“When did you start knowing me this well?”
Haeon Ki’s question lingered in the study.
Yeoheon Jin didn’t answer right away.
Haeon looked down at the book in her hands.
A discontinued book on brand design.
She had spent months looking for it in college, but in the end, she hadn’t been able to get a copy.
And yet there it was, tucked so naturally into the center of the bookshelf in her study.
The fact that she hated the Hannam-dong estate.
The possibility that she might consider starting an independent business.
The furniture that made her feel comfortable.
The placement of the desk and lights.
And now this book.
Taken one at a time, each could be called a coincidence.
But when coincidences kept piling up, they needed another name.
Haeon pulled the book a little closer to her chest.
“Is it hard to answer?”
“No.”
“Then why have you been thinking about it for so long?”
Yeoheon’s gaze dropped to the book, then rose again.
“I was thinking about where to begin explaining.”
“Start from the beginning.”
Haeon answered without hesitation.
“If there’s something I don’t remember, start with that.”
Yeoheon was silent for a moment.
Then he moved away from the doorway and slowly entered the study.
“I saw you when we were in college.”
Haeon’s eyebrows lifted.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At the college distribution-ideas competition sponsored by Haedam Distribution.”
As soon as he said it, an old memory surfaced.
Twenty-one years old.
Without telling her father, Haeon had entered the competition.
At the time, Haedam Distribution hadn’t managed to move far beyond the existing distribution structure centered on department stores and big-box retailers.
Haeon had submitted a proposal to connect small local brands with Haedam’s brick-and-mortar stores and online curation platform.
Looking at it now, there had been plenty to refine.
The revenue model had been flimsy.
And she hadn’t understood enough about how an organization actually needed to operate.
Still, she had known exactly what she wanted to do.
Brands with good products that disappeared simply because they had no distribution network.
Haeon had wanted to gather brands like that and create a new face for Haedam.
She had made it to the finals.
But she hadn’t won an award.
For a while afterward, she had been so disappointed with the result that she remembered going back over the materials on her own.
“You were there?”
“Hyeonrok also participated in the sponsorship.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
His answer was matter-of-fact.
“Why not?”
“I saw the presenter, Haeon Ki. You weren’t going around checking the audience members one by one.”
He was right.
That day, she had been too preoccupied just getting through her presentation slides.
“You watched the presentation?”
“Yes.”
“How much of it?”
“Through the Q&A.”
Haeon’s gaze shifted slightly.
The Q&A that day had gone on for quite a while.
One judge had pointed out that the proposal lacked practicality, while another had asked whether it was really possible to distribute authority from an existing organization to the people on the ground.
Back then, she had answered rather stubbornly.
“It’s not that there’s no one capable of doing it.”
Yeoheon’s voice came first.
Haeon looked at him.
“I said the problem was that the people capable of doing it had no opportunity.”
For a moment, Haeon couldn’t say anything.
He had remembered words even she had forgotten long ago.
“You still remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Yeoheon paused for the briefest moment.
“I remembered those words longer than I remembered the proposal.”
“Were they really that memorable?”
“At the time.”
That was all he said.
No emotion.
No reason.
He offered no further explanation.
Haeon set the book on the desk.
“Then what about this book?”
“I saw it in your presentation materials.”
“A reference?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t the only reference material.”
“You talked about the book after the presentation.”
As she searched her memory, a hazy recollection emerged.
After the presentation ended, one of the judges had asked about her sources.
Haeon had answered that she’d referred to the original overseas edition because she hadn’t been able to find a Korean translation.
She thought she’d also mentioned that she was looking for the out-of-print first Korean edition.
“You heard that too?”
“I was nearby.”
Haeon quietly looked at him.
Before the subject of marriage had ever come up,
she had thought Yeoheon was someone with no interest in her at all.
More precisely, she had believed that neither of them had any interest in the other.
They occasionally ran into each other at the same events.
They exchanged greetings.
Someone’s son.
Someone’s daughter.
She had believed that was all they knew about each other.
But at least in Yeoheon’s memory, it seemed that she had been a little more vivid than that.
“Do you normally remember what people say this well?”
“Only what’s necessary.”
“Was what I said necessary?”
The question came out faster than she expected.
Silence briefly settled between them.
Haeon didn’t regret it right away.
In this life, she had decided not to guess at the things she was curious about on her own.
Yeoheon didn’t answer easily this time, either.
“It was something worth referring to for work at the time.”
An answer that was quintessentially Yeoheon Jin.
Haeon narrowed her eyes.
“You’re giving a very safe answer.”
“It isn’t a lie.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.”
But it probably wasn’t the whole truth, either.
She thought she understood him a little now.
Yeoheon was someone who held back his words.
He simply didn’t say things.
He wasn’t someone who lied outright.
At least not as far as she remembered.
That was what made it more frustrating.
“Then…”
Haeon slowly looked around the study.
“Did you set up this room like this because of that competition?”
“No.”
This time, his answer came quickly.
“Then why?”
“I created a space that seemed like something you would need.”
“How did you know that?”
“I’ve seen several proposals created at Haedam.”
“Knowing they were my proposals?”
“Yes.”
Haeon closed her mouth.
In her past life, she had always thought Yeoheon wasn’t interested in her work.
She had assumed he didn’t even know in detail what department she worked in or what she did.
But now that she heard this, more and more traces were surfacing that suggested otherwise.
It was hard to call it interest.
Yet he knew far too much to call it indifference.
That boundary was the hardest thing to understand.
Haeon ran her fingertips along the edge of the desk.
“Did you look at my proposals closely enough to know what I like?”
“I don’t know your preferences that well.”
“And yet the result is pretty accurate.”
Yeoheon’s gaze swept over the room once.
“I suppose I was lucky.”
Haeon laughed as if he were ridiculous.
“You believe in luck?”
“No.”
“Then that doesn’t make sense.”
“I suppose it doesn’t.”
He was so calm.
Haeon finally shook her head.
“You’re really annoying.”
This time, she used a more formal tone.
Yeoheon’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard that assessment.”
“Everyone else probably couldn’t say it to your face.”
“You can.”
“I plan to this time.”
Haeon answered him.
“If I’m curious, I’ll ask. If I don’t like something, I’ll say I don’t like it.”
Yeoheon’s expression stilled for the briefest moment.
“That’s what you should do.”
It was a short reply.
Yet his voice was strangely low.
As if he had been waiting a long time for her to say those words.
Another question occurred to Haeon, but this time she didn’t ask it.
That was enough for today.
In fact, the more questions she asked, the more carefully Yeoheon chose his words.
There wasn’t much she could get by pressuring him.
It would be better to simply watch him.
It was only one year, anyway.
They would be living together during that time.
If he really was different from the Yeoheon she thought she knew, it would come to light eventually.
It wasn’t until after eight that night that she finally took off the dress.
There weren’t many comfortable clothes in the bag she’d brought from the hotel.
Between the silk robe prepared for the first night of their marriage and the dresses, she chose the most ordinary knit dress.
She removed her makeup and let down her hair.
The bride from the wedding disappeared from the mirror, and the Haeon Ki of everyday life returned.
It was a strange house, yet she felt comfortable in it to an unusual degree.
At least it didn’t make her feel suffocated like the Hannam-dong estate had.
She stepped out of the bedroom.
Yeoheon’s room was across the hall.
The door was closed.
Haeon watched it for a moment, then headed back to the study.
She hadn’t been able to look around properly earlier because of Yeoheon.
She slowly scanned the bookshelves.
Distribution.
Branding.
Spatial planning.
Consumer behavior.
Not every book matched her tastes.
Some were books widely read in the industry.
There were also many she had never seen before.
That was actually a relief.
It would have been stranger if everything in the room had matched her memories exactly.
She sat in front of the desk and opened a drawer.
Clips.
Memo paper.
Notebooks.
Writing instruments.
Nothing special seemed to be inside.
Her hand stopped as she opened the second drawer.
There was a black fountain pen inside.
Haeon slowly picked it up.
A familiar weight.
A familiar shape.
It was a brand she had used for several years, since college.
The same model.
The same color.
The pen she had lost somewhere early in her marriage and never bought again.
As Haeon turned the fountain pen over in her hand, she noticed a small piece of paper at the back of the drawer.
A receipt.
The purchase date was only a few days ago.
Her gaze turned somber.
It wasn’t something he had hurriedly prepared the day before the wedding.
He had bought it several days earlier.
Haeon took out a new notebook.
She opened to the first page.
Holding the fountain pen, she wrote a single line.
[What Yeoheon Jin knows.]
Below it, she began writing them down one by one.
The college competition.
The out-of-print book.
My proposal.
The possibility that I might start an independent business.
That I hate the Hannam-dong house.
After hesitating, she added one more line.
That I was frightened on my wedding day.
The pen stopped beneath the final sentence.
The competition had an explanation.
So did the book.
And the proposal.
Even his prediction about her starting an independent business could be understood if she forced the pieces together.
But Hannam-dong.
And her fear.
Those two things had no explanation.
Haeon drew a line beneath the two sentences.
Knock, knock.
A knock sounded.
She closed the notebook.
“Yes?”
The door opened.
It was Yeoheon.
He had already taken off his tuxedo.
He wore a white shirt and dark slacks.
He wasn’t wearing a tie, either.
He looked much more relaxed than he had at the wedding venue.
“You’re still awake.”
“Yes.”
His gaze turned toward the desk.
Then it stopped on the fountain pen.
Haeon didn’t miss his reaction.
“Did you prepare this, too?”
A brief silence.
“Yes.”
“Why this one?”
“I saw you using it before.”
Haeon let out a short breath, as if she’d expected that answer.
“When else?”
“A few times.”
“Besides the competition?”
“At official events.”
“I don’t even remember that.”
“That’s possible.”
The same answer again.
Haeon rolled the fountain pen between her fingers.
“You even remembered the model I used?”
“By coincidence.”
“You don’t believe in luck, but you seem to believe in coincidences quite a lot.”
This time, the corner of his mouth moved ever so slightly.
It was too brief to call a smile.
But Haeon saw it.
A face she had almost never seen in front of her in her past life.
Her heart felt strange in that moment.
She didn’t dislike it.
But she wasn’t excited, either.
It was simply unfamiliar.
As if she were looking at an entirely different person with the same face.
Haeon pushed the thought away.
“Why did you come?”
“I heard you barely ate.”
“I’m fine.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
The moment he said it, she belatedly realized how hungry she was.
But Haeon shook her head.
“I’m too tired today. I just want to rest.”
“I understand.”
Yeoheon didn’t try to stop her.
“I had something simple prepared in the refrigerator. Eat if you need to.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll take care of myself.”
As expected, they would each handle their own affairs.
That was more comfortable for her right now, anyway.
Just as Yeoheon turned to leave, Haeon called out to him.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
“Starting tomorrow…”
“Yes?”
“Let’s set some rules for living together.”
Yeoheon turned his gaze back to her.
“The contract only covers the company and property, right?”
Haeon counted them off on her fingers.
“How we’ll handle entering each other’s rooms while living in the same house. How much we’ll tell each other about our personal schedules. Whether we can bring people home. What we’ll do if family members show up without warning.”
Now that she thought about it, there was more.
“We should set employee access hours, too. And decide which spaces are for each of us to use.”
“That will be necessary.”
“We have to live together for a whole year, anyway. It’ll be easier if we set everything out from the beginning.”
“Let’s do that.”
Yeoheon nodded.
Haeon looked at him for a moment.
“This time, don’t tell me we should do everything the way I want.”
His expression changed ever so slightly.
“Why not?”
“These are rules for living together.”
Haeon spoke calmly.
“Tell me what makes you uncomfortable, too.”
A brief silence.
This time, he didn’t answer right away.
Haeon raised her eyebrows.
“Why?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You had another strange thought, didn’t you?”
“It’s not like that.”
Yeoheon placed his hand on the doorknob.
“Let’s talk tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Get some rest tonight.”
He closed the door and left.
Haeon was alone again.
In the quiet study, she stared at the desk.
Then she slowly opened the notebook again.
[What Yeoheon Jin knows.]
The things that could be explained.
And the things that still couldn’t.
Between them, she wrote down a new line.
[The Yeoheon Jin I don’t know.]
She stared at it for a moment, then closed the notebook.
At first, she had thought she only needed to endure one year.
That there was no need for them to get to know each other.
But before even a day had passed since their marriage, her thoughts had begun to change.
What did this man know?
Why was he so different from the Yeoheon of her past life?
At the very least, she had to find that out.
And starting the next day,
for the first time since becoming husband and wife,
the two of them would set rules for living together.