“Be careful.”

Hyewon spoke in a monotone voice as she watched Eunhyuk walk away with his back to her.

As annoying as the weather was, Eunhyuk felt lighter now that he took care of the troublesome business. After only a few minutes of thinking about it, he descended the slope and came face to face with a rising stream.

The sudden downpour of rain made it impossible for him to cross to the other side. The stone bridge was nowhere to be found, and the water was so ferocious that it seemed as if he would be swept away if he even took a single step in it.

Eunhyuk immediately pulled out his cell phone to call someone, but he couldn’t.

There was no cell signal.

“What a shitty situation.”

Eunhyuk had thought it was a bad day, but he hadn’t expected to be faced with such a force majeure situation. He felt like he had been hit in the head.

There was no way to cross over, so he had to retrace his steps.

The pouring rain was driving him crazy, and the wind was blowing so hard that his umbrella was useless. Eunhyuk wished he was only dreaming that there was no way out of his shitty situation, but with underwear and shoes completely soaked, and his appearance comparable to a drowned mouse, he knew that this was reality.

As soon as he made it back to 1-1 Bonjuri after all the twists and turns, he found her.

“Ms. Kang Hyewon.”

He tossed the rusty umbrella Hyewon had lent him to the ground and stepped onto the patio without taking off his muddy shoes.

True to his nature, he should have been interrogating Hyewon to find a way to get out of that place right now, but Eunhyuk killed the emotions that threatened to rise. Honestly, if Kang Hyewon hadn’t used the letter to hold him captive, this irreparable situation could have been avoided.

“The water is rising and I can’t cross the creek. I need to call the rescue team or the community center right away to find a way out.”

It’s not an island village across the ocean, it’s a creek. There must be a way to get across.

He urgently asked Hyewon for help, but her answer baffled him.

“The landline is disconnected, so there’s no way to contact the outside world.”

For a moment, an unrefined expletive threatened to escape.

“Long story short, if it’s connected, I would have to move out. I cut it off a while ago.”

He expected her to offer to find a way out with him, but instead, Hyewon’s expression and tone were overly detached.

It was a ridiculous situation and it felt as if someone was trying to pull a fast one on Eunhyuk and keep him there. He never imagined that the day would turn out this way, so it wasn’t surprising that his frustration that was building up immediately exploded.

The emotions that were building up in his heart were overwhelmed by the woman’s dry response as if she didn’t care about his predicament with no way to get home. At the same time, the last string of patience he was holding onto snapped.

As he began to think about the whole day, he pointed the arrow of suspicion to the woman named Kang Hyewon.

“What are you?”

“What?”

Eunhyuk’s dark eyes, which had been despairingly staring at the pouring rain, turned back to the woman.

Although he had put aside his rational thoughts from the moment he had been forced to walk to this secluded place, he could only think that he should be suspicious of her.

She was strange. She was too vigilant as if she were expecting him, rather than panicking at the sudden arrival of a gust. In the absence of Soonok, who Woongyu longed for, what did he believe in to make him sit down and be treated to a meal?

She hadn’t even told him if her grandmother lived with her, the granddaughter.

Eunhyuk realized how complacent he had been just because he’d gotten out of Seoul, where enemies were everywhere.

Somehow, for someone who grew up in a remote place like this, she looked like a city girl.

His eyes bore into Hyewon’s face, analyzing everything she said.

Why didn’t he suspect it?

Eunhyuk began to quickly assess the situation.

Did his grandfather, who was diagnosed with a terminal illness, deliberately lock him up here to make him lose his mind?

No, no, no.

There’s no reason for that old man to lock up his only grandson in a house that’s falling apart in the middle of nowhere when he hasn’t done anything wrong enough to warrant probation.

Someone would have had to pay for this, or… He could only conclude that this woman had brought it upon herself.

“You purposely tied me up here so you could do something to me.”

If it really was her, it’s obvious what she was trying to do.

She has the business card, she knows who he is, and she knows his grandfather can’t leave the only grandson of the chairman hanging.

Money.

With all the girls out there selling themselves for pennies on the dollar, he didn’t think he would run into a lowlife this far out in the middle of nowhere.

‘Hah, shit.’

He was almost laughing at himself for being so inept… he didn’t even realize it.

“How much do you want?”

“… What are you saying?”

Eunhyuk was holding the woman’s chin, which was so white it seemed as if it were coated in flour, and he glared down into her transparent eyes.

“I see you’re trying to pull some kind of trick to get some money, but won’t the person who passed away be ashamed you’re doing this kind of shit for money?”

Hyewon’s embarrassed expression was horribly unnatural.

This is why he believed children who had nothing are not any good.

Perhaps his grandfather was too wrapped up in the delusions of his first love, long ago and far away, to face reality.

“Either that, or you’re trying to make a quick buck in this small town with other means of earning money, like using your body.”

Hyewon let out a slow gasp as if she understood the meaning behind his words, and roughly slapped Eunhyuk’s hand away.

“Look, no matter how unfairly I was fired, do you think I’m someone who would let their pride go down the drain?”

She fiercely snapped back at him.

“You told me that you and your grandmother lived here until you went to the city.”

Kofi