An Advertising Genius Falls into the Joseon Era – Chapter 22

Author: Cireng

Chapter 22

“……Hey, Im Ha-seong!”

Song Do-hyeon, who had instinctively caught Hayun in his arms, shouted urgently.

“Snap out of it! Im Ha-seong! What the hell are you doing all of a sudden?”

Slap! Slap!

Song Do-hyeon slapped Hayun across the cheeks, but the unconscious Hayun showed no sign of waking up.

“Mmm……”

Instead, she merely buried her face against Song Do-hyeon’s chest and nestled even deeper into his arms.

“What in the world is this ridiculous situation…!”

Song Do-hyeon looked down at Hayun in his arms with an incredulous expression.

Under the moonlight, Hayun’s face was flushed red from the alcohol.

For some reason, seeing her like that made Song Do-hyeon’s heart begin to beat a little faster.

That was when…

“Wahaha! Looks like our new guy is completely wasted!”

Han Seong-deok had just come outside and witnessed the scene. Judging by his flushed face, he seemed to be fairly drunk himself.

“Well? I’d say this is more than enough revenge for you, wouldn’t you?”

“Revenge?”

Song Do-hyeon asked, puzzled.

Han Seong-deok narrowed one eye.

“Yeah. Even if it was only through alcohol, we beat that guy, didn’t we? So what better revenge could there be than this?”

“Who would want such a pathetic revenge……?”

Song Do-hyeon stared at Han Seong-deok with an exasperated expression. If this childish nonsense was supposed to be revenge, he wanted absolutely no part of it.

“Anyway, Do-hyeon.”

Han Seong-deok paused for a moment before speaking.

“You’re responsible for taking this guy back to the quarters.”

“Why do I have to take him……!”

They were dumping this troublesome drunkard on him.

He absolutely refused.

Just as Song Do-hyeon was about to reject him, Han Seong-deok’s expression suddenly changed.

“Because this whole thing started because of you.”

“……!”

At Han Seong-deok’s words, Song Do-hyeon was left speechless and couldn’t come up with a reply.

“Don’t you remember what you said when you claimed that guy who came from working at a tavern looked down on us? Acting like being a haengsu was nothing special. Because of you, Ha-seong here suffered for an entire month for no reason.”

“Tch……”

Song Do-hyeon quietly turned his head away at the rumor he himself had started spreading.

He had nothing to say in his defense, because it was true.

“So you should be the one to tie up the loose ends. Don’t you think?”

Before Song Do-hyeon had even given him an answer, Han Seong-deok stubbornly began hoisting Hayun onto his back.

Song Do-hyeon didn’t particularly react. He simply watched the situation unfold as though it were happening on its own.

“Heave!”

A short while later.

After confirming that Hayun was properly on Song Do-hyeon’s back, Han Seong-deok looked satisfied.

“Now, you weaklings, hurry back to the quarters. From here on out, it’s the real drinkers’ time. Wahahaha!”

With that, he returned to the drinking party, leaving behind his hearty laughter.

“…….”

Song Do-hyeon, who had suddenly been saddled with Hayun, stood there silently for a while.

Normally, he would have simply put her down and walked away. Getting deeply involved with other people wasn’t his way.

Going out of his way to look after someone, or putting up with inconvenience for another person’s sake, was even less so.

But since Han Seong-deok had so blatantly entrusted her to him, it was obvious that if anything happened to Hayun, the responsibility would fall entirely on him.

“Phew……”

With a short sigh, Song Do-hyeon glanced back at Hayun leaning against his back.

Was it because the night breeze was cold?

Or was there perhaps another reason?

The warmth transmitted from her limp body felt unusually warm.

Even Song Do-hyeon’s usually cold expression began to soften with a little warmth.

“Tch.”

He clicked his tongue briefly, then finally straightened his posture as though he had made up his mind.

“……!”

The moment he readjusted Hayun properly on his back, he realized that something was wrong.

‘She’s light?’

She was far lighter than he had expected. Even accounting for the fact that she was drunk and had gone limp, he hadn’t expected her to be this light.

No, normally, a drunk person should actually feel heavier. When the body loses its strength, it’s harder to maintain its center of balance.

But Hayun’s body was far too light to be that of an adult man.

Compared to the haengsus of the same age, she was clearly on the smaller side.

‘What is this sensation?’

The feeling coming through his back was strange as well.

A strangely soft and pliable sensation.

Thanks to the characteristically loose upper garment of a hanbok, Hayun hadn’t needed to deliberately hide her chest.

So she had bound her chest without applying too much pressure. That alone had been enough that no one noticed she was a woman.

But now that their chests were directly pressed together like this, it was difficult to conceal it any longer.

Song Do-hyeon tilted his head.

There wasn’t just one thing that seemed strange.

‘What’s this smell……?’

A faint fragrance drifted from around the nape of her neck.

It was too heavy to be called a floral scent, yet far too sweet to be the smell of alcohol.

It seemed like something he had smelled somewhere before, yet at the same time it felt completely unfamiliar… a strange fragrance.

Breathing in that scent made him feel almost dazed, despite not having had even a single drink.

‘Does she have a hyangnang?’

Drunk on the faint scent seeping into his senses, Song Do-hyeon momentarily forgot even who he was carrying.

He even forgot that he needed to hurry along.

That was when…

Rustle.

“……!”

Suddenly, Hayun’s arm wrapped around his neck.

“Mmm……”

At the unexpected touch, Song Do-hyeon froze as though he had been struck by lightning.

‘What the hell……!’

A shiver ran through his entire body, and his heart began pounding like crazy.

It wasn’t because he was startled.

He couldn’t explain it, but there was a strange ache in one side of his chest.

One thing was certain: it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.

If anything, it felt good.

Song Do-hyeon turned around with a flustered expression to look at Hayun.

‘What the hell is this guy? Have I gone crazy? I’m feeling like this toward a man?’

The mere fact that he had experienced such emotions felt embarrassing and humiliating.

And of all people, it was toward the one person he hated the most.

“Hey, Im Ha-seong. Aren’t you going to let go of this already?”

Song Do-hyeon deliberately spoke in a threatening voice, but there was no way his words could reach Hayun, who was already fast asleep.

“Mmm, tteokbokki looks delicious…”

When Hayun mumbled in her sleep, Song Do-hyeon furrowed his brow.

“Tch, what a lucky bastard…”

After confirming that Hayun’s consciousness had completely faded, Song Do-hyeon let out a small sigh.

Even he didn’t know what that sigh meant.

For no particular reason, he adjusted his posture so that Hayun would be easier to carry. Even so, the arm wrapped around his neck remained where it was.

“…….”

For a moment, he wondered whether he should forcibly remove it, but in the end, he decided to leave it alone.

Because Hayun might wake up.

That was all.

There was no other reason.

In the end, Song Do-hyeon walked down the night road with Hayun on his back.

Only the sound of his footsteps quietly echoed along the deserted road.

For some reason, the walk back to the quarters felt unusually short tonight.

***

A short while later,

After returning to the quarters, Song Do-hyeon headed straight to Hayun’s room.

“This was this guy’s room, wasn’t it?”

Hayun’s room had changed considerably since the first time.

Unlike that first day when there had been nothing at all, the room was now filled with things that unmistakably reflected her tastes.

Craftwork, norigae, even elaborate accessories.

All sorts of cute little trinkets had been placed throughout the room.

“Not even a woman, yet why does he have so many norigae…?”

Song Do-hyeon grumbled as he looked around Hayun’s room.

It was a stark contrast to his own room, which contained nothing.

Song Do-hyeon’s room was always empty. He kept nothing except what was necessary.

‘If you don’t fill it, you won’t get hurt.’

Whether it was objects or emotions.

That was the way he had chosen to live.

“…….”

Song Do-hyeon quietly withdrew his gaze.

Then he carefully laid Hayun down on the bed.

“……Huh?”

Only then did something begin to catch his eye. Song Do-hyeon’s gaze settled on Hayun’s neck.

‘Something’s strange.’

Hayun’s neck was exceptionally white and smooth.

There wasn’t even a visible Adam’s apple, which ought to have been there. Even if it was buried beneath flesh, cases where there wasn’t even the slightest trace of one were rare.

“Wait, now that I think about it……”

The strange emotions he had experienced while walking through the night.

The numerous norigae filling the room.

Her unusually small build for a man.

And above all, the name Im Ha-seong, which seemed like something he had heard somewhere before.

Taken individually, none of them amounted to much.

But when put together, they led him to a certain possibility.

“Could it be……?”

Just as Song Do-hyeon stared at Hayun in disbelief…

“What are you doing here, Haengsu Song?”

Suddenly, Jeopjang Yoon appeared in the room.

Song Do-hyeon hurriedly composed his expression.