Episode 161: An Unexpected Encounter (5)
“We’ve arrived.”
The voice of an unfamiliar man pulled him out of his deep thoughts.
At that signal, his gaze, which had been directed out the window without any focus, caught sight of a familiar street.
“Ah, thank you.”
“No need for thanks. Rather, I should be the one thanking you. My daughter is a big fan of Han Yujin, so you even gave her an autograph like this.”
After paying the taxi fare with an awkward smile to the unfamiliar man — the taxi driver who had coincidentally picked him up — and stepping out, the night air, which had already turned cold, wrapped around him.
‘Sending Su-hyeok home first was truly a divine move.’
He had ended up taking a taxi home because he had let Su-hyeok leave work earlier.
The person he had to meet was that kind of opponent, after all.
‘Actually, that was a fake too, but it made it even more…’
It was obvious that meeting someone from the business world while working in the entertainment industry wasn’t entirely a good thing, and since word had come that Su-hyeok’s grandmother had come up from the countryside, he had gladly sent him off.
If that SSS-class manager had been by his side, he would have immediately noticed that something was off with him.
“Ha…”
A sigh as cold as the chilled night air escaped.
If he had to give a reason… well, today had become the day when his head and heart were the most complicated in his entire life.
‘I really feel like drinking today…’
There had only been one other time when alcohol had called to him this strongly.
Right before his regression, the moment he realized the hidden bad relationship between him, Zia, and Lee Hee-kyung.
Of course, the meaning and weight of the fact that was troubling him now was slightly different from back then.
Still, the strong whiskey that had driven him into intense intoxication had not come to mind even once since his regression.
‘Should I… tell her about this…?’
A question he asked himself but could not answer at all.
If until now most cases had been because his head and heart were moving separately, today neither his head nor his heart could come up with a proper answer.
“…”
He slightly raised his head and took in the building in front of him.
Then he thought of the person who would be waiting for him in the place where the lowest of the three lights leaking through the windows was shining.
And,
“It feels like I’m burdening Yujin-ssi with too heavy a homework… I’m truly sorry.”
The voice of the culprit who had put him in this state brushed through his mind, and the unexpected encounter he had never anticipated began to flow through him like a panorama.
***
They say that when a person is too shocked, they can’t even scream.
It was a fact he really hadn’t wanted to know.
At least not in this way.
“Nice to meet you. I am Woo Hye-yeon.”
Because he knew what position she would rise to in the future, it was possible, but even So Young-hoon’s name alone had been powerful enough to break him for the entire day.
‘But Woo Hye-yeon here? For real?’
The appearance of a nuclear bomb-level figure that turned his mind completely white.
Even with forty years of experience, there was nothing that could have prepared him for meeting someone he thought he would never encounter in his lifetime.
‘Right… the only person who could use So Young-hoon’s name as a shield is Woo Hye-yeon…’
Having experienced the shocking event of regression, he could at least imagine this much.
“You seem very surprised. I’m sorry. Still, why don’t you come in and sit first? You’re not going to leave right away, are you?”
She was smiling kindly.
She was giving him a choice.
But Woo Hye-yeon’s expression and voice carried an atmosphere that would not tolerate refusal.
“Ah. Excuse me.”
The atmosphere that naturally drew such words from his mouth and made his frozen feet move could only be described as an ‘aura.’
‘So this is what a real chaebol is like…?’
It felt fundamentally different from the few empty shells he had unavoidably encountered at various events before his regression.
Slide, thud.
Only after the door closed did the desire to run away slowly raise its head, but it was far too late.
For a brief moment, he felt like he had been bewitched by a ghost and willingly stepped into a tiger’s den.
‘I did hear someone say she was like a tiger.’
Well, the person who said that probably hadn’t meant it in this sense.
‘What is she thinking…’
Originally, it was a useless imagination that didn’t even have a single laugh point.
However, perhaps because the atmosphere was what it was, it helped him loosen up the tension to an appropriate level.
Of course, at the same time, he briefly regretted not hearing the business from So Young-hoon beforehand, but it was a meaningless regret now.
In that way, he took a seat across from Woo Hye-yeon.
“I’ve been watching Project Trinity well. The atmosphere these days is really good.”
The icebreaker was, as expected, Project Trinity.
“Except for the 4th week, your team has been in first place the whole time, right?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
Team Y’s performance of marching in first place, except for the one week they lost after taking a big hit from the sharply prepared Heo Yul-bok.
Just as the Our Group representative who had visited the filming site said before, if Our Electronics really had a lot of interest in him, this would definitely be something they would like.
“It seems thanks to all the help we received.”
It wasn’t just empty words.
Whether it was Ryu Je-hoon’s own judgment or if there had been influence from their side.
‘Probably both.’
It was an undeniable fact that as the frequency of exposure to his appearance — more precisely, his appearance using Voyager — increased, the focusing on Team Y naturally grew as well.
“That’s because Yujin-ssi and the kids you’re teaching are so talented.”
A conversation where they were complimenting each other’s faces.
Looking at her now, one might think, ‘This is the person they called Ice, Witch, or Tiger?’ but the impression of the powerful aura she had shown earlier was too strong to be forgotten with just this kind of talk.
She had probably been given suitable topics for icebreaking by her capable secretaries.
“Now that I think about it, you also appeared in a drama, right?”
“Ah, yes.”
“There were a lot of favorable reviews. The song you sang there is an original, right? Will that be released as a sound source too?”
“Yes. It’s scheduled to be released tomorrow at noon.”
“That’s nice. I was already looking forward to it after hearing it.”
Following Project Trinity, the topic of 1 Hit Lover made that thought even stronger.
No matter how exceptional the viewership rating 1 Hit Lover recorded for a short drama, it would still be an insignificant number in the eyes of high-ranking people.
‘There’s no way she actually watched it.’
The story was more appealing to women than men, but the other party was a businesswoman known for having neither blood nor tears.
Rather, the reins of tension that had loosened to an appropriate level felt like they were tightening a little more.
Perhaps because of that.
“I already ordered something suitable for the menu in advance. I heard you don’t have any particular food restrictions. Ah, but it might be a bit spicy. Is that okay?”
While watching the restaurant staff bring in the menu, Woo Hye-yeon’s words allowed him to immediately detect a sense of discomfort.
A moment later, after the staff disappeared again, he pointed it out.
“May I ask you one thing?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“Where did you hear that I don’t eat spicy food well?”
He remembered saying in various places that he didn’t have any particular food he couldn’t eat.
He had said it on Goyo’s radio, on Lee Ahjeong’s YouTube channel, and in the interview with Reporter Kwak Su-bin.
However, he had never mentioned anywhere that he couldn’t eat spicy food well — more precisely, that he was very weak to spicy food.
‘That was intentional.’
The label “mapjjil” (someone weak to spice) was not something anyone would like.
So he had never talked about spicy food anywhere, in the sense of “I didn’t lie.”
The only people who would know that were the very small number of people who ate with him continuously or regularly.
“Ah.”
Soon, an exclamation flowed from Woo Hye-yeon’s lips.
For a brief moment, his brow unconsciously furrowed at the tone that seemed to acknowledge her own mistake.
Then, a rather embarrassing situation unfolded before his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Woo Hye-yeon bowed her head so deeply that her forehead almost touched the rice bowl.
The Woo Hye-yeon he remembered from the media was always confident and imposing, so the awkwardness he felt from her current appearance was more than enough to smooth out his furrowed brow.
“I didn’t intend to bring it up like this… I planned to at least finish the meal first, but I made a mistake. Um… Where should I start… It would be better to start from the beginning. I really like your songs, Yujin-ssi. To what extent… I was so grateful to you for giving me good songs that I even tried a small event of my own?”
“Yes?”
A dumb question slipped out because he couldn’t keep up with the suddenly changed atmosphere. Woo Hye-yeon looked at him and continued with a gentle smile.
“Why? Don’t you remember? That subway station. I think my name even came up when I apologized for that.”
At that moment, one forgotten brain-freeze incident flashed through his mind.
“That… was… really… Vice President…?”
“Yes. I thought you were just pretending not to know out of consideration for me. You really didn’t know?”
The way she covered her mouth and chuckled softly overlapped so much with the fans who had successfully pulled off the surprise event before his regression that it felt eerily familiar.
While he was dazed by the shock that overloaded his brain, Woo Hye-yeon’s expression darkened slightly.
“This is actually the first time I’ve been this engrossed in someone… So one of my subordinates went a little overboard. That shouldn’t have happened… They looked into you a bit. That’s how I heard you don’t handle spicy food well.”
For a moment, he felt as if all the blood had drained from his body.
If they had dug deep enough to find out his eating habits, there was no guarantee they hadn’t found out something else.
‘Zia…!’
The PTSD that suddenly hit him made him unconsciously shoot up from his seat.
The PTSD of fearing that a third party might try to tear him and Zia apart.
“Sit down. I can guess what you’re thinking… but that’s not why I called you here.”
However, Woo Hye-yeon looked at him calmly and continued speaking in a composed manner.
“I don’t see you as a member of the opposite sex, Yujin-ssi. To me, the singer Han Yujin is a thankful person who awakened emotions inside me that I didn’t even know existed. I don’t care who that person meets. Rather, if that meeting allows him to show even better songs, I would welcome it with open arms.”
“…”
“To put it bluntly, if I were the type to get hurt over something like that, I wouldn’t tell you to break up or anything. I would simply cut off all interest and treat you as if you didn’t exist.”
That was true.
He didn’t remember every single anecdote about her, but when he thought of nicknames like ‘Ice Witch’ or ‘Tiger,’ it was far more convincing that she would simply cut off interest rather than messily say something like ‘break up,’ just as she had said.
This left another question.
“Then… why today…?”
It had been almost half a year since the nickname ‘Our Hye-yeon’ had appeared before him, and only now had she set up this meeting.
It seemed far too grand if it was simply to satisfy her fan heart.
“…”
To him, Woo Hye-yeon silently pushed forward a document envelope that had been hidden by the table.
Without a word, but with a look that said ‘open it,’ he opened the envelope. Inside was only a single photograph.
A faded film photo.
It contained a pair — a man and a woman.
“This…”
The woman in the photo looked very young, but she clearly carried the same features as the Woo Hye-yeon sitting before him now.
That was not surprising.
The problem was the man posing affectionately with her.
“The eldest son of our Woo family. He ran away from home when he was young and we lost all contact… but the fact that he is my older brother hasn’t changed. And…”
He didn’t need to hear the rest to know what she was about to say.
Because in the man’s face, he could clearly see Zia’s face.
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