After generously spraying disinfectant over my arm and the space around me, Cha Ju Heon finally seemed satisfied and slipped the bottle back into his bag.
He didn’t seem remotely interested in who the man I’d been talking to was. He acted as though there was no one else in the room but me.
In other words, he was completely ignoring Gyu Min.
~~“Mr. Baek Eun Woo.”
“Yes?”
~~~“Why waste your time standing around here? Go get your vitamin injection. What if you catch something from being so close to a stranger? Haven’t I told you repeatedly to stay away from anything dirty or unsanitary?”
His tone was as nagging as ever, his eyes fixed on the arm Gyu Min had just touched.
He narrowed his eyes, then reached over and brushed at my sleeve as though he were trying to shake off some invisible speck of dirt. The gesture was so blatant that it almost looked as if something disgusting had gotten on me.
Wow.
I’ve never seen someone look this refined while being this unbelievably rude.
Anyone watching us would have thought Cha Ju Heon was deliberately insulting the man in front of him. His contempt was practically impossible to miss.
What made it even more absurd was how dignified he looked while doing it.
He didn’t raise his voice or make a scene. He simply used his innate arrogance to erase Gyu Min’s presence from the room as though he didn’t exist.
“Um, Director…”
~~~“Oh, we’re already running late. You must be hungry. Let’s go. You’ve been eating more lately, so missing a meal isn’t an option.”
Cha Ju Heon frowned.
It’s just one late meal. What’s the big deal?
“Huh? It won’t be that bad… But how do you know I’ve been eating more?”
I knew it wasn’t exactly the right time to ask, but I couldn’t help myself.
I was genuinely curious.
How did someone as busy as Cha Ju Heon know how much I ate at every meal?
~~~“How much food is being delivered to that house, do you think I wouldn’t know? What you like, what you dislike, how much you eat at each meal—I have to keep track of all of it. I can’t afford to let anything happen to your body. Did you really think I’d overlook something that important?”
“…I see.”
Of course.
That made perfect sense.
I had never imagined he paid this much attention to me. I’d always assumed the Chairman was the one arranging everything related to my daily life.
But apparently, I was wrong.
Cha Ju Heon had been quietly keeping track of everything I ate, everything I wore, and probably everything else in between.
Maybe it wasn’t just my meals and clothes, either.
Perhaps every aspect of my life was being monitored just as closely.
It was only then that I realized how important this baby was to them—and how seriously they were taking the contract.
The thread of tension inside me, which had loosened somewhat, suddenly pulled taut again.
~~“Now that you know, let’s go.”
Cha Ju Heon clearly had no intention of staying here another second. He placed a hand against my back and urged me forward.
We had barely made it out of the lobby when a familiar voice called after us.
___“Hey, Eun Woo! I don’t know what’s going on, but apparently Gyu Ho is coming back to Korea soon. Let’s all get together when he does!”
Whether Gyu Ho came back or not, I had no interest in seeing him again.
Still, ending things like this left an unpleasant feeling in my chest. I’d wanted to at least say goodbye properly.
But Cha Ju Heon’s grip on me was too firm for me to stop.
All I could do was twist around halfway and catch one last glimpse of Gyu Min standing there with a bewildered expression.
That was it.
Our reunion ended without so much as a proper farewell.
Cha Ju Heon didn’t say a word during the entire drive back.
He didn’t ask who the man was or why I’d been talking to him.
That made it even harder for me to bring up what had happened.
I wanted to ask why he’d acted that way. Why he’d dragged me away so abruptly.
Cha Ju Heon could be demanding and particular, but he was normally a man with impeccable manners. He had never been openly rude to a stranger before.
What had happened today was a complete mystery.
But until he said something himself, I didn’t have the courage to ask.
Maybe I should just come up with my own explanation and let it go.
Perhaps it was simply his excessive obsession with cleanliness. He probably hated seeing me standing so close to someone unfamiliar.
He’d never liked things he wasn’t familiar with in the first place. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Besides, whatever his reason, he’d gotten me out of an uncomfortable situation.
That was enough to be grateful for.
~~~“Is there anything you want to eat?”
His voice broke through my thoughts.
~~~“You’ve been out for a while. We could pick something up and take it home. You can eat comfortably there. We shouldn’t put too much strain on your body.”
His tone was unusually firm.
“I don’t mind either way. But you haven’t eaten yet, Director. Are you going home?”
~~~“No. I’m going back to the office.”
“What? Then what about your lunch? It’s already so late…”
My eyes instinctively flicked toward the clock.
I knew perfectly well Cha Ju Heon had no intention of sitting down and eating with me, but I still couldn’t help feeling uneasy.
Even if he’d undergone his own examination while we were there, the main reason he’d cleared his schedule this morning had been to accompany me to my prenatal checkup.
He’d already spent the entire morning with me.
And now he was going back to work without even eating.
I couldn’t help feeling guilty.
~~~“It’s fine. I’ll eat something simple. You should worry about your own meal. What do you want?”
The seriousness with which he kept asking what I wanted was almost enough to make me laugh.
It was just a meal.
Did he really have to treat it like such a momentous decision?
But I understood.
He wasn’t really worried about me.
He was worried about the baby.
If I ate well, the baby would grow healthy.
“I want a hamburger. Just a simple one.”
“A hamburger…”
He immediately pulled out his phone.
~~~“Give me a moment.”
I watched as he started searching.
~~~“Hmm. I don’t eat hamburgers, so I’m not very familiar with them. But there’s a highly rated gourmet burger restaurant nearby.”
“A gourmet burger restaurant?”
So that was what he was looking for.
Apparently, Cha Ju Heon and I had very different definitions of the word hamburger.
The kind he was searching for definitely wasn’t the cheap fast-food burger I had in mind. It was probably the sort that cost tens of thousands of won at some upscale restaurant.
“Director, you really don’t have to go that far. We can just order through a delivery app. It’ll be here quickly. Please don’t worry about it.”
~~“Delivery?”
His reaction was immediate.
He looked at me as though I’d just suggested something deeply offensive.
~~“Food from delivery apps is fast food.”
“Yes. Exactly. Hamburgers are fast food.”
Cha Ju Heon gave a quiet scoff.
~~“No. They’re not. Why do you insist on lumping everything together like that? There are plenty of burgers made with high-quality, healthy ingredients these days. Just wait a moment. Forget about those other places.”
His dismissive tone was starting to get on my nerves.
Anyone could tell he’d probably never eaten fast food in his entire life.
Normally, I would have let it slide.
But maybe I was hungry.
Or maybe I was just annoyed by the way he treated my food choices as though they were some kind of bad habit that needed correcting.
Either way, this time I decided to push back.
“…Director. I’m not asking for a gourmet burger from some fancy restaurant. I want a burger from a fast-food place.”
It wasn’t exactly a bold declaration, but at least I’d made myself clear.
I had to spell it out before he’d stop trying to feed me something else.
“I know you’re worried about the baby, but eating one once in a while isn’t going to hurt me.”
Cha Ju Heon finally looked up from his phone.
“The doctor said it’s better to eat what I crave during pregnancy…”
The doctor.
His eyes narrowed.
~~~“I’ve never eaten the kind of burger you’re talking about, so I can’t say whether there’s really much difference in taste. But following my suggestion won’t hurt you, will it? The ingredients will be better, and it’ll be fresher. You’re not exactly losing out.”
He genuinely didn’t understand.
But I felt the same way about him.
I didn’t want to weigh the pros and cons of every meal.
I just wanted to eat what I was craving.
“I haven’t eaten the kind you’re talking about either, so I can’t really compare them. But having fast food once in a while isn’t going to ruin my health. Hamburgers aren’t exactly dangerous.”
~~~“Of course I know they’re not dangerous. People eat them all the time. That’s not my point.”
He lowered his phone.
~~“If you’re going to eat a burger, why not choose one made with better ingredients? Wouldn’t that be better for the baby?”
There it was again.
The baby.
He really did care about his child.
“I understand what you’re saying, Director. But the doctor said that during pregnancy, avoiding stress is actually more important than what you eat.”
~~“…What? Stress? Cha Ju Heon expression changed.
“Yes…”
~~“You’re saying stress?” Cha Ju Heon stared at me.
It was the strongest reaction I’d ever seen from him.
His eyes were filled with genuine shock.
Why was he reacting like that?
His sudden intensity made me tense up.
“I mean, I feel stressed when—”
~~~ “Mr. Baek Eun Woo.”
He cut me off.
~~“You’re the first person who’s ever told me that I make you feel stressed.”
“…What?”
~~~“The first.”
He stared at me as though he’d encountered something completely incomprehensible.
~~~~“No one has ever felt stressed because of me. Not once. And no one has ever dared tell me that they were stressed because of something I said.”
His brow furrowed.
~~~“So why are you the only one who reacts like this? Why are you so unusually sensitive to what I say? I’ve never had anyone react this way before.”
Is he serious?
Judging by his expression, he genuinely didn’t understand.
And somehow, that made me realize all over again just how different our worlds were.
Honestly, who around him would ever dare say something like that?
He wasn’t just their superior.
He was a director, the future heir to the company.
What employee would have the nerve to look him in the eye and say, Your words are stressing me out?
Even if they were being crushed under the pressure, would anyone actually have the courage to say it aloud?
Of course not.
Unless they had completely lost their mind, they’d swallow it down and keep their mouths shut.
I could say it because I wasn’t his employee.
But he seemed to have genuinely believed that the people around him were simply comfortable in his presence.
He really was a prince who had grown up in an ivory tower.
This is hopeless.
I squeezed my eyes shut and ignored his increasingly persistent questions.
“Why does it make you feel stressed?”
“Why are you stressed?”
“Mr. Baek Eun Woo, why?”