Yiseo alternately stared at the large and unusually shaped car that she hadn’t seen much on the streets and at Dowon, swallowing the word ‘no’ that had risen to the tip of her throat, and spat out different words instead.

 

“It doesn’t seem like the professor’s car.”

 

“It’s my mom’s car. She said she’s getting a new one, so she just gave me this to practice with. She said to drive it around once I enroll.”

 

“Ah, I see…. That must be nice.”

 

Seeing no sign of Dowon backing down at all, Yiseo gave up and quickly climbed into the passenger seat. 

 

And as soon as she got in, she swiftly fastened her seatbelt and adjusted the seat. 

 

Dowon stared blankly at Yiseo’s attitude, which blocked any tricks at the source, before getting into the driver’s seat.

 

The car, with silence lingering, rolled smoothly on the road.

 

Yiseo glanced at Dowon’s reaction and then turned her eyes to the window. 

 

Honestly, it wasn’t that she disliked Dowon; the situation was just uncomfortable. He was the professor’s son, and he was too young, which was also an issue. 

 

If she got mesmerized by his face, closed her eyes, met him, and then broke up, how on earth would she handle the aftermath?

 

Moreover, any interest a kid like that had in Yiseo would only be temporary anyway.

 

“Noona, do you have any plans this weekend?”

 

Yiseo, who had been lost in her thoughts alone, snapped back to attention at the sudden question and answered.

 

“Ah, yes! I have plans!”

 

Making up nonexistent plans to say she had no time to meet separately had only worked once or twice. 

 

Yiseo was relieved that she actually had real plans this time.

 

“With whom?”

 

“With family.”

 

Dowon’s mouth, which had stiffened ever so slightly that Yiseo didn’t notice, relaxed.

 

“Ah, are you going shopping or something?”

 

“No, we’re going to a temple for a bit. My younger sibling is a senior in high school, so to pray, and well, just hike too….”

 

“Aha!”

 

Dowon nodded but said nothing more. 

 

Yiseo inwardly sighed in relief, thinking this weekend would pass peacefully.

 

And on the weekend morning, Yiseo spotted a familiar vehicle in the parking lot at the foot of the mountain leading up to the temple near her house and felt a slight chill.

 

‘Did I tell him which temple I was going to…?’

 

Dowon approached Yiseo with a casual smile. 

 

Yiseo forcibly suppressed her reluctance to face him. 

 

It seemed like he was acting this way because she kept responding appropriately, so she decided to clearly state her intentions this time.

 

“You came out really early for a weekend. Noona.”

 

“How did you know to come here?”

 

She couldn’t help but let the words come out sharply.

 

“There’s only this temple near your house, noona. But where’s your family? Are you alone?”

 

The interrogation about why she came alone when she had said it was a promise with her family naturally followed. 

 

From the beginning, Yiseo had planned to come alone; the family was just an excuse she made because she didn’t want to give Dowon her time. 

 

Yiseo let out a sigh while dry-washing her face.

 

“If I had come with my family, what were you planning to do by waiting here?”

 

“To greet your family, of course.”

 

“Why you?”

 

Her words came out sharply. Yiseo flinched for a moment, but Dowon looked down at her with an unfazed expression. 

 

That gaze, fixed solely on her, was too much…

 

“Can’t you stop staring at me?”

 

“Noona?”

 

In the end, Yiseo couldn’t hold back and let out a long sigh. It was a sigh long enough that Dowon couldn’t possibly miss it. 

 

Looking up at Dowon, Yiseo expressed a clear rejection for the first time.

 

“Can’t you stop following me around?”

 

“…”

 

“I’ll be honest. I know you’re interested in me. It’s obvious you keep following me because of that. You don’t think I’m unaware, right?”

 

Dowon wasn’t flustered. 

 

Instead, he countered, “But why are you saying this now? All this time, you just pretended not to notice whatever I did.”

 

“I thought if I pretended not to notice, you’d stop.”

 

Dowon’s eyes scanned Yiseo’s face and stopped at her lips. 

 

Yiseo frowned at that gaze.

 

“I have no intention of trying anything with you, Dowon. I’m telling you this so you don’t waste your time. For your sake.”

 

“Do you hate me?”

 

Yiseo hesitated, but she thought it was better to be clear than to give an awkward answer that left room for hope.

 

“Yeah. I hate you. I’ve never even considered you as a romantic partner.”

 

“…”

 

The moment she said those words, Yiseo suddenly felt a chill. 

 

As if the man casting a shadow over her right then might do something to her. Her body stiffened, and her legs wouldn’t move.

 

After a brief silence that felt suffocatingly long, Dowon took a step back and whispered.

 

“Let’s go, Noona.”

 

Only then did her legs move. 

 

Yiseo stiffly moved her rigid body and left the spot. She could feel his gaze piercing her back, but she didn’t look back.

 

It was strange. 

 

That kid had always been nothing but kind to her since the first day they met, so why did she feel such a chill?

 

🦋

 

The two-story house in the middle of Seoul looked like an old, narrow family home. 

 

There were no talismans attached or colorful cloths hanging anywhere.

 

Dowon parked his car in front of the rusty iron gate and quietly waited for the homeowner to return.

 

A sign reading “Out” dangled from the doorknob.

 

Dowon, who had been waiting in the same spot without moving for half a day, got out of the car only at night when he saw the homeowner entering the alley.

 

The man wearing black sunglasses passed by Dowon casually and gestured as if telling him to follow. 

 

Dowon followed him inside the iron gate.

 

“Coffee or juice? What would you like, guest?”

 

“No need.”

 

The man shrugged and poured a glass of water, placing it on the table. Dowon sat down in front of the table and frowned. It seemed this man was not blind after all.

 

The man sitting across from Dowon asked.

 

“Have you been waiting long?”

 

“Don’t you divine things like that?”

 

“Yes, I also came straight in after getting a call from my mother that a guest was coming.”

 

As the man said, Dowon had previously gone to the shaman’s house in the mountains, where he had met this man before, and from there, he had just received the new address here. 

 

He had been wandering around all day and finally arrived here, so he was not in a particularly good mood.

 

“According to my mother, you seemed in a hurry. If there’s something urgent enough for the guest to seek me out, there’s probably only one thing.”

 

The man asked as if he could see right through Dowon’s situation.

 

“You’ve fallen for someone, haven’t you?”

 

Dowon glared at the pitch-black sunglasses and answered immediately.

 

“No. I’ve gone insane.”

 

“Then you should go to a hospital. Why come to me?”

 

“Isn’t it because you told me to come find you, thinking you have some solution? When I do something that might make you think I like someone, I know it was something wrong.”

 

“Wrong?”

 

“To others, it might look like I like it…”

 

Dowon stopped speaking. 

 

The other man repeated the end of his sentence as if wanting to hear more.

 

“Looks like?”

 

“Do people usually want to kill the person they like?”

 

“…”

 

“What kind of woman did you meet that you keep having dreams? Dreams where you keep destroying someone…”

 

“It’s just a dream, so what?”

 

“Wouldn’t it be a problem if the same impulse arises in reality?”

 

“Then wouldn’t it be solved if you just stopped meeting that woman?”

 

“…”

 

At Dowon’s silence, the man laughed. He read Dowon’s inner thoughts clearly.

 

“Aha, so you want to keep meeting that woman. But you don’t want to go to a psychiatrist and be treated like a lunatic, you just want to somehow resolve this strange impulse you’re feeling now. So, in a desperate grasp at straws, you’re turning to superstition, right…”

 

It felt exactly like sarcasm, so Dowon furrowed his brow. 

 

Rather than relying on superstition, it was because the man spoke as if he knew that if Dowon developed feelings for someone, problems would arise simultaneously. 

 

However, the man just kept asking him questions and didn’t give any proper answers.

 

Dowon got up, thinking he had come for no reason. 

 

As the man had said from the start, he was indeed grasping at straws, and the shock of being rejected by Yiseo must have been quite significant.

 

Instead of wasting time like this, he should just go to Yiseo….

 

“You really don’t act like a guest. Is it because you’re young, or because you grew up ordinarily?”

 

In that moment, Dowon detected a faint hostility in those words. 

 

But it was just a moment, and before Dowon could ponder the reason, the other man smiled and asked.

 

“I can tell you why the guest is like this. Shall I let you know?”