The servant looked up at the towering Empire. She wanted to comfort him somehow, but was clumsy with such words or actions.

The servant also had many lonely nights where she couldn’t even breathe. There were days when she tormented herself with regret and self-blame.

She thought that perhaps tonight was such a night for the Empire as well.

The servant looked at him with large, sorrowful eyes.

Those eyes had a strange power that made the Empire feel enchanted. The Empire couldn’t fathom all the stories she held in her heart.

But just by looking at her expression and the trembling of her eyes, he felt he could somewhat understand.

However, he felt that if he kept gazing at her like this, not only his heart but something else might move as well, so he shifted his gaze to the back of her hand.

Holding the servant’s hand, the Empire caressed the back of it with his thumb.

“Your body temperature seems to be coming back now.”

As his thumb rubbed back and forth, each spot it touched seemed to become warm.

The moment he was about to let go of the servant’s hand, without realizing it, she rose from her seat and embraced his waist.

Having hugged him but lacking the courage to look at him, the servant rested her ear against his heart and tightly gripped her hands that were holding him. And she hugged him even more affectionately.

The Empire paused and stared into the air. He was simply astonished at what courage allowed her to enter his embrace.

Her small, delicate, thread-like gesture strongly shook the Empire’s heart.

“How is that your fault, Director? It’s not.”

“Thank you. For saying that.”

The Empire placed his hand on the servant’s tense, slender shoulders.

That hand flowed down towards the nape of her neck. At his touch, the servant’s head tilted to look up at him.

The Empire met her gaze with deep, dark eyes.

“No matter how Prosecutor Cheon Ha In’s revenge ends, no matter how it ends, will you be able to be happy?”

At the Empire’s words, the servant’s eyes briefly wavered.

Having lived her whole life for revenge, she had never thought about what would come after.

“I just wish that Prosecutor Cheon Ha In, whom I’m doing my best to protect right now, won’t be in pain.”

Lost in thought, the servant blinked her eyes.

“I’m alright.”

She had already been in so much pain that she didn’t even feel any more pain from ordinary suffering.

The Empire found her words of being alright too sad to hear.

She seemed like someone for whom enduring had become a habit. Suddenly, what the doctor had said came to his mind.

For the servant who couldn’t cry even when she wanted to, every day must have felt like she had indigestion. Just imagining it made the Empire feel suffocated.

How many burdens had the servant carried in her heart since a young age? The Empire vividly remembered the servant who had tried to give up on life due to that pain.

At that time, he had a desperate wish for her to please live. That feeling was also magnified as it became entangled with the fear he felt when his mother passed away.

The Empire was so anxious that if the servant didn’t get the results she wanted at the end of this revenge, she would meet a tragic fate.

With the hand that wasn’t on the nape of her neck, the Empire enveloped her left wrist.

“If it hurts, say it hurts. If it’s good, say it’s good. Don’t hold it in. I hope you won’t endure and suffer alone.”

The servant felt a choking sensation and an ache in her solar plexus. It was a unique feeling that the Empire gave her.

She wanted to say thank you, but felt that if she did, the welling up emotions would leak out through the cracks of her lips.

The servant, soaked in emotion, tried to regain her reason. Realizing she was being too sentimental, she collected herself.

“Won’t there come a time when you too have to make a choice, Director?”

“What kind of choice?”

“Between the Cheonha Group and your deal with me, of course.”

Strength entered the Empire’s hand that was holding the servant’s wrist. Even before that, his eyes turned cold.

“Deal.”

Deal? Even if that’s how it started, at some point the Empire had begun to treat her personally rather than professionally.

The Empire was cautious, wondering if he had crossed a line.

After much deliberation, the Empire realized he was making a mistake with the servant. So he removed his hands that were in contact with her body.

The servant wanted to hold onto him as he tried to distance himself from her, but she restrained herself.

She had already resigned herself to the fact that she and the Empire could never be together.

It wasn’t because he was part of the Cheonha Group. The Empire had already proven many times that he was different from them.

The Empire felt too immense of an existence to the servant. When working at the Cheonha Group estate, he was someone she couldn’t even gaze at from afar.

Even if many things were different now, she knew she would be of no help to the Empire.

“I made a mistake with Prosecutor Cheon Ha In.”

Worried that the disappointment in her heart would show on her face, the servant turned away from him and picked up the bag she had put down behind the chair.

“No, it’s not. I’ll be going now.”

“I like you, Prosecutor Cheon Ha In.”

The servant couldn’t believe the words she heard from behind her back.

“Not professionally, but personally.”

The Empire clarified once more. If he kept pulling her close without conveying his heart, the servant wouldn’t have certainty.

The servant couldn’t turn around to face the Empire and just froze in place.

If the servant allowed herself to be swayed by the Empire, she would surely become a burden to him.

The servant knew that her humble past would be a blemish on his flawless career.

Steeling her heart, the servant looked straight at the Empire. She clenched her fist on the hand holding her bag and opened her eyes fiercely.

“I still have a lot of things left to do. I hope you will maintain your position, Director.”

Her answer to his sincerity was cold and heartless to the extreme.

But what could she do when lies were her only weapon?

The servant was ashamed of how shabby she was in front of the Empire and wanted to quickly escape from there.

“I’ll be going now.”

The Empire didn’t stop the servant as she left. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to seem pathetic, but because he didn’t want to force her.

He decided he would wait until the servant was ready, whether out of necessity or because her heart was drawn to him.

But who knew how long his consideration would last.

* * *

Was his confession sincere? It must have been mere mischief.

But for some reason, she couldn’t focus on work, and the aftermath of the unbelievable confession was considerable.

“Sunbae, does that coffee stick melt in cold water too? Wow!”

It happened in front of the water dispenser.

Lost in thought while getting water, the servant filled the cup without even knowing if it was hot or cold water, and eventually the water overflowed.

Gang Jun pulled out some tissues from on top of the water dispenser and handed them to the servant.

“Are you okay?”

“Ah, yes… Thank you.”

“That’s a relief. That it wasn’t hot water.”

The servant gave up on drinking coffee and just came and sat in the office.

The reason she had tried to drink coffee was simply to come to her senses.

– Let’s meet today. Personally, since you dislike it professionally.

It was a text from the Empire earlier. She had been staring at it without opening it, trying to find an excuse.

The servant felt that if she replied to this text, her complicated thoughts would be sorted out a bit.

– I’m sorry but I’ll be working overnight today.

After replying like that, the servant turned off her phone. Now wasn’t the time to be indulging in emotional laments.

There wasn’t enough time even if she devoted herself solely to work.

* * *

The servant looked up, noticing the darkness draped behind her. Night had deepened before she knew it. The servant stretched and got up from her seat to stand by the window.

Whenever there was even a sliver of a gap in her thoughts, the Empire came to mind.

His gaze, his voice, his body heat seemed to keep brushing past her.

The servant made up her mind and became alert.

Several nights like that passed.

“Sunbae.”

Gang Jun called out to the servant. But she was so dazed that she couldn’t see well in front of her.

“Yes.”

“Ah, you’ve been working overnight for days now.”

Gang Jun looked at the medicine packet placed in a corner of the servant’s desk.

“You don’t seem to be feeling well, so how about going home and resting today?”

Knowing the servant hated overstepping boundaries, Gang Jun spoke cautiously.

“No, there are still a lot of documents to review. Prosecutor Choi has to go in for another round of questioning, right?”

“That was all wrapped up yesterday. Ah, you must be confused since the transcripts haven’t been organized yet.”

The servant looked at the calendar. She hadn’t realized how much time had passed. Come to think of it, today was the day of the vote on dismissing the Empire from his CEO position. The servant closed her eyes and frowned her facial muscles at a strange headache.

But then she felt something drip from her nose, so she lowered her head.

“Blood!”

Her nose was bleeding.

Gang Jun quickly pulled out some tissues and covered the servant’s nose.

The servant grabbed the tissues and waved her hand, saying she was fine. She sighed, wondering why she was having so many nosebleeds these days.

“Sunbae, go rest your eyes for a bit and come back.”

Thinking of the Empire, the desire to do so disappeared.

The vote must be in full swing by now, and she felt like she wouldn’t be able to sleep even if she lay down.

The servant focused her eyes straight ahead with strength in her brow.

“Haa… I’ll go clear my head for a bit and come back.”

The servant got up from her seat. As she was about to pass by the TV, the headline “Vote on Dismissal of Cheonha Group CEO Lee Je Guk” entered her blurry vision.

The servant stopped in her tracks and looked at the TV.

No matter what, she felt it would be proper to at least send him a text today.

The servant turned on her phone. Vibrations rang out incessantly. They were texts from the Empire.

The servant wanted to check the content. But her vision kept blurring.

“The results of the vote on Director Lee Je Guk’s dismissal are out, I think?”

The servant raised her head and shifted her gaze to the TV. Clearly, she was looking at the same screen as Gang Jun, but she couldn’t see the text.

“Sunbae!”