Chapter 1: The Man Who Forgot Her

As she drew closer to the club, the music grew louder. A trendy pop song boomed through the air at a rapid tempo, but the club district in broad daylight was deserted.

Bull’s Bullet Club had been one of the flower shop’s longtime clients. As a lucrative customer that regularly ordered expensive flowers for its VIP rooms, they placed generous orders, and Yi-jae delivered fresh flowers there once a week.

After checking one last time to make sure her lipstick hadn’t smudged, Yi-jae squared her shoulders and pushed open the club’s doors.

The music pounded loudly enough to vibrate through her body. For a moment, she missed the noise-canceling headphones she’d left back at the flower shop.

“Yi-jae, you’re only getting here now? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Manager Kim, who had been sitting at the front desk swinging his legs and snacking on dried pollack strips, greeted her brightly. He’d apparently returned from a business trip to China, and somehow he’d come back looking even greasier than before.

In a strange way, he also looked oddly tacky.

Yi-jae quickly discovered the reason for the unsettling impression. A gold bracelet jingled on the wrist he waved at her. He’d added several thick gold rings to his fingers, too.

Despite it being winter, he’d unbuttoned his shirt all the way down to his navel, proudly displaying an even thicker gold chain around his neck. The intention was obvious. He wanted everyone to know he’d made a lot of money on this trip.

“Hello. I’ve brought the flowers.”

Yi-jae bowed deeply and pretended not to notice any of the gold accessories. If she acted overly friendly in an attempt to socialize, there was a good chance a gold ring would end up stuffed into her pocket.

Then she’d get dragged into a private room and forced to listen to some nonsense about how there was something he wanted to show only her. It was better to play dumb.

Even after delivering flowers to the club for five years, Yi-jae still carried pepper spray. She never forgot that the owner of Bull’s Bullet Club was a gangster.

“Madam Yoon is in her office, right?”

“Mmm. You probably shouldn’t go in there right now.”

Manager Kim grinned knowingly.

“Then what about the flower vases?”

“How would I know? But it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. How about we go somewhere quiet and have a chat?”

Stepping around the front desk, Manager Kim approached her, his gold jewelry clinking as he reached for the flower basket. Yi-jae dodged the lecherous hand and hurried up the staircase behind the front desk.

Fearing he might grab her, she climbed the spiral stairs as quickly as she could.

“Wow, not giving me an opening at all. Well, I warned you, okay? Be careful!”

As usual, Manager Kim was trying to scare her for no reason. There probably wasn’t anything serious going on.

Even before, whenever he’d tried to keep her downstairs at the front desk by claiming Madam Yoon was in a bad mood, the reasons had always turned out to be trivial. Someone had spilled kimchi stew on Madam’s clothes during lunch.

Someone had stolen and smoked Madam’s cigarettes. Someone had skipped work without notice. Things like that.

There had never been a time when Yi-jae truly needed to be afraid.

And besides, she’d come here to work. She had to earn her pay. The reason the club paid her so well wasn’t just because she delivered beautiful, fresh flowers, but because she also arranged them in the vases herself before leaving.

Even though four or five vases were broken every week, the club continued ordering both flowers and replacement vases.
In their own way, it was an investment.

The flowers always ended up ruined after some drunk VIP threw them anyway, but perhaps it mattered that the flowers looked beautiful when the VIPs first entered the room to spend money extravagantly.

Hoisting the heavy flower basket higher in her arms, she emerged from the spiral staircase and arrived at Madam’s office. She spotted the flower vases among the packages piled outside the door and checked the quantity.

“Why are you only treating me like this?!”

At that moment, a woman’s sharp voice rang out from inside Madam’s office. The door flew open, and a woman wearing a pink nightgown rushed down the stairs Yi-jae had just climbed. The thin fabric fluttered behind her gaunt back.

Just as Yi-jae had expected from the cold irritation radiating from the woman’s emaciated frame, a shrill scream and the sound of breaking glass echoed from the floor below a moment later. The woman who had stormed out of the office was taking out her anger on someone else.

In contrast, not a sound came from inside the office. No clattering objects. No rough breathing trying to calm down. Sometimes silence was more frightening than noise. This was one of those times.

The office door stood half open, and Yi-jae cautiously poked her head inside. Careful not to provoke Madam’s bad mood, she chose her words carefully.

“Madam, I’ve come with the flower delivery, and I was going to arrange the flowers in the vases delivered outside your office, so-”

Yi-jae forgot the rest of her sentence.

There was someone lying on top of the six-person conference table. The table was certainly large enough for a grown man to lie on comfortably, but this was an office. A person lying on the table was strange.

She immediately pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The man wore a dark navy robe on top and black pants below. On his bare feet, which nearly touched the floor, hung a pair of thin loafers, barely staying on.

The robe had fallen open, exposing his broad naked chest. And above the waistband of his slightly lowered pants, his c*ck was visible. It hung heavily between his legs. Even una*oused, it was as thick as a beer bottle.

Yi-jae froze, unable to process the blunt visual shock she’d suddenly encountered. It was far too exposed and provocative a sight to casually witness in an office where anyone could walk in. And besides, the man was someone she knew.

Chae Ju-han.

She had heard that he had returned after five years. She had also heard rumors that the entire club had been thrown into an uproar because of it.

Those who were seeing him again after a long time, and those meeting him for the first time, all wondered what changes Chae Ju-han would bring.

Yi-jae, too, had imagined countless times what circumstances would surround their reunion, and what he would look like when they met again. When she heard he had returned, she’d even allowed herself to hope that they might cross paths.

But this…

She had imagined a mundane, anticlimactic reunion. She had never once imagined that the first thing she’d see would be what lay below his waist. If her past self could hear about this moment, she would have accused someone of taking the joke too far.

And yet, thinking about it, it had always been this way. This man had always surprised Go Yi-jae. When he’d saved her. When he’d abandoned her. And when he’d completely…

The heavy eyelids that had been closed slowly lifted, and sleepy eyes turned to look at Yi-jae. The eyes that had once always gazed directly at her were looking at her again.

Their eyes met.

The deep black eyes, luminous and clear, took her in once more. The eyes that had seemed colorless and indifferent sharpened slightly. He was focusing on her.

Her heart stirred on its own. It had been five years since she’d last stood beneath his gaze.

“Are you new here?”

“…”

“I don’t recognize your face.”

Chae Ju-han didn’t know Go Yi-jae.

Still.

Five years ago, after the accident, the Chae Ju-han she’d met hadn’t recognized her even from a distance close enough to count his eyelashes.
He had looked at her with the indifference and mild disinterest one reserved for a stranger.

‘Hey, how am I supposed to know you? I’ve never seen you before.’

Chae Ju-han had erased Go Yi-jae from his memory. And now, five years later, he still couldn’t remember her. It hurt, but there was no reason to be newly wounded by it. Nothing had changed. Not then. Not now.

Still, the red lipstick she’d reapplied before leaving the flower shop suddenly felt ridiculous. She wanted to scrub it off her lips as ruthlessly as trimming away an overgrown stem. The thing smeared all over her mouth was nothing more than lingering attachment to a vanished past.

“…I guess she’s not here. I came to see Madam.”

“Mmm. You came to see Madam Yoon?”

Ju-han didn’t even bother to cover himself before lazily leaning against the table. The gesture looked like someone unable to fight off the pull of sleep, but somehow, it was unbearably sensual. Like a devil tempting a devout believer with nothing but his body.

It was a side of Chae Ju-han she’d never seen before.

No.

It felt like a side of him she was never supposed to see.

“As you can see, it’s just me here right now.”

The man moved slowly before stepping down from the table. His movements were remarkably light, while only the heavy weight hanging between his legs swung with a solid, undeniable heft.

Her gaze followed automatically.

The heavy swing of his c*ck.

The guilt of seeing something she shouldn’t have seen clung to the back of her neck. No matter how completely Chae Ju-han had forgotten her, Yi-jae remembered perfectly. She remembered that he’d always wanted to show her only the good parts of himself.

She forced herself to look away and turn her head. Ju-han let out a quiet chuckle.

“Am I really that much your type?”

“…What?”

“You’ve been moving your eyes over my body pretty obscenely.”

Something about her must have amused him. With half-lidded eyes, he slowly looked her up and down. She was fully dressed, yet his gaze alone made her tense. Tense enough to hide the stretched cuffs of her sleeves behind her back.

It was absurd. He stood there exposing himself without the slightest concern, while she worried about something as trivial as worn sleeves. She was the only one conscious of the other person here. Like an idiot.

“Could you… um… put some clothes on properly?”

“Like this?”

Flapping the robe open as he stepped right up to her, the man pulled up his pants. But beneath his sharply defined abdominal muscles, his hip bones remained provocatively exposed, and thick veins stood out beneath the fabric barely covering him.

His muscular, half-naked body was far too e*otic.

The Chae Ju-han Yi-jae knew, the Chae Ju-han who had known Yi-jae, had never once appeared half-dressed in front of her. He had always met her with neat clothes, proper manners, and gentle speech.

If the man standing here had been that Chae Ju-han, he would have covered Yi-jae’s eyes the moment he woke up.

After all, Chae Ju-han had once panicked in embarrassment over a single pair of briefs that had accidentally ended up in the laundry basket.

He would have hurriedly fixed his clothes and sent her out. Then he would have furiously scolded the subordinates who had allowed her to come up here. Afterward, he would have awkwardly joked with her.

And then he would have asked if she was hungry and taken her out to buy her something delicious.

But none of the things Yi-jae imagined happened.

Because the Chae Ju-han standing before her was not the man she knew.

And to that Chae Ju-han, Go Yi-jae was a complete stranger.

No.

She was less than that.

Chae Ju-han showed her his naked body and felt absolutely nothing. Just as he wouldn’t react to seeing his own reflection naked in a wall mirror.

It hurt.

Because Go Yi-jae wasn’t some insignificant decoration hanging on a wall.

Once, she had been the person Chae Ju-han cared about most.

Riding the breeze stirred up as he brushed past her came the strong scent of a man. It was a smell she knew all too well.

And because she knew it so well, she found her courage.

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