Chapter 51
“Abel Sting is failing, it seems.”
As one of the backup agents muttered, the others standing nearby nodded in agreement.
“He failed yesterday already.”
“That’s true, but he’s completely failing today. Look at how that timid woman is glaring at him like she’s lost her mind.”
The entire backup team snickered at those words. Though they were at a considerable distance, the disillusionment and contempt on the timid outsider’s face were palpable.
“Looks like she might start cursing any minute now.”
“She only isn’t because she doesn’t know any swear words. If she did, she would’ve let them fly already.”
If she knew them, she would have.
Yes, she certainly would have.
Seo-ah stared quietly at the back of Abel Sting’s head.
His sleek, blonde hair reminded her of a freshly peeled chestnut.
Her grandfather used to say that one should treat even a single chestnut found scattered on the back mountain with care. He said if you don’t value even a single nut when you have it, poverty will strike you from behind like a marauding barbarian.
“Wait. Since we’re already here, should I pick up another pair of shoes?”
You’re the one poverty should strike from behind like a barbarian.
Abel, who had been glancing back at Seo-ah, caught the disillusionment on her face and smirked.
“Alright, alright. I get it.”
In just one day, their positions had flipped.
And as their positions changed, so did their attitudes.
“Honey, are you tired?”
Abel smiled as if to melt her, his metaphorical tail wagging. While unrelated bystanders nearby blushed at the sight, the woman he actually wanted to see blush turned pale and clenched her fists tight.
“Stop saying that word…!”
The problem was that this was more entertaining than seeing her blush.
“Hmm? What? ‘Are you tired’?”
The woman, who hadn’t even known what the word ‘honey’ meant, had learned its meaning at one of the many shops they visited. Immediately, she began reacting as if she were allergic to it.
Just like now.
Her brown eyes, set deep within her large eye sockets, shook as if an earthquake were hitting them. The area beneath her eyes turned reddish, and she looked so serious, as if making the most important decision of her life. Despite that, she acted as if the word ‘honey’ was something she couldn’t even bring herself to utter.
“The word before that.”
“Hmm?”
“You know what I mean.”
And when he teased her just a little bit at times like this…
“The word before that? What was it again?”
“…….”
“I’m not sure, honey?”
He could see the woman, who usually acted as if looking someone in the eye would cause a disaster, finally snap.
“Mr. Sting!”
With eyes brimming as if she were about to cry, the way she gritted her teeth was pitiably fragile.
Abel really wanted to give himself a pat on the back.
This insane talent of his.
To draw this kind of reaction out of a woman who hated holding hands and remained as stiff as a stone no matter what he did.
Today was a very productive day in many ways.
He had gained the magic word ‘honey,’ and while he was at it, he had dropped the formal honorifics too.
Feeling good, Abel gave a dashing smile, and the target’s expression worsened accordingly. It was hilarious how, even while gritting her teeth, she didn’t throw a punch or a kick, but instead tried to persuade him with a tearful face.
“That is a word you should save for your future spouse, not something to be used so carelessly toward just anyone….”
“Then do you want to marry me?”
“…….”
For the first time, Seo-ah felt that words were a waste of breath.
Even the dust floating in the marketplace would be heavier than his words.
She brushed past him without a reply. Even so, he insisted on following her, even leaning down to her height as he remained preoccupied with teasing her.
“I’ll treat you well every day.”
Seo-ah gripped her skirts tight and headed down the stairs. She quickened her pace as if escaping the department store, which had become as loathsome to her as the word ‘honey.’
The unfamiliar civilization that had once overwhelmed her had long since faded into the background. The feast of gold made her eyes ache, and the heavy scents that occasionally brushed her nose made her dizzy.
At first, she wondered if Abel was taking revenge on her.
See how you like it.
She was certain he had harbored such a spiteful thought.
“How about this?”
“It suits you.”
“Is this better, or the one from before?”
“…Which outfit are you referring to by ‘the one from before’?”
“This one is better.”
Then why did he even ask?
But she didn’t have any real complaints. She just assumed he would buy that outfit. By then, the shop they were in was the fifth one they had visited. She felt they had seen enough and tried on enough.
“I understand for now.”
However, Abel left the shop with those cryptic words, and Seo-ah soon realized that the ‘one’ in his ‘for now’ referred to a sequence.
“I understand for now.”
“Let’s look around a bit more for now.”
“I like that outfit for now. Let’s put it on hold. There’s just one more place I want to stop by.”
One, two, three, four… It wasn’t a staircase, but Abel Sting kept shouting ‘for now’ as he marched to the next shop. And when ‘for now’ had reached about the tenth time, he finally bought something. It was an outfit so expensive it made her hands tremble.
Shouldn’t that be the end of it?
He acted as if he were a man on a mission to spend the entire day here.
In the distance, she saw the revolving doors. Those doors felt like the entrance to a cave, so Seo-ah quickened her steps even more. All the while, Abel was constantly teasing her as he followed. Since he only found it more amusing the more she replied or got angry, her only choice was to ignore him and go her own way.
Her pace grew faster.
As she moved lightly and swiftly through the crowd, Abel’s relaxed expression shifted subtly.
Seo-ah dashed across the main floor so quickly that Abel Sting actually had to put effort into following her. And she stepped into the revolving door exactly one step ahead of him.
“Hey…!”
“It’s dangerous, please step back!”
A security guard quickly grabbed Abel just as he was about to follow Seo-ah into the revolving door.
It happened in an instant.
“Let go.”
Abel brushed off the guard’s hand roughly, his anger flaring. When he hurriedly turned his gaze, Seo-ah was already outside the department store. Through the dark glass, the outsider standing alone looked vulnerable.
“Stay there, don’t move!”
The damn crowd surged and tangled like the boundary between a river and the sea. As those trying to leave and those trying to enter became a jumbled mess, the guards blew their whistles. Regardless, Abel forced himself into the next compartment of the door.
His gaze was fixed on Seo-ah through the glass door.
He would reach her in ten seconds.
But the door, which had been spinning fine, suddenly ground to a halt.
“Dammit, what now?”
Abel slammed the door savagely, but the mechanism didn’t budge.
“What is it!”
“A lady’s skirt is caught here! Please wait a moment! Do not push the door!”
He heard the guards’ voices from behind him. Abel stood pressed against the door, grinding his teeth.
A sea of people stretched out before him. The woman standing alone was being swayed back and forth by the flow. Even though she tried to stay still, she was pushed this way and that. Then, a group of people moved right between Seo-ah and Abel. Because of her small stature, she vanished completely from sight.
Abel’s entire body burned with agitation.
There was a backup team waiting outside the department store, but even so, anxiety surged within him. Just as he was vowing to break the glass if it didn’t open, the door thankfully began to move. Pushing his way out, Abel cut vertically through the crowd, searching for the small woman. He felt like she should be there if he just pushed through a few more layers.
“…….”
A chilling sensation washed the color from his face.
“……!”
She wasn’t there.
Thirty seconds at most.
That was all the time they had been apart.
Abel searched for the small woman, frantically parting the crowd. He didn’t care if people stumbled from his movements; he only looked for her.
“Seo-ah!”
Abel called out her name for the first time, the veins in his neck bulging. Even so, she did not appear.
It was as if she had vanished of her own accord.
Seo-ah was standing atop a tide.
Barely holding her ground amidst the flowing crowd, she watched Abel trapped behind the glass door.
Ten seconds.
In ten seconds, he would come out, and they would return to the mansion together.
She had no other thoughts. She was just letting idle reflections pass—how there were so many people, how hard it was to stand still.
“……?”
But then, she felt something within the tide she had thought was empty.
The moment she instinctively sensed it, the man behind the revolving door and the people brushing past her all receded into the background. As everything visible became a mere backdrop, the sounds also drifted far away.
A world where everything else had been pushed aside.
Seo-ah held her breath.
And the moment a crowd of people passed in front of her, something that had been holding its breath within the tide lunged out and snatched Seo-ah’s wrist.
