“Why did you bring her?”

Dae Un came to avoid Ga Eul, but the tactless Se Hyun appeared with Ga Eul. A blunt remark naturally came out of Dae Un’s mouth.

By the time Ga Eul and Se Hyun arrived at Pyeongan Group, Ki Dae Un had already finished his business with Chairman Oh Kyu Baek.

“How did it go?”

To Se Hyun’s question.

“It went well.”

Dae Un answered simply.

“Your company is nearby, right? Let’s go to your room.”

Dae Un seemed to have something urgent to say. The three went to the room of Jung Se Hyun, a partner lawyer at the law firm APEC.

While Ga Eul was looking around Se Hyun’s luxurious office, which was worlds apart from Ki Dae Un’s office, Dae Un immediately got to the point.

“Chairman Oh agreed to everything I demanded. But, he set one condition.”

“What is it?”

“To remove anything related to Han Ga Eul from the list of crimes committed by Oh Myeong Se.”

The two men entered a momentary silent mode. Whether they were giving Ga Eul a chance to speak or not, Ga Eul also had nothing to say and joined the silence.

“So who are you trying to protect? Oh Myeong Se? Or Ms. Ga Eul?”

“By doing so, the first to be protected is Chairman Oh Kyu Baek himself, second is Pyeongan Group, third is Han Ga Eul, and fourth would be Oh Myeong Se.”

Dae Un answered Se Hyun’s question clearly after a long pause.

“I suppose so.”

Se Hyun didn’t argue either.

“So you think Ga Eul should accept that condition?”

“Yes.”

Again, Dae Un’s answer was without excess.

Ga Eul felt a sense of déjà vu listening to the conversation between the president and Jung Se Hyun. It felt like what she had seen in the president’s car black box video was being recreated before her eyes.

The president feels guilty for sending her to her maternal family and encountering Oh Myeong Se, and is trying to clean up afterwards. It’s also preparation for after he returns to America.

She felt more sad than grateful. Because while the president was moving ahead with the answers, she alone seemed to be hesitating behind, unable to come up with an answer.

What’s clear is that once the president finishes his father’s revenge, he will return to America, and Han Ga Eul does not exist in his future.

In short, the president is helping Han Ga Eul stand on her own so he can leave for America with peace of mind.

“Han Ga Eul, what do you think? Did you hear what Se Hyun said? What are you thinking?”

Ga Eul broke away from her thoughts at the president’s urging.

“So if I want to live quietly, you’re saying to pretend what happened to me didn’t happen, right?”

“Yes. The story of Oh Myeong Se and you is good bait for the media. Reporters will chase you for the rest of your life, biting at you. And in the most sensational way possible. Right now, the media is desperate to highlight Oh Myeong Se’s ugly side. What if you get caught on their radar?”

“I agree. If it becomes known that Ga Eul is a victim, it will become a huge scandal. Because it’s between relatives. That scandal will follow you until you die and won’t die down even after death. Because there will always be people who revive it when the time comes.”

“You think reporters will just write the facts? They’ll put sensational headlines to get clicks any way they can.”

Ga Eul stared blankly at the two people who were trying hard to persuade her to accept the condition set by Chairman Oh.

She knows too. It’s not that she doesn’t understand. But it felt so unfair to cover up the crime full of malice committed against her. It was such a big deal. To cover it up as if nothing happened.

“Instead, Chairman Oh said he would give appropriate compensation for that.”

“Appropriate compensation? What’s appropriate compensation in a case like this?”

Ga Eul smiled sadly.

“Sir, why did you take my side earlier when Oh Sung Jin and Shin Myeong Hwa came? You didn’t say to cover up what Oh Myeong Se did to me then. Did your mind change after meeting Chairman Oh?”

“From the beginning, I was planning to leave your name out of the case. But I thought it was unfair for the Oh Sung Jin couple to ask you to cover up the incident. I was planning to get more from Chairman Oh in exchange for covering up what Oh Myeong Se did to you.”

Dae Un thought he was explaining kindly in his own way, but to Ga Eul it felt even more cold-hearted. The president couldn’t understand her feelings. Her feelings of having to cover up for the perpetrator despite suffering such an incident.

“We can catch Oh Myeong Se anytime. So protecting you, Gyeo Ul, and grandmother comes before punishing Oh Myeong Se.”

Dae Un changed the subject when he had no answer to Ga Eul’s question. It was a word that awakened Ga Eul to reality. That’s a rational thing to say. A word that could come from the president who seemed to have only reason left.

“Yes. I have family to protect.”

Grandmother and Gyeo Ul don’t know yet that they were almost kidnapped and suffered a terrible incident. When that gets reported, will Gyeo Ul and grandmother’s daily lives be protected? The answer is ‘NO’.

Ga Eul finally realized that she would have no choice but to accept the condition set by Chairman Oh.

As the head of a family, she has too much to protect. Unlike Chairman Oh, the first is Gyeo Ul, the second is grandmother, and the third is Han Ga Eul herself.

Still, it’s not that Ki Dae Un’s choice doesn’t feel cold-hearted. Can’t the president warmly comfort her who has no choice but to cover up for Oh Myeong Se for her family? Rather than trying to get something from Chairman Oh.

Such things may not be important to the president who needs to relieve his guilt towards her and go to America. Her feelings of being so wronged that she could die.

* * *

A few days after the meeting in Jung Se Hyun’s law office, Ga Eul was summoned by Chairman Oh Kyu Baek. Chairman Oh sent a car and people to pick up Ga Eul.

Ga Eul thought it was understandable. They were treating her well because they were grateful for covering up Oh Myeong Se’s atrocities.

But when she found out that the person who came to pick her up was An Chang Beom, Chairman Oh Kyu Baek’s chief secretary, even Ga Eul was a bit surprised. She had heard that a chairman’s chief secretary was at the level of a president. In terms of age, An Chang Beom was old enough to be Ga Eul’s grandfather.

Such An Chang Beom treated Ga Eul with utmost courtesy.

“The chairman is very grateful to Han Ga Eul. If Oh Myeong Se’s incident had spread into a bigger scandal, the group could have faced a major crisis.”

“I see.”

An Chang Beom seemed a bit taken aback by Ga Eul’s cold response. He quickly added.

“The chairman will give you appropriate compensation.”

Chief Secretary An Chang Beom said the same thing as President Ki Dae Un. They both try to silence her with that. This time Ga Eul didn’t respond. She just smiled wryly.

That damn compensation! Ga Eul covered up Oh Myeong Se’s incident not for compensation, but to protect herself and her family. Ga Eul thought that those who have don’t seem to understand that difference.

An Chang Beom hesitated. It was the first time he had seen such a cynical reaction to offering money.

“What if I change my mind after receiving compensation?”

This time An Chang Beom smiled wryly.

“You must be very disappointed in the chairman?”

At least An Chang Beom was the first to mention her feelings. Someone who was practically a stranger.

“I feel angry and wronged, but I’m not disappointed in the chairman. I guess I don’t feel him as a grandfather yet. If my grandfather had set such conditions for me, I would have been disappointed.”

“That could be. But please remember this one thing for sure. The chairman loved his daughter very much.”

“Loved!”

Ga Eul exclaimed shortly. The words ‘He beats because he loves, and abandons because he loves’ got stuck in her throat.

“After losing his daughter in vain, the chairman regretted it a lot. That’s why he decided to accept his son-in-law. The chairman tried to help Han Ga Eul’s father who was having business difficulties.”

Hearing those words, Ga Eul suddenly realized. Chief Secretary An Chang Beom came to pick her up because he had something to tell her.

“You say the chairman tried to help my father? Then why didn’t he do so?”

“All I can say now is that it wasn’t simply a whim that made the chairman change his mind. The chairman is in a responsible position where he has to take care of many people.”

“Then why did he change his mind? Why did he make a promise to my father that he couldn’t keep? Because of that, my father became a liar. Everything he said about Pyeongan Group investing in my father’s company became a lie.”

Ga Eul’s voice and eyes became forceful. Seeing this, An Chang Beom made a gesture of pressing down on the air with his palm down, as if to say calm down.

“That seems like something the chairman should talk about directly. Someday when Han Ga Eul is ready, the chairman will explain.”

I’m ready. I’m ready to hear it. Isn’t it Chairman Oh who’s not ready?

It would be useless to insist on her own. All she could do was wait until Chairman Oh was ready.

Ga Eul took a deep breath to try to calm her impatient heart. She could wait. Hadn’t the president waited even longer than her?

* * *

Jung Se Hyun was already in the Pyeongan Group chairman’s office. Jung Se Hyun wasn’t alone either. He occupied one side with the lawyers he brought, and opposite them sat Chairman Oh’s lawyers.

There, Ga Eul signed wherever Jung Se Hyun pointed out.

As she signed, she glimpsed clauses about keeping complete secrecy about what Oh Myeong Se did to her, and not giving interviews to any form of media. It seemed to be a kind of confidentiality agreement.

Anyway, when Ga Eul finished signing everything Jung Se Hyun told her to, she had become rich. Now Ga Eul could own a building in Gangnam and live off the ‘rent’ coming from it.

Ga Eul knew well that this was all the result of Ki Dae Un’s negotiation with Chairman Oh Kyu Baek. The president had properly taken care of the aftermath of sending her to her maternal family.

Now President Ki Dae Un can go to America with a light heart. Once he finishes his father’s revenge.

After finishing the last signature, Ga Eul experienced emotional confusion. Whether to prioritize feeling grateful, happy, sad, or miserable.

She didn’t feel even a speck of gratitude towards Chairman Oh who had gifted her the Gangnam building. From the moment Ga Eul entered the chairman’s office until she left, he didn’t say a single word to her.

Perhaps he thinks the building was extorted from him? That he took in a beggar and now she’s trying to take over the master bedroom. So it’s also funny for Ga Eul to feel grateful as the one taking it away.

She did feel a little grateful to President Ki Dae Un. But he also took care of Ga Eul to relieve his own guilt, so gratitude towards him was also passed.

What Ga Eul chose was ‘happy’. She decided to be purely happy. To forget what sacrifices she had to make to get this building. Because even if she did, it would only be miserable.

She also put up a barrier against the building she received reminding her of the president’s departure to America. She had been sad enough about that, so that was enough now too.