Chapter 31
When I opened my eyes, the first thought that crossed my mind was that heaven was more luxurious than I had imagined.
I blinked slowly, taking in the high ceiling that seemed to reach three stories. Without moving a finger, I scanned the surroundings, which looked as lavish as a penthouse.
The dawn moonlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the left wall. The spacious area, dimly lit by yellow lamps, felt dark and serene.
This couldn’t be a hospital. The thought of me being dead became even clearer.
With every breath, it felt like a sharp pain in the depths of my chest, but it was probably just my mood.
With a foggy mind, I thought that way and closed my eyes.
“It’s fortunate that you’ve regained consciousness. We should continue to monitor your condition for now.”
The voice pulled me back from my closed eyes.
“Does that mean I can be transferred to the island now?”
“If you’re careful, I think it should be fine, Mr. Chairman.”
As if the fog had magically lifted, everything became clear in an instant.
Mr. Chairman?
That word pierced my mind like a thorn.
“Don’t let her disappear from my side.”
He whispered such a whimsical wish.
—
When I reflexively sat up, immense pain engulfed me.
I lay back down, groaning, as if about to faint again.
The illusion of stars circling in front of my eyes was enough pain to wake me up to reality.
I must not be dead after all.
When I struggled to lift my head, I saw doctors and Baek Ha-won from angles I hadn’t seen before.
All eyes, more than five, were fixed on me.
I awkwardly smiled once and rested my head back on the pillow.
“I woke up for no reason.”
I never thought I would survive.
It felt strange. Closer to anxiety than joy.
Eventually, a nurse approached and injected a sedative into the IV drip. I asked for the bed to be raised due to the discomfort in my vision and closed my eyes.
Even after the bed stopped moving, I kept my eyes closed and thought.
“If only you had lied to the end.”
“If you had, you would have continued to deceive me.”
Just the memory of those eyes made me feel like I was going crazy, so I chewed on my dry lips.
Regret. Anxiety. Guilt. Fear.
Those emotions intertwined and grew uncontrollably.
I couldn’t figure out where it went wrong. But one thing was clear now—nothing could be undone.
I felt heavy and painful, like being entangled in thorns all over my body.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized that no one else was left in this vast space.
Except Baek Ha-won.
He sat down on the sofa to the left of the bed, his face partially covered in shadows cast by the moonlight. In his eyes, which looked deeper and more dangerous today, I saw myself reflected.
“Me.”
I parted my lips, which felt as if they had been chewed to whiteness.
“I’m not dead?”
My voice lacked strength. It was a fragile voice that suited someone who had just been brought back from death.
In that moment, it felt as if a black flame flickered between the lashes that hung like an abyss.
“Why?”
“…”
“Do you want to die?”
The suffocating gaze seemed to devour me as it fell away.
“So you snatched the gun and threw it away?”
A twisted sarcasm crept into his voice as he spoke, each word bitten off.
He was angry with me.
Confronting his face from that day brought out my most honest feelings as well.
“Where’s the person who wants to die? I wanted to live.”
“What?”
“In the end, this is how I survived.”
I survived.
Despite struggling so hard to stay alive, I was still anxious as if chased by fate.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t properly thought about what to do after surviving. At most, I had expected to watch the love between Baek Ha-won and Yugyeom unfold. But I never thought things would turn out like this.
Unknowingly, I began to nibble on my nails out of anxiety.
Raising my gaze again, I met the eyes of Baek Ha-won.
He leaned halfway towards me.
His warm hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him. The missing fingertips already looked a mess.
“If it had shifted a little, it would’ve hit your heart. You would’ve died instantly.”
A low rumble reached me as if growling.
As he gripped my wrist tighter, I winced from the pain. As the pressure increased on my fingers, the pain overwhelmed me once again.
It seemed like he wanted to say something more, as he hesitated with his lips parted, but eventually he let go and turned away.
I wrapped my wrist, feeling the lingering heat.
His hands were always uncomfortably warm.
Brushing his hair nervously, Baek Ha-won sat back on the sofa and picked up the thick, densely written book that had been lying on the side table.
His face calmed down so quickly it was as if a switch had been flipped, surprising me.
After blinking a few times, I finally managed to speak in a dumbfounded voice.
“…Aren’t you leaving?”
At my question, Baek Ha-won’s gaze lifted to meet mine.
His eyes, reminiscent of the dawn outside the window, stared at me indifferently.
“That question, I feel like I’ve heard it before.”
He lazily closed his eyes.
The self-deprecating smile drawn on his pale face faded away like black ink.
“I’m not leaving.”
—
I opened my eyes and blinked several times. The ceiling was excessively high, and there was a nauseating smell of disinfectant.
I don’t remember falling asleep. When did I fall asleep?
I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep. It was partly because of the excruciating pain piercing through my chest every time I swallowed and exhaled, but more than anything else…
“I’m not leaving.”
Because of his absurd fickleness.
Unable to say or do anything else, I could only swallow a bitter laugh.
The pages of the book turned at a steady pace.
Unable to do anything, I stared blankly at the dimly flickering moonlight on the ceiling until I fell asleep.
In an absent-minded attempt to roll over, I almost screamed as I was reminded of the forgotten pain.
“….!”
My tongue was bitten as I tried to stifle the scream upon seeing the face in front of me. In an instant, the taste of coppery blood filled my mouth.
I clutched my throbbing heart.
“Why are you here…!”
Baek Ha-won was sitting on the chair next to the bed, with his head resting on the bed, fast asleep.
The shadow of his lowered eyelashes stretched long over his dark eye sockets.
It was surreal to see him, who always looked down on me with an authoritarian gaze, sleeping like this.
So, as if to confirm whether this was really reality, I brushed his disheveled black hair with my fingertips.
Contrary to my expectation that each strand of hair would feel cold, the sensation on my fingertips was soft.
At that moment, Baek Ha-won groaned and tossed and turned.
“….!”
Before I could pull my hand away in surprise, he firmly grasped it.
His hand, holding mine, trembled ever so slightly.
I froze in place.
In a genre like this, it’s almost inevitable for the protagonist to have some sentimental backstory, but I had no such memories about Baek Ha-won.
“….”
So, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Seeing someone who seemed like they’d bleed out if pricked with a needle like this made me feel strange.
The strong smell of hospital disinfectant permeated the blankets.
The spot where the bullet had been lodged and then expelled.
Everything around me felt like a dream.
“….Does the boss have nightmares too?”
The veins on the hand that gripped mine were distinctly visible, yet it didn’t hurt.
I couldn’t bring myself to pull away from the familiar desperation oozing from his trembling hand, tightly clenched in mine.
As I brushed the sweat-drenched hair from his forehead with my free hand, his furrowed brow smoothed out.
In the moment his eyes widened at the change, his grip on my hand tightened suddenly. I was pulled forward by the force of his grip.
In the dim light from a distance, his eyes, ashen in color, blinked.
His gaze tangled in the darkness.
“Why…?”
A low, hoarse voice escaped through dry lips.
“Why do you keep appearing in my dreams?”
As his words pierced through my chest like a sharp dagger, I found myself holding my breath involuntarily.
The strength drained from the hand that held mine, slipping away smoothly.
When I regained my senses, the tangled memories faded away like a dream, and his eyes were quietly shut.
“What am I to you?”
In my dreams, what am I to you, to have that expression on your face?
The unanswered question dispersed faintly through the dim light of dawn.
—
Two months later
With the thunderous roar, a lightning bolt illuminated Ha-won’s office, which had been shrouded in darkness.
His indifferent hand, flipping through documents under the light of a single lamp, came to a halt. Ha-won lifted the pen and hastily scrawled his signature on the dotted line.
Ji-woon, standing beside him, handed him a folder.
“Utopia has reached out several times. They want to apologize for the previous incident.”
Ha-won let out a cold chuckle.
“Only now they come crawling when their throat is being squeezed.”
It had been six months since the incident where materials destined from Baekcheon to Hong Kong, under the guise of a yacht party, were intercepted by Yugyeom.
Since then, Baekcheon had been pressuring Utopia to make amends.
Contracts were terminated, routes blocked, and lower-level organizations disappeared without a trace. Such incidents kept coming, unstoppable. It was infuriating.
“What should we do?”
“Ignore them. I’m curious if they’re willing to cut off even a finger in apology.”
“He’s requested to meet the boss in person.”
The fountain pen in Ha-won’s hand, which had been scribbling something on the documents, paused.
A dry laughter escaped through his lips.
Chapter 31
When I opened my eyes, the first thought that crossed my mind was that heaven was more luxurious than I had imagined.
I blinked slowly, taking in the high ceiling that seemed to reach three stories. Without moving a finger, I scanned the surroundings, which looked as lavish as a penthouse.
The dawn moonlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the left wall. The spacious area, dimly lit by yellow lamps, felt dark and serene.
This couldn’t be a hospital. The thought of me being dead became even clearer.
With every breath, it felt like a sharp pain in the depths of my chest, but it was probably just my mood.
With a foggy mind, I thought that way and closed my eyes.
“It’s fortunate that you’ve regained consciousness. We should continue to monitor your condition for now.”
The voice pulled me back from my closed eyes.
“Does that mean I can be transferred to the island now?”
“If you’re careful, I think it should be fine, Mr. Chairman.”
As if the fog had magically lifted, everything became clear in an instant.
Mr. Chairman?
That word pierced my mind like a thorn.
“Don’t let her disappear from my side.”
He whispered such a whimsical wish.
—
When I reflexively sat up, immense pain engulfed me.
I lay back down, groaning, as if about to faint again.
The illusion of stars circling in front of my eyes was enough pain to wake me up to reality.
I must not be dead after all.
When I struggled to lift my head, I saw doctors and Baek Ha-won from angles I hadn’t seen before.
All eyes, more than five, were fixed on me.
I awkwardly smiled once and rested my head back on the pillow.
“I woke up for no reason.”
I never thought I would survive.
It felt strange. Closer to anxiety than joy.
Eventually, a nurse approached and injected a sedative into the IV drip. I asked for the bed to be raised due to the discomfort in my vision and closed my eyes.
Even after the bed stopped moving, I kept my eyes closed and thought.
“If only you had lied to the end.”
“If you had, you would have continued to deceive me.”
Just the memory of those eyes made me feel like I was going crazy, so I chewed on my dry lips.
Regret. Anxiety. Guilt. Fear.
Those emotions intertwined and grew uncontrollably.
I couldn’t figure out where it went wrong. But one thing was clear now—nothing could be undone.
I felt heavy and painful, like being entangled in thorns all over my body.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized that no one else was left in this vast space.
Except Baek Ha-won.
He sat down on the sofa to the left of the bed, his face partially covered in shadows cast by the moonlight. In his eyes, which looked deeper and more dangerous today, I saw myself reflected.
“Me.”
I parted my lips, which felt as if they had been chewed to whiteness.
“I’m not dead?”
My voice lacked strength. It was a fragile voice that suited someone who had just been brought back from death.
In that moment, it felt as if a black flame flickered between the lashes that hung like an abyss.
“Why?”
“…”
“Do you want to die?”
The suffocating gaze seemed to devour me as it fell away.
“So you snatched the gun and threw it away?”
A twisted sarcasm crept into his voice as he spoke, each word bitten off.
He was angry with me.
Confronting his face from that day brought out my most honest feelings as well.
“Where’s the person who wants to die? I wanted to live.”
“What?”
“In the end, this is how I survived.”
I survived.
Despite struggling so hard to stay alive, I was still anxious as if chased by fate.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t properly thought about what to do after surviving. At most, I had expected to watch the love between Baek Ha-won and Yugyeom unfold. But I never thought things would turn out like this.
Unknowingly, I began to nibble on my nails out of anxiety.
Raising my gaze again, I met the eyes of Baek Ha-won.
He leaned halfway towards me.
His warm hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him. The missing fingertips already looked a mess.
“If it had shifted a little, it would’ve hit your heart. You would’ve died instantly.”
A low rumble reached me as if growling.
As he gripped my wrist tighter, I winced from the pain. As the pressure increased on my fingers, the pain overwhelmed me once again.
It seemed like he wanted to say something more, as he hesitated with his lips parted, but eventually he let go and turned away.
I wrapped my wrist, feeling the lingering heat.
His hands were always uncomfortably warm.
Brushing his hair nervously, Baek Ha-won sat back on the sofa and picked up the thick, densely written book that had been lying on the side table.
His face calmed down so quickly it was as if a switch had been flipped, surprising me.
After blinking a few times, I finally managed to speak in a dumbfounded voice.
“…Aren’t you leaving?”
At my question, Baek Ha-won’s gaze lifted to meet mine.
His eyes, reminiscent of the dawn outside the window, stared at me indifferently.
“That question, I feel like I’ve heard it before.”
He lazily closed his eyes.
The self-deprecating smile drawn on his pale face faded away like black ink.
“I’m not leaving.”
—
I opened my eyes and blinked several times. The ceiling was excessively high, and there was a nauseating smell of disinfectant.
I don’t remember falling asleep. When did I fall asleep?
I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep. It was partly because of the excruciating pain piercing through my chest every time I swallowed and exhaled, but more than anything else…
“I’m not leaving.”
Because of his absurd fickleness.
Unable to say or do anything else, I could only swallow a bitter laugh.
The pages of the book turned at a steady pace.
Unable to do anything, I stared blankly at the dimly flickering moonlight on the ceiling until I fell asleep.
In an absent-minded attempt to roll over, I almost screamed as I was reminded of the forgotten pain.
“….!”
My tongue was bitten as I tried to stifle the scream upon seeing the face in front of me. In an instant, the taste of coppery blood filled my mouth.
I clutched my throbbing heart.
“Why are you here…!”
Baek Ha-won was sitting on the chair next to the bed, with his head resting on the bed, fast asleep.
The shadow of his lowered eyelashes stretched long over his dark eye sockets.
It was surreal to see him, who always looked down on me with an authoritarian gaze, sleeping like this.
So, as if to confirm whether this was really reality, I brushed his disheveled black hair with my fingertips.
Contrary to my expectation that each strand of hair would feel cold, the sensation on my fingertips was soft.
At that moment, Baek Ha-won groaned and tossed and turned.
“….!”
Before I could pull my hand away in surprise, he firmly grasped it.
His hand, holding mine, trembled ever so slightly.
I froze in place.
In a genre like this, it’s almost inevitable for the protagonist to have some sentimental backstory, but I had no such memories about Baek Ha-won.
“….”
So, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Seeing someone who seemed like they’d bleed out if pricked with a needle like this made me feel strange.
The strong smell of hospital disinfectant permeated the blankets.
The spot where the bullet had been lodged and then expelled.
Everything around me felt like a dream.
“….Does the boss have nightmares too?”
The veins on the hand that gripped mine were distinctly visible, yet it didn’t hurt.
I couldn’t bring myself to pull away from the familiar desperation oozing from his trembling hand, tightly clenched in mine.
As I brushed the sweat-drenched hair from his forehead with my free hand, his furrowed brow smoothed out.
In the moment his eyes widened at the change, his grip on my hand tightened suddenly. I was pulled forward by the force of his grip.
In the dim light from a distance, his eyes, ashen in color, blinked.
His gaze tangled in the darkness.
“Why…?”
A low, hoarse voice escaped through dry lips.
“Why do you keep appearing in my dreams?”
As his words pierced through my chest like a sharp dagger, I found myself holding my breath involuntarily.
The strength drained from the hand that held mine, slipping away smoothly.
When I regained my senses, the tangled memories faded away like a dream, and his eyes were quietly shut.
“What am I to you?”
In my dreams, what am I to you, to have that expression on your face?
The unanswered question dispersed faintly through the dim light of dawn.
—
Two months later
With the thunderous roar, a lightning bolt illuminated Ha-won’s office, which had been shrouded in darkness.
His indifferent hand, flipping through documents under the light of a single lamp, came to a halt. Ha-won lifted the pen and hastily scrawled his signature on the dotted line.
Ji-woon, standing beside him, handed him a folder.
“Utopia has reached out several times. They want to apologize for the previous incident.”
Ha-won let out a cold chuckle.
“Only now they come crawling when their throat is being squeezed.”
It had been six months since the incident where materials destined from Baekcheon to Hong Kong, under the guise of a yacht party, were intercepted by Yugyeom.
Since then, Baekcheon had been pressuring Utopia to make amends.
Contracts were terminated, routes blocked, and lower-level organizations disappeared without a trace. Such incidents kept coming, unstoppable. It was infuriating.
“What should we do?”
“Ignore them. I’m curious if they’re willing to cut off even a finger in apology.”
“He’s requested to meet the boss in person.”
The fountain pen in Ha-won’s hand, which had been scribbling something on the documents, paused.
A dry laughter escaped through his lips.
