Chapter 10. The Woman He Never Stopped Searching For

Cha Yuri disappeared the year their families began seriously discussing her marriage to Jaeheon.

That day, Kang Jaeheon was sitting in a conference room at Kangseong Group headquarters.

An overseas business report was underway when his phone, set to vibrate, buzzed repeatedly against the table.

Normally, he wouldn't have looked at it until the meeting was over.

This time, he checked the screen and answered.

Within seconds of hearing the voice on the other end, every trace of expression vanished from his face.

"...Where?"

The conference room fell silent.

Cha Yuri had been in an accident overseas.

Her car had crashed through a guardrail on a mountain road and plunged dozens of meters down a cliff. The vehicle was so badly crushed that it was barely recognizable.

Inside, rescuers found Yuri's bag and her bloodstained phone.

But there was no body.

Jaeheon boarded the earliest flight that night.

The moment he arrived, he went straight to the crash site. When the police ended their search, he hired a private search team and sent them back over the mountain.

They found nothing.

Eventually, even Kang Taejun flew in.

By then, Jaeheon hadn't slept properly in days.

His eyes were bloodshot. Dirt and dried sweat stained his shirt, and dark stubble shadowed his jaw.

"Jaeheon."

Kang Taejun gripped his son's shoulder.

"You need to accept it."

Jaeheon slowly raised his head.

"Accept what?"

"The police have concluded that there's almost no chance she survived."

Given the terrain and the length of the search, survival was virtually impossible.

Everyone there had reached the same conclusion.

Cha Yuri was dead.

Everyone except Kang Jaeheon.

"Where's her body?"

Kang Taejun fell silent.

"Did you see Yuri's body yourself?"

"Jaeheon. Enough."

"There isn't one."

Jaeheon's mouth twisted.

"If there's no proof she's dead, why should I give up?"

He stared down the sheer cliff.

"If she's alive, I'll find her. If she's dead, then tell them to put her body in front of me."

His fingers tightened around the railing until the veins stood out across the back of his hand.

"Until then, no one gets to tell me Yuri is dead."

From that day on, Jaeheon kept searching for the woman everyone else believed was dead.

He hired private investigators. He checked hospitals and shelters throughout the region. Whenever someone reported seeing a woman who looked like Yuri, he got on a plane himself.

Every time, it was someone else.

One month passed.

Then six.

Then a year.

To everyone around him, Cha Yuri was already dead.

Not to Jaeheon.

"Keep looking."

When a private investigator told him there was nothing left to report, Jaeheon grabbed him by the collar.

"If you find even the smallest trace of her, you call me first. Alive or dead, I'll confirm it with my own eyes."

Time passed.

Eventually, family obligations and Kang Taejun's urging led Jaeheon to marry Han Seoyun.

But marriage didn't end his search for Yuri.

Whenever word came from overseas that someone had seen a woman who resembled her, Jaeheon left home under the pretense of a business trip.

A single blurry photograph was enough for him to send someone to investigate.

And if he thought there was even a chance it might really be Yuri, he boarded an overnight flight himself.

All that time, Seoyun waited for her husband without knowing where he was really going.

Jaeheon never explained.

It never occurred to him that he should.

No matter how many days he stayed away, Seoyun was there when he returned.

Even late at night, she left a light on for him.

No matter how coldly he treated her, by morning, she still made sure his breakfast was ready.

It happened so often, for so long, that eventually he began to take it for granted.

Han Seoyun was his wife.

So he believed that no matter when he came home, she would always be there.

When Yuri disappeared, Jaeheon had been willing to turn the world upside down to find her.

But not once had he imagined that Seoyun could disappear from his life too.

Three years passed inside that arrogant certainty.

Then Cha Yuri—the woman everyone had believed was dead—came back.

At the exact moment

Seoyun stopped waiting for him.