Chapter 15

What Sa-heon had said in the rooftop room a little while ago kept circling in her head, and she was ashamed, too, that she’d let it rattle her like an idiot.

Worse still, the Father had been asking this and that for a while now, as though there was a great deal he was curious about. And Anna was showing far more interest than she ought to.

The moment one of them broke the dam, they’d pour every little question they had out onto Sa-heon. That much was certain. And if the conversation ran long, something might fail to add up, or he might end up giving away far too much about himself.

Yet while Ji-an fretted, Sa-heon ate his jajangmyeon with a perfectly untroubled face. Even the way he used his chopsticks to pick up a piece of sweet-and-sour pork was decorous and refined, like a gentleman’s.

No one would ever take him for a man freeloading in a colleague’s rooftop room because he had nowhere else to go. Lay it on a bit thick and he might pass for a crown prince hiding in a commoner’s house to escape a treasonous plot, but that was about all.

She kept sneaking glances at him, and in the end their eyes met. Ji-an looked away fast, but he tilted slightly toward her and whispered low.

“Something you want to say to me?”

“No.”

Ji-an raised her water glass to her lips and shook her head. The corner of his mouth slanted up.

“Done thinking it over already?”

Gack! The water had barely gone down before it caught in her throat.

“Ugh, hey. What’s wrong with you?”

Hee-jin pulled out a few tissues and handed them to Ji-an, who had to cover her mouth and cough for a good long while.

The next day.

Far off, a black sedan came racing up the road with dust trailing behind it.

“Managing Director!”

Chief Choi Kang-hoon spotted Sa-heon and got out of the driver’s seat in a hurry. For a man as stiff as a robot, it was a rare expression, gladness and worry mixed together.

“Are you really going to be all right staying out here?”

Chief Choi looked up at the house and asked it in a troubled voice.

“No.”

Sa-heon, who hadn’t slept a wink all night, answered flatly and pressed hard at the spot between his brows.

“Doesn’t mean I’ve got anywhere else to go, does it?”

“What if you went to the family home…”

“The day I take a bullet to the skull, sure.”

“M-Managing Director!”

Haah. A sigh burst out of Sa-heon. Ji-an, standing beside him with both hands clasped, bowed at the waist and straightened again.

“Thank you for coming all this way, Chief.”

“Not at all. It’s Secretary Han who’s had the hard time of it.”

“Hard time, my foot.”

Sa-heon muttered it sourly as he watched the two of them, and Chief Choi, as if he’d just remembered, hurried to open the trunk.

“Managing Director, I’ve brought some things you might need.”

Several suits and shirts lay piled in the trunk, along with ties, watches and colognes. Sa-heon looked them over, then took out a single hair dryer and a few changes of clothes and shut it.

“That’s enough. Take the rest back. I doubt any of it’d be much use out here.”

“Then is there anything you do need?”

“A wooden platform bench¹ would be nice.”

“A platform bench?”

“Let’s go up first and talk.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sa-heon swept his hair back and led the way. But instead of going in the first-floor front door, he started up the staircase that ran along the outside wall of the house, and dismay spread across Chief Choi’s face.

“M-Managing Director.”

When Chief Choi hesitated, Sa-heon stopped for a moment and looked back.

“What are you doing.”

The smile on his face was bright, and murderous. Chief Choi flinched and hurried up the stairs after him. Ji-an, who had been hanging back awkwardly behind them, followed them up too.

“Managing Director… this is, no, how…”

Chief Choi climbed all the way to the top, saw the roof in its green epoxy coating and the rooftop room sitting beside it, and couldn’t go on.

“Impressive, isn’t it? My place.”

Sa-heon offered him a smile, and Chief Choi felt a cold sweat run down his spine.

What on earth was going on? Sa-heon had only ever had the very best of everything, so naturally he was particular about what he ate and where he slept. Whenever Chief Choi arranged a business trip, wasn’t the hotel the one thing he took the greatest care over?

He’d been privately astonished just the other day, hearing that Sa-heon had spent a night at Ji-an’s apartment. And now it was a rooftop, for a man who couldn’t stand the heat or the cold either one.

It even looked like the kind of place his boss, the way he used to be, would have walked into with his shoes still on.

“Come on in.”

Sa-heon opened the steel door, and it let out a screeching squeal of metal. Chief Choi kept his face composed so he wouldn’t look startled, bent a little at the waist and stepped into the rooftop room.

“Have a seat.”

“Yes. Excuse me, then.”

Chief Choi Kang-hoon took off his dress shoes and knelt primly on the floor.

The room, laid with yellow vinyl flooring, was unexpectedly tidy and astonishingly small. Chief Choi looked at the bedding folded neatly in one corner and only just kept his jaw from dropping.

“Chief Choi.”

“Yes. Yessir.”

Sa-heon called his name quietly, but Chief Choi was strung tight and answered at once.

If he got a thorough scolding over how he could have put him in a place like this, he’d have nothing to say for himself.

Taking Ji-an at her word and never properly checking had been a grave mistake. Yet the whole fault wasn’t Ji-an’s either. The situation in Seoul had been that serious, and there had been nowhere to hide him on short notice.

But still, this is too much…

Dizzy all over again, Chief Choi straightened up where he knelt.

“Chief Choi. Is Secretary Han Ji-an needed at the Seoul office?”

“Sorry?”

Sa-heon didn’t repeat himself. For a moment Chief Choi couldn’t grasp his meaning and faltered.

Needed at the Seoul office? What did that mean? That he’d cut her if she wasn’t, for the crime of daring to put him up in a place like this?

Chief Choi’s eyes darted about, so Sa-heon rubbed at his furrowed brow and went on.

“If she isn’t, there’s no point making her commute. Let’s just have her stay out here. I need a secretary out here too.”

“Ah, yes! Understood. There’s no particular need for Secretary Han to come in to the Seoul office.”

Only then did Chief Choi catch his meaning, and he nodded as he answered. Ji-an, who had been sitting primly nearby with the face of a fellow convict, went wide-eyed.

“Chief!”

“Secretary Han, stay out here and assist the Managing Director. You don’t need to commute.”

“And weekends?”

At Sa-heon’s question, Chief Choi’s head whipped around at once.

“You can be here on weekends too, can’t you? The allowance will be paid separately.”

Haah. Done for. Sheer despair showed in Ji-an’s eyes, and Sa-heon pressed his tongue hard into his cheek and laughed.

“Look how delighted she is. Makes a man feel good.”

“Haha…”

Ji-an braced both hands on the floor in defeat. Tsk. Sa-heon clicked his tongue and turned his gaze back to Chief Choi.

“Chief Choi.”

“Yes, Managing Director.”

“Would you tell me a few things?”

“What sort of things would you like to hear about?”

“Specifically, what work I’ve done and how I’ve lived.”

Chief Choi’s eyes and Ji-an’s collided in midair.

Since losing his memory, Sa-heon had shown no curiosity about anything at all. And they could hardly bring it up first and press him, which had left them uneasy.

Maybe one night’s sleep out here had made him desperate to get his memory back soon. Either way, Chief Choi hurried to speak.

“When you were twenty-one and doing your internship, I understand you were at the head office. Is that right?”

Sa-heon nodded.

“Yes.”

“Ah, yes. Then I’ll start with the affiliates. As you know, the Hyeongang Group has three major affiliates. You’re currently a Managing Director of the Hyeongang Group and the CEO of its affiliate Hyeongang Aeros.”

“What about my eldest hyung?”

“Vice President Lee Jae-gwon is forty-three this year, and he’s in charge of the affiliate Hyeongang Heavy Industries.”

“And my second hyung.”

“Senior Managing Director Lee Jae-seong is thirty-seven this year. He’s Senior Managing Director of the group and CEO of the affiliate Hyeongang Tech.”

Sa-heon listened without a word, so Chief Choi went on.

“Hyeongang Tech develops missile guidance sensors, AI target recognition and the like, and your Hyeongang Aeros leads development in cutting-edge technology: aircraft propulsion systems, hypersonic missiles, space launch vehicles.”

“So which affiliate’s doing best right now?”

At Sa-heon’s question, Chief Choi nodded with a pleased face.

“Hyeongang Aeros. In fact, you landed a trillion-won order not long ago.”

“Well, no surprise there.”

“Affiliate profitability, results in new business development, stability of overseas expansion. On every major indicator, you’re the strongest of the three brothers.”

“Hm.”

“In the board’s internal evaluations, too, your managerial judgment scores the highest. The only gap is in the rank structure, and that comes from the difference in when each of you joined the company.”

Chief Choi praised him so lavishly that spit flew, and Sa-heon smiled as though satisfied. Still on his knees, Chief Choi went on with a proud face.

“According to the current analysis from financial-sector analysts and the major economic dailies, among the candidates for the next Chairman, the market has the most confidence in you.”

“I see.”

“Yes. In both internal and external polling, executives, staff and shareholders alike favor your leadership the most, so as of now you stand at the center of the succession picture as its likeliest figure.”

“And at a time that crucial, I got caught in an accident Lee Jae-gwon engineered and lost my memory.”

Chief Choi’s face, smiling happily until then, darkened all at once. The bleak reality had closed in so abruptly that a heavy silence settled over the rooftop room.