Perfect Possession - Episode 6

Changwon was Sung-hee’s hometown.

“I’m looking into it. You can come with me if you want.”

“I’ll go.”

“Then finish your meal.”

Seo-yeon nodded, but suddenly worried about work. Going to Changwon meant taking time off, and that would get back to Chairman Han and Mi-ryung.

Before meeting her, he had gone to work almost every day except for business trips. But since being with Seo-yeon, he had been taking days off.

Chairman Han was displeased with his son taking vacations so regularly.

“Is it okay for you to be away from the office?”

“It’s marked as a business trip.”

Relieved, Seo-yeon forced herself to finish the rest of her rice. Jae-hoon, who had finished eating earlier, quietly waited for her to finish. When she put down her spoon, he stood up.

“We’ll decide what to do about us after we find our child.”

Seo-yeon didn’t ask what he meant by “decide.”

“So, until we find our son, keep your head straight. And don’t cry. We don’t deserve to.”

Seo-yeon felt a pain like something sharp was gouging at her heart. She knew better than anyone that they didn’t deserve to. She couldn’t count the days she had blamed herself and wept. But she wouldn’t do that anymore.

“I won’t cry.”

Seo-yeon looked him straight in the eye and said it clearly. Jae-hoon stared at her for a moment, then added one more thing before leaving the dining room.

“We’ll leave in 30 minutes.”

After Jae-hoon left, Seo-yeon couldn’t move for a while. Her body, which had been sinking endlessly as if the ground beneath her was collapsing, slowly began to rise. But that didn’t mean her heart had lightened.

Even though the misunderstanding about Jae-hoon and the betrayal he felt towards her had been resolved, they still hadn’t found their child. But now that Jae-hoon was taking action, she had hope that they would find him soon.

Seo-yeon hurried back to her room. As she headed for the bathroom, she noticed a pile of packages on the sofa.

Looking inside, she saw they were all clothes. She looked down at the dress she was wearing. It was the kind of design you’d wear to a gathering. She couldn’t accompany Jae-hoon in a dress that dragged to her ankles.

She rummaged through her bag, grabbed some comfortable clothes, and went into the bathroom. He had said to leave in 30 minutes, but she didn’t intend to use all that time. Even if she went down early, Jae-hoon would probably be waiting, so she didn’t want to dawdle.

Seo-yeon put on wide pants and a jacket that reached her waist and left the room.

When she went downstairs, Jae-hoon was talking to Hyun-shik.

“We found a man who says he knows someone named Moon Haeja.”

“Then let’s go there first.”

Hearing the sound of her coming down the stairs, Jae-hoon turned his head. Seo-yeon, with her long hair tied back and no makeup, was still beautiful.

He had often heard the joke-tinged truth that he had hired her for her looks, but that wasn’t true. Jae-hoon’s heart wouldn’t have been moved by beauty alone.

She was also perfect at her job as his secretary. Hyun-shik was his external affairs secretary, but Seo-yeon was Jae-hoon’s hands and feet inside the company.

From the first day, she had carried out Jae-hoon’s instructions flawlessly, without a hint of nervousness and with a beautiful smile. He didn’t need to say things twice.

Without asking unnecessary questions, Seo-yeon became Jae-hoon’s hands and feet. Before he knew it, he kept Seo-yeon closer than Hyun-shik, and naturally, he wanted her.

He had brainwashed himself into thinking that it was just physical desire at first, but Jae-hoon was wrong. Before he knew it, his heart had overtaken his physical desires. That feeling was still ongoing for him, not just a thing of the past.

But Jae-hoon still thought that even that feeling was just part of his possessiveness. He shook off the distracting thoughts and said curtly,

“Let’s get going.”

As soon as they left Seoul, Seo-yeon let out a silent, long breath. She was conscious of Jae-hoon sitting next to her. She couldn’t even glance at him, as he sat silently with his eyes closed, lost in thought.

She had missed him so much while she was pregnant. She didn’t think their relationship was something that could be ended with money. Jae-hoon might have been led by his desires, but Seo-yeon wasn’t. She had been completely smitten with him from the start.

So, instead of trying to hold onto him, she had decided to let him go without regret if that’s what he wanted. Even while seeing Jae-hoon, she had repeatedly told herself not to be greedy.

But Jae-hoon’s attitude towards Seo-yeon gradually changed. The two of them, who had only had physical relationships when they met, started having meals together and enjoying trips under the guise of business trips.

They started laughing and smiling at each other. Like any other couple, they would call each other for no reason and stay up all night, even though they had to go to work the next day.

Seo-yeon had barely recovered from the shock of being paid off by him when she found out she was pregnant. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, she might have gone crazy from missing Jae-hoon.

Seo-yeon had been eagerly awaiting the day she would raise his child. She caressed her swollen belly, read fairy tales in place of Jae-hoon, and embraced him with love.

Tears welled up in Seo-yeon’s eyes, and she bit her lip and turned to look out the window. The trees, heralding spring, were shedding the brown clothes they had worn all winter and turning green. Seo-yeon hoped that spring would come to them too, just like those trees.

“How are you feeling?”

Jae-hoon asked out of the blue, and Seo-yeon looked at him instead of herself. She realized from Jae-hoon’s gaze that he was asking about her well-being.

“I’m okay.”

“You said you gave birth at home. Isn’t that… dangerous?”

“I was briefly hospitalized.”

Seo-yeon felt like a monster lying in the hospital after her child had died. The memory made it hard for her to breathe.

“Go to the hospital after we find the child. I want to send you right away, but you won’t listen to me.”

“I’m okay.”

“Stop saying you’re okay!”

Jae-hoon regretted yelling as soon as he did.

“I’m going to find my child this week. I can’t leave him in someone else’s hands any longer. So, get yourself together before the real fight begins.”

‘Real fight?’

Seo-yeon’s whole body froze. She thought the fight he was talking about was about custody. There was no way she, who had lost her child, could fight Jae-hoon, the heir to the Do-young Group.

Even if he didn’t know, unless she married Jae-hoon, there was almost no chance that Seo-yeon would raise the child.

She clenched her fists tightly. If Jae-hoon demanded custody of the child, there was nothing she could do. She had been so focused on finding the child that she had never thought about what would happen next.

Seo-yeon thought of herself as a sinner who had failed to protect her child. She just wanted to see her child once a month, so she had no intention of harassing him and fighting for custody.

“There’s no need to fight. If you’re talking about custody…”

“What nonsense are you talking about? You thought I would fight you over something so obvious? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll raise the child, and you…”

Jae-hoon looked at Seo-yeon with frightening eyes. He knew that she hadn’t left him, but he still couldn’t understand why she hadn’t told him about her pregnancy sooner.

The betrayal that had been tormenting him had disappeared, but there was still something that bothered him. It was the pain that if she had confirmed with him the day Sung-hee brought the money, the current situation wouldn’t have happened.

“I have no intention of fighting you over custody. I’m going to find a solution.”

Seo-yeon was relieved to hear that he wouldn’t fight for custody, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask what the real fight was. Right now, she just hoped that going to Changwon wouldn’t be in vain.

After that, the two of them had short conversations from time to time, but nothing special happened, and they arrived in Changwon after a four-hour drive.

The local man who knew Moon Haeja was a man in his sixties. Lawyer Yoon, who had gone there in advance, came out of a shabby rib restaurant.

“He’s inside. He said he was hungry, so I couldn’t help it.”

Jae-hoon looked at the rib restaurant and then turned to Seo-yeon.

“You can stay in the car.”

“I’ll go in with you.”

She didn’t want to wait anxiously in the car for Jae-hoon to come out. She wanted to hear everything he said by his side.

Jae-hoon nodded to Hyun-shik. He went inside, and soon a few people came out of the restaurant. It seemed they had kicked out the customers who were inside.

“Let’s go in.”

Lawyer Yoon said, and the two of them went inside. In the small restaurant, a man was tearing into a rib.

He glanced at Jae-hoon as he entered, then put down the rib he was eating. The man wiped his hands on his clothes and stood up.

“You’re the one who wanted to meet me. You can call me Captain Chang.”

Jae-hoon, who had no intention of introducing himself, didn’t even look at the hand that the man who called himself Captain Chang offered. He offered Seo-yeon the chair next to him, and when she sat down, he sat down as well.

“Where is someone named Moon Haeja?”

Captain Chang scratched his head, looking embarrassed, and sat down.

“I don’t know the exact address. She just said she had something to do and was going down south. I only met her briefly when she came ashore, so I don’t know her very well.”

Captain Chang poured himself a shot of soju and glanced at Jae-hoon. Then, with a “gulp,” he drank about half of it and picked up another rib.

“But, well, if you really want to know, you might be able to find out…”

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