Secretary Ju checked the schedule, glancing at her tablet as she spoke in her usual businesslike manner, and Haejeong gave a nod with no particular reaction, same as always.
“I know.”
Something about it felt oddly compliant. Under normal circumstances, something along the lines of — “So what.” “Who doesn’t know that?” “Why should I care?” “Stop nagging me.” — would have been the expected response. But Haejeong nodded like a man with a lot on his mind, pulled up the file Secretary Ju had sent by email, and rose to his feet on his own.
“Secretary Ju.”
Before heading back out of the office, Haejeong called to her in a flat tone. Even being addressed properly felt strange somehow, and Secretary Ju couldn’t shake the sense that something was off — but she answered in her professional manner.
“Yes.”
“Reserve the restaurant with the best view for this evening. The whole place.”
“…Pardon?”
“The most expensive, most well-known, most exceptional one you can find.”
At the out-of-nowhere order, Secretary Ju couldn’t hide her bewilderment and pushed her glasses up.
“…A place like that would be difficult to book on the same day, sir.”
“Use my name.”
“……Ah…….”
“Add a generous compensation on top. Tell them to name their price.”
Haejeong gave the order calmly, his expression carrying a certain air of resolve. The atmosphere made it clear she shouldn’t say anything further, so Secretary Ju complied without complaint.
“Yes, understood.”
She followed behind him and came to a stop in front of the elevator — and then, out of nowhere, a hesitant voice reached her. The very notion of him sounding hesitant didn’t suit him at all, and Secretary Ju looked up at him again in puzzlement.
“…Flowers, too….”
“…Pardon?”
Secretary Ju asked again, not quite catching his meaning. Looking faintly embarrassed, his face had gone slightly red as he opened his mouth again, awkwardly.
“…Flowers. I mean flowers.”
“…Would you mean something like a bouquet, sir?”
“……Yeah. That.”
“Is it perhaps a gift for someone?”
Now that she understood, Secretary Ju asked about the intended recipient, and Haejeong looked away for no particular reason as he answered.
“…What else would I be buying one for? Myself?”
“Understood.”
A fancy restaurant. A bouquet of flowers. Secretary Ju had a fairly good idea of what was going on, and she pressed her lips together to keep the corner of her mouth from curving upward as she answered dutifully. A bouquet of flowers. It suited her direct superior so little that he almost looked like a different person entirely.
“…As large and lavish as possible.”
Haejeong added, trying to mask his embarrassment. It seemed the order wasn’t finished yet. He appeared to be putting real thought into it, so Secretary Ju chimed in with a few words.
“Shall I also look into the meanings of the flowers?”
Considering how the mood had been rather off these past few days, she figured he was probably planning something — some kind of gesture — and if so, it seemed like it would be worth being a little more thoughtful about it. When she asked, Haejeong’s expression narrowed between his brows like the idea had never crossed his mind. His face grew notably more serious as he stroked his chin, then tilted his head slightly and looked over at Secretary Ju with grave eyes.
“…Does that matter?”
“If you’d like it to, it might make the gift carry a little more meaning, I think.”
Secretary Ju answered with a polite, practiced smile. Haejeong nodded slowly, like a man who had just arrived at a profound realization.
“…In that case…….”
“…….”
The deliberating expression that followed was quite serious indeed. He knitted his face up as if he were in physical discomfort, agonizing and agonizing — and then at last, slowly parted his lips.
“……Noble….”
Secretary Ju waited for him to finish. Haejeong added the rest of the halting sentence, slowly.
“A noble person.”
The moment the quiet words came to an end, the elevator arrival chime rang out in a flat tone. The silver doors slid open, and from inside appeared two front desk employees who had been chatting freely.
“……I’m telling you, I saw it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. In front of the café…….”
Mid-gossip, they caught sight of Haejeong standing at the elevator doors and quickly snapped to attention, bowing deeply at the waist in a hurry. Perhaps because front desk staff were used to dealing with people all day — the way their demeanor shifted in an instant was impressively smooth.
“Good afternoon, Managing Director.”
Haejeong gave only the smallest dip of his head, and stepped into the elevator before they had even fully exited. They quietly slipped out sideways to make room. As they made their way back to the front desk, they picked up where they’d left off on the conversation they hadn’t finished inside the elevator.
“I’m telling you, it was the Chairman’s wife.”
They kept their voices as low as possible, but it was more than enough to graze the edge of Haejeong’s hearing.
“She had everyone cleared out of the café and was sitting there with that person.”
“That person — the one you mentioned earlier?”
“Yeah. You know — the janitor who used to work on our floor until not long ago.”
“The janitor? The good-looking one?”
“Right. I remembered him because he was handsome…….”
Bang!
The two employees, still whispering casually and carrying on their conversation, whipped around simultaneously at the tremendous crash that erupted behind them. Secretary Ju, who had been about to go up to the conference room with him, reacted the same way. A shaken Secretary Ju stared, dumbfounded, at Haejeong, who had slammed his fist against the closing silver doors.
“W-what in the…….”
“What did you just say.”
Haejeong strode back out of the now-reopened elevator and seized one of the front desk employees roughly by the shoulder. The pain of the grip was so severe that the employee’s face went blank — and in that same moment, a dark and ominous voice rang out.
“…Who.”
Agitated pupils bore down on the employee with frightening intensity, muttering the question again.
“Who were they with?”
The words came out through teeth clenched with barely contained fury.
**
The place the man had brought Munyeong to was the café on the first floor of the building. Whether he had cleared the place out, or whether it simply happened to be empty around this time, there was no one near the seat where Rep. Chu sat ramrod straight. She sat with one leg crossed elegantly over the other, a single cup of coffee before her, and even from a distance her displeasure was unmistakably evident. The gentle strains of jazz drifting through the café sounded to Munyeong’s ears like the roar of something about to shatter.
Munyeong stopped before approaching and drew a slow, quiet breath. Facing her this close was the first time since his school days. At the inauguration ceremony, catching a glimpse of her face from so far away that he could barely make it out had been the only time since then.
It was not a good memory, and this situation made Munyeong profoundly uncomfortable and afraid. He could almost feel the sting of the slap he’d received back then coming back to life on his cheek.
“Go on, move along.”
When he lingered behind, the man urged him to hurry. It was a wordless pressure — as if to say, how dare he make his mistress wait. Munyeong took a slow step forward, his eyes trembling.
“……A-…. Hello.”
Munyeong bent at the waist across from her until his head nearly reached the floor. He held that position for quite some time before a cold command came.
“Sit.”
Only then did Munyeong straighten up, visibly tense, and eased himself into the seat across from her. Perched on just the edge of the chair, barely enough to keep himself seated. Uncomfortably so.
“I had my suspicions…….”
“…….”
“So it really is you. From back then.”
