“Thank you for the valuable lesson. I’ll be sure to put it to good use.”
He gave a slight nod and walked straight out of the conference room. The directors were left behind, dumbfounded.
* * *
“What are you going to do now?”
Speaking on behalf of the attending secretaries who had been waiting outside, Hwangbo Myeong asked with a face full of worry. He had been present throughout the meeting, yet he couldn’t get a read on Sijin’s intentions. Was he planning to walk away from the CEO position without a second thought, or did he believe three days was enough to overturn the situation?
“Let’s just head home. There’s nothing left on the schedule today, is there?”
Sijin gave the instruction as if he’d just wrapped up an ordinary meeting. When he’d heard the word dismissal, he had been shaken — but only for the briefest of moments. He had quickly returned to his usual self.
Hwangbo Myeong felt a heaviness in his chest. Even so, what Sijin said was right for now. It was just before six in the evening, and there was nothing left to do — nothing that could be done.
“Only the escort staff stays. Everyone else, go on home. Cheer up.”
He repeated the same thing Sijin had just said. The temporary secretary who had joined that very morning volunteered to stay behind. It had been an exhausting day for everyone. The other secretaries offered words of encouragement to the one staying for overtime, then took their leave.
“Let’s use the underground parking garage. I’ll contact the driver to come down that way.”
Stepping into the elevator, Hwangbo Myeong offered the suggestion with care. Sijin shook his head.
“I know you’re averse to changing your routine, but didn’t that stubbornness cause yesterday’s whole ordeal? Just for today, the underground parking——”
“No.”
Hwangbo Myeong coaxed him like a nanny rather than a secretary, but Sijin refused point-blank. Hwangbo Myeong felt desperate. He shot a look at the new secretary as if to ask for backup, but the man only gave a slight shrug.
These young people these days — useless, whether they’re above you or below you. Hwangbo Myeong glared at the back of the CEO’s head with resentful eyes.
The area in front of the main entrance was packed with demonstrators. Sijin’s inflammatory remarks had caused their numbers to multiply several times over since the day before.
Internet broadcasters and live broadcast vehicles had also crammed in, hoping for another entertaining scene to emerge. The car that was supposed to pick Sijin up could not, of course, get anywhere near the main entrance.
“Sir, it’s dangerous!”
Hwangbo Myeong cried out urgently. Sijin had stepped into the crowd of people screaming obscenities with reddened eyes. The security officers were standing by inside the building on the CEO’s orders. Behind Sijin was only a single bespectacled secretary clutching a briefcase tightly to his chest.
That stubborn ox. Hwangbo Myeong hurried after him.
“Money-crazed doctor! Murderer who abandoned all human decency!”
Someone who had rushed out from the crowd of protesters blocked Sijin’s path. It was the same parties involved in yesterday’s commotion. Sijin regarded them with those flat, mineral eyes of his.
The guardian and the child were holding something in both hands. The moment he paused his steps in front of them, the child hurled what they were holding at Sijin.
“Sir!”
All manner of imaginings flashed through Hwangbo Myeong’s mind. What are they holding? Paralyzed with fear, his feet were rooted to the asphalt, cold sweat trickling out.
Thwack!
A high-quality microphone picked up the faint sound of impact. Dozens of camera lenses also captured that fleeting instant.
A yolk encased in transparent viscous liquid slid down Sijin’s temple and dropped onto his shoulder.
What the child had thrown was a raw egg.
“Well done.”
The guardian patted the child on the shoulder. The cameras didn’t miss a moment of it.
The CEO being made a fool of by the very patient’s family he had insulted. The image of Sijin drenched in sticky, viscous slime went out over the airwaves. This time, it was a live broadcast — no editing.
After the child, the guardian raised her hand as well. Hwangbo Myeong’s face drained of color. Could he say with certainty that she was going to throw an egg, too? If it had been his own child on the receiving end of such vile words, Hwangbo Myeong would have gone at Sijin with a knife.
“Sir, what are you doing?”
Sijin, who should have been dodging, stood there motionless. His mind was somewhere else entirely. Has the image of getting hit with an egg left a strong enough impression to drive out the memory of those remarks? He was fully absorbed in calculating that.
Someone stop her! Hwangbo Myeong stretched out his arm and broke into a run toward the crowd. But to the people gathered there, Sijin was nothing more than entertaining spectacle. Not a single person stepped in. Before anyone could even say a word, she swung her arm.
An unidentified object launched into the air and traced a parabolic arc. Journalists pressed their fingers to the record buttons, anticipating an even greater humiliation for Sijin than the first.
Bang! Click, click, click!
Amid a barrage of camera flashes so fierce they made it hard to keep one’s eyes open, the sound of a thin, hard shell of calcium carbonate shattering rang out. The white burst of light gradually faded. Hwangbo Myeong exhaled in relief.
He looked at the temporary secretary with something close to admiration. The secretary had stepped in front of Sijin just before the second egg could reach him.
“……That would’ve been a great shot. Ruined it.”
A disappointed voice drifted out from somewhere in the crowd. The secretary, readjusting the glasses that had been knocked half off his face, raised his head.
“Why now, of all times……”
Shattered fragments of eggshell clung to his cheekbone. The yolk, which had burst from the force, began to drip steadily downward. But before that liquid could reach the asphalt, the secretary collapsed first. He was out cold — as though dead.
“They’re just regular convenience store eggs.”
The guardian held out the paper carton in her hand. The words printed in large font — antibiotic-free, premium, 10 count — gleamed unusually bright. Skulls are sturdy things, though. Sijin, too, prodded the secretary’s head and added as much.
Several hours later, in the old quarter of Hangdong. Hanmin, who had been leisurely enjoying a quiet summer night over a beer, choked on his drink mid-sip when he saw the news. The secretary who had been knocked unconscious by an egg was Jeh Gangwoo — the man who had walked out of Kim Internal Medicine and vanished without a trace.
* * *
How does one get their hands on something that isn’t for sale?
You could wait for the owner to be willing to sell. Or you could wait for the owner to die, so their descendants might dispose of the item.
Cautious and safe. The approach any law-abiding citizen ought to take.
There are faster methods, too. Temptation and negotiation. How much would you sell this for? Give this to me and I’ll exchange it for something three times more valuable.
There’s risk involved. If the temptation doesn’t work, you end up spending more than expected, or in the worst case, come to blows with the owner. Even so, it’s more efficient than sitting around waiting. People with money and confidence in their negotiating abilities generally choose this route. But it still takes time.
Then what is the fastest and most certain method?
Won’t sell it?
Then just take it.
The method Gangwoo chose was theft.
Eaton Biotech had discontinued the treatment. If it couldn’t be bought, there was only one option. Steal it.
A person with a week left before their fate became unknown — a terminal case with nothing to do but sit and die. If he didn’t want to become a bitter and vengeful ghost, he had to try something. Social condemnation was a problem for later. He had to steal the treatment.
Final objective: Allen-Park Syndrome treatment
↓
Secondary objective: Location of the warehouse among Eaton Biotech’s production drug storage facilities where the treatment was stored, along with all relevant information including security details
↓
Primary objective: A position from which he could obtain that information
He had set his objectives in reverse order from what he most wanted. And reversing the objectives made for an excellent plan of action.
The primary objective to be achieved in order to obtain the treatment was a position — in other words, employment. Seo’s Manpower Agency, which he operated as a front, existed precisely for moments like this.
Three days after the discontinuation announcement, an anonymous letter was delivered to Eaton Biotech’s audit office. It was a document reporting one of the CEO’s secretaries on suspicion of industrial espionage — and it came complete with every piece of evidence needed to file a police report on the spot. After an internal review over the following days, the secretary was arrested by police without even being given a chance to offer a defense.
The secretarial office reached out to staffing agencies in Hangdong. Whenever the workload caused a sudden vacancy, it had been their practice to request temporary staff from a staffing agency until a permanent hire could be made. One particular staffing agency snatched up the contract with an aggressive rock-bottom price.
Fourteen days after the announcement, Gangwoo set foot inside Eaton Biotech for the first time as a temporary secretary. From the anonymous tip to his first day on the job — all of it had gone exactly according to his plan.
He had dusted off his old suit, not worn in a long time, and was tying his necktie when his nose started bleeding. It had already been two weeks since his last treatment. He had long since passed the maximum point he could endure, and his body was reaching its limit.
He didn’t have the luxury of refining his plan with his usual care. From his very first day undercover, he hacked into the company’s internal network and the computers of the executives, including CEO Park Sijin. He had planned to gather information over a maximum of two days, and move to theft the moment he had the secondary objective in hand.
But the information he was looking for was nowhere to be found. It seemed the classified materials were stored in a separate location.
He grew anxious. He concluded that it would be faster to get the information directly from Sijin. Was there any way to get closer to him? Gangwoo volunteered to accompany him on the commute home.
At the main entrance, they encountered the protesters. An egg flew toward Sijin. A second egg left the hands of the demonstrators.
Gangwoo stepped in front of Sijin. An egg that wouldn’t even hurt getting hit by — the perfect opportunity to take one for him and build some rapport.
Thwack!
The egg cracked. It didn’t hurt, but the sticky yolk was unpleasant all the same. A sharp light stabbed between his eyelashes. Instinctively he reached up to touch the corner of his eye.
“Why now, of all times……”
His glasses slipped. Unfiltered sunlight pierced his eyes. The agitated optic nerves, unable to withstand the wavelength of light, blew a fuse in his brain.
He thought he was dying.
Gangwoo pitched forward. It was a little frustrating — the fact that, to everyone watching, it must have looked like he was dying from getting hit by an egg.
* * *
D-1.
A yellow flash pierced his pupils. Dread washed over him. A scorching heat, as if to burn through flesh, and a pressure crushing down on his entire body surged in.
“……Hah!”
Even knowing the sensation was an illusion, Gangwoo was breathless. His limbs tensed with every bit of strength in his body.
No matter how desperately he struggled, he couldn’t move beyond a certain range. Good Lord, making me relive that even in death is too cruel! A terror from a long-forgotten past surged up to the tips of his ears. His shoulders locked rigid and the back of his neck went cold.
“Left eye, pupil prompt.”
Just as he was about to let out the scream that had climbed all the way to the back of his throat, the light disappeared. A long, steady beep rang out like tinnitus.
Gangwoo squeezed his eyes shut to adjust to the darkness. He wasn’t dead. He exhaled — a labored breath breaking free from where it had been caught in his throat.
The light came on again in front of him. Not hot enough to scorch skin, and no wavelength to agitate the optic nerves. Just the artificial light of a mercury battery smaller than a pinky fingernail.
Right eye, prompt. A man’s voice confirmed that the pupil response in both eyes was normal. The penlight switched off.
Sijin, dressed in a lab coat, was right in front of him. Gangwoo pressed his lips together and drew in a light breath.
“Can you see my hand?”
He snapped his fingers and moved them left and right. Gangwoo turned his head slowly, following the direction of the hand.
It was a relief that at least his neck could move. Gangwoo’s limbs were bound to the bed. Broad, tough leather straps also crossed over his thighs and chest.
Before he could even savor the joy of not being dead, he had already experienced the sensation of being a frog laid out for an anatomy practicum, or a condemned man in the midst of being drawn and quartered. A bitter taste filled his mouth. But he was alive, which meant he could still feel all of that. He traced a cross on himself with his index finger and offered a prayer of thanks to God.
“Are you with me? What’s your name?”
The restraints weren’t a problem. To Gangwoo, who could crack a home safe with nothing but a toothpick, leather straps and chains were like toys from a first birthday table.
All manner of questions drifted through his mind. How am I still alive? What time is it? Where am I? Why am I tied up, and out of all the doctors in the world, why is Park Sijin the one looking after me? Don’t tell me he’s figured out who I really am?
“You don’t remember?”
The biggest headache among all the headaches asked again. The patient’s name is Jeh Gang——. When Sijin had half-pronounced his name, Gangwoo answered promptly.
“Jeh Gangwoo. Jeh Gangwoo.”
He’d decided it was fine to give out information about himself within the scope of what Sijin already knew. Most of the personal information he had submitted in his documents to Eaton Biotech was truthful anyway. If he fabricated a false identity and got caught in an identity verification system, things would only get more complicated.
Gangwoo knew it was a wildly brazen move. But it was possible precisely because there was zero evidence connecting the thief Jerry to the real person Jeh Gangwoo.
“Where are you right now?”
“……”
Bound to the bed, Gangwoo only moved his eyes. There were no seagull-patterned tiles on the ceiling. In their place, a row of high-end light fixtures, each worth tens of millions of won, hung overhead.
Beep, beep. Amid the monotonous noise of the medical equipment, the sound of Sijin’s footsteps came through. At the end of each step was a faint squelch — the sound of something pulling away from the floor. The flooring material was cheap linoleum.
“I don’t know.”
“The place you are currently in is a laboratory I use privately.”
Sijin answered.
Some of the questions swirling in his head found partial answers. It wasn’t a hospital affiliated with Eaton Biotech. Which explained why there were no doctors, and why Sijin was tending to him directly. Gangwoo asked.
“What’s today’s date?”
“……I don’t know.”
“It is the XXth of September.”
Gangwoo calculated the date. A full day had passed since he’d collapsed.
He had gone past the maximum limit he had endured without treatment. That he was alive was a miracle. His eyes flickered with shock.
“There’s no need to worry. Appropriate measures have been taken.”
Sijin spoke as if he’d read his mind. A faint undercurrent of excitement ran through his voice. Gangwoo blinked slowly and chewed the inside of his cheek.
“May I ask you something as well?”
“As many as you like.”
“Why did you save my life?”
Gangwoo believed in miracles — but not the kind brought about solely by the hand of God. The one who had extended his life was Sijin.
Sijin was the doctor who had developed the only treatment for Allen-Park Syndrome, the disease Gangwoo suffered from. And at the same time, he was the very devil who had discontinued it. Would a person like that have saved a dying man out of nothing more than a simple sense of medical duty?
No. Absolutely not. That was not how Gangwoo saw it. Sijin had clearly kept him alive with some intention in mind.
The mattress rippled gently. A ghost-like face pushed its way into Gangwoo’s field of vision. Sijin braced both hands on either side of his shoulders. In those dark irises, there was not a single point of light.
“I intend to marry Jeh Gangwoo.”
In that instant, a flash of lightning blazed. The shadow cast beyond the long, narrow window looked like prison bars. Before Gangwoo could even think to count the seconds, a deafening boom rang out.
It seemed lightning had struck somewhere nearby. His eardrums felt numb, and he had the urge to rub his ears. The scent of juniper berries, alcohol, and the damp smell of rain brushed past his nose.
“Will you marry me?”
“What the hell are you on about?”
The mattress rippled again. This time, violently. The ceiling spun, and the positions of the two were reversed.
Before anyone had noticed, Gangwoo had undone his restraints and was now straddling Sijin’s stomach. Sijin quickly pulled the corners of his mouth upward. He concealed the surprise he felt inside.
“Quite the fiery personality.”
Because his legs had been spread apart, the one-piece patient gown tied at the back had ridden up. Sijin languidly ran his hand up along the grain of Gangwoo’s divided muscles, tracing up his thigh.
