The man who had been coveting Chairman Kang’s position and suddenly appeared, brazenly assisting Chairman Kang, was like a thorn in the eye to Seok Hoon – an irritating and annoying existence like a hangnail on the tip of a fingernail.

When Seok Hoon showed signs of reorganizing and cleaning up the organization, he was furious. Chang Joo, who could not follow Seok Hoon’s wishes even if he died soon, schemed to push Seok Hoon out and made the mistake of falling for his own trick.

Could he even imagine that Seok Hoon, who grew up studying under Chairman Kang’s protection and was thought to be an intellectual who only knew how to use his head, had a body trained with all kinds of exercise?

Chang Joo, who confidently charged in, eventually had to taste the humiliation of kneeling before Seok Hoon after being miserably defeated in front of his subordinates. That day’s incident naturally led even the organization members who disliked Seok Hoon to acknowledge and accept him through the perfect logic of power.

It happened when Seok Hoon’s son, Kang Mo, was only five years old.

Seok Hoon, who was recognized in that way, started a long-cherished project with Chairman Kang, and before long, Chairman Kang’s organization, which had been one of the domestic violence organizations, naturally disintegrated.

Over the past twenty-odd years, they had made strenuous efforts to break away from the image of a construction company based on a violent organization, and now they had established themselves as a large construction company ranked within the top 5 in the contract rankings.

However, the bad relationship between Seok Hoon and Chang Joo did not end there. The clock of their ill-fated relationship was still ticking, and that ill fate eventually stained Kang Mo’s family with blood.

Kang Mo gritted his teeth at the ill fate that had been passed down through generations. Whenever he thought of Kim Chang Joo, the fragments of memory that painfully dug in intensified his headache.

‘Damn it, I should have killed him with my own hands.’

Unable to control his condensed anger, he spewed fire from his mouth.

“That son of a bitch, always keep an eye on him. He’s a greedy bastard, so he’ll be waiting for a chance to stab us in the back. We need to watch him carefully until he buries himself in his own ambition someday.”

“Yes, sir.”

Father would be released soon. Knowing that Chang Joo was not one to sit still, his nerves were on edge. When would this chain of ill fate be broken? It seemed like it wouldn’t end until that bastard died.

Seung Ho opened the car door. Kang Mo plopped down in the back seat and rested his aching head against the headrest, closing his tired eyes.

The car slowly started to move, and the gentle music Seung Ho had turned on softly enveloped the submerged space.

Kang Mo pushed aside the complicated thoughts that caused his headache. Soon his mind raced towards someone he missed. With his eyes closed, he spun the cell phone he was holding in one hand with his long fingers. The impatience was evident in his fingertips.

Am I a fool for taking her word for it when she said she would answer the phone?

As Kang Mo watched Chairman Kang successfully complete the surgery and regain consciousness, he thought of Seo Hee. She must be curious since he left in a hurry. Maybe she was waiting for a call. With the hope that she might be, he called her.

But she didn’t answer the phone. No, only the words “nonexistent number” flowed through the receiver.

A deep sense of betrayal seeped in, making his insides burn.

‘Kang Mo, give me your number. My number will change soon.’

He didn’t think it was a lie. He just didn’t expect her to change her number so quickly.

Should he wait for her to contact him first? But Kang Mo didn’t have the patience for that. If he hadn’t seen her, if he didn’t know where she was, he might not have known, but now that he had met her again, now that he knew where she was, he had no desire to go back to the countless days of not being able to see her again.

‘Baek Seo Hee, I told you not to think about running away.’

Kang Mo, who had been lost in his own thoughts for a while, spoke up in a subdued voice.

“We probably couldn’t bring all of the Chairman’s belongings. We need to thank the people who helped, but did we send someone to Guam?”

“Yes, sir. One of Chairman Kang’s secretarial staff members went in by plane last night. They are scheduled to return tomorrow afternoon. And just in case, I asked them to find out Baek Seo Hee’s whereabouts.”

Kang Mo’s eyes, which had been closed, snapped open. Kang Mo, who had been resting his head against the headrest until then, sat up straight.

“And?”

“She arrived in Korea on a 3 p.m. flight this afternoon.”

“…What? Are you saying Seo Hee is in Korea right now?”

“Yes, sir. It seems she has finished her work there and returned. I just confirmed her entry a little while ago. Should I find out more?”

A faint smile flashed across Kang Mo’s lips.

‘So, do you plan to keep living here? Your mother will be in Korea. You’re not going back to Korea?’

‘Ah, well… I don’t know.’

Her hesitant answer was suspicious, but she had planned to return to Korea so soon. That’s why she didn’t give a definite answer to his question. It was infuriating, but a sigh of relief escaped him.

Just hearing the news that she had returned to Korea lifted a burden from his chest, as if a stone had been removed.

Kang Mo took a deep breath, exhaling a long sigh as he spoke.

“No, it’s obvious where Seo Hee will go right away. She must have gone to her parents’ house.”

Although it may not be comfortable for her personality…

Seo Hee’s mother, who had been widowed, remarried a divorced man with a grown son a few years ago.

As far as he knew, Seo Hee had become independent almost simultaneously with her parents’ remarriage, saying she didn’t want to cause trouble for the two who were making a new start.

For someone like her, it didn’t seem like she would stay at her parents’ house for very long. Maybe she was already looking for a place to live alone or had already prepared one.

Kang Mo instructed Seung Ho, organizing the thoughts that came to mind one by one as he inferred her future moves and plans.

“I’ll need to open a new cell phone tomorrow. Check if Seo Hee’s parents or her family have made any real estate contracts recently, and if so, find out the seller’s contact information.”

“Yes, I understand.”

A different emotion gradually rose in his heart, which had been unpleasantly fluctuating until just now. It seemed he needed to lay his eyes on Seo Hee right away. It felt like that was the only way he could blow away the unpleasant remnants of emotions that had been stirred up by thoughts of Chang Joo.

“Go to Samsung-dong.”

“Samsung-dong, you say.”

“Turn the car towards Baek Seo Hee’s parents’ house.”

Seung Ho, who answered promptly, changed lanes and gently turned the steering wheel. The sleek car body drew a U-shape and raced down the road as if gliding.

As the window was lowered, the wind carrying the night was quite cool. On this night when autumn was definitely approaching, Kang Mo’s heart, heading towards Seo Hee, fluttered helplessly in the autumn wind.

The car carrying Kang Mo quietly stopped near a house in Samsung-dong, where luxury residential areas were concentrated.

After sending Seung Ho ahead, Kang Mo opened his cell phone, found a familiar number, and made a call. It was a phone number he knew but had never called before.

The probability of Seo Hee being here was fifty-fifty, but his sharp instincts told him that she was here now. After a few rings, the connection was finally cut off.

“Yes, this is Chairman Han’s residence in Samsung-dong.”

Ignoring the unfamiliar voice, Kang Mo immediately asked for Seo Hee.

“Is Baek Seo Hee there by any chance?”

“Baek Seo… Ah, you must be looking for the young lady of this house. She just arrived today. Shall I put her on?”

“Yes, please.”

The voice of the woman calling Seo Hee came vividly through the receiver. Even without seeing her, he could imagine Seo Hee’s startled face upon receiving a call right after arriving.

Her answering voice faintly penetrated his ears. His heart gradually increased its pitch. It was ridiculous. His heart, which immediately reacted to just Seo Hee’s fluttering voice, was too absurd to Kang Mo.

“Hello, this is Baek Seo Hee.”

“…”

Just hearing those three syllables of her name made his heart swell. To think that he could face her again in Korea.

The clearly audible voice sent a tingling sensation through his chest, different from pain. That unfamiliar feeling was so strange that Kang Mo momentarily missed the timing to reply.

“Hello? This is Baek Seo Hee. Please speak.”

Did the call get disconnected? At her muttering, he came to his senses.

“It’s me.”

“…Lee Kang Mo?”

The fact that she recognized who it was with just a short reply brought a strange sense of relief.

“Yeah. I’m in front of your house right now. Should I come in, or will you come out?”

“What, where? Here? Don’t tell me… you mean Samsung-dong?”

“Yes. If you don’t come out within 5 minutes, I’m coming in.”

Kang Mo hung up without even waiting for a response. If it was the Seo Hee he knew, she wouldn’t have the slightest intention of causing trouble at her parents’ house, so she would be busily getting ready to come out right now, even if she was grumbling.

The 5-minute timeframe was just a formality, but he was confident that she wouldn’t waste even a single minute and would come out exactly within the given time. As expected, with no margin for error, precisely as the 5-minute mark approached, the grand gate slowly opened, and she appeared.

Seo Hee’s gaze, which had been scanning the surroundings, flew to his car. Kang Mo had to press his pounding heart with one hand to get a grip on his leaping emotions.

Wearing well-fitted light blue jeans and a thin white round t-shirt, her long, flowing hair fluttering in the wind as she approached, her appearance looked as fresh and youthful as a newly admitted freshman.

“That’s why I said she doesn’t look like a noona. No matter how you look at it, she doesn’t look older than twenty-four or twenty-five. Ah… this is driving me crazy. Really.”

He wanted to get out of the car and greet her right away, but he couldn’t. Just watching her approach made his heart reveal its fierce presence. If he were to face her like this, he felt like he would forget where he was and start by pressing his lips against hers, so he had to calm his swelling heart for a moment.

As he struggled alone to suppress his heart that felt like it would burst, a well-built foreign car glided up behind Seo Hee.

That car had stopped right in front of the garage door of the house Seo Hee had just walked out of. Blocking someone else’s garage without hesitation meant it was either an acquaintance visiting the house or someone living in that house. It had to be one of the two…

The headlights of that car were shining on Seo Hee. Even after parking, the lights should have been turned off immediately, but they didn’t go out for a while.