Sponsorship Stigma
Chapter 2
2. Hope
Even as she left Hyeonwoldang, the image of the shaman staring straight into her eyes remained vivid in her mind.
“I’m certain you’ll be dying to say it once you step outside. But don’t. Do that, and instead of losing one, you’ll lose both.”
She had wanted to ask what that meant, but she couldn’t.
Could she have somehow realized I was pregnant?
Though she told herself that was impossible, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling left by that piercing gaze.
As Yeonjae approached the sedan, the rear window rolled down to reveal Myeonghee.
“Where is the talisman?”
“Right here.”
Myeonghee took the envelope Yeonjae held out and slipped it into her handbag.
“Go to the Foundation soon and practice the piano. Make your comeback. Two months should have been more than enough, shouldn’t it?”
“I’m done with the pia—”
At Myeonghee’s sudden, sharp glare, Yeonjae was forced to swallow the rest of her sentence.
Right then, the unexpected ring of a phone echoed inside the car.
“Oh, my. Ahem, hello?”
Clearing her throat, Myeonghee continued the call in a gentle, affable tone.
“How have you been, in-law? Oh, I’m doing well, of course. I was tied up with a small matter, so I didn’t realize you had called.”
Stepping back from the sedan, Yeonjae stared at the woman on the phone.
A bright smile spread across Myeonghee’s face, completely erasing the harsh demeanor she had directed at Yeonjae just moments before.
“That’s right. How does next month sound for the engagement ceremony?”
As the jarring word registered, Yeonjae’s eyes blinked in confusion.
Soon, her light brown eyes began to waver helplessly.
“I think his condition will be back to normal by next month, and a month is plenty of time to prepare. The details will be left for the kids to decide, anyway.”
“……”
“Of course. I’ll make sure to tell CEO Gu to prepare thoroughly. Yes, yes, take care.”
In-law.
Engagement ceremony.
CEO Gu.
Yeonjae trembled from head to toe.
A flicker of disbelief hit her, and it felt as though her heart were being shaken violently from its very roots.
Meanwhile, Myeonghee wrapped up the call with warm farewells.
“Are you still here? Ask Manager Joo about your return. Let’s go.”
Lowering her phone, her gaze landed on Yeonjae. After giving her a look of utter pity and disdain, she turned away.
Seeing the engine start up, Yeonjae reached out and gripped the car.
“What are you doing?”
Myeonghee’s brow furrowed deeply.
At Yeonjae’s abrupt action, the car ground to a sudden halt. The driver in the front seat looked startled as well.
The driver’s voice warning her how dangerous that was didn’t reach her ears.
“D-Director. What do you mean… by an engagement ceremony?”
Yeonjae’s voice trembled uncontrollably as she asked Myeonghee.
There was only one person she called CEO Gu. Gu Jeheon.
The man she loved, who had been asleep for two whole months.
“Could it be that the CEO…”
‘Has he woken up?’
She was shaking so hard her voice wouldn’t even come out. Her eyes quivered relentlessly.
Watching her, Myeonghee wrinkled her nose and scoffed.
“Do you still have feelings for my Jeheon?”
Yeonjae’s eyes slowly widened.
“I knew all along that you liked my son. But you should know your place. Why are you curious about my son?”
It had been a ten-year unrequited love—one kept tightly hidden from others, treasured only inside her heart.
She had thought Jeheon was the only one who knew of her feelings, but the shock of Myeonghee knowing lasted only a moment.
“And Yeonjae, that’s not love; it’s an obsession. Even Jeheon would be terrified if he knew you were acting like this. How can anyone love someone for ten years?”
With a single remark, she dismissed Yeonjae’s love as an obsession.
“Jeheon is going to get engaged. Next month.”
A dead silence fell, making even the sound of her own heartbeat deafening.
In the silence, her heart gained speed, pounding wildly against her ribs.
Yet, the fact that he was getting engaged didn’t truly register with Yeonjae.
A far more significant fact churned violently in her mind.
Getting engaged meant only one thing.
Yeonjae swallowed hard, waiting for what would come next.
“My son has woken up. So give up on him.”
At Myeonghee’s venomous follow-up, heat rushed to the rims of Yeonjae’s eyes.
Her bleak, dark world parted, slowly filling with light.
He had woken up—the father of her baby.
* * *
After Myeonghee left, Yeonjae staggered over to Minyoung.
She didn’t even have the composure to school her expression as she usually did.
“Minyoung-ssi, is it true? That the CEO woke up?”
“Yes. He’ll probably be discharged today.”
Minyoung casually pulled out her tablet and tapped on it as she answered.
“When can you start coming to the Foundation? The Director told me to keep the practice room open. Let me know when you’re available.”
Minyoung seemed intent on checking Yeonjae’s schedule.
However, thoughts of the Foundation or returning as a pianist had long since vanished from Yeonjae’s mind.
A surge of emotion welled up inside her, and she covered her mouth.
He woke up.
Clasping her trembling hands together, Yeonjae buried her face in them.
So much had happened in a single day, but the news of Jeheon was so overwhelming that it eclipsed everything else.
It had been just one year ago that her unrequited love of a full ten years had finally come to fruition.
“Jung Yeonjae, I told you kids should date other kids.”
Yeonjae flinched at the low voice seeping into her ears.
Though her vision was blurred by the torrential downpour, that voice was chillingly distinct.
Her name, which she had longed so desperately to hear, crushed her heart that day.
“Have I really… never been a woman to you? Ha, no, forget the answer. Then why did you come looking for me like this?”
Rainwater soaking her hair dripped along the soft curve of Yeonjae’s jawline.
Even as the relentless sheets of rain soaked through her clothes, she couldn’t bring herself to move.
Unlike herself, who was being swallowed by endless despair, the man stood completely motionless, prompting Yeonjae to let out a bitter laugh.
Though it was her clothes that were getting drenched, her voice sounded far heavier and wetter.
From the moment she first met him at sixteen until she turned twenty-one, Jeheon had been Yeonjae’s entire world.
Even when he told her not to like him.
Even when he gave words that sounded like a warning to date someone her own age, her feelings had only grown more ardent.
“Why do you drive me so crazy? Will you only be satisfied once you sleep with me?”
Emotions surged within her, and Yeonjae bit down on her lip.
She hadn’t started loving him expecting him to acknowledge it.
She thought her feelings would eventually wear out on their own and fade away.
She already knew full well, without him coming to hurt her with such sharp words.
“Yes. Sleep with me just once. Then I won’t hang around you anymore, CEO.”
So she blurted out words she didn’t mean.
If their connection was destined to end like this anyway, she wanted to see it through to the end.
With the crunch of gravel rolling beneath his feet, he stepped closer.
And along with a warning not to regret it—until his rough hand forcefully tilted Yeonjae’s chin upward, she truly believed that was how it would go.
His large hands cupped Yeonjae’s cheeks, and the umbrella in his grip fell to the ground.
Though the pouring rain drenched them both relentlessly, their interlocking lips showed no sign of parting.
The relationship that began with an impulsive kiss took a strange turn.
A day, two days. Three months, a year.
What she believed would be a one-time thing kept continuing.
Even if they were just sleeping together and nothing more, she liked it enough that she wanted to hold onto him.
They ate meals together, went on drives. And whenever their eyes locked with desire, they ended up in bed.
That this was what lovers did.
It took a full year for her to realize that to him, she wasn’t completely insignificant like dust.
“Please make sure to come. It’s my first Recital. I want to receive flowers from you, CEO.”
“You ask for a lot.”
“Promise me. Don’t be late. I have something to tell you. Something important.”
Ahead of her first solo recital, Yeonjae kept the best seat empty and waited.
She wanted to tell him after the recital that she was having his child.
She waited with a fluttering, anxious heart, but in the end, he never came.
No, he couldn’t come. Because he had fallen into a coma after an accident on a rain-slicked road.
She had never imagined that her debut, performed amid everyone’s praise, would become her final performance.
Because of that, Yeonjae reached a point where she could never touch the piano keys again.
Between her trembling eyelashes as they fluttered open, Yeonjae’s brown eyes were revealed.
And yet, he woke up.
Only then did a spark of light return to the eyes that had been hollow all day.
I have to go.
Her head was filled only with the urgency that she had to see with her own two eyes whether he was truly awake, whether he was all right.
“Because we need to arrange your schedule in advance… Yeonjae-ssi?”
“I’m sorry. Let’s talk later.”
Leaving the approaching secretary behind, Yeonjae turned away.
She quickly ran out to the main road and hailed an approaching taxi.
“Please take me to S Hospital.”
A hospital she had visited countless times.
Yet she had never once been allowed visitation.
For he was the son of her sponsor, and she was merely someone who grew up receiving sponsorship, now nothing more than an ordinary employee working under Myeonghee.
Time and time again, she had merely hovered outside his room before turning back.
But today, she would cross the threshold of that hospital room.
Because now, she had a reason she must find the courage for.
Yeonjae gently stroked her stomach.
‘Little one, your dad woke up.’
Speaking to the baby for the very first time, Yeonjae felt an overwhelming wave of emotion rush in.
Pained by the thought that the child was suffering by coming to someone as unprepared as her.
Even so, it would be all right now. Because he was awake.
Repeating to herself that everything would be fine, Yeonjae clasped her hands together.
Hoping the baby wouldn’t feel the faint trembling in her hands.
* * *
Stepping out of the elevator, Yeonjae walked down the long corridor.
Even before seeing Jeheon, she instinctively knew from the bustling commotion and the medical staff clustered outside the room.
He truly had woken up.
Yeonjae took each step with great difficulty. She walked while barely steadying her trembling legs.
As she drew closer to the room, her heart thudded wildly.
And when she finally came to a stop before the door—
Through the gap in the door, open just wide enough for a fist, the room came into view.
Even among the medical staff filling the room, only one man captured Yeonjae’s gaze.
A man sitting propped up against the bed.
The man who had always lain in bed with his eyes closed was now looking at someone and talking.
He knitted his brow slightly, then gave a nod.
Yeonjae’s eyes widened round in astonishment.
The tip of her nose burned hot as tears slowly welled up.
It had been two full months since she had last seen Jeheon’s eyes, dark as ink.
He was a man she always had to meet in secret.
Only in hidden places could they whisper love, and she knew very well that this was her place to him.
Yet her heart, outpacing all reason, led Yeonjae’s feet forward.
“Then after discharge, I will make regular house calls for checkups. You have been through a great deal.”
The gathered medical staff bowed their heads in unison toward the man.
Then, as they began filing out one by one, the hospital room door swung wide open.
The medical staff cast strange glances at Yeonjae, who was standing frozen out front, as they passed by.
As if possessed, Yeonjae stepped into the room.
Only Jeheon and his secretary remained in the emptied hospital room.
“Will you be heading straight home?”
“I should. I have to go to the main house in Cheongdam-dong this evening, so I need to go rest.”
Standing beside him, the secretary raised his head at the sense of presence.
Seeing Yeonjae walking straight in, the secretary’s eyes rounded in surprise.
Though the startled secretary seemed to move toward her, Yeonjae could see only Jeheon.
She pushed forward, dragging legs that felt ready to collapse at any second.
Toward the man sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her, fastening the cuff buttons of his shirt.
“Jung Yeonjae-ssi?”
The secretary’s voice resonated through the quiet room. Then, Jeheon slowly turned around, and their eyes locked in midair.
Meeting his direct gaze, Yeonjae felt her heart clench tight.
And soon, as an overwhelming surge of emotion choked her chest, Yeonjae bit hard on her lip.
The distance of only a few steps between them felt as impossibly far as thousands of kilometers.
Fearing that he might never wake up.
Yet, the moment she saw him, all her worries melted away like snow.
You’re truly awake, Gu Jeheon.
Heat flared in Yeonjae’s eyes.
“……CEO.”
And with that barely audible voice, she lunged forward.
