Chapter 01
“Please keep this a secret from others.”
The woman broke the suffocating silence, opening her lips.
“Please, Prosecutor… it would, of course, be best if you keep it to yourself as well.”
The sharp eyes of the man looking at the documents lifted.
‘Investigator Jeong Eun-jae, Criminal Division 1, Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.’
His cold gaze skimmed over the ID hanging around the woman’s neck, revealing not the slightest hint of emotion.
“······.”
Overwhelmed by his silence, Eun-jae turned her eyes away as she opened the next document. A faint, shallow laugh escaped above it.
A head tilted slightly. Brows slightly furrowed. Lips pursed at a crooked angle. Yet the eyes did not smile.
Even without seeing, Eun-jae recalled that unmistakable expression of scorn he always carried.
Even in that moment, he seemed strikingly handsome in her memory.
“What’s this secret about, then?”
Finally, his deep voice tightened her chest. That voice she had longed to hear so desperately struck her like cold thorns.
“You mean… the fact that we’ve gone all the way—doing every dirty, lustful thing together?”
“······!”
“Or… that you used me, drained me dry, and then threw me away?”
The former lover, now her direct superior after three years, radiated a far colder, sharper aura than before.
And yet, Eun-jae had no right to protest at how he expressed it.
‘Oppa is so… exhausting. Why are you so clingy? It’s suffocating.’
‘For an ordinary person who dated a chaebol, like me, that’s a credential. I’m grateful you helped me build that credential.’
‘I want to meet other men. If I find that you’re still the best, then I’ll contact you again.’
It had been she herself who, with words she shouldn’t have said, hurt him and insisted they break up.
“······Once you’ve signed the approval form, leave it here and I’ll take it, Prosecutor.”
Eun-jae tried to act nonchalant, steering the conversation back to work. But he didn’t let it go.
“Feels disgusting. First day back in Korea, too.”
He rose from his seat, leaning on the desk with a large frame, tilting his body toward her.
As his towering presence approached, his familiar scent brushed past her nose.
How could she ever forget it—the subtle citrus fragrance that pressed against her whenever she clung to him in his arms?
“I had to listen to you calling me ‘Prosecutor.’”
“······.”
Her heart, betraying her, reacted to his scent.
As Eun-jae bit her lower lip and lowered her head to avoid him, a voice interrupted:
“Oh? The new prosecutor! Hello! I’m Section Chief Kim Cheol-ho.”
“Wow, hello, Prosecutor! I’m Investigator Yoo Eun-hye. Please take care of me!”
The office door opened, and other colleagues entered. The timing was a relief.
He straightened from his lean, and as his body moved away, Eun-jae quietly exhaled the breath she had been holding.
“No, Investigator! How can you start giving work on the prosecutor’s first day?”
“Huh? Ah······.”
Only then did she regain her composure from Section Chief Kim’s chatter.
“Prosecutor, we’re not that bad, right? Believe it or not, our team’s been running smoothly for a year now. Haha!”
But the man, expressionless, retrieved a pen.
Seeing no reaction, Section Chief Kim awkwardly stopped talking.
“Ah······ well, we’ll be counting on you, Prosecutor.”
The scratch of the pen filled the awkward silence.
‘Prosecutor Baek Woo-kyung.’ The approval form, signed, was placed beside his nameplate.
Eun-jae grabbed the form and practically ran away from his desk.
…but even so, she couldn’t completely escape his presence.
The office layout, with T-shaped desks and low partitions, allowed Woo-kyung a clear view of her profile from his seat.
‘What now?’
Prosecutor and investigator—until their transfers to different offices, they would have to work as a team, constantly entangled in each other’s business.
The future seemed bleak.
Eun-jae swallowed her bitterness and focused on her monitor, but her uneasy heart did not settle.
It was the first day back at work with a messy ex-lover as her direct superior.
The morning passed in a blur.
It wasn’t until lunch that Eun-jae finally escaped the same space as Baek Woo-kyung.
“This isn’t easy at all… hmm.”
While on a post-lunch walk, Section Chief Kim tilted his head while sipping coffee.
“He dislikes tea breaks, lunch, welcome dinners… everything. I’ve never met a prosecutor who dislikes being treated so much.”
But it wasn’t just that. Woo-kyung had ignored every joke Section Chief Kim made all morning to lighten the mood.
“Powerfully introverted? With a face like that, SSS-level handsome, he could easily be an extrovert.”
The junior investigator also tilted her head, puzzled. Eun-jae quietly listened to their conversation.
“By the way, is that rumor true?”
Lowering her voice, the junior investigator leaned in as if sharing a secret.
“Prosecutor Baek Woo-kyung… he’s the heir to the Do-young Group. A real golden spoon.”
Kim leaned in as well, whispering like it was confidential.
“Yeah, fact. After an exchange program as a prosecutor in the U.S., why do you think he suddenly came back to Korea? The Do-young Group was in chaos.”
“That news? Hah… what about my stocks buried in Do-young Electronics?”
Recently, rumors about the health of Baek Wan-seop, chairman of the major conglomerate Do-young Group, had shaken South Korea.
Baek Wan-seop was Woo-kyung’s grandfather.
“But Prosecutor Baek… wasn’t he completely sidelined in the succession battle?”
The junior investigator spoke cautiously; Kim nodded vigorously.
“Yeah, I saw that on the stock rumor boards!”
“Obviously. Who would leave a rich heir position to become a low-paid public official? He got pushed out in the shares fight.”
“So he’s back to claim a spot in Korea? Ugh… now even I’m worried.”
The two continued gossiping about the Do-young family, though most of it was wrong.
Eun-jae, who had lived in the Do-young estate annex for 20 years since kindergarten, knew the truth.
Woo-kyung’s grandfather and father cherished him for his managerial talent. They naturally assumed he would inherit Do-young and further prosper their empire.
However, Woo-kyung felt no passion for amassing wealth and voluntarily rejected the heir position.
The path of a prosecutor, determining right and wrong and upholding justice, was entirely his own choice.
Eun-jae loved even that steadfast conviction of his.
It began as admiration. Unlike her, the daughter of a housekeeper, she wanted to shine like Baek Woo-kyung.
Admiration turned into a goal: to become a prosecutor with unwavering conviction, standing beside him.
Eventually, the dream became love. First love, young love, unrequited love—names didn’t matter. She was happy as long as she could dream of Woo-kyung.
But… it had to stop there.
The dream remained a dream, and she could only watch from afar.
Yet fate allowed their hearts to meet, and for four years, they were lovers.
Without knowing the terrible cost it might bring.
“—First time, right?”
“Huh?”
Her wandering thoughts snapped at the sudden question.
“With Prosecutor Baek Woo-kyung.”
“······!”
Eun-jae’s round eyes widened.
‘First time, huh.’
One summer night, with a heart about to burst, she had kissed his burning lips.
He, who didn’t refuse, had looked down at her trembling self with a composed, deep voice: asking if it was her first kiss.
‘What if… you dislike it because you’re inexperienced—’
‘No. I like it.’
‘······!’
‘I love it, Eun-jae.’
Why did that memory suddenly surface now?
Eun-jae brushed her hair back, hiding her embarrassment.
“The investigator will ‘for the first time’ be working in sync with the prosecutor. You’ll be doing interrogations together.”
“Ah, just relax. Do it as you normally would!”
Her colleagues, thinking she was tense because of the new prickly superior, cheered her on.
“Yes. I’ll be fine… nothing will go wrong, right?”
She smiled faintly, nodding. They were now only colleagues; she hoped the past would not cause trouble.
Today’s investigation target was the son of a mid-sized construction company chairman.
He was accused of secretly filming women with hidden cameras in lecture halls and her car.
The victim’s statement and witness accounts matched, and the evidence was clear—she expected the investigation to go smoothly.
“Oh, our beautiful investigator! The flower of Seoul Central District! Up close, you really shine!”
From the start, the over-the-top lawyer made the atmosphere unpleasant.
“You know me, right? I was here at Central District last week for a Criminal Division 2 case.”
In uncomfortable silence, only the lawyer spoke eagerly.
“Today, I’m formally greeting Prosecutor Baek Woo-kyung and Investigator Eun-jae.”
Handing out business cards, the lawyer seemed more familiar from TV variety shows than legal circles.
“Prosecutor Baek, how is it? Better than the U.S.? Adjusting well in Korea?”
“······.”
Woo-kyung’s eyes narrowed sharply at the presumptuous stranger.
Anyone could see his irritation.
“I gathered all the academic, regional, and family ties for Do-young Group to make a good impression on my first meeting. Haha!”
Eun-jae was internally horrified. The lawyer’s strategy clashed completely with Woo-kyung’s temperament.
“Who is he?” she muttered.
Sure enough, her worry became reality.
Woo-kyung slammed the laptop shut, and cold anger radiated from between his teeth.
