I only wanted ramen late at night.
That was all.
I remembered that there was a convenience store down this alley—something I’d noticed the last time I came out—so I was walking that way when I ran straight into it: a thick, metallic stench of blood, and a stranger lying there, a knife buried in his abdomen, dying.
Even though I was sure I’d never seen him before, his face felt disturbingly familiar.
‘That’s exactly the face on the cover.’
At that point, there was no way I could just pretend I hadn’t seen him and walk away.
The man lay there with his eyes squeezed shut behind his glasses. His hair was neatly slicked straight back, his eyebrows dark and defined. With strong, masculine features carved cleanly into his face, there was no doubt about it.
This man was Jung Hwanhui—the main male lead.
On the cover of <Secret Romance with the Housekeeper>, the male lead and female lead were shown locked in a tight embrace. That image had stuck with me. The face on that cover was this face.
And yet, right now, Jung Hwanhui was bleeding out and dying right in front of me.
‘…This wasn’t in the book.’
The actual story only began once the heroine entered the picture. Which meant this was before all of that.
Right. There was no way the main male lead would die. In other words, I could just ignore this and walk away. It wouldn’t matter.
I stared indifferently at Jung Hwanhui, who looked half-conscious, then walked past him.
‘Someone else will save him. Doesn’t have to be me.’
“Hey, the blood trail—looks like it ends here.”
“Over there?”
“He’s gotta be nearby. He’s badly injured—there’s no way he got far. We have to kill him today! Today’s our chance! If not now, when the hell are we ever gonna get another opportunity like this?”
Ah… I really don’t want to get involved in this kind of thing.
Really.
After unifying the entire organization and living my days in peace, why was I suddenly running into something this pulse-pounding…?
I didn’t want this. I really didn’t.
I shot a glance at Jung Hwanhui, who was on the brink of death. No matter how I looked at it, if I pretended not to see him and left, he’d be discovered and killed by those men in no time.
In the end, I quickly backpedaled and returned to Jung Hwanhui, checking his condition. First things first—I had to stop the bleeding.
I tore my T-shirt and carried out emergency treatment as fast as I could.
If you’re born and raised in an organization, this kind of first aid is basic knowledge. I even had some experience with surgery.
When you live as a gangster, there are plenty of situations where you can’t go to a hospital. If you want to survive, you’re forced to learn these things whether you like it or not.
After finishing the emergency measures and confirming that Jung Hwanhui was breathing steadily, I hoisted him over my shoulder.
Then I moved in the opposite direction of the voices.
I distinctly remembered that there was a half-dead motel nearby. Let’s go there first.
All this, just because I wanted to go to a convenience store.
I hurried toward the motel.
* * *
“Haa… hngh.”
He’s fucking heavy.
Of all things, he had to be taller than me—and built like a tank.
I practically threw Jung Hwanhui onto the motel bed.
I’d come up after getting the room key while talking to the clerk like I was dealing with a drunk older brother, just to avoid suspicion. Thankfully, since I was wearing black, the blood wasn’t very noticeable.
First thing I did was strip Jung Hwanhui’s clothes off him.
They were soaked in blood and stuck to his body, making them hard to remove, so I just grabbed his shirt and tore it open.
“This is a mess. Completely soaked.”
I’d applied emergency treatment in a rush, but there hadn’t been time to remove the knife yet.
Pulling it out recklessly would be dangerous…
I stared at Jung Hwanhui as he struggled to breathe, then got up and rushed outside.
I remembered there being a pharmacy nearby, so I went looking for it. I needed supplies.
After sweeping up bandages and all kinds of medicine, I carefully checked my surroundings on the way back, wary of anyone following me.
Thankfully, I didn’t see anyone who looked like a gangster.
Unable to find him, they must have assumed he wasn’t in the area and moved on.
A small mercy.
I hurried back to the motel room.
When I returned, Jung Hwanhui’s face was drenched in cold sweat.
First… the knife.
“Kh—!”
I took a deep breath and gripped the handle tightly.
Then I pulled it out.
Blood splattered across my face as Jung Hwanhui erupted into violent coughing, vomiting blood.
Exactly as expected.
I stayed calm, stopping the bleeding, spraying disinfectant from the pharmacy, and skillfully stitching the wound closed.
It had been a while, so I was worried, but thankfully my hands moved cleanly and decisively.
By the time I finished—sweat dripping as I concentrated—I heard Jung Hwanhui’s breathing stabilize, and finally let out a breath of relief.
He’d passed the worst of it.
I applied medicine to the smaller wounds as well, then covered him with a blanket.
‘All this because I wanted to go to a convenience store.’
I almost died myself.
If I hadn’t shown up, would Jung Hwanhui have died?
Or would there have been some other way for him to survive?
That part never appeared in the original novel, so there was no way to know.
Honestly, letting the main male lead die would’ve been a disaster anyway. At the time, saving him was the only option I had.
I don’t regret it.
But still…
I looked down at Jung Hwanhui.
This was going to affect the story far too much.
A lowly housekeeper saving the main male lead’s life—what kind of picture was that?
With his rigid, inflexible personality, once Jung Hwanhui realized that I was the one who saved him, he’d go to any lengths to repay the debt.
And that would be the end of my quiet life as a normal housekeeper.
In that case… there was no need to be his acknowledged lifesaver.
I quietly stepped closer and removed his broken glasses.
Jung Hwanhui’s eyesight was terrible. The book explicitly mentioned that without his glasses, he was practically blind even with his eyes open.
I slipped the glasses into my pocket.
Since I’d need to monitor his condition for a while, it was better if he didn’t have something that might let him recognize me.
Ideally, I would’ve taken him to a hospital or handed him over to his subordinates, but given his occupation as a gangster, a regular civilian hospital was out of the question.
And I had no idea who his subordinates were.
Contacting his family was even more impossible.
Jung Hwanhui never wanted his family to see him in a weakened state.
He cherished them too much.
Waiting for him to recover while helping him secretly was the best I could do.
I sighed, pulled out some bedding from the closet, and spread it out on the floor beside the bed.
As long as I got back in before making breakfast for Jung Hwangyeong and Jung Hwangyu, it would be fine.
I decided to stay nearby until Jung Hwanhui regained consciousness.
Being sick and alone was the most miserable thing in the world.
* * *
‘…It hurts.’
When he came to, everything in front of him was blurred.
Jung Hwanhui couldn’t see clearly, but instinctively sensed that he was in an unfamiliar environment.
The texture of the blanket was rough—nothing like the soft bedding he was used to.
He rubbed his eyes.
The blur didn’t clear, but shapes were visible.
Only then did he realize his glasses were gone.
Guarded, he quickly scanned the unfamiliar, cramped room.
‘Am I… alive?’
Where is this?
Jung Hwanhui pulled the blanket aside.
“Ugh.”
Even that small movement sent pain surging through him.
Running his gaze over his body, he saw bandages wrapped around him.
What happened?
He clearly remembered hearing the voice of a strange man in the alley—someone who wasn’t from the Hwayong faction, nor one of his own men.
‘…Did that man treat me?’
If he helped him, maybe he wasn’t a bad person.
Or maybe he treated him just to extract information afterward.
Suspicious, Jung Hwanhui scanned the room again.
If it had been an ordinary civilian, they wouldn’t have brought a man dying from a stab wound to a place like this instead of a hospital.
Still, it seemed no one was here right now.
If he could just escape quickly—
“…Oh? You’re awake?”
Startled by the voice, Jung Hwanhui tried to sit up, but the pain surged violently. He clenched his teeth and collapsed back down.
Someone hurried over and gently pushed him back onto the bed.
The person wasn’t very large—too small to be a gangster.
With his glasses gone, his vision was poor. He squinted, but it felt like something was obscuring the man’s face, almost like a mask.
Because of that, all he could see was something pale, floating indistinctly.
“You can’t get up yet. I just barely stitched you together—if you move, the wound will tear open again. You only woke up after three days.”
“…Who are you?”
“Me? Just a kind, ordinary passerby. Ah—are you hungry? I brought some pumpkin porridge. Want some?”
The man spoke with such casual familiarity that he could’ve been mistaken for a friend.
He rummaged around and brought something up toward Jung Hwanhui’s mouth.
A suspicious yellow substance hovered in front of his eyes.
The man said it was pumpkin porridge, but it might not have been.
Unable to trust him yet, Jung Hwanhui refused.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. Eat. If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. I’ll disappear on my own once you recover, so hurry up and eat. You heal faster when you eat.”
His voice was warm, friendly—completely devoid of hostility.
…Should he believe him?
He’d been stabbed in the back too many times by people who acted friendly.
Trust didn’t come easily.
Still, the man wasn’t entirely wrong.
If he wanted him dead, he would’ve killed him back then.
Whatever his intentions, there was nothing Jung Hwanhui could do in his current state.
Pretending to cooperate, regaining his strength, and contacting the outside world was the best course of action.
Having assessed the situation calmly, Jung Hwanhui slowly opened his mouth.
As if he’d been waiting, the spoon slipped inside.
The sweet, warm pumpkin porridge slid down his throat, and little by little, strength returned to his body.
‘…It tastes good.’
The pumpkin porridge made by this unknown man was far better than he’d expected.