MBFWM 03

Chapter 3

“A-A different proposal?”

Lee Jin couldn’t understand why it suddenly felt as though her heart had dropped.

“No, I mean…… I wondered if you were hoping I’d say something else.”

“Of course not. I had absolutely no idea what you were going to say.”

“Really? Then never mind.”

Kang Hyun grinned and shrugged.

He was the sort of person who acted casual and yet was impossible to read.

Lee Jin glanced at him before walking past and finishing the cleanup in the workshop.

Moon Kang Hyun was handsome enough to draw attention even from a distance, and he also had an impressive physique. He had been quite popular among the girls during their school days.

He must have received plenty of confessions from girls of all ages, both juniors and seniors. As far as Lee Jin knew, he had received more than five confessions alone, so there were probably too many to count on both hands.

Come to think of it, she had never once seen Moon Kang Hyun date anyone.

She knew there had even been strange rumors about him because he was always attached to her older brother, Hwan. At the time, Hwan had jumped around furiously, cursing whoever had started them.

“Why am I even thinking about this?”

It was none of her business who he dated.

To Lee Jin, he was her older brother’s friend, and now that Hwan was gone, Kang Hyun was someone closer to family than a stranger—a person with whom she could share memories of her brother.

Letting out a small chuckle, Lee Jin shook off the strange atmosphere from earlier.

The next day, Lee Jin’s high school friend, Baek Jin-hee, came to the pottery studio.

She was a grateful friend who came by at least once a week to help Lee Jin with things that were difficult for her to handle alone.

“What? Senior Kang Hyun offered you a job?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking about it because the pay is good.”

“Take it. Absolutely take it.”

Seeing her enthusiastically nodding, Lee Jin couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.

“You always push me toward Kang Hyun-oppa whenever something involves the two of us.”

“Girl, you know I have good instincts. I’m telling you, I can feel something!”

“You’ve been saying that for seven years now.”

“Ah, whatever!”

Baek Jin-hee had a cheerful and lively personality.

She was often the complete opposite of the calm Lee Jin, but Lee Jin had always been fond of the energy she radiated.

“But I guess that rumor really wasn’t true?”

“Huh? What rumor?”

“Senior Kang Hyun. There used to be a rumor that he was the third-generation heir of the Moonseong Group chaebol family, remember?”

Because he was so popular, all kinds of rumors about Moon Kang Hyun had circulated throughout the school.

One of them was that he was a third-generation chaebol heir.

“You still believed that?”

When Lee Jin asked teasingly, Jin-hee immediately became indignant.

“Hey! Do you know how many people genuinely believed it back then?!”

That was true.

At some point, though, the rumors that had once been raging throughout the school had strangely died down as if someone had poured cold water over them.

“Still, being an architect suits you much better than being a third-generation chaebol heir.”

Jin-hee smiled mischievously as she said it.

Apparently, her habit of reaching whatever conclusion benefited her the most hadn’t changed.

“Baek Jin-hee. I told you Kang Hyun-oppa and I aren’t like that, right?”

When Lee Jin raised her voice, Jin-hee began making excuses.

“If you two aren’t like that, then it’ll be easier to work together, won’t it? You haven’t been able to create a single piece for a while. You used to submit your work to art festivals and ceramic biennales, too.”

“……”

Before she began running the pottery studio, Lee Jin had been a ceramic artist.

At one point, she had held great dreams as an artist.

Now, however, she couldn’t properly pursue those dreams because she was busy running the studio.

To make a name for herself as a ceramic artist, she needed to keep producing artwork consistently.

But these days, she was so occupied with classes at the studio that she wasn’t doing any personal work at all.

“You’re right about that.”

When Lee Jin calmly admitted it, Baek Jin-hee smiled brightly and patted her on the shoulder.

“This big sister is always right.”

Honestly.

Lee Jin let out a helpless laugh, as though there was no winning against her.

Still, thanks to Baek Jin-hee, she had been able to laugh quite a lot that day.

It felt as though the shadow left behind by Hwan’s death repeatedly approached her, only to retreat again, countless times every day.

The following afternoon, Lee Jin happened to have no reservations for the first time in a while, so the studio was quiet.

She was looking around the studio, wondering how she should spend her free time, when her phone received a text message.

—Are you busy right now?

It was from Kang Hyun, so Lee Jin replied with some confusion.

—No. I don’t have any reservations today, so I think I’ll finish early.

—Good. Then come somewhere with me. I’ll be there soon.

Lee Jin froze with her phone in her hand.

She couldn’t immediately think of what she should reply.

What’s going on all of a sudden?

This was the first time Kang Hyun had ever texted her like this.

—Where are we going?

She sent the reply belatedly, but there was no response.

Could he already be on his way and not have time to check his phone?

Her guess was exactly right.

A short while later, Kang Hyun’s car arrived in front of the pottery studio.

Lee Jin let out a breath and went outside with her bag.

While she was locking the studio door, Kang Hyun got out of his car and walked toward her.

The weather was particularly beautiful that day, and Kang Hyun, dressed impeccably in a suit, looked as though he had stepped straight out of a fashion magazine.

His suit was perfectly pressed without a single wrinkle, and his shoes were polished to a spotless shine.

He usually dressed impeccably, but for some reason, he looked especially perfect today.

“Sorry for dragging you out so suddenly. When you said you didn’t have any reservations today, I suddenly felt like I had to hurry.”

“Weren’t you busy too, oppa?”

“There was an event at the company, but I came after everything was finished.”

He smiled and opened the car door for her.

Lee Jin nodded and got into the passenger seat.

Since she had no way of knowing whether he was telling the truth about having finished the event, she had no choice but to accept his explanation.

If she had known that he had actually escaped before the event was over, she probably wouldn’t have been able to look at him so calmly.

Kang Hyun gave a small laugh, got into the driver’s seat, and started the car.

The car left Seoul and eventually arrived somewhere on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.

“Where are we……?”

Lee Jin’s eyes widened as she looked out the window.

“That’s right. This is the hanok I built.”

Lee Jin was stunned when she saw the building.

It was on an entirely different scale from what she had imagined.

Even the distant rooftops alone made the place look like a palace.

The car smoothly entered an underground parking lot.

After parking, the two of them went upstairs.

The first thing that caught Lee Jin’s eye was a vast garden covered in lush green grass and filled with various plants.

When Kang Hyun had said hanok, Lee Jin had imagined an old traditional Korean house.

Something modest and simple, like the ones she occasionally saw around her.

No—the image in her mind had been modest simply because the scale of this house was so enormous.

“There’s a bamboo grove in the back. That’s why I named the house Cheongjukje (靑竹宅), meaning ‘Blue Bamboo Residence.’”

“You…… You really built this place, oppa?”

Lee Jin looked back and forth between the magnificent view of Cheongjukje and Kang Hyun as though she couldn’t believe it.

“Why? Does it look like I’m lying?”

Kang Hyun laughed, clearly amused by her reaction.

This was a space he had poured his heart into for five years.

It wasn’t simply a traditional hanok.

He had designed it by combining traditional Korean architecture with modern buildings, agonizing over countless details to maximize the efficiency of the space.

The house retained the distinctive tiled hipped-and-gabled roofs of a hanok, while floor-to-ceiling glass windows created an open feeling and provided unobstructed views.

It preserved the traditional hanok construction style of fitting wooden components together, while incorporating the minimalism and practicality of modern architecture.

“I figured that after seeing this place, you might be more willing to accept my proposal.”

They walked across stepping stones laid through the lawn and arrived in front of the main building.

Once they entered, an even more astonishing sight unfolded before them.

Inside the U-shaped building was an artificial pond.

The structure had been designed so that opening the doors led directly out to the pond.

A small arched footbridge stretched across the pond, while various plants beautifully decorated the surrounding area.

There were benches where one could sit and relax while admiring the scenery, along with lights surrounding the pond.

Seeing them made Lee Jin intensely curious about what the landscape would look like at night.

The two of them toured various parts of the building.

In one area, a long corridor with wooden flooring stretched through the house.

In another, the main wooden hall and stepping stones connected the interior to the outdoors.

After making a full circuit, they arrived at the main living room, which overlooked the pond.

The interconnected spaces, winding around each other like a maze, made the place fascinating to explore.

“I need pottery that will make this space even more beautiful.”

The look in Kang Hyun’s eyes and the way he spoke were strangely alluring.

It made her heart stir as though something terrible would happen if she refused his proposal.

Honestly, Lee Jin had already decided that she was inclined to accept his offer.

But after seeing the space with her own eyes, her resolve tilted completely in favor of accepting it.

“Okay. I’ve decided to take the job you offered me.”

At the same time that the two of them were touring Cheongjukje, Jin Ae-ran was attending Moonseong Group’s founding anniversary event.

She turned to her secretary and asked,

“Secretary Kim, I don’t see Kang Hyun anywhere.”

“He seemed to be at the event until a little while ago. I’ll check.”

Jin Ae-ran sighed as she watched her secretary walk away.

She was displeased because of her third son, Kang Hyun, who continued to give her headaches even after growing into a full-fledged adult.

A short while later, Secretary Kim returned and said,

“It seems he quietly slipped out of the event.”

Jin Ae-ran quietly muttered,

“That hopeless, good-for-nothing brat…….”