CH 3

Chapter 3: Won’t Forgive

Leaving behind those frozen in their seats, I headed towards the bride’s waiting room. When I came out with everything I needed, Ji-Han, who was standing in front of the waiting room, reached out his hand to me.

“You, what’s going on?”

Feeling the cold stares of numerous guests behind him, my heart began to beat faster.

“Yoon Yeo-Jin.”

“Are you literally saying that you’re not getting married?”

Ji-Han, who still seemed to not understand the situation, slowly blinked his eyes.

I turned away from him, with an unbelieving expression on his face.

“What? What’s going on?”

“The bride has run away, apparently.”

Apart from the murmurs of the reporters, the air that surrounded us also became chillingly frozen. The gathered reporters began to incessantly press the shutter button.

“Take pictures! It’s a scoop.”

As I stepped back, the reporters who had been wandering around murmuring began to rush towards me like a swarm.

I ran towards the elevator, trying to escape from the reporters who were blocking my way.

“Follow me!”

My parents’ faces twisted as they saw me running in my pure white dress.

As the reporters ran towards the elevator, I hurriedly pressed the close button.

“How could this happen?”

The elevator doors completely blocked my view. I leaned against the wall, feeling as if I had collapsed. My heart was still beating anxiously from the moment I realized that I had returned to the day of the wedding.

As I looked around the silent elevator with an inexplicable sense of unease, an unknown number appeared on the screen and a strange bell began to ring, piercing the silence.

“Hello?”

“Is this Yoon Yeo-Jin?”

“Yes…this is Yoon Yeo-Jin.”

“This is Daejin Hospital. We are calling to confirm with the family of Yoon Tae-Guk and Yoon Ji-Young, who were in an accident.”

At the sudden words, my phone fell to the ground.

“Hello? Yoon Yeo-Jin, are you there?”

The elevator doors opened with the announcement that we had arrived in the lobby.

Had I suddenly come back to life?… Or had I completely lost my mind? How could I forget my family’s accident?

“Why now, of all times?”

May 28th.

It was the day of my wedding with him, but it was also the day my grandfather and parents were in an accident. The accident, which had come without warning, reminded me of the family members who had left me behind.

While walking towards the main entrance, my legs trembled and I almost fell several times.

At that moment when I was pulling open the car door that was parked in front of the lobby, I reflexively turned around due to the strong force that grabbed my wrist.

Ji-Han, who I didn’t know when he had followed me, breathed heavily and stared at me with a fierce gaze. He had never shown any emotions on his face before. Now he seemed like a bomb that could explode at any moment.

“What are you doing?”

“Let me go.”

“Get in the car, right now.”

The more I tried to remove his grabbing arm, the more tightly he squeezed my wrist.

As if my resistance to leaving was irritating him, his face twisted into an ugly expression. Yes, he would be angry. Because of who he had become through his hard-earned reputation.

“Yoon Yeo-Jin!”

I lifted my wrist that he was holding, twisting it in the opposite direction.

“Let go of me. I have to go to the hospital.”

Perhaps he had never expected the word “hospital” because his face was now colored with confusion.

Only then did the grip of Ji-Han’s hand holding my wrist loosen.

“My family had an accident. My parents and grandfather are in critical condition.”

“What?”

“So, let go of me.”

I turned around, wrapping my wrist that had barely escaped his grip, and urgently sat in the driver’s seat, starting the engine.

Through the side mirror, I saw Ji-Han on the phone with someone. His eyes glittered as if he had just heard about my family’s accident.

A bad child…

Even as I gradually moved away from the wedding hall, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. The trembling hand that gripped the steering wheel was due to the flashing look in his eyes and what it meant.

“Please…stay safe.”

I didn’t want to experience the pain of losing my family twice. I had to bite my lips tightly to stop the tears that kept welling up.

***

I parked the car in an empty parking lot near the hospital and ran inside. 

The piercing stares of the people around me didn’t faze me as I hurriedly made my way through the bustling lobby and boarded the elevator that stopped at the VIP floor.

Unlike the lively lobby, the VIP wing was quiet, and I ran to the innermost part of the corridor.

A familiar middle-aged man, who had been my grandfather’s lawyer for a long time, was among the guards gathered not far away. His name was Park Hyun-Ik.

Mr. Hyun-Ik was sitting on a chair in front of the hospital room, but he lifted his head at the sound of my hurried footsteps.

“Ahjusshi!”

“Yeo-Jin, why are you so late…?”

“Late…? No way, something else must have happened.”