Chapter 5: The Living Witness

Looking out over the well-manicured garden with an atmosphere that made her difficult to approach was Song Yoosun—the director of Gayun Foundation, the chairperson of Gayun Hospital, and the wife of Gayun Group Chairman Yoon Junghwan.

“Director.”

The man who had knocked and entered bowed quietly.

Yoosun, who stood at the floor-to-ceiling window with her arms crossed, waited for the next words without turning around.

“We found the… younger madam. Jin Seohee.”

Click. The sound of Yoosun setting down her coffee cup as she turned was louder than usual. The secretary standing in front of her flinched and bowed his head even lower.

“So, you’re saying she really… is alive.”

That Jin Seohee.

Yoosun’s eyes turned cold in an instant.

Who would have guessed that Jin Seohee, who had been so obedient and submissive all this time, was preparing to stab her in the back? She had thought the girl would tremble in fear for her husband’s safety, but to think she was actually capable of such cunning blackmail.

Recalling her last conversation with Jin Seohee, Yoosun tightly tucked her stray hairs behind her ears.

It was bothersome enough that someone who should have been found as a corpse had returned alive, but it was even more galling that Leehyun had found her first, when they hadn’t been able to find a single trace despite all their efforts.

Yoosun slowly traced her red lips with her index finger before leaning forward and pressing her hands onto the desk.

“I apologize.”

Secretary Park bowed respectfully.

“Apologize?”

Yoosun smoothed the desk with her manicured fingernails.

“An apology for something you’ve already done, and just empty words at that. Does that hold any meaning?”

“Director.”

“Don’t you think so, Secretary Park?”

Yoosun toyed with a golf ball sitting on the desk, as if she were about to throw it at any moment. Secretary Park knelt down and spoke urgently.

“She was at a general hospital in the Ganghae area. We don’t know how she hid her identity, but…”

Don’t know. Heh. Yoosun grabbed the golf ball and let out a chilling laugh.

Secretary Park clenched his fists tight. The whereabouts of the person they couldn’t find for an entire month had suddenly been revealed.

How on earth did she hide her identity?

It seemed fishy, as if someone had intended for it to be found, but Secretary Park couldn’t stop speaking here. If he did, the golf ball in Yoosun’s hand would at least graze him or strike him somewhere on his shoulder.

“They say they are transferring her to Hanseo.”

Thinking of his own father, who was barely hanging on with life-support equipment at Gayun Hospital, Secretary Park bowed his head flat against the floor.

“Are you certain?”

“I am certain.”

As Secretary Park nodded with a tone full of conviction, Yoosun set the golf ball down and straightened her posture.

“Is there any place other than Gayun Hospital where Leehyun would hide Jin Seohee?”

Would he dare bring her to Gayun Hospital, where I am the chairperson? Yoosun roughly tucked her slightly fallen hair behind her ear.

“Hanseo is… it’s a place with so many connections to CEO Yoon that—”

Yoosun cut him off.

“Secretary Park. That’s not what I’m asking.”

Block her from being admitted to any hospital. If you can’t block her, at least find out which room and which floor she is being admitted to. Her gaze was filled with a chilling light.

“I will find out by today.”

Listening to Secretary Park’s retreating footsteps, Yoosun turned away. The recording was so peaceful, yet her heart was a living hell.

She had thought they were nearing the finish line. That her son taking the position of Gayun Group Chairman was right around the corner. If only Leehyun hadn’t appeared like a tiger, if only he hadn’t brought back Jin Seohee, who acted noble while pretending to be submissive, there would have been no major complications.

“I underestimated you, Seohee.”

That Jin Seohee—who always said ‘yes, yes’—had siphoned out all the slush fund documents and located the special ward where Leehyun’s biological mother was kept; none of it had been expected.

When we ran into each other at the ward, I should have killed her then. Yoosun tightly tucked her side hair back. Then, she scratched the floor-to-ceiling window with her fingernails.

***

The white clouds hung like a painting in the clear blue sky, making it hard to look away. The wide expanse of the sea and the low-lying houses were so peaceful that the speed of the car felt imperceptible.

Leehyun, who had been quietly watching the back of Seohee’s head as she turned to look out the window, gently touched her fingers.

Seohee faced Leehyun with a gaze as clear as the sky outside.

He tilted his head obliquely while still buried in his seat. The bangs that had been half-covering his forehead fell to the side.

His black shirt softly wrapped around his broad shoulders, a couple of buttons undone as if he felt stifled, neatly folded cuffs, and firm forearms with protruding veins.

The cool-looking watch that reminded one of waves and anchors, and the same ring as his wrapped around her long, straight knuckles.

Seohee’s gaze blankly scanned Leehyun. The man who appeared before her, claiming to be the husband of someone desperately in need of a guardian.

Husband. She murmured the same word repeatedly.

He was definitely intimidating. From the moment they first met in the hospital room until she got into the car, she had been wrapped in a distant sensation, as if all the air had vanished.

But why, now, did all of that feel so faint?

It was a strange sensation. He was a person she was seeing for the first time, yet he didn’t feel like a stranger. The things that captured her gaze were all, one by one, familiar.

Dizziness rushed in as if it would swallow her consciousness. As she slowly shook her head and buried herself in the chair, he reacted like a ghost.

“Seohee.”

Leehyun straightened up and pressed his hand to Seohee’s forehead. As she met his pitch-black pupils, she subconsciously reached out her hand before pulling it back.

“Are you not feeling well?”

Leehyun murmured as if to himself.

His voice was quite serious, as if he were about to order the car to stop right away. As his body turned halfway toward her, she reflexively grabbed his wrist.

Leehyun sat there quietly, facing her.

Couldn’t he have just brushed my hand off, saying it was uncomfortable, or gotten angry, asking what the hell I was doing?

But why is this man waiting so obediently until I speak?

A thought like that suddenly occurred to her.

As she met his gaze, his black pupils were filled entirely with her face.

Her heart burned, then cooled, then burned again, repeatedly.

Leehyun still waited patiently, his wrist held in her hand.

Seohee, who had avoided his gaze, spun her ring instead of speaking. After doing it a few times, his solid knuckles gripped her hand.

It was Leehyun. Seohee momentarily stopped moving.

‘We were married. Us.’

It felt completely unreal.

As she turned her head slightly, Leehyun faced her, his face close, as if he had been waiting.

Seohee watched him quietly, then raised her hand to brush his eyes.

The ring he wore, the marriage registration he had held out—none of it felt real, but she couldn’t shake off those eyes.

Whenever she met those pupils, distant as if they would swallow her whole like a black hole, she found stability.

The emotion rippling in his eyes wasn’t the violent, explosive anger or rage. What his cool eyes clearly portrayed was longing.

He wants… me.

The hand she had placed on his face trembled. Leehyun placed his hand on the back of hers as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Her heart surged. Now that warmth was returning to a heart that had been chilled by anxiety, it was hard to handle.

When she heard she was being discharged even though she had nowhere to go, her vision had turned yellow.

She had received the transfer request from the small hospital in Ganghae, and the explanation that there was no way to find out her identity had not even registered in her ears.

When she woke up, the doctor had asked if she knew about her pregnancy, and the hospital had spoken about settling the medical bills with serious faces.

Everything was too much to bear alone, so Seohee had just breathed.

She would have been fine with anyone, not just him. She was desperate and lost enough to have followed anyone who came to find her without a second word.

That was how desperate she had been, and at the same time, how helpless. No matter what, she had desperately needed a guardian.

Back then, she had thought that much was enough, but to think the person who found her was her husband.

And a husband who longed for her this much, at that.

All the sorrow and the emotions she hadn’t been able to express rushed in at once. Breathless, she had no choice but to close her eyes.

“Are you in a lot of pain?”

Only after his heavy voice flew at her did Seohee realize she had slumped against the window.

As she slowly pushed her eyelids up, eyes filled with worry greeted her.

Following a ticklish sensation, she looked down to see his fingers subtly rubbing the hand where she wore her ring.

At that trivial action, her heart thudded. A tension beyond mere ticklishness flowed through her fingertips.

She felt like if she moved her hand just a little, he would firmly entangle his fingers with hers.

“Shall we take a break?”

After thinking about it for a moment, Seohee shook her head. Leehyun’s brow furrowed.

“Alright.”

Nodding, he pushed aside the hair that had fallen onto her forehead and brushed her cheek.

Seohee was lost for words at his extremely natural behavior. Incredibly, her tension dissolved, and her body went limp.

As she watched the clouds hanging outside the car window, drowsiness poured in. Feeling Leehyun cover the back of her hand, she leaned her head against the window.

The vast sea disappeared, and tall buildings entered her view. She thought she saw a signpost for Hanseo Special City.

“Seohee.”

Had she fallen asleep? As she pushed her eyelids up at his low voice, a large hospital came into view. Leehyun looked at Seohee, who was drooping limply, and scooped her up as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

As she lifted her face slightly, Leehyun’s neck line, without a single wrinkle, came into view. Lifting her gaze a little further, she met his pitch-black pupils.

Seohee was startled and buried her face in his shoulder. The arms holding her tight exerted even more force.

Unaware that Leehyun’s Adam’s apple was stiffening more and more as she rustled against him, Seohee buried herself in him as if hiding her expression. When she came to her senses, she was already on a bed.

“You’re tired.”

Leehyun asked in a low voice, looking at the shadows under Seohee’s eyes. Tired. At his question, Seohee couldn’t bring herself to shake her head and say no.

“Excuse me.”

Before she could answer, people in white gowns rushed in with polite voices. They were the medical staff, including the director of Gayun Hospital.

“Director.”

People who were supposed to bow their heads to Yoosun bowed their heads to Leehyun as if it were natural. They even treated Leehyun as the hospital’s director.

To swallow the Gayun Group, Leehyun had reached his hands into Gayun Hospital as well, and once his succession became a fait accompli, the hospital director had no choice but to quietly let go of Yoosun’s hand.

“I am not the director, not yet.”

Leehyun sharply corrected the wrong title.

The medical staff flinched at the warning, a remark meant to tell them to wait for the right time and not to act rashly.