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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: 채영인이라서
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Club, hotel cafe, and home.
These were the places where Yeongin had encountered Seonghyeok without any preparation.
Even if their meeting at the club could be called a coincidence, the subsequent encounters couldn't be dismissed as such.
He couldn't have come to Chae Yeongin's house without considering the possibility of running into her.
His appearance at the blind date in Oh Changgeun's place was clearly his own will, and today would be no different.
He wasn't the kind of person to do something he didn't want to just because someone told him to or nagged him. The phrase 'had no choice' didn't suit him.
‘He came to see my brother, not me.’
Yeongin drew that line. She intended to attach no meaning to his actions.
She didn't know his true intentions, but she didn't want to be swayed anymore. She just wished for her daily life to no longer be disrupted.
From the day she reunited with Cha Seonghyeok until now, not a single day had passed where her heart felt calm and steady. It had been constantly noisy and chaotic. She just wanted to return to her peaceful routine.
Yeongin, standing rigidly in place, unaware that three pairs of eyes were fixed on her, heard a sharp, high-pitched voice pierce her ears.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to say hello?”
Focus returned to Yeongin’s blurry eyes.
Only then did she see her sister sitting next to Seonghyeok, and her brother sitting across from the two of them.
“Don’t you know Seonghyeok Oppa?”
Arim’s expression and tone were full of irritation, a result of her expectations for Yeongin and Changgeun’s marriage being dashed.
“My mother said she’d be in a difficult position, so I had no choice but to go. I have no intention of getting married.”
Recalling Yeongin’s answer to their mother’s question about how the blind date went, a fresh wave of anger surged.
Why couldn’t she have just said that from the start? What kind of behavior was it to pretend to be positive about marrying Oh Changgeun in front of her, only to change her tune less than an hour later?
There’s a limit to how much you can toy with people.
In any case, there wasn’t a single thing about her that Arim found satisfactory.
“How could she not know? They even went on a blind date.”
While Yeongin inwardly chastised herself for not maintaining a poker face, Beomjun interjected, his tone sarcastic.
“A blind date, you say?”
As Arim’s eyes widened and she straightened her back, Yeongin instinctively knew there was no good to come from staying in this spot any longer.
“Hello. Please enjoy your stay.”
As Yeongin delivered her first and last greetings in one breath and walked towards the stairs, Arim’s venomous gaze followed her. The reason she let her go without further comment was because she had a more pressing matter at hand.
“What do you mean they even went on a blind date?”
Unlike the agitated Arim, Beomjun’s expression was somewhat indifferent.
“Seonghyeok went to the blind date that Changgeun was supposed to attend.”
“Why Seonghyeok Oppa?”
“You know, don’t you? Changgeun is a bit free-spirited when it comes to women. From Seonghyeok’s perspective, he couldn’t help but be concerned.”
Beomjun wasn’t at all upset with Seonghyeok for attending the blind date without a word to him. He was only briefly flustered when he learned of it. However, he harbored a great deal of resentment towards Yeongin, who had played dumb about the whole thing.
“What does that have to do with Seonghyeok Oppa?”
Realizing the person in question was right beside her, Arim whirled around to Seonghyeok and asked.
“Why are you concerned about Changgeun Oppa’s women problems?”
Seonghyeok countered with a question instead of an answer.
“Why are you curious about that reason? What does this have to do with you?”
“Oppa… why are you speaking so coldly to me…?”
As tears welled up in Arim’s eyes, Beomjun quickly stepped in to mediate.
“Why else? Of course, it’s because of me. After all, if Yeongin is my sister, he must have felt uncomfortable just pretending not to know, right?”
Beomjun, who had no idea what kind of relationship Yeongin and Seonghyeok had, genuinely believed that.
“Of course, there couldn’t be any other reason, but…”
Arim drew out her words, studying Seonghyeok’s expression.
She was anxious that Seonghyeok might have developed an interest in Yeongin. The fact that more than a few of Beomjun’s friends had shown interest in Yeongin over the years made Arim even more uneasy.
“Oppa.”
As if repenting for her accusatory tone just moments before, Arim’s voice became softer as she called Seonghyeok.
“Please pay some attention to me too. That’s only right, isn’t it?”
Arim had suffered from a deep inferiority complex towards Yeongin since childhood.
She disliked Yeongin’s innocent face and clear voice, and she couldn’t stand her slender figure and delicate jawline. Just looking at her deep, captivating eyes would inexplicably anger her.
As someone who spent tens of millions of won at dermatology clinics every year for acne and whitening treatments, Yeongin’s spotless, clear skin was maddeningly enviable.
Not only her appearance, but her academic background also fueled her inferiority complex.
The fact that Yeongin, a year younger than her, had graduated from one of Korea’s top prestigious universities was upsetting enough, but it was even more upsetting that she attended the same university as Seonghyeok.
She couldn’t stand the fact that they were *seonbae* and *hoobae*. Just moments ago, when Seonghyeok had called Yeongin ‘Hoobae-nim,’ she’d been so enraged that her words had come out even more spiteful.
“What’s right?”
“Chae Beomjun’s biological sister is me. Not Yeongin.”
Seonghyeok let out a small, derisive laugh.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t know that Beomjun and Arim didn’t consider Yeongin their sister, but for some reason, it felt particularly galling today.
“Then you go on a blind date with Oh Changgeun yourself.”
Of course, he didn’t care in the slightest if Arim went on a blind date with Oh Changgeun or married him.
He wasn’t interested in other people’s affairs, nor was he meddlesome. He only showed interest because it was Chae Yeongin, and he only meddled because it was Chae Yeongin.
“Are you crazy?”
As Arim shrieked in horror, Seonghyeok’s cold gaze shifted to Beomjun.
“You heard that, right? She says it’s a crazy thing to do.”
Beomjun, his eyes wide, waved his hand dismissively as if wronged.
“I told you, I didn’t arrange that blind date! It was our mom, our mom.”
“And it doesn’t occur to you that *you’re* worse for not stopping it, even though you clearly know what kind of guy Oh Changgeun is?”
“…”
Beomjun avoided Seonghyeok’s gaze and feigned indifference. He figured it was better to be misunderstood as not having stopped it than to be caught having actively encouraged it.
Seonghyeok didn’t press him further. Instead, he asked himself.
Would he truly not have felt this disgusted if Chae Yeongin had been involved with a decent guy instead of Oh Changgeun?
The answer was, ‘No, he would not have.’
Just imagining another man standing by Yeongin’s side made him feel utterly disgusted.
***
Beomjun’s room was on the first floor, while Arim’s and Yeongin’s rooms were on the second. This also meant that Seonghyeok would have no reason to come up to the second floor.
That fact brought Yeongin great relief.
Yeongin, who had ascended to the second floor under the collective gaze of the three, finally allowed the tension to drain from her stiff shoulders.
Her jaw ached, as if she had been clenching her teeth, and her palms were damp with sweat.
‘Should I say an urgent matter came up and leave again?’
She quickly dismissed the thought that had flashed through her mind because it felt like too flimsy an excuse. Giving such an excuse and leaving would only make it obvious that she was conscious of Cha Seonghyeok, so she decided to just stay home.
‘As long as I don’t go downstairs to the first floor, I’ll be fine.’
Yeongin hurried into her room, closed the door, and leaned her back against it.
Her body, losing its tension, slowly slid down.
Yeongin sank to the floor, calming her pounding heart. Cha Seonghyeok’s unexpected, sudden appearances were practically giving her a heart attack.
Just as her heartbeat began to return to normal, the headache she hadn’t realized was there also started up again.
Pressing her fingertips against both temples, Yeongin stood up, gathered a change of clothes, and left her room. She hoped a warm shower might alleviate her headache, even a little.
Yeongin glanced back at the stairs and walked towards the bathroom, but her legs suddenly paused. A problem she had momentarily forgotten had resurfaced.
Her sister and brother now knew that her blind date had been Cha Seonghyeok, not Oh Changgeun.
Of course, she had expected them to find out, and she was prepared for it. She had no hope that it would pass quietly. Still, now that it was upon her, a sigh escaped her lips.
“Haa…”
Even amidst her distress, she didn’t resent Seonghyeok. That was because she was certain he wasn’t the one who had told her brother. She hadn’t even gotten a promise from him to keep it a secret, but she just had that conviction.
What she truly resented was herself, for saying unnecessary things to her sister the day she returned from the blind date.
She hated her sister for pushing her towards marriage, even though she knew Oh Changgeun’s true nature better than anyone. That’s why she had wanted to show off to her sister, who would sell her soul to the devil if it meant marrying Cha Seonghyeok.
Just like before.
Like that day three years ago when Seonghyeok asked her to date him.
If she hadn’t been slapped by her sister for no reason that day, she wouldn’t have so readily accepted his proposal to date.
She hadn’t known then that a relationship started in a fit of pique would deepen so much, or that breaking up with him would hurt so badly.
If she had known, could she have resisted him until the very end?
Truthfully, she wasn’t confident.
Lost in these various thoughts, Yeongin entered the bathroom, finished her shower, and returned to her room. Her headache showed no signs of abating, perhaps because her mind had become even more cluttered.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed when she leaned back and lay down, at which point a neat knock broke the silence.
‘Who is it?’
Yeongin shot up into a sitting position, her pupils trembling uneasily.
Her sister always flung the door open without knocking, and her brother would either kick the door or yell from outside. So, it couldn’t be either of them.
‘Is it Kim Yeosa-nim?’
Yeongin recalled the live-in housekeeper’s face as she cautiously replied.
“Yes…”
Her tone wasn’t clear, as she felt an inexplicable sense of unease. And she understood why she felt that way when she saw the face of the person who opened the door and entered.
Cha Seonghyeok, who wore his characteristic languid smile.
