“Reject all of them.”
“Understood.”
“Don’t let them touch any private matters going forward either.”
Dowon’s voice giving instructions was exceptionally cold.
“Right. Use this incident as a pretext to codify privacy protection for executives’ families in the KD Group PR team guidelines. Make sure requests like this never make it to my reports again.”
“Yes, Director. I’ll handle it immediately.”
“Good. What’s tomorrow’s schedule?”
“At 10 AM you have a final review meeting with the legal team regarding the currently ongoing M&A-related hostile takeover defense strategy.”
After dismissing the secretary who finished the briefing, Dowon turned his gaze back to the documents. However, a few fragmented words still lingered in his head.
‘Joint interview’. ‘Pictorial article’. The media was starving for gossip as always.
‘Spouse Seong Yeohwi…’
He glared at the cell phone placed on the table.
No received messages
He frowned. He was unpleasantly irritated at himself for losing concentration, and at this silence.
He should be glad since he had wanted it to be quiet, intended it, and created it as a result.
That brat had finally grasped his place. That this terrible game of house was over. That there was no longer any need to devote attention to it.
Surely that must be it.
Dowon dry-washed his face as if shaking off his thoughts.
***
Dowon returned home to the mansion late at night.
Naturally, the entrance was dark and empty. There was no sound of bare feet running out upon hearing him get out of the car. That bothersome and warm lump that would crouch and fall asleep on the marble stairs waiting for him.
He entered the house and walked across the second-floor hallway.
The bedroom door where Yeohwi stayed was firmly closed. Not a single ray of light or point of sound leaked through the door crack. Everywhere was dark and quiet.
For the first time, Dowon felt this massive mansion was empty. Even though it had merely returned to its original state.
Entering the study, he tried to focus again on work he hadn’t finished at the company. But suddenly, his hand moved first.
He pressed the intercom connected to the kitchen and waited for a response.
“Mrs. Park.”
—Yes, Director.
“Dinner.”
—Pardon? Ah, are you hungry? I’ll prepare something for you right now.
“No.”
In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to call Yeohwi’s name.
“That kid, I mean.”
Hesitation was buried in Mrs. Park’s answering voice.
—…I brought it to his room.
“Then that’s fine.”
It was the moment he was about to hang up.
—Director! Um…!
Mrs. Park called to him urgently.
“What is it.”
—It seems the young master has… hardly been eating lately. He’s left lunch untouched time and again too. He won’t come out of his room either…
Dowon’s eyebrows crumpled viciously.
‘…Not eating?’
That guy who used to devour an entire bowl of cereal every morning like he was possessed?
Had he now resorted to a hunger strike or something? It was a childish and obvious trick.
“Just leave him be. He’ll eat on his own when he gets hungry enough.”
Dowon tried to coldly draw the line and hang up. But Mrs. Park’s voice, different from usual, came through the intercom desperately.
—Director Do! No, young master.
As if returning to when he was young, to when she was his nanny.
Dowon hesitated to hang up.
—I know what I’m about to say is presumptuous. I’ve only worked at this house my whole life, and it’s not my place to dare step forward, but…
Mrs. Park’s voice was trembling. It wouldn’t be easy to remonstrate with one’s employer. Nevertheless, he could feel her firm will that she had to step forward.
—Young Master Yeohwi looked especially struggling today. It seems he can’t sleep these days either…
“……”
—Actually, I haven’t been able to see the young master’s face properly for the past few days…
“Mrs. Park.”
Dowon sent a warning signal. Yet Mrs. Park choked up with sighs.
—He must have already been having a hard time adjusting, coming to an unfamiliar place alone, so if you could visit the young master’s room just once…
The space between Dowon’s brows crumpled miserably. He shouldn’t have brought up Seong Yeohwi’s name. It was a pointless thing to do.
“That’s enough.”
Click. Unable to listen anymore, Dowon cut off the intercom.
However, Mrs. Park’s earnest voice seemed to remain echoing in the study without being cut off.
‘He looked especially struggling today.’
‘If you could visit the young master’s room just once…’
“…Ridiculous nonsense.”
The fountain pen in his hand struck down hard on the desk.
***
When the dawn light faintly brightened the glass windows, Dowon forced himself up.
He had only loosened his necktie while finishing the review of M&A-related documents all night, still in the same suit he wore yesterday. Fatigue oozed from his wrinkled shirt.
The final legal team review meeting scheduled for today was an important schedule for taking KD shares. It was a war for seizing his position where he couldn’t rest for a single moment.
Dowon organized his spot and stood up from the desk. The air in the study had settled stuffily with the bitter scent of coffee he drank all night and the smell of paper from the documents.
“Hah.”
Exhaling briefly, Dowon glared at the closed mahogany door. Beyond it, across the hallway. He quietly thought of the twenty-year-old who would be curled up in darkness without eating.
He had briefly dismissed it as a childish hunger strike, but since he was still at a growing age, it seemed he should have him forced to eat meals. It would be good to ask Mrs. Park.
‘Dowon-ssi, don’t touch the child.’
‘I’ll touch the adult.’
…Idiot.
Dowon lowered his eyelids. The last moment of that night appeared vividly on his retina. That wet face turning pale white with a desperate expression. Seong Yeohwi who threw himself in staking his all at every moment. Those shattered eyes came to mind.
Dowon changed clothes and went down to the first-floor lobby.
Earlier than usual. He spoke to Mrs. Park, who was setting the table.
“Mrs. Park, I apologize for last night.”
Mrs. Park’s face looked haggard, perhaps from lack of sleep. Dowon clicked his tongue inwardly and mentioned Yeohwi.
“It would be better to make him eat this morning. Is he awake?”
She shook her head.
“Not yet… there’s been no sign of him at all.”
“Please wake him. And seat him at the table.”
Dowon pulled out a chair and took his seat. It was the moment he was putting on his Patek Philippe watch.
Thud.
The sound of something heavy and dull falling to the floor came from the second floor.
“Young master!”
And Mrs. Park’s tearing scream rang out.
“What should I do, Director…! The young master…!”
Dowon abruptly pushed back his chair and stood up.
Crossing the hallway and going up to the second floor, through the crack of the open bedroom door he could see Seong Yeohwi collapsed on the floor.
Training clothes soaked in sweat.
Lips pale white without a trace of blood.
And faintly trembling eyelashes…
It seemed he had tried to come out by opening the closed door, but collapsed without being able to cross the threshold.
“Young master! Wake up, young master!”
He spoke in a frighteningly sunken voice toward Mrs. Park, who was shouting trying to wake Yeohwi.
“I’ll check on him. Call the family doctor immediately.”
“Ah, right! I’ll, I’ll call him right away.”
Dowon knelt down where Yeohwi had collapsed. Then he tapped Yeohwi’s cheek. There was no response whatsoever.
‘He’s fainted.’
Dowon put his arms under the knees and behind the back of the collapsed Yeohwi and lifted him up. He intended to lay him on the bed first.
But the moment he turned around and faced inside the room, he couldn’t help but stop in place.
‘…What is this?’
Because the scene unfolding before his eyes was not what he had expected Seong Yeohwi’s bedroom to look like.
The laptop screen placed on the desk was filled with complex stock charts and legal document files, and on the floor thick professional books that he would only see in the study were scattered messily. 《Corporate Law》, 《M&A Strategy Practice》, 《Understanding Asset Management》…
Even the bed where he was about to lay Seong Yeohwi was not a cozy cradle for sleeping. Dozens of file folders were spread open. Post-it notes scribbled with highlighter marks and ballpoint pen were plastered all over them.
Traces of a struggle spent without eating or sleeping for days.
Only then did Dowon realize the reality of what he had dismissed as a childish hunger strike. What Seong Yeohwi had been doing alone, holed up in this room.
