Chapter 56

“Good work, everyone!”

The outdoor shoot, hellish as it was, had finally wrapped. I buried my exhausted body in the seat. The fever had eased off a little, but my whole body still ached.

Ah, right. Ryu Do-gyeong.

If I didn’t text him back, he’d really come chasing after me. I let out a sigh and pressed call. It didn’t even ring once.

“Yeah.”

A low, husky voice. The moment he picked up, he came at me in a rush.

“What’ve you been doing all this time.”

“…The shoot just ended. I didn’t have time to look at my phone…”

“Excuses.”

Rather than picking it apart point by point, Ryu Do-gyeong just tossed that out, dry and biting. What a brat…

“The video. Did you check it?”

“Once, earlier…”

“Watch it properly later. More importantly, you.”

He paused for a beat, then asked in a flat, indifferent tone.

“How’s your body. Fever gone down?”

A voice dry enough to sound like it carried no worry at all. But underneath it, I could just about feel the edge of it.

“…It’s just a mild cold. Such a fuss.”

“Who’s fussing? I’m checking on your condition as your advertiser. If you collapse, it’s our loss.”

The ad’s already in the can, so what loss is he even talking about? He probably sounds confused by his own logic right about now.

“Did you take your medicine?”

“Took it earlier.”

“Eaten?”

“Planning to, once I get home.”

Under Ryu Do-gyeong’s suffocating checklist, I pressed at my throbbing temple. Something occurred to me that I wanted to ask him.

“…By the way.”

“What.”

“Are we… the kind of people who contact each other this often?”

Click. The breathing on the other end of the line stopped.

Whatever happened, I kept going.

“It’s way too personal for a business relationship. And as for the old noona-oppa thing, we spent almost ten years as good as strangers.”

Because it was the truth.

Back then, sure, it was fine for him to fuss over me like this. But isn’t the situation a little different now? To begin with, Ryu Do-gyeong isn’t even in a position where he needs to worry about me.

Anyway.

“I don’t think I’m obligated to report in when I’m sick…”

“…”

A long silence stretched out. It would’ve been better if he’d just gotten angry.

The heavy stillness felt like the biggest show of displeasure Ryu Do-gyeong was capable of. I’d just blurted it out, and now I was starting to feel uneasy. Had I hit a little too close to the mark?

“…Hey.”

“…”

“Can’t you hear me?”

“…Why.”

“Did I maybe hurt your feelings?”

Only then did a scoff of air escape Ryu Do-gyeong’s mouth.

“…Ha.”

A deep sigh, like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

Right, as if Ryu Do-gyeong would ever get his feelings hurt over something like that. I’d underestimated him way too much.

“Forget it.”

He dodged the question, turning the conversation cold.

“Clear your schedule this weekend.”

“Why the weekend?”

“Because I’m coming.”

“Coming where?”

“Jaedamjae.”

A flat notice that he was coming straight to my house. My eyes went round.

Before I could even ask why, Ryu Do-gyeong went on to explain his reason for visiting.

“To get your mouth under control.”

“…Huh?”

Hearing the reason didn’t make it any clearer. Why did my mouth need controlling? Had I let slip some industry secret? Flustered, something stupid tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“Running into me at the memorial hall.”

Ryu Do-gyeong added it on stiffly, like he was off to handle some tedious chore.

“I can’t relax not knowing if you’ll go blabbing it all over the neighborhood. I’ll have to come in person and get a written statement out of you, or something.”

“…”

“So don’t go wandering off somewhere else, just stay home. Juk—no.”

Oops. Ryu Do-gyeong’s words slipped, just for an instant.

“…The documents. I’ll bring the documents.”

Click. The call ended.

I stared blankly down at the darkened phone screen. Keeping my mouth shut? A written statement? He’s really coming all the way to Jaedamjae just for that?

My first love, apparently, had gotten a little strange somewhere along the way.

Saturday morning dawned, but my condition was still terrible.

The cold I’d picked up on set wouldn’t let go, and it was vicious about it. My fever had spiked again, and my throat was so swollen it hurt even to swallow.

Ryu Do-gyeong had said he was coming today, but if he saw me looking like this, there’d be no written statement — just a lecture, start to finish.

With fingers that ached at every move, I struggled through typing out a message.

[Sorry, but my cold’s gotten worse so I don’t think I can meet you today.]

[That… mouth-control thing, the statement, you can send it by courier, or I’ll just sign it next time at school.]

I hit send and burrowed back under the blanket.

Knowing Ryu Do-gyeong’s personality, he’d rather not see me at all than risk catching whatever I had.

No reply came. I wondered if he was ignoring me out of anger, but before I could spare it another thought, I drifted off into another hazy sleep.

How much time had passed, I wasn’t sure.

“Sae-i, you’ve got a visitor.”

My father’s voice came from outside the door, and my eyes snapped open.

A visitor? On a rainy day like this, who would even bother coming all the way to the annex to see me, let alone the main house at Jaedamjae where Grandfather was?

Holding on to my hazy head, I stumbled to the door and opened it. The moment I crossed the hallway into the living room, a familiar silhouette caught my breath in my throat.

“…Huh?”

It was Ryu Do-gyeong.

I’d clearly texted him not to come, and there he was, standing calmly in our living room.

Neatly dressed. In his hands were things that didn’t suit him in the slightest.

In one hand, a huge shopping bag that looked like he’d cleaned out an entire pharmacy. In the other, a food container wrapped in a fine cloth. A delicious smell drifted through the air.

“I texted you not to come…”

Having just woken up, my voice came out thick and mumbling. Ryu Do-gyeong frowned and swept his eyes over me, head to toe.

Messy hair, a face drained of color — I didn’t need a mirror to know how awful I must have looked.

“Yeah, you did. Told me not to come.”

“Then why…”

Ryu Do-gyeong answered curtly, as if the question were too obvious to bother with.

“How could I not come when you’re sick. If you collapse and die suffering all alone, what’s that going to do to our company’s image?”

What an ugly way to put it.

Sorry, but I live with my father, so I’m not exactly suffering alone. And besides, a cold like this isn’t going to kill anyone.

While I argued back silently in my head, Ryu Do-gyeong strode right up to where I stood.

Without a hint of hesitation, he pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. At the touch of his cold hand, I flinched without meaning to.

“…You’ve got a fever. Medicine?”

“I was sleeping, so not yet…”

“Tsk.”

He clicked his tongue shortly, then set the shopping bag down on the floor. Even at a glance, it was packed full of every kind of cold medicine, fever reducers, vitamins, even a bottle of ssanghwa tonic. Had he bought out the entire pharmacy?

And then the cloth-wrapped bundle he’d been carrying.

“Eat. I had our chef make this and bring it over.”

Our house probably meant Jukseonjae.

And the chef would be the master-trained one Chairman Ryu had hired…

If I remembered right, that man would go on to win some cooking competition show years down the line.

To think someone like that had to boil porridge, for me.

“…You brought this yourself?”

“Should I have sent it by courier? It’s no good once it’s gone cold.”

He added it offhandedly, as if it were nothing at all.

“Don’t throw medicine into an empty stomach. Eat this first.”

He’d said he was coming to shut my mouth, but there wasn’t even a bag in sight with any written statement in it. It was plain as day he’d come with nothing on his mind but feeding me.

I stared, dazed, at the row of medicine bottles Ryu Do-gyeong was lining up. My head was too fuzzy for any of it to feel real.

Just then, my father, who’d been standing back a step with his hands clasped behind him, watching the whole scene, burst out laughing.

“Ha ha, Do-gyeong hasn’t changed a bit. Still looking after our Sae-i.”

…Dad?

“Even when she was little, the second she scraped her knee, you’d go carrying her on your back.”

My father’s eyes glinted with mischief.

“Carried the porridge here hugged against his chest the whole way so it wouldn’t go cold. That’s some real devotion.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Still, I don’t know if I can just hand our little princess over that easily.”

“Dad, get inside already!”

Unable to take it anymore, I shoved my father’s back and pushed him into his room.

Hand me over, as if! Even if you offered me up by the truckload, Ryu Do-gyeong wouldn’t take me!

Ugh, I wanted to just scream and slam the door shut too…

If I were really the eighteen-year-old Joo Sae-i, I would have done exactly that. But since my soul was an adult, I forced myself to hold it in.

“Pfft, princess…”

Ryu Do-gyeong, biting back laughter, seemed to be savoring my father’s “princess” remark.

Is that funny to you right now? Because I’m not finding any of this funny at all…