I Think I've Poked a Sleeping Bear
Chapter 22
The Princess and the Psycho
Seo-rin slowly opened her eyes. She felt refreshed, as if she had just had a good, deep sleep for the first time in a long while.
“Are you finally awake? Just how long were you planning to sleep?”
Startled, she turned her head toward the sound.
“Wh-who are you?”
Shocked, Seo-rin instinctively tried to sit up.
Through the dim lighting, she could see the silhouette of a man.
However, a sudden wave of dizziness hit her head with a dull throb, forcing her to lie back down.
“It’s me. The savior who saved your life.”
Click. The night-light turned on, revealing Yi-on’s face. At the sight of him, Seo-rin breathed a sigh of relief despite herself—even though she was in an unfamiliar place she had never seen before.
“Where is this?”
“A hotel.”
“A hotel?”
Me? And with a man?
Panicked, she tried to bolt upright again, only to clutch her forehead as dizziness overcame her once more.
“Whoa, just lie down. I really don’t want to watch someone die in real time.”
“Why… did you bring me here? You should have just left me there.”
“If I’d known you’d treat me like some kind of creep, maybe I should have. You collapsed with your face completely drained of color—what was I supposed to do if you died? You want me to get screwed over?”
“Then you should have taken me to a hospital.”
“Neither of us needs our names dragged through the headlines for something bad, do we? Do you really want to be known as the former fiancée of Saja Group who collapsed because she couldn’t bear the heartbreak of a breakup? Especially when the news of the broken engagement hasn’t even officially broken yet.”
“…That’s not why I collapsed.”
“Then was it really just an act? A nap? Or what, do you have some kind of illness?”
“Mind your own business.”
“You think I actually care? I’m saying this because the public might care. You know how it is. You know how much people love sensational stories.”
Good for you and your clever brain.
Muttering under her breath, Seo-rin slowly brushed herself off and got up.
“Anyway… um, thank… you.”
Yi-on leaned in toward her and tilted his ear forward.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said thank you.”
“Ha, wow. Did you eat your manners for breakfast? Don’t you know how to say thank you properly? Didn’t anyone teach you? Here, like this.”
Yi-on took Seo-rin’s wrists and politely brought her hands together. Then he gestured for her to bow her head.
Flustered, Seo-rin bowed along with his lead, and he prompted her like a teacher leading a chant.
“Thank youuu.”
“Thank… you.”
“Good girl. Greet people like that from now on so you don’t hear people saying you weren’t raised right.”
Seo-rin stared at Yi-on in utter disbelief.
“What? Is this your first time seeing a face this handsome?”
“No. It’s my first time meeting someone who treats me like this.”
Pfft. Yi-on let out a chuckle, finding something amusing.
It feels like he’s mocking me. It’s infuriating.
“It wasn’t a pleasure, and let’s never meet again.”
“Uh-uh. Where do you think you’re going just like that?”
Yi-on grabbed Seo-rin’s wrist as she turned to leave. Seo-rin glared at him.
“Ha, seriously. Weren’t you the one never taught not to lay a hand on a woman carelessly?”
“And what about you? Did your parents teach you to run background checks on people?”
“Y-you really…”
When Seo-rin raised her body as if to swing her bag at him, Yi-on thrust his chin forward.
“What, gonna hit me? Stalking wasn’t enough, so now you’re resorting to violence? What wonderful home discipline.”
“Are you going to keep insulting my parents?”
“If you’re pissed, do it right back to me. It doesn’t really get on my nerves even if you do.”
“I… don’t do things like that.”
Seo-rin turned her head away. It wasn’t just that she didn’t do such things—she had never even imagined doing them.
Her mother, who had always been on edge, terrified that the world would find out the youngest daughter of Dongyeon Group was sickly and couldn’t even attend school properly.
Her father, who was always dissatisfied, telling her to overcome it with willpower and asking what she would ever amount to without even that much resolve.
Now that her health had improved, she had wanted to make up for it, even just a little, but in the end, it seemed even her marriage wouldn’t go the way her parents wanted.
Her entire life had been nothing but a burden to her parents.
“What’s this? A sudden change of concept? Well, do whatever you want. What about the photos? Why did you take pictures of my hyung and my sister-in-law?”
“…”
“I asked why you took them. Aren’t you going to answer?”
“…Because.”
“Because what?”
“He was someone who treated marriage like a business transaction, but then he suddenly broke off the engagement… so I wondered if something had happened…”
Yi-on tilted his head at her unexpected answer.
“Are you saying… you were worried?”
“I was worried, and also… curious about the reason…”
“So you hired someone to do a background check…?”
“That…! It’s true that I was in the wrong, but I didn’t do it to harm anyone… Wait, how old are you? Why have you been talking down to me this whole time?”
“If you don’t like it, you talk down to me too.”
“I will! I’m going to, but how old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“What?”
“I’m twenty-seven. So?”
He’s younger than me?!
At Yi-on’s answer, Seo-rin completely forgot she was unwell.
“T-twenty-seven? You’ve been talking down to me this whole time when you’re younger than me?”
“Why? What, are you thirty-seven or something? Putting on airs when you’re only twenty-eight.”
“How do you know my… Did you run a background check on me?!”
“Can you really call looking up what comes up on a search portal a background check? Stop trying to ride on my coattails.”
“Whether I’m thirty-seven or twenty-eight, the fact remains that I’m older than you, so use honorifics!”
“Yes, noonim.”
He switched to honorifics right away, but somehow it was even more infuriating.
“Thanks for today, but let’s not see each other again, okay? I’m leaving.”
Once again, however, he blocked her path.
“Aey. Where are you going, noona? You have to finish what you were saying. Why did you go looking for my sister-in-law to torment her? Huh? Noona.”
Yi-on stared intently at Seo-rin as he spoke.
He wore a playful smile, but his eyes gleamed sharply.
There was a hint of madness in him. Was he a brother-complex?
From his relentless tenacity to his general demeanor, he felt like a completely different species from Ra Iheon.
“…Don’t you work? Do you have that much free time on your hands?”
“Work? Why would I do something like work, noona? Things run much better when I’m not there.”
They’re brothers, so how can they be this different?
She had thought they resembled each other simply because they were both tall and exceptionally handsome, but looking at him now, they weren’t alike at all.
While Ra Iheon felt like a true lion—composed, heavy, and carrying a deep sense of responsibility—
Ra I-on was like a leopard: lean, agile, and somewhat of a free spirit.
That didn’t mean he was scrawny.
Solid muscle, youth, and vitality radiated from him so strongly she could feel it from where she stood.
Both were handsome, but the younger brother had more of a wild, rebellious edge.
Unlike Lee Heon, he looked like he had played around a lot. Like someone who had many women, toyed with them well, and moved on quickly.
The exact type she would never want to be romantically involved with because getting hurt was a foregone conclusion.
Sitting down on the sofa, Yi-on gestured with his chin for her to sit as well.
“Now then, that solves the time issue. Shall we sit down and talk it over slowly, noona?”
Yi-on picked up the phone.
“Hello, room service, please.”
He whispered to her, ‘Dinner is fine with you, right, noona?’ and gave a wink.
The determination not to let her go anywhere until she talked was unmistakable in his unhinged gaze.
There was no doubt about it.
He was a psycho she’d only get exhausted dealing with.
What did I just hear?
Yi-on blinked.
“So… your life was boring and dull… but when my hyung called off the engagement, things suddenly got interesting, so you decided to look into why he broke it off?”
“…”
“And while looking into it, you ended up taking photos, which led you to find out he had a girlfriend, but the photos came out so well that you just wanted to hand them over to her?”
Seo-rin nodded.
Wow. She really is a hopeless, textbook princess.
Someone who had never experienced a single hardship in the world.
A princess without malice, but completely indifferent to others, doing whatever she pleased.
Life is boring? Dull?
She really must have lived the easiest life in the world.
“You have unique tastes. It was interesting? Even after getting dumped?”
“Don’t drop the honorifics.”
“It’s because you’re being so absurd, noona.”
“Is that… not allowed?”
Of course it’s not! God, this princess really thinks on a whole different wavelength.
“I didn’t mean to pick a fight or anything. They looked so incredibly good together, so I really just wanted to give them the pictures…”
“Wait, didn’t it cross your mind that handing someone photos like that would freak them out?”
“…It’s not that I didn’t think about it, but the photos were just so pretty… Look. They really did come out gorgeous, didn’t they? Like a pictorial.”
Seo-rin’s eyes sparkled as she showed him the photos she had brought.
Seriously, is she really a woman whose engagement was called off just recently?
They were a couple who had even set a wedding date, so how could she look at pictures of her ex-fiancé and his girlfriend and be so genuinely delighted?
Yi-on smirked.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone, noona?”
“Who?”
“Rapunzel?”
“Rapunzel?”
“Because you seem completely clueless about the real world. Don’t you just want to let your hair down, climb down, and go running around somewhere?”
Seo-rin glared at him.
“I told you everything because you asked. Stop being sarcastic.”
“Why would I be sarcastic with you, noona? We just met. Here, a gift to commemorate our first meeting.”
Coaxing her, Yi-on cut a piece of the steak in front of him and placed it on Seo-rin’s plate.
She stared intently at Yi-on with an unreadable expression.
“Since you seemed to be eating well. I was wondering why you collapsed, but it turns out you just fainted from hunger. Eat a lot of this. Don’t go carelessly swooning into some other bastard’s arms again.”
“I’ve never done that before.”
“Ah, so I’m your first? I’m honored, Princess.”
It was nothing significant, yet Seo-rin’s face flushed bright red.
What’s this? Is that really something to react this strongly to?
Teasing her is kind of fun, isn’t it…?
Perhaps he had stared too intently.
Feeling embarrassed, she hurriedly stood up from her seat.
“I have no further business here, so I’m leaving. As for the photos, give them to them or throw them away.”
Yi-on swiftly caught Seo-rin’s wrist as she tried to flee.
How many times have I grabbed this woman today?
“Why are you acting like this, our princess noona?”
“What…”
“Think about how startled my sister-in-law must have been when she saw you. You should go apologize.”
“Do… what?”
“Apologize. In person, while showing her the photos. Apologize to my sister-in-law for what you did, noona.”
Seeing Seo-rin’s flustered expression pleased him. Yi-on grinned.
