Seonghan’s bookshelf.
“I only put that there for appearances. I haven’t even read it myself. There are more interesting books over there.”
Where Seonghan pointed were shelves filled with various novels.
“Still, I’ll read this one.”
“It’ll be boring.”
Despite his warning, Sea placed the book on her lap.
Seonghan watched her reading for a moment before focusing on typing again.
In the silence, only the tapping of the keyboard echoed.
“Done.”
After finishing his work, Seonghan checked the time.
Twenty-five minutes had passed.
He lightly massaged his tired eyes and turned his gaze toward Sea, who had been completely silent.
As expected.
Sea had fallen asleep with her head resting on the sofa.
“I told you that book was boring.”
Seonghan picked up the book that had fallen onto the floor and placed it back on the shelf.
Then he crouched down in front of Sea.
“Han Sea.”
His eyes fixed on her.
The year of his senior year in high school had been the most dazzling and radiant time of his life.
It was when he fell in love for the first time, when he cherished someone with all his heart.
A girl who was bold yet deeply wounded.
A girl who was intelligent but endlessly foolish when it came to herself.
Loving that girl never felt like enough, no matter how many days passed.
If Han Sea had appeared now instead of back then…
If this moment were the first time our lives had crossed…
Would things between us have been different?
His mother died.
That day, Seonghan had come home late after studying in the reading room as usual.
It had been an ordinary day.
But the atmosphere at home was chaotic.
By the time he arrived at the hospital, his mother was already gone.
— That’s impossible. There’s no way my mother would suddenly make that kind of choice!
They said it was suicide caused by depression.
But no matter how much Seonghan thought about it, it made no sense.
Even after the funeral, he didn’t return to school. Instead, he visited people who had been close to his mother, gathering proof that it hadn’t been suicide.
— How dare you go around doing such things!
Before long, Seonghan’s father, Jeonghyeon, discovered everything and confronted him when he returned home.
— Mother would never die like that!
Seonghan shouted.
— Just the day before, she was talking to me about university. How could she suddenly—
— That’s how suicide is. You don’t understand what depression is like. That disease that clung to that woman like a vengeful ghost!
His father, Shin Jeonghyeon, seemed far more interested in the secretary he was having an affair with than in his own wife.
— Mother didn’t have depression!
— Who are you to say that she didn’t? Doctor Han said so!
— Doctor Han is on that woman’s side!
At Seonghan’s words, Jeonghyeon’s eyes widened.
Then his large, thick hand struck Seonghan across the face.
— How dare you say that about the woman who will become your mother!
The woman who will become your mother.
Jeonghyeon was referring to the secretary he had committed adultery with.
— You’re not even human. I’ll tell Grandfather everything—how you treated Mother and the real reason she died!
Seonghan had not thought about the consequences of those words.
The next day, when he woke up, he realized he wasn’t in his room.
He was in a white room.
When he tried to open the door, it was locked.
Panicked, he pounded on the door. It opened, and men and women in white coats entered.
They restrained him and forcibly injected a needle into his arm.
It was a psychiatric hospital.
While Seonghan was locked there, Jeonghyeon married his secretary and mistress, Wonkyeong.
He also brought Seonghan’s younger half-brother, Seongwoo, openly into the household.
To his father—the Chairman Shin—he lied that Seonghan had gone abroad to study.
Seonghan refused to surrender.
But after being confined in the psychiatric hospital for a year and continuously injected with drugs, fear crept in that he might die there.
The injections made his mind foggy and his memories dull.
Even if he didn’t die, he felt he might never return to who he used to be.
— Once you leave here, go study abroad immediately. And never tell the Chairman you were here.
When Seonghan’s mental state had reached its limit, Jeonghyeon released him and said those words.
— What about my friends?
— What friends do you have? You’re the heir of the Jeongwoon Group. You need to toughen your heart. Don’t waste your feelings on the dead.
At that moment, Seonghan realized something.
No matter how hard he struggled, at the age of a teenager he could never uncover the truth behind his mother’s death.
For now, he had to bow his head.
His grandfather—Chairman Shin—had already chosen him as the heir.
When I become an adult, I’ll tell him everything. I’ll make him stand on my side.
And I’ll wait for the right opportunity.
The truth always comes out eventually.
For now… I have no choice but to do as he says.
Seonghan could not contact Sea.
If he defied Jeonghyeon’s will now, he might be locked in the psychiatric hospital again.
And next time, he might never leave.
Until he could reveal the truth behind his mother’s death, he had to endure.
“I’m sorry, Han Sea.”
Seonghan confessed quietly to the grown-up Sea.
That wasn’t my true intention.
You must think I betrayed you.
Now that you’ve learned I’m from a chaebol family… you probably think that even more.
He couldn’t tell her about his mother’s death yet.
The truth hadn’t been fully revealed.
“Wait.”
Until the day I can confess everything.
Thinking that, he gazed at Sea silently.
Just then, her eyes opened.
For a moment, the two of them simply looked at each other.
“Ah—”
Sea wiped the drool from her mouth and quickly sat up.
Because Seonghan had been leaning close to her face, her forehead bumped against the side of his head.
Thud.
The solid sound made Seonghan pull back, while Sea clutched her forehead.
“Are you okay?”
Seonghan chuckled and gently pressed his palm against her forehead.
“No, I’m fine. Ah—where am I—ow…”
Sea looked at him with a confused expression, both startled and in pain.
“I finished your work. All you have to do now is go home. But you’ve got a bump.”
Seonghan lightly rubbed her forehead.
“That’s enough.”
Sea turned her head away to avoid his hand.
Seonghan laughed softly and withdrew his hand.
The two of them looked at each other again.
They were far too close.
And the moment felt far too intimate.
Just like that day—
the day thunder had roared through the sky.
