"That really doesn't prove anything, does it?" Ji-Eun voiced her thoughts. "If they're lovers or..."
Jaehyun shrugged. "You asked me about a connection. And I'm just telling you what I saw. It's really up to you to decide what to do with that information."
Ji-Eun downed her entire glass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Are you saying they might be secret lovers? And that they fought over something that day?" Ji-Eun asked.
"Looks like it," Jaehyun nodded. "That may not necessarily be true, but we can't discount that scenario too."
Ji-Eun sighed openly. "It's not that I'm doubting you or anything, Jaehyun. It's just that... you know, that person already became a public figure within our industry, so any news about that would have been given special attention. Unless..."
"Unless?" Jaehyun probed.
"Unless one or both of them agreed to have that kind of arrangement," Ji-Eun's eyes slit up and scoured through her phone again. "Hold on."
Jaehyun stood up to refill her glass and to get another beer. At the rate she's been drinking, he might as well get some side dishes she can much on, he thought as he re-entered his kitchen.
"Oh Jaehyun!"
He heard her loud call and he all but ran over. He saw Ji-Eun standing in the middle of his living room, pointing at her phone excitedly.
"What?" He asked. "What happened?"
"Look at this!" She pushed her phone near his face. "This article!"
Jaehyun couldn't make out the words since she was holding the phone very close to his face, so he took it from her and stepped away to read on his own. He read silently, his eyes darting back and forth across the screen. After a minute or so, he looked up and smirked at her.
"Yes," he said, handing her phone back. "That might be because of it. The Little City's employees are not really allowed to date. Their working contract forbids them to do so."
I forgot that this article was included in the company profile that I gave her a few days ago... Jaehyun thought as he watched her stuff her phone away. How could I let that one get by me anyway?
He mentally berated himself.
"I get it now," Ji-Eun shrugged. "Why they were both acting weird at The Little City's studio."
Well, it would have been weird of them to act out a tender, crying scene in a public street if they were not lovers or something, Jaehyun thought, inwardly sighing.
"What do you plan to do then?" Jaehyun asked.
Ji-Eun closed her eyes and thought for a moment.
"I would just have to ask Song Hun-Shik directly," she said.
Jaehyun's eyes flashed. "Come again?"
"I said," Ji-Eun looked at him directly this time. "I would just have to ask Song Hyun-Shik directly."
"Ji-Eun-"
"There's no point in beating around the bush with this guy if he is what you say he is," Ji-Eun recalled how Jaehyun described the Song heir. A guy going through a flurry of girlfriends is not exactly how Hyun-Shik seemed, but with his status before, it couldn't be that far off.
"Do you think he'll tell you the truth?" Jaehyun asked.
"I don't know," Ji-Eun yawned. "I'd have to see for myself."
Jaehyun could only nod at her logic.
"Jaehyun," Ji-Eun's body sank on the warm couch. "Let me sleep here, okay?"
Hmm? He looked at her tired form and just smiled. "Okay," he said. "But, just note that I'm leaving in a few hours. Grandma wanted to see me, so I'm going up the country."
"Hmm," she waved her hand sleepily.
"Help yourself to the food in the kitchen," he said, walking back to his bedroom. "As if I need to tell you that."
Jaehyun closed the door behind him and sat on his bed.
"I think I need to get a new place," he laughed. "But I think she'd just hunt me down."
He stood up and started to get ready for the upcoming trip, his sleep completely evading him.
This scene had happened so many times over the past three years, that he just gave up entirely on offering to drive her home or offering her his bedroom. She would always flat-out refuse his offer and would sometimes camp in his living room for days at a time.
He would be lying if he said he was not okay with her staying over. In fact, he quite liked her presence outside the company. Outside the Chung Group, the two of them would just be themselves, devoid of their statuses and acting however they like. He'd always welcome her company and find it refreshing, even if at times, she'd come over just to annoy the living hell out of him.
Just then a sudden thought struck him and he stopped moving around his room, his mind mulling over something.
"If that girl really gets married," he did not notice that he actually voiced his thoughts out loud. "And she comes over to hide out here at times..."
Oh, boy... My life is going to get a lot more interesting.