In truth, the difficult one was someone else.
Abel Sting.
The man Oscar had assigned as her escort and supervisor detested markets and cafés. At first, in her confusion, Seo-ah had failed to notice. But as time passed, it became impossible to ignore.
His glares were so intense they felt as though his eyes might pop out. More than once, she felt a prickling at the back of her neck. Yesterday in particular, it had felt as though a hole were being bored straight through her head.
She felt both apologetic—and afraid.
Apologetic, naturally.But what frightened her was the way he would glare at her as though he wanted to kill her, then suddenly smile warmly, only to glare again moments later—before abruptly buying her flowers and reciting poetry.
“I bought it thinking—what if a flower held a flower? Just as I imagined.”
He had offered her flowers in the middle of the market and recited poetry without warning. It had been deeply unsettling.
She had praised his poetry reflexively, but she could not shake the suspicion that the bouquet itself might be enchanted.
After returning to the mansion, she had even rummaged through the flowers, wondering if some sort of charm had been hidden inside. Only afterward had self-reproach washed over her.
To suspect someone who endured such unpleasant places because of her.
Yet she had no idea how to apologize.
He seemed to want to lead her somewhere from time to time, and she wondered if she should follow him just once. But the flashes of unease she occasionally sensed stopped her. Apologizing directly also felt strangely inappropriate.
All she could do was greet him politely and clear paths for herself in crowded places.
“Now I’ll lead the way, so please follow me closely.”
“…….”
Even that received a lukewarm response.
Whatever she tried to buy for him, it was obvious that nothing in the market interested him. And gifting him something purchased with money that wasn’t hers felt frankly absurd.
She couldn’t help but realize that their relationship was deteriorating—not by the day, but by the hour.
And this morning—
Abel appeared like a cow being led to slaughter.
Approaching him with an expression that screamed he would rather die, Seo-ah greeted him with the brightest smile she could manage.
“Good morning. …Did you sleep well?”
“…….”
The silence felt like an answer that it was neither a good morning nor that he had slept well. She struggled to keep the corners of her lips from drooping when his exhausted voice finally reached her.
“Are you going to the market again?”
“Yes….”
“Which market.”
“…Pal Pien Market.”
“It’s dirty. Cramped. Crowded. Dangerous. Full of vagrants and homeless people. Incredibly packed. The goods are shoddy, and if you eat anything there, you’ll get a stomachache.”
“…….”
She didn’t know what to do.
He truly hated it.
But none of the reasons Abel listed were reasons not to go to Pal Pien Market.
To catch fish, one must cast a line where fish gather.
Over the past week, she had quietly learned about Vues. Places with no entry restrictions and dense crowds—where contact with others was easiest—were, without exception, markets.
She was not a tourist. She could not afford to waste even a single day.
“I genuinely don’t understand,” Abel said, “why you insist on going to markets.”
The problem was that she could not explain her real reason.
She did not have the nerve to demand anything from someone who was clearly disgusted by her presence. Nor was she brazen enough to invoke the terms of her contract with Oscar.
In the end, there was only one thing she could do.
Seo-ah lifted her lowered head. As early morning sunlight seeped into her eyes, she forced her trembling lips into the widest smile she could manage.
With an expression full of apology—and a plea that begged please don’t refuse this—
“I want to go…”
She implored him.
The stranger’s gaze met hers, then dropped—stopping at the line of the flower snake’s jaw.
“Could you take me…?”
—
This woman has a talent for enchanting people.
Abel stood with his arms crossed, staring down at the woman before him.
Pal Pien. Or Par Pien.
Who in hell had told her about that place?
The instant she named that cramped, filthy, chaotic market, Abel had sworn he would never set foot there again.
No matter what.
No matter what she said—no matter what logic she used—he had already decided.
I won’t go there.
Just say the word, and he would refute it all.
But the woman said nothing.
Her pale eyes—unclouded, unlike those of the people here—blinked slowly. He could see her struggling to keep her head from drooping. Then, without warning, she lifted her gaze.
Light, transparent eyes shimmered in the sunlight, visible all the way to the bottom.
“I want to go…”
Her voice was cautious. Small.
Then her gaze lowered again.
“Could you take me…?”
“…….”
Temptation. He can see.
It did not only mean sexual allure. It referred to any act that enticed another—bewildering the mind, leading it astray. This temptation is indescribable. It had no rules.
It required an impossible alignment of intuition, timing, tone, pitch, gaze, and eye contact to catch the other person off guard —elements that could not truly be calculated. Which was why temptation leaned closer to innate talent than to effort.
And the most terrifying among them were those who tempted others without ever realizing they were doing so.
Abel watched Seo-ah—who had obtained what she wanted with nothing more than a few words and a smile—and thought:
If she were one of the wolves instead of a target, she’d be a gem.
Even he, who made a living using honey traps, had been momentarily caught. He had sworn never to set foot in that cursed market.
Yet when he came to his senses, he was already in the carriage.
That alone said everything.
And before the shock of recognizing such a talent could settle, the price of that momentary enchantment arrived immediately.
—
Seo-ah, who had felt suffocated by Abel’s murderous glare inside the carriage, understood the moment she stepped out.
This was why he had resisted so fiercely.
The markets she had visited until now, though crowded, at least had order and decent entrances. Arched signs marked their entrances. The paths were wide enough that people did not constantly collide.
But here, there was no sign at all.
Only a narrow passage, barely wide enough for one person. Tents were strung haphazardly overhead, turning the space into something like a cave.
“It’s not like I’ll die if I don’t see this market.”
A mutter thick with disillusionment reached her ears.
It sounded as though he would soon abandon polite address altogether.
“Let’s just take a quick look.”
Seo-ah replied softly, her voice barely above a whisper, and stepped ahead of him.
I’ll clear the way. Follow me closely.
With that intention, she glanced back and saw Abel being dragged along like a cow to slaughter. She would have bet her life that, if not for Oscar’s orders, he would have abandoned her long ago.
Let’s go in for now. But we won’t stay as long as the other markets.
As she thought this and entered, the air changed abruptly.
The smell of old goods—fish, meat, and countless miscellaneous items—mixed with faint sweat and flooded her lungs. On either side of the narrow path, shops stood packed together with no gaps, goods piled haphazardly.
Inside the shops, the space was no better. Between the stacks of merchandise, there was room for only one person to pass. The shopkeepers stood or sat in those slivers of space.
In other markets, merchants called out warmly, urging people to buy.
Here, they only watched passersby.
Eyes gleamed from the dimness—sharp, assessing.
Yet even those stares paled compared to the ones drilling into the back of her head.
It felt as though a hole were being bored into her skull.
Meanwhile, Abel had a gut feeling that today would be even more fucked up.
He would have wagered his entire fortune on it.
Why was this place unchanged? Why did it feel exactly the same as it used to?
It was familiar—too familiar.
And he was sick of it.
What kind of person came here without the intent to buy or sell something?
Abel stared at the round shape of Seo-ah’s head as she walked ahead and felt the absurd urge to crack it open and look inside.
The thought of her being a gem evaporated faster than spilled whiskey.
What remained was something else entirely.
A creeping sense of claustrophobia—triggered by memory.
—