Chapter 9

* * *

“How intentional of him to handle business like this.”

Taemoo loosened his tie around his neck.

“We will hold all our meetings in Mr. Yoon’s office starting tomorrow. I have no trust in him and I would like to check him out myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

Taemoo found an irrelevant file in the contract for his new clients. There were files about Sung-oon group, information that could work against Taemoo’s business if they were publicized. If Sung-oon group figured out the files, it was possible that they could make offers that would put Taemoo at a disadvantage. Since the name of that irrelevant file was “contract,” Taemoo knew this was intentional. It was probably dirty play from those who don’t like him at work.

“Sorry I didn’t look over them beforehand.”

Sunghoon sincerely apologized, but Taemoo knew Sunghoon had no time to look over the files, with so much on his plate already.

“It’s good that we caught it now.”

As Taemoo got in the car, Sunghoon hopped in the driver’s seat.

“How did you know, sir? Weren’t you with Youngseo?”

Youngseo Jin.

Taemoo scowled. She had called him first, as he had planned. She had probably thought that it was all over now that she had turned the marriage down, but now was shocked with his announcement of their marriage.

Taemoo’s plan was simple. He was trying to prevent her from thinking straight, and use that confusion in his advantage to get married. He had, however, encountered a problem. As Youngeso had gone up to get the drinks, he had found out when looking through his emails that there were people who were against him, and who were planning things that were very petty. If Taemoo hadn’t checked his emails, things would have gotten messy.

“Were you working when you were with Youngseo?”

Taemoo checked his watch. He had told Youngseo that it was only going to take 20 minutes, but it had taken him more than an hour. The technical team took longer than expected trying to cancel the email that they had already sent out to the clients. It was enough time for Youngseo to run away, especially because she had told him that she was not going to wait any longer.

If she had indeed walked off, he had to give up on his plan to marry her, because he had failed to keep his promise.

“Should I head home, sir?”

Taemoo had a headache thinking about going on another blind date. This also wasn’t the only time the executives at work had put Taemoo on their radar. Unable to control him like they had his father, they were finding pathetic ways to interfere with his business plan. This had been going on for a while, and it was very possible that it could happen in the future. They were even at work when he was on his blind date. Taemoo didn’t want to waste any more time on these pathetic behaviors.

“Head to the cafe.”

“Do you think she’ll still be there, sir?”

Taemoo responded to Sunghoon’s question with a faint grin. Why would someone who had blocked his number wait for him for hours? He shook his head while Sunghoon whispered to himself.

“Well, if you two are destined to be, she might be.”

“Do you think I believe in that?”

“Then why are we heading over there?”

Taemoo recalled the conversation from the date.

I’m not going to run away.

He somehow felt trust in the certainty that she had. He knew, however, that she was probably just waiting for him to say that she wasn’t going to get married.

“There’s always a ‘What if’.”

Rather than going on another blind date, Taemoo believed that his chances were better in checking to see if she was waiting for him. What if she really was?

“That is called destiny,” Taemoo whispered to himself.

* * *

The room was filled with fog. Nothing could be seen, and someone approached Hari as she was trying to find her way.

“Youngseo?”

“What?”

“Are you Youngseo?”

“No, you have the wrong person.“

“What are you talking about, that you’re not Youngseo from my blind date? Who are you? You can’t be my employee Hari Shin from the management office, who played with me for money?”

As the voice continued to speak, Hari realized it was Taemoo. His eyes were getting furious.

“Yes or no. Is it you?”

“Mr. Kang. It’s…no. I am Youngseo.“

“Okay, then. Let’s get married.”

Hari felt like she was being choked. She nodded in agreement because that was the only way she was going to survive. At that moment, the whole room went dark, and now she was suffocating. Taemoo had picked her up from the floor. Before she knew it, she was in a wedding dress.

“No, Please. You have the wrong person. I’m not Youngseo!”

Even though Hari was screaming out her lungs, there was no use. He seemed like he was unable to hear her.

“Hey! Please put me down. Please! I am not the person you’re looking for. Hear me out, please?”

“No. We can’t waste more time.”

“Okay, then at least put me down.”

“That’s not possible. We have somewhere to go.”

“Somewhere to go? Go where?”

Hari was now kicking like crazy, but he didn’t budge. She couldn't even collect her thoughts.

“Boss! Boss!”

She used her last strength to shout.

Oh my god. Where is he taking me? Where the hell are we going?!

“We are going to our home.”

“What?”

“I’m your husband. You are my wife.”

“Goodness! No! I have no business getting married with you. I am your employee, you are my boss. We are…we are…!”

“We are destiny.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Destiny. Out of the millions of possibilities, you have been destined to be my wife.”

“Uhm, what?”

“Yes, you are my wife.”

“No, I’m not talking about that…”

* * *

She hasn’t left.

Taemoo was looking at Hari. She was dozing off with her head on the table.

Fallen asleep, meanwhile.

Taemoo had thought that she would either have left or was going to scream at him to cancel the marriage, but never that she would be dozing off. He wasn’t the type of guy who had thought about his ideal type before, but honestly, Youngseo wasn’t bad. It could be a problem that she was a party animal, but it didn’t really matter to him if she didn’t bother him to party with her.

Most importantly, she had not left. He gave her extra points for helping him not go on another blind date.

There are good sides to her being so weird.

If Hari knew how Taemoo was thinking of her, she would have raised her voice about who the weird person here was. At any rate, Taemoo felt reassured and took a seat, staring at her.

Her long hair was stuck to her red lips like seaweed, and her black eyeshadow was painted all over her eyes like bruises. She looked as if she had spent the night out and was sleeping at the train station, but in Taemoo’s eyes, she looked like a poor puppy abandoned in the streets.

As Taemoo continued to look at Youngseo moved in her sleep and banged her head on the table, almost hitting her coffee cup.

Taemoo quickly moved the cup away, and Youngseo bobbed her head around as she continued to sleep.

What an interesting girl.

Taemoo gave a big smile as Youngseo kept bobbing her head. It had been so long since he smiled like that.

* * *

“NOOOOOOOOO!”

Hari burst out of her chair, startling everyone in the cafe. Sitting in front of her was Taemoo, who was holding her coffee away from her.

What the? What’s going on?

Hari pinched herself and realized that this wasn’t a dream.

This isn’t a dream? So, this is real?

Hari fixed her hair and sat down again.

“You’re here.”

“How’d you sleep?”

Hari looked at Taemoo, confused. Taemoo put the cup down.

“You had a nightmare or something?”

Yeah, the biggest one I’ve ever had.

“No, not at all. I had no dream.”

He squinted at her.

“You seemed to be moving around a lot.”

“What? Did I say something weird?”

“No, nothing much. Just a couple of animals and cuss words here and there.”

That’s completely weird!

Hari checked the time, feeling embarrassed. An hour and a half had passed since he had promised to be back. Hari wondered how much she had slept.

“Did I make you wait?”

Realizing that she had just blown off her chance to walk away on the marriage, she felt terrible that she had made him wait. Taemoo stared at her for a bit, then nodded slowly.

“Yes. I did wait a while.”

Hari would have never known that there were intentions behind that nod. She could only feel bad and embarrassed.

“Did you take care of your business?”

“Thanks to you.”

“Looks like you’re very busy.”

He nodded.

“You should have woken me up! You’re a busy man.”

As Hari’s face filled with guilt, Taemoo’s smile got bigger and bigger.

“You seemed very tired.”

“Thank you for being considerate.”

“It’s nothing.”

“One thing.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to marry you.”

Yes. This was her chance to be assertive. She hadn’t forgotten about it, even in her dream. Taemoo seemed as if he was taken aback, and lifted his eyebrow.

“No matter how many times I think about it, I don’t think this is how I want to get married. Even if this involves our families, how can you get married like this? This is not in my book.”

As Hari tried to intimidate him with her words, she thought about what he was going to say to her. This is not for the two of us to decide. We have to get married. If we don’t, I will ruin your business and family. Hari got nervous thinking about the things that could come out of his mouth. Still-

“Okay.”

What? That’s it?

Because his answer was so out of the blue, Hari felt like she had lost all her momentum and didn’t have anything else to say.

“……”

“Then let’s actually date and get to know each other. We’ll get married after.”

He inched closer to Hari as he spoke. She should have known better than to leave him any room for comfort.

“Uh, I have no interest in that.”

“Why?”

“It’s obvious. Who would want to get married like this? Even if this is a blind date, how could you propose on the day of the first date.”

“If I scared you, I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t just take an apology.”

“Then what?”

“Take it back.”

He couldn’t speak for a second. Hari did not want to lose her chance.

“To be honest with you, I never want to get married through a blind date. Don’t you think it’s not very romantic?” Hari continued to speak as she thought about what Youngseo had said. “I’m looking for my soulmate. I don’t want to marry someone I don’t know just because family is involved.”

“Then you can get to know me. Let me take you out on a couple of dates.”