AOA 119

When I thought again of the word confession, shivers ran down my back. At the same time, my face burned hot.

“Ugh….”

I could not help but groan. After letting out a pained sound, I gulped down the cocoa. The sweetness cleared my head again.

I knew it, but there was no need to confess right away. Nothing had changed in the plan. We were still in the stage of flirting and getting to know each other.

My heart tingled and began to beat fast again, and the corners of my mouth wouldn’t go down.

I lowered my head and held back my laughter, worried I might look crazy. At the banquet earlier, I had also wanted to laugh like this, but I did not know how much I had held it in.

In truth, it was not a good situation at all. Today Baek Jinseok looked determined, making it clear he intended to split up the group. Baek Jaehan, whose firm position was shaking, would act predictably.

You had to stay alive if you wanted to date or do anything.

At this point, I had to ask Baek Mugyeong about ways to return to America. Only then could I help in some way.

Baek Jinseok was obsessively fixated on the alpha great-grandson. I did not know under what exact terms Baek Mugyeong had been brought from America, but it did not look like he would be sent back easily.

The fluttering mood I had been in sank in an instant. But I did not dwell on it long. I had to believe this was something that could be solved somehow.

I downed the cocoa in the mug in one go and picked up my phone. I felt less nervous, and the fatigue was gone.

As before the regression, the planning office of Daesong Group must be working hard to block news of this incident. But I started searching just in case. News, SNS, big communities, all were quiet.

While looking here and there, I opened Baek Mugyeong’s message window. My fingers itched.

Would it be all right to send a message? What should I write?

I stared at the phone screen for a long time. I wrote a message and erased it over and over. In the end, I did not press send and closed the messaging app.

The waiting was unbearable and sweet at the same time.

***

Baek Mugyeong returned home after the sun had set. Even after Oh Huisuk had gone home from work, I kept pacing around the living room, and when he came back, I could not hide my joy and smiled.

“You’re back?”

“I have something to talk about.”

…Something was wrong. Unlike the morning, when he could not stop smiling whenever our eyes met, Baek Mugyeong’s face was grim.

I remembered when he had shown this kind of expression before. It was on the day of the arranged meeting, after the regression, when we had gone to the hotel together. Just like then, coldness radiated from him.

Even after the banquet ended, Baek Mugyeong had not come straight back but returned late. Maybe Baek Gyeongbin had caused some big incident instead of being subdued right away.

“Did something happen?”

“I am going to check that. Did Oh Huisuk leave?”

“Yes. She already went home. What is going on?”

“Not here… let’s go to the living room.”

With a stiff face, Baek Mugyeong walked toward the living room. His urgent steps gave me an ominous feeling.

It had been a while since the banquet ended. Was there something else besides the Baek Gyeongbin incident? Did Baek Jinseok declare he would hand over DS Motors? Or had Baek Jinseok collapsed?

Worst-case scenarios flashed through my mind. That was how tense Baek Mugyeong’s back looked, and it made me cautious too.

“Did you have dinner? I thought you might not eat, so I asked the housekeeper to prepare something.”

I asked about food to soften the atmosphere. Dinner time had passed, but given the situation, he might not have eaten.

That was why I had asked Oh Huisuk to prepare food for Baek Mugyeong just in case. The food was in the fridge, and all it needed was to be set out.

“I did not eat, but it is fine. Please sit.”

His firm refusal embarrassed me. I sat down on the sofa where Baek Mugyeong gestured. But since he did not sit, I had to look up at him.

“What is it? Is it serious?”

“Jeong Minchae-ssi.”

“Yes.”

“You. How did you know Baek Gyeongbin had a knife?”

“…What?”

I realized one beat late what Baek Mugyeong was asking. His eyes were sharp, as if he would not miss a single reaction from me.

I wondered what was going on.

“You told the guards to search him, right?”

“I told you earlier, it was because Baek Gyeongbin’s eyes looked too suspicious….”

“Jeong Minchae-ssi.”

I repeated the same excuse as before, but unlike earlier, Baek Mugyeong did not let it go. His changed attitude threw me off completely.

“It is true. I just had a bad feeling.”

A thought crossed my mind. Was it a problem that I suddenly told the guards to search him? Maybe he thought I was acquainted with Baek Gyeongbin. Otherwise, why would Baek Mugyeong confront me like this?

“You also discovered the chandelier wires were cut, was that coincidence too?”

“That was… I just happened to see it when I went into the lounge.”

The chandelier being brought up made me even more flustered. Telling the guards to search Baek Gyeongbin could be taken strangely. But I thought noticing the chandelier issue was natural.

I explained again that I had found it by coincidence. But the man’s gaze did not soften. It grew colder.

“Not that.”

“……?”

“Did you already know the chandelier would fall and injure people today? No, is this the second time?”

The shock that hit me was beyond simply being misunderstood. My mind went blank white again, and I just stared at Baek Mugyeong with wide eyes.

I could not figure out what to make of this. There was no way a chandelier could fall at a chaebol chairman’s birthday banquet twice.

The thought made my heart feel like it would stop.

“Um…”

“I will ask differently. Are you repeating your life?”

This time it was clear. He had said repeating. I looked up at Baek Mugyeong with wide eyes. His stiff face showed he was not joking.

Is this real?

I did not know what kind of expression I should make.

When I first regressed, I had often wondered why such a thing happened. At times I felt something was off, trembling in fear that it might be a dream, or that I had gone insane.

But I had taken comfort in the fact that the mess of a life I had was turning one by one into something better. I had earned money. I had no falling-out with my younger sibling. I felt more and more certain that I could divorce and finally be free.

It was a miracle, but I knew if I spoke it out loud, people would only call me crazy. So I had decided I would never tell anyone until the day I died.

But now Baek Mugyeong had asked if I was repeating my life. Normal people could not even imagine such a thing.

There was only one reason he could ask like that.

Then I remembered what had been different compared to before regression. The DS Motors recall incident that should have happened in the summer had been blocked already the previous winter. At the New Year gathering, Baek Mugyeong had followed me to the restroom when I was falsely accused.

Even after unexpected sex, he had regularly handed me birth control. And in the previous life, he had been killed right after I became pregnant.

Everything matched.

“No way… no way, you also regressed?”

My voice trembled with expectation I could not hide. It was joy too. I was not the only one blessed with the miracle of regression.

I was thrilled. The thought that I could tell Baek Mugyeong everything made it feel like fireworks went off in my head. I could not control my expression because of the joy.

But Baek Mugyeong’s reaction was strange. His expression changed subtly.

It was not surprise or joy. It looked like suffering.

Our eyes stayed locked without a word. Heavy silence was something I was used to, but today it was different.

“Um…?”

I slowly got up and stepped closer to him. At that moment, Baek Mugyeong stepped back. It was the movement of someone avoiding what must not be touched.

The look in his eyes as he stared at me was colder than ever before. At that moment, I felt the pheromones of an angry alpha from him. I felt my body shivering. The dread made my heart feel like it stopped.

“Is, is something wrong?”

The suffocating tension made me stammer. I usually reacted dull to other alphas’ pheromones, but Baek Mugyeong’s were different.

I forced myself to endure, suppressing the urge to flee right away.

“You…”

“What about me?”

“That night, here, we parted.”

His cold tone made me come to my senses. That night… he must mean the last time I saw him alive before regression.

He had stormed out, demanding what on earth I had done, and then died in a car accident.

I could not guess why he suddenly brought that up. More than anything, his mood was deadly.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Do you even know why… do you know what you did? No, you would not know. If you knew, you could not have done it. …No. I cannot think straight right now.”

Baek Mugyeong said incomprehensible words and took another step back. Then, just like on the night before regression, he turned and left the living room.