Title: The Invisible Scar
I was alone with his suits. Three perfectly tailored, terrifyingly expensive suits.
I reached out, my fingers brushing the cool wool of the first jacket. Check the tailoring on the inside seams. Kang Bok Soo's command echoed in my head, a low, intimate challenge. He knew this task was humiliating. He knew I hated how close it forced me to his reality—a perfect, wealthy existence contrasting so sharply with my desperate, messy one.
I pulled the first suit off the hanger, the fabric heavy in my hands. I unbuttoned the pants and turned the trousers inside out, focusing on the stitching. Focus on the work, Peter Bella. Not the man.
But it was impossible. The suit smelled faintly of him—that custom cologne mixed with the clean, fresh scent of expensive fabric. I could almost feel his presence, his eyes watching me. My hands shook slightly as I ran my fingers along the inside seams. I hated how much my body reacted to him, despised the heat that rose in my chest every time I thought of his possessive stare.
The first two suits were flawless. But on the third, the dark gray one, I found a tiny imperfection: a loose thread inside the waistband. I quickly snipped it.
Then, as I carefully pulled the jacket off the hanger, something slipped out of the inside pocket. It was a folded piece of paper, thicker than a standard note.
Ms. Kim said total secrecy. I shouldn't look. But my need for information—my academic drive to solve problems and understand systems—overrode my fear. I had to know what made him tick. If I could understand the enemy, I could survive him.
I unfolded the paper quickly. It wasn't a script or a fan letter. It was a prescription note from a reputable mental health clinic, dated just two weeks prior. Below the doctor's stamp, the prescription was for a strong sleep aid and a medication often used to manage severe anxiety and panic attacks.
My breath hitched. Sleep aids? Anxiety?
This was not the Kang Bok Soo of the billboards. The man who looked down at the world with cold, arrogant perfection was quietly suffering. He was as broken beneath the surface as I was, just with a much better tailor.
I quickly tucked the prescription back into the pocket. The discovery didn't make him less cruel, but it made him less of a monster. He was human. And suddenly, my unwanted attraction felt more complicated, mixed with a sudden, fierce rush of pity and fierce curiosity.
I finished my inspection just as the dressing room door swung open.
Kang Bok Soo walked in. He didn't look at the suits. He looked only at me.
"Thirty minutes," he noted, his eyes scanning my face, searching for a reaction. "Report."
"The gray suit had one loose thread, which I corrected. Otherwise, all three are perfectly pressed and tailored, Mr. Kang." My voice was steady, betraying none of the turmoil I felt.
He paused, stepping closer until the air crackled between us. His eyes drifted from my lips to my eyes. That non-verbal heat intensified, but this time, I thought I detected a layer of tension beneath the heat, perhaps the anxiety the prescription described.
"Good," he murmured. He didn't thank me. Instead, he did the most unnerving thing yet.
He reached out slowly, his fingers rising to the side of my face. My whole body locked up, ready to flinch, ready to run.
Instead of touching me, his thumb very lightly brushed a damp spot beneath my eye. I hadn't even realized I was crying, a tiny, silent remnant of the earlier phone call about my mother's illness.
He didn't mention the tear. He didn't ask why I was sad. His face remained neutral, arrogant. But his eyes were dark, intense, and studying me with sudden, unnerving depth.
"Your perfection is… temporary," he said, the words a low, husky challenge. He finally lowered his hand, the brief, illicit contact leaving my skin tingling. "Don't forget that, Peter Bella."
He was clearly referring to the flaw of the tear, the sign of weakness. But as he turned to look at himself in the mirror, adjusting his collar, I knew I had seen a flaw in him too. A vulnerability hidden beneath the perfect suit.
My job was to serve him, but now my new, secret mission was to understand him.