The Woman Who Stole My Flower
Chapter 22
Chapter 22
22.
“No matter who I meet, my heart never moves for them. What do you expect me to do?”
Yeon-seo couldn’t help but wonder once more. Then why on earth with me?
‘What about me did you actually like that night?’
She was dying of curiosity, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask a man who was so visibly furious with her. So she quietly wrote down ‘Met in 2nd year of high school’ in her notebook and continued her questions.
“Do you happen to know her age?”
“No.”
“Did she seem older than you, Director? Or younger?”
“I told you, I don’t know. She was wearing a school uniform.”
“Then do you remember what the uniform looked like?”
“Would I?”
he snapped gruffly. What an angry human being. For some reason, the more she asked, the more uncooperative he became, until he began speaking as if he were interrogating her instead.
“Why am I the only one answering questions here?”
“Pardon? Well, because we need to find her……”
“Then you answer my questions too.”
With that, before Yeon-seo could even get a word in, he asked,
“Have you ever had a boyfriend?”
“Me? Well, sure…… of course I have.”
In an instant, Joo-heon’s gaze sharpened. He pressed his lips tightly together and glared at her.
“…….”
With eyes that seemed to accuse her of committing some unspeakable crime, Yeon-seo shrank back, thoroughly intimidated. She had merely dated like anyone else, but from the look on his face, someone might think she’d committed murder and arson.
“When did you break up?”
“About a year ago.”
“Why?”
“Just…… a difference in personality, you know.”
After brushing it off with a vague excuse, Yeon-seo asked again.
“Um, well, then. Is there anything else? Truly anything at all about her that stands out?”
As always, the fierce glare that seemed to say he hated her to death gradually softened. After staring at her blankly for a long while with heavy eyes, he finally cast his gaze downward.
“……She’s pretty.”
It was a mutter that sounded almost like talking to himself.
“So pretty it makes me angry.”
For some reason, hearing it made Yeon-seo feel flushed with embarrassment. So even a man with such a vile temper had the capacity to find someone breathtakingly pretty.
In any case, that wasn’t much of a clue. Yeon-seo spoke carefully.
“Um, I understand that she’s pretty, but honestly, there are so many pretty women in the world these days. Female celebrities alone are all gorgeous, after all.”
“Do you think I’ve only seen a celebrity or two in my life?”
True enough. Even if he rarely did broadcast appearances, he had shot so many commercials and pictorials that he must have encountered all sorts of celebrities.
He turned his head away unnecessarily and muttered awkwardly,
“It’s not on that level.”
Just how pretty could she be to elicit such a reaction? Yeon-seo wrote in her notebook again: ‘Otherworldly beauty.’
“Your manager mentioned that she was your very first fan. Then wouldn’t she still be a fan even now?”
Who knows, she might surprisingly be a member of Honey Joo-heon, or perhaps even somewhere very close by?
“That’s what I thought too.”
He let out a dry, self-deprecating chuckle.
“Since she was my first fan, I naturally assumed she’d still be watching and cheering me on from somewhere. I thought if I ran myself to death and became a famous player, she’d come find me at least once.”
“…….”
“I imagined it countless times. When we met again, I’d get mad at her. Ask her if she had any idea how long I’d waited, why she was only showing up now, what on earth she’d been doing instead of coming to see me. And after that, I was never going to let her go again…….”
Once again, a resentful gaze landed on Yeon-seo. Even without hearing what came next, she could easily guess.
‘And then before you could even meet her, I went and snatched away your purity.’
As the villain of the story, she could do nothing but hang her head.
“I understand completely. I will do everything I can to find her.”
Yeon-seo spoke with complete sincerity. As she bowed and turned to leave, his voice struck her from behind.
“Just one last thing.”
Turning around, she saw Kang Joo-heon staring straight through her.
“What’s your ideal type?”
“Gyeong…….”
Caught off guard by the sudden question, Yeon-seo almost answered honestly with Player Seo Hyun-woo of Gyeonggi Bukbu FC before hastily clamping her mouth shut. Telling the truth felt like it would bring down serious trouble on her head.
“I don’t really have one.”
Yet Joo-heon didn’t miss the momentary waver across her expression.
“Seems like you do.”
“I don’t.”
This man is like a ghost. As Yeon-seo feigned ignorance right to the bitter end, Joo-heon narrowed his eyes at her with blatant suspicion.
*
Calling herself Kang Joo-heon’s secretary was just a formality; she had virtually nothing to do. His manager handled his schedule, and Joo-heon didn’t order her around with tasks. Thus, Yeon-seo was able to handle her original CSR work in the morning and dedicate her afternoons solely to tracking down the mystery girl.
Yet when it actually came down to searching, it couldn’t have felt more hopeless. Even searching for a Mr. Kim in Seoul gave you a last name to go on; this was literally searching without a first name, let alone a last name.
As of now, there were only two clues regarding Kang Joo-heon’s first love: that she possessed otherworldly beauty, and that she had also been a student at the time.
‘If she went to the same school, he would have recognized the uniform. Which means she didn’t attend his school.’
Yeon-seo put her deductive reasoning to work.
‘Then there’s a strong chance she was a student at a nearby school, right?’
If so, she first needed to find out which school Kang Joo-heon had attended. Moments later, after searching up Kang Joo-heon’s profile, Yeon-seo’s eyes went round.
“Huh? Hanguk High School?”
Hanguk High School was renowned for its soccer program and had produced multiple professional players. Even Seo Hyun-woo, the captain of Gyeonggi Bukbu FC whom she cheered for, was an alumnus of that very school. She hadn’t realized Kang Joo-heon had graduated from Hanguk High as well.
‘Then could he possibly know Seo Hyun-woo?’
Lost in thought, Yeon-seo snapped back to the main topic. Whether Seo Hyun-woo and Kang Joo-heon were alumni wasn’t the point right now. Finding the person was the urgent priority.
For a man with a temper like his to declare someone pretty without a shred of hesitation, she must have been stunning in anyone’s eyes. Yeon-seo decided to focus on that angle. She began searching for students around Kang Joo-heon’s age who had been famous in that neighborhood for their beauty.
She thought it would be difficult since it had happened ten years ago, but surprisingly, a familiar name popped up the moment she hit search.
‘Ryu Chae-young?’
It was none other than actress Ryu Chae-young. During her school days, she was apparently famous as the goddess of Hanguk Girls’ High School, located in the same district as Hanguk High School. Her age was also exactly one year younger than Kang Joo-heon—making her the same age as Yeon-seo.
‘Could it possibly be Ryu Chae-young, then?’
Her heart thumped at even the faintest glimmer of hope. She decided to dig a little deeper into Ryu Chae-young. Wondering if there might be some connection between the two, she typed ‘Ryu Chae-young Kang Joo-heon’ side by side into the search bar and pressed enter. Instantly, an endless cascade of articles flooded the screen.
“What is all this?”
Yeon-seo’s eyes widened. There were hundreds, thousands of articles mentioning them together.
‘Trending Star’ Ryu Chae-young Expresses Fan Love for Kang Joo-heon
Ryu Chae-young Visits Sangam Stadium to Cheer Passionately at Korea-Japan Match: ‘Fighting, Kang Joo-heon!’
Unwavering Chae-young: ‘My Ideal Type is Player Kang Joo-heon’
As it turned out, actress Ryu Chae-young was an immense fan of Joo-heon.
Regardless of whether it was video or print, she expressed her admiration for Joo-heon whenever she had the chance. Whenever asked about her ideal type, she always answered with Kang Joo-heon, and she had sent video letters on television multiple times saying she desperately wanted to meet him. She had even answered a reporter asking about her future plans with: ‘To marry Kang Joo-heon.’
Even for a passionate fan, being a celebrity herself usually meant being wary of scandals, so one wouldn’t normally go that far. Clearly, she was no ordinary fan.
Seeing a video of Ryu Chae-young appearing on a Metube variety show, Yeon-seo clicked on it as well.
- If Kang Joo-heon proposed to you right this second, marry him or not?
At the MC’s question, Ryu Chae-young shouted without hesitating for a single second:
- Marry him!
Ryu Chae-young wasn’t merely a trending actress. Mentioned alongside legendary beauties who defined an era, such as Kim Hee-sun and Kim Tae-hee, she possessed an overwhelming visual universally acknowledged as the undisputed top of this generation.
A while back during the kiss mark incident, rumors had circulated that the culprit was none other than Ryu Chae-young. She had wondered why such a rumor started when the two didn’t even seem particularly acquainted, but now she finally understood. Ryu Chae-young was Kang Joo-heon’s most ardent fan.
A few days ago, Yeon-seo had caught a brief glimpse of a drama starring Ryu Chae-young—the very drama where the female lead found herself in a situation similar to Yeon-seo’s. Even styled plainly as an ordinary office worker for the role, she was breathtakingly pretty; in her fully styled, glamorous pictorials, she looked inhumanly stunning. Literally otherworldly beauty.
Looking at Ryu Chae-young’s pictorial photos, Yeon-seo wondered: Could she possibly look like me?
‘Well, there is a resemblance. We both have two eyes, one nose, and one mouth.’