Son Yu-ri was too stunned to speak.

A marble table for ten was laid neatly with food that looked fresh and delicious.

A thick rolled omelet with a little scallion in it, kimchi just starting to ripen, bean sprouts seasoned only minutes ago and still crisp, stir-fried anchovies with shishito peppers and almonds, shiitake mushrooms and bok choy, shrimp with zucchini, even spicy-looking braised tofu…

A full hanjeongsik spread, sitting right there.

“Sit down. I’ll bring you some soup.”

Jang Tae-san wore a white shirt and comfortable pants under an apron dyed a soft persimmon-leaf color.

Firm muscle showed under the shirt.

Not even an apron could hide that height and that perfect build.

Don’t tell me he made all this himself?

Son Yu-ri turned her head, looking for a housekeeper.

But there was no sign of anyone.

“Drink this first.”

Jang Tae-san came over and held out a glass.

“Wh-what is it?”

“Apple juice, from my father’s orchard. If you only squeeze out the juice, you get the sugar and none of the nutrition, so drink it pulp and all.”

Son Yu-ri peered into the glass.

“Drink that, and your headache will go away.”

“Okay…”

The truth was, her head was throbbing a little.

Her stomach was better than she’d expected.

She’d gotten swept up in the mood and fallen right into Kang A-rin’s challenge.

They were friends, but they’d been rivals since they were little, family against family and grade against grade.

Luckily, one was on the arts track and the other on the humanities track, so in high school they’d grown close.

They’d both gone to Lala, the top private kindergarten in Gangnam.

Son Yu-ri took the glass and sipped it slowly.

Huh?

It was nothing like the apple juice she usually drank.

At home the housekeeper juiced good apples for her too, but it never tasted like this.

Sweet, of course—but the moment she drank it, she felt refreshed.

And just like that, her head cleared.

“Have a seat.”

The juice vanished in a flash, and Jang Tae-san offered her a seat. (TL Note: The Korean is “like a crab hiding its eyes” — a crab pulls its eyes in so fast you barely see them go; food eaten that fast disappears the same way.)

Swish, swiiish.

With his back to her, Jang Tae-san ladled out the soup.

Bean-sprout and dried-pollack soup!

It was the soup her dad always had after a night of heavy drinking.

She’d been eating it since she was little, so she knew exactly how it should taste.

Her mouth watered on its own.

One sniff told her it was the real thing: good dried pollack and bean sprouts, blended just right.

Son Yu-ri sat down demurely, and Jang Tae-san brought her soup and rice.

The table and the dishes were all new, as if they’d just been bought.

The decor and accessories were modern throughout.

It was the kind of design a successful man in his thirties would dream of, more than any twenty-something.

Not the trend-chasing kind, either.

A professional did this…

Son Yu-ri quickly scanned the place.

The interior had a class that no nouveau riche could ever match.

Jang Tae-san didn’t carry himself like new money, either.

He had the confidence you only find in people who are free, who don’t have to think about money.

It was the same ease she’d always felt from her father.

“Go on, eat. I didn’t put anything in it~.”

When Son Yu-ri hesitated, Jang Tae-san sat down across from her.

In front of him, too, sat soup and a bowl of glossy white rice.

“Where did the lady go?”

“Huh? The lady? Who?”

“Your housekeeper. Isn’t there one?”

“No.”

“Then this food…”

“I made it.”

“Y-you made all of it yourself?”

“Yes. With my own two hands.”

“Don’t lie. Not just anybody can cook like this.”

“I learned from my teacher.”

“You have a cooking teacher?”

“Of course. A very famous one.”

He didn’t say the name. He only smiled.

It smells amazing… but how does it taste?

Son Yu-ri took a small spoonful of soup.

Chopped Cheongyang pepper and scallion added color.

No student living on his own could pull off a balance like that.

Slurp.

She tipped the broth into her mouth.

“!!!”

Her eyes went wide as a startled cat’s.

“Th-this is delicious!”

The words were barely out before she forgot all about her dignity and went at it with her spoon.

Dignity, whatever—that had died long ago.

Her body kept craving the cool, spicy pollack hangover soup.

What? Is a rolled omelet even allowed to taste this good?

Son Yu-ri didn’t usually eat much.

Yet this picky twenty-something college student was working her chopsticks like she’d lost her mind.

Even the kimchi was out of this world.

“Kkeup~.”

She wolfed down everything, rice included, and only barely held back the burp forcing its way up her throat.

What on earth… have I done?

Drinks with a man she’d just met, a night out at his place, and now she’d polished off a man’s breakfast too.

“Drink some water. You’ll give yourself indigestion.”

Jang Tae-san really was kind.

He’d gotten up early to cook and had even brought out scorched-rice water.

“You’re a really good cook. And with all the studying you must have had to do. That’s amazing.”

“I used to make snacks for my twin sisters. Then I met a good teacher and learned it as a hobby.”

A hobby? Cooking like this?

The food was good enough that she wanted to hire him on the spot as her family’s cook.

“You have twin sisters?”

“Yes. They start their second year of high school this year.”

He must get along with his sisters.

Son Yu-ri envied the twins for having a caring older brother like Jang Tae-san.

“The house is big. Didn’t you say your parents live in the country?”

“It’s my mother’s place.”

“Ah…”

His mom is rich? I thought he said she was a housewife?

To own a place like this in Cheongdam-dong, you’d have to put in five billion won at the very least.

Son Yu-ri knew that much about prices.

“The paintings in this house are all remarkable. Who painted them?”

What caught Son Yu-ri’s eye above all were the landscapes hanging all over the place.

They were clearly the work of a serious, established painter.

“They’re my mother’s.”

“What? Your mother’s???”

“She graduated from the art school at Hongin University.”

“Oh! Hongin University…”

Along with Hanguk University’s, Hongin University’s art school was called one of the two great peaks of the Korean art world.

A Hongin graduate started out with half the battle already won.

“By the way, did something happen last night? Where did my friend and the law freshmen go?”

Swallowing her embarrassment, Son Yu-ri asked about last night.

It would have bugged her to leave without asking.

“You don’t remember? What happened last night?”

“Wh-what happened?”

The words what happened put Son Yu-ri on edge.

For the first time in her life, she had truly blacked out.

She looked up at Jang Tae-san, last night’s maybe-something, with pleading, frightened eyes.

She’s even prettier without makeup.

With no makeup at all, her face was clean and clear, without a single blemish.

It really is true: a woman with great skin is a real beauty.

Scared, aren’t you? Heh.

The art school noona, who’d polished off a bowl of rice, the soup and most of the side dishes, was hanging on my every word.

Right now her heart had to be pounding like crazy.

Few women could keep their confidence in front of a man who knew everything they’d done during a blackout.

“You really don’t remember anything?”

“No… nothing.”

“How far do you remember?”

“I remember drinking with A-rin like we were going to die… but after that…”

She cut out right at the perfect spot.

To be honest, nothing much had happened.

Once Senior Kang A-rin and the juniors were good and drunk, they announced they were going home.

That was when Son Yu-ri called for a second round.

She looked a lot soberer than she was, so nobody could stop her.

Senior Kang A-rin even asked me to make sure she got home safe.

A lot of my classmates were drinking for the first time and were about to pass out, so Senior A-rin had her hands full.

Still, she showed she hadn’t spent those years in college for nothing.

She asked the kids for their addresses and put them in taxis.

The girls from our year she took home to sleep at her own place.

After that, Son Yu-ri fell asleep like she’d been knocked out.

Her phone was locked with a password.

The battery seemed to be dead, since it didn’t even ring.

I wasn’t the kind of bastard who’d leave a drunk woman lying there.

I could feel the guys around us openly staring at Son Yu-ri, passed out drunk.

I had no choice. I put her in my car and brought her home.

I’d had a few drinks myself, but I circulated my mind art and burned off every bit of the alcohol.

Once we were home, I mixed her some honey water, got it into her, and put her to bed.

While she slept, I fed internal energy into her back to settle her body and her true energy.

That’s why she could get up this morning and even eat.

“Why did you do that to me?”

I asked it out of nowhere.

“What? D-do what?”

“I’m asking why you did that to me.”

“What… what did I do…”

Son Yu-ri was scared stiff.

Last night she’d turned me into her personal bomb-shot bartender and knocked back one after another. Now my petty revenge began.

“That was… my first time.”

“Wh… your f-first time?”

Son Yu-ri asked, trembling.

Her pupils shook like there’d been an earthquake.

She might be a rising third-year in college, but to me, a working man in his thirties, she was a rookie.

College students are only adults at school. They’re still just trainees for real life.

“Why do you like me?”

“What!!! Like you…”

“You told me yourself last night. You said you fell for me at first sight.”

“Hic! Hic…”

Son Yu-ri got the hiccups.

Her head had to be killing her right now.

She’d be dying to piece together a night she couldn’t remember.

But what could she do?

It’s all bull~.

She had told me she felt nice riding piggyback on me.

But she’d never said she fell for me at first sight.

Thanks to your oppa here, you’re getting a real life lesson today, Son Yu-ri~.

Get burned badly once, and you never slip up at a drinking party again.

Getting blind drunk is a bad idea, for men and women alike.

“You’d been drinking, so I understand, up to a point. I think I’m guilty of at least negligent aiding and abetting myself.”

Letting the line out a little is a skill too.

“R-right… why did I even drink… hic!”

Son Yu-ri let her guard down.

She was still a beginner at life.

“But that was still too much!”

I reeled the line in hard again.

“Huh?”

“My first… ugh.”

I left the rest unsaid and made a pained face.

Son Yu-ri went white.

She had no idea what, but she had to be convinced she’d done something terrible.

All she’d done was come home with me and sleep. What would she know?

“I’m sorry… hic… and we’d just met yesterday…”

She hadn’t done anything wrong, but right now she was the guilty one.

In a game like this, insist hard enough and even a junk hand becomes a winning hand.

“So you’re saying you’ll settle what you did to me with one I’m sorry?”

Another attack landed.

“I’m really sorry. I don’t know what it was, but what can I do to…”

She chewed her finger in a panic.

Okay!

“Take responsibility!”

“T-take responsibility???”

(End of Chapter 84)