Chapter 7

The discharge paperwork was done. Out in the sunlight beyond the hospital for the first time in a long while, Sa-heon watched the scenery slide past the window without much interest.

“I’ll see you home,” Chief Choi reported dutifully.

From the passenger seat, Ji-an studied Sa-heon in the rearview mirror and asked, “Managing Director, is there anything you need?”

“Would my honey come and sit next to me? My head aches, and I’d like to lean on my sweetheart a little.”

“I’ll have to decline.”

He’d patted the seat beside him as he teased her, and her eyes went sharp in the mirror. Sa-heon’s eyes, blank for the whole ride, curved into half-moons.

“Whoa. Scary.”

Ji-an didn’t answer. She primly dropped her gaze to her tablet PC, and Sa-heon’s eyes, still laughing, rested a moment on the round back of her head.

He didn’t need to look to know what she was thinking. She’d be cursing him as some brainless lunatic who made a pass at her every chance he got.

And since he was perfectly happy to be treated as a lunatic, he supposed he really must be one.

When he’d first opened his eyes in the hospital room, the instant his gaze met Ji-an’s, something like lightning had swept through him. For a moment he’d even thought it a relief that he was the one who’d been hurt, not her.

Why on earth did I feel that way? My life can’t have had the spare room to take a woman in at leisure.

Even now that he knew she was nothing more than his secretary, it bewildered him that the woman still ruled his head.

Sa-heon sank into the seat and stared out the car window. The back seat rode smoother than he remembered, and the clothes people wore and the signs along the street all looked somehow similar, yet different.

Twelve years. The span he’d lost came home to him all over again.

After he’d been handed the diagnosis of memory loss, he hadn’t been especially curious about how he’d lived in the meantime. The goal would have been obvious either way. He’d have cut down whoever got in his way, carved up whatever blocked his path, and run himself like a dog.

But now, for the first time, there was something he wanted to know. Nobody could answer it, because only the self he’d been before losing his memory had known, and that only sharpened the curiosity.

His gaze found Ji-an again. Hair that looked like it would be soft to the touch, the thin line of her shoulders, and, unexpectedly, a firm look in her eyes.

It really does seem I’d taken that woman to heart.

Had he just wanted to sleep with her once, or had the feeling been a good deal more serious than that? He couldn’t tell what this attraction was, reaching for her so headlong.

Sa-heon covered his crookedly curving mouth with a hand and turned his gaze back out the window.

Just meeting her eyes was enough to make him ache below the belt, yet they hadn’t been lovers, hadn’t spent so much as one night together. His thirty-something self must have been quite the prude.

He’d thought he’d lived nothing but a joyless life, but it turned out he’d had some rather entertaining things hidden away inside.

Staring out the window with quiet eyes, Sa-heon slid a hand into his trouser pocket out of habit, then tilted his head.

“Did I smoke, by any chance?”

Chief Choi gave a slight start. “Ah, yes. You used to smoke, but it’s been about six months since you quit.”

“Ah.”

Only then did Sa-heon take his hand out of the pocket, clenching and opening his fist as though something were missing. Chief Choi, hands on the wheel, hesitated before asking.

“Do you need a cigarette?”

“No. Six months—I must’ve put real effort into that. I’ll try to hold out.”

“Um, Managing Director.”

Ji-an had been glancing back from the passenger seat, reading the mood. She rummaged in her bag for a while, then held something out to him.

“Have this, at least.”

He wondered what she was giving him. It was a yellow candy, and Sa-heon gazed blankly at the lemon drop sitting on his palm.

“Thank you, honey.”

Maybe she was used to being called honey by now, because Ji-an kept a flat face and pretended not to hear. He let out a small laugh, stripped off the clear wrapper and rolled the candy around in his mouth, and a sweet, tangy taste spread over his tongue.

Yesterday she’d fed him an orange, and today a lemon. Somehow everything she handed him was tangy and sweet. At this rate, he was starting to wonder whether other things would be sweet too.

Sa-heon crunched the candy down, swallowed it, and laughed as if at himself.

Meanwhile the car left the busy district behind and turned into a quiet residential area. At the entrance of a high-end complex ringed by tall walls and dense trees, a guard checked the licence plate and opened the gate.

Sa-heon got out of the car and looked around. “So this is where I’ve been living?”

“Yes. You purchased this place a year ago, Managing Director.”

Chief Choi tapped a card key against the large front gate, entered a passcode as well, and went on.

“The security is thorough, which you were particularly satisfied with. As you know, you dislike places with a lot of people.”

“‘As you know,’ huh…” Sa-heon jammed a hand into one pocket and let out a small laugh. “What would I know?”

When the gate opened, a wide garden spread out in front of them. One look at the neatly trimmed lawn and the landscaped trees made it obvious they were tended with care.

“Not bad.”

Meanwhile Ji-an, who had been watching Sa-heon the whole while, was a little startled inside at how unbothered his manner was.

It was her first time inside his home too, and she had to manage her face and act unmoved, because the house was more lavish than she’d imagined.

Well, he’d have spent his whole life experiencing nothing but the best, so of course something like this wouldn’t surprise him. Come to think of it, the family home he’d grown up in must have been grander still.

They opened the front door and went in to a modern interior with nothing superfluous about it. Chief Choi gestured politely toward the dining room far off to one side.

“I’ve put the groceries away in the refrigerator. A housekeeper is scheduled to come tomorrow morning. And if there’s anything you need…”

“That’s enough.” Sa-heon raised a hand and cut him off. “This is plenty already. You two go on home, too.”

“Ah, yes. And, Managing Director.” Chief Choi took a smartphone out of an inside pocket and held it out to him. “This is the phone you were using. Everything has been restored. And we’ve finished a security check, just in case.”

Sa-heon fiddled blankly with the screen. It was probably a good deal more advanced than the device he remembered.

“Understood.”

He looked it over without much feeling either way and put the phone in his pocket.

Ji-an, who had been quiet all this while, urged him in a worried voice. “Managing Director, you haven’t fully recovered yet, so please don’t overdo anything, and if any problem comes up, call me right away.”

“Don’t worry. I held on to a business card too, in case my contacts got wiped.”

For an instant the memory of him taking her card surfaced, and Ji-an flinched.

“Ah, yes.”

“Good work today.”

There was something unsettling about that suspiciously fine smile, but Ji-an made herself smile back, bowed from the waist and straightened.

“Then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After work, Ji-an’s days were mostly the same.

The moment she opened the front door and got her shoes off, she’d throw her bag down and lie on the sofa.

“Another day’s hard work done…”

On nights she worked late she ate dinner in the staff cafeteria, and otherwise she threw something simple together. Today she’d bought a sandwich on the way home.

She lay there making small pained noises, too lazy to wiggle so much as a finger, and only when the urge to fall asleep right there came over her did she finally drag herself upright.

“No appetite, either.”

Still, you ate to live, so she had to keep up her meals. Muttering that to herself, Ji-an pulled out the sandwich she’d dumped on the table, peeled off the wrapper and pushed it into her mouth.

Once she’d eaten, she showered in warm water and dried her hair. She carefully rubbed the fragrant body lotion her friends had given her for her birthday into her arms and legs and changed into pyjamas, and when she dived into bed, a laugh escaped her all on its own.

“Ahh, that feels gooood.”

Hugging the fluffy duvet, washed not long ago and still smelling of fabric softener, Ji-an mumbled it and switched on her phone.

Poking around that small square world from under a cosy duvet before sleep was the happiest moment of her day. And if she drifted off while she was at it, nothing could be better.

“Haha…”

She was laughing vacantly at short videos flicking past thirty seconds at a time, her eyes on the point of closing, when it happened.

Bzzz. Her eyes flew open at the unpleasant buzz of the vibration.

[Managing Director Lee Sa-heon]

At the sight of the name on the screen, Ji-an shot upright. Before pressing the call button, she glanced for an instant at the time on the phone.

11:45 at night. Calls at this hour were generally never good news.

“Yes! Managing Director.”

—Ahh, honey. Were you asleep?

Being called honey aside, he was awfully brazen for a man phoning in the middle of the night. It was as if he were asking whether she’d been having an afternoon nap.

More to the point, was he outside? Some kind of noise was coming through from his end.

“Ah, no! Has something happened?”

—Ah, well.

What on earth could it be, in the middle of the night? Ji-an pressed the phone harder against her ear and swallowed dryly. Sa-heon went on in a flat voice.

—I’m at the police substation in front of my house right now.

“Wh-what? Managing Director, where did you say you were? A police substation?”

—There’s been a minor attack.

A minor attack? The word ‘attack’ was so unfamiliar that her thinking stopped for a moment.

And no wonder. Having to say ‘someone attacked me’ was so far outside the ordinary that an ordinary person might go a whole lifetime without it happening once.

Was this Vice President Lee Jae-gwon’s doing? Ji-an faltered for a moment, then pulled herself together and asked urgently.

“Are you all right? You’re not hurt anywhere?”

Hm. Sa-heon let out a low sigh, then led in with, “So, about that.”

—I’m going to need my honey to come and pick me up.

His voice was somehow steeped in laughter.