“Could it be that I… liked you, Nuna?”

Eun Seo, who had frozen for a moment, burst into laughter shortly after.

“Hahahaha!”

Kwon Seung Joo was the heir of Daewon Group and she was just a low-level employee. The only reason they could sit side by side and talk like this was because the situation was special. Otherwise, there would have been no chance for their paths to cross in life. At most, she would have had to beg and plead with him.

But who liked whom?

“You unexpectedly have a sense of humor. Ah, that cracked me up.”

While she was laughing to the point of wiping tears, Seung Joo remained serious.

“But it’s true. To jump in front of a car for someone, doesn’t that mean you really like that person?”

Seeing that he seemed to genuinely think that way, Eun Seo sighed and spoke.

“I wasn’t going to say this, worried you might want to die.”

It seemed better to eliminate any room for misunderstanding in advance.

“When I went to beg you to postpone the demolition of this house, I also told you about losing my younger brother, remember? I said I wanted you to wait just one more year. And do you know what you said then?”

“What did I say?”

“He must be dead.”

Seung Joo made a face like his eyes were going to pop out.

“Really? Did I really say that?”

“Yes, you did. Telling me not to waste time on useless things.”

Eun Seo continued speaking to his shocked face.

“And that’s not all. Originally, the demolition was scheduled for 3 months later, you know? But after I went and begged, you deliberately moved up the schedule. Kicking us out before the rental contract even ended, saying to go ahead and sue if we want to.”

Even bending over backwards, if he had said Eun Ho must be dead out of kind intentions for her to let go of futile hopes and move on, so be it. But trying to kick them out earlier than planned could not be interpreted in a positive light no matter what. It was clearly deliberately tormenting someone.

Perhaps realizing there was no room for excuses even to his own ears, Seung Joo looked crestfallen.

“I’m really sorry, Nuna.”

Instead of telling him it wasn’t his fault, Eun Seo gave him a sideways glance.

“Just you wait. As soon as I get my memory back, I’m going to ask you why you did that.”

It was a joke, but for some reason Seung Joo’s face turned serious.

“What if I can’t remember you, Nuna?”

“What do you mean?”

“In books and movies, when someone regains their memories, they forget everything that happened while they had amnesia… What if that happens to me?”

The moment she understood what he meant, her heart sank.

If that happened, this Seung Joo in front of her eyes would vanish into thin air.

Eun Seo was greatly flustered at herself suddenly feeling at a loss.

The demolition was already stopped anyway. So when his memory returned, it would be like the freeloader disappeared, so she should welcome it with open arms. Why do I feel this way?

Not knowing what expression to make, Eun Seo tried to smile. This time it was a forcefully made smile.

“What do you mean, what if? Then I just can’t ask and that’s that.”

“Why can’t you ask? Ask and get angry.”

However, Seung Joo was persistent.

“Even if I can’t recognize you, don’t treat me like before, like a stranger. Treat me like you do now.”

She was flustered. Why are you saying this with such a serious face? As if me treating you like a stranger would be such a big deal to you.

For some reason unable to look straight into Seung Joo’s eyes, Eun Seo deliberately retorted more jokingly.

“You think I’d risk getting fired at work for that? If you wrote and signed a pledge not to fire me, then maybe.”

“I’ll write it.”

While she was trying to turn it into a joke, Seung Joo remained ever serious.

“If you want, I’ll write a hundred, even a thousand pledges, Nuna.”

Feeling her face strangely reddening, Eun Seo stood up and headed to the kitchen.

“I’m hungry. The rice must be done, right?”

*

During lunchtime, Sun Ah, who had come to Eun Seo’s seat to ask her to go eat, looked around and lowered her voice to ask.

“How’s our Seung Joo? Studying well?”

Eun Seo said proudly,

“It’s no joke. He memorized 10 years’ worth of financial statements in three days.”

“Wow.”

Sun Ah stuck out her tongue.

“As expected of Kwon Seung Joo, he’s still got it. Then he might be able to return sooner than we thought?”

“It seems possible. If only his acting skills would back him up.”

As important as his knowledge level was his acting ability. If he could act like the adult Kwon Seung Joo without a hitch, he could get by even with minor slip-ups, couldn’t he?

The problem was the lack of reference material. To be of help, he needed to watch videos of himself speaking and moving, but the best they had were a few short news clips on YouTube.

“There’s hardly any material.”

When Eun Seo spoke worriedly, Sun Ah let out a sigh. Not a sigh of helplessness, but one of someone who had been hiding her power for a long time and finally met the moment to shine.

“Sigh… Has the time finally come for my external hard drive to prove its worth?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come here and look.”

Sun Ah turned on her computer and connected an external hard drive. When she found and opened the folder, a list of videos popped up. Looking at the titles of the dozens of video files, Eun Seo couldn’t close her mouth.

– 20200103 Inaugural Address
– 20200823 New Employee Training
– 20210102 New Year’s Address

“Oh my gosh.”

They were videos filmed at internal company events. Not necessarily for public release, but things kept internally for recording purposes.

She even had the short news clips painstakingly collected.

“How on earth did you gather these?”

“I’ve been collecting them stitch by stitch since college. For the internal videos, remember Eun Joo, who was in our class and went to the general affairs team? I paid tribute to Eun Joo with jokbal every quarter and got them.”

Eun Seo clicked her tongue. Indeed, fangirls should not be underestimated.

“Thanks anyway. I’ll pass them on to Seung Joo.”

“In that sense, can I come over with pizza tonight? Or should we do chicken and beer?”

Sun Ah asked subtly, but Eun Seo shook her head.

“Seung Joo is too busy studying. Come on the weekend.”

“Aw man, I miss our Seung Joo though.”

To the disappointed Sun Ah, Eun Seo said hesitantly,

“And Sun Ah, don’t get too attached to Seung Joo.”

“Why?”

“Even if you develop some kind of relationship now, later when his memory returns… He might forget everything that’s happening now.”

He might forget everything. Saying those words, Eun Seo strangely felt her eyes stinging, so she hurried Sun Ah.

“There won’t be any seats at the cafeteria. Let’s go quick.”

*

“Honey!”

As soon as she entered the chairman’s office, Yeon Hwa threw herself into her husband’s arms. She didn’t care whether the secretaries saw or not.

“Did you cry?”

Just seeing his wife’s red, swollen eyes, Chairman Kwon fretted as if the world was crumbling.

“Who did it? Huh? Which bastard made our Yeon Hwa cry!”

“Who made me cry. I’m just so upset about Seung Joo…”

Yeon Hwa leaned on her husband’s shoulder and shed tears.

“Even if he’s sick and recuperating, he could at least tell us where he is and when he’ll be back. How can he be so inconsiderate of his parents’ feelings at his age, that bad boy!”

She doted on Seung Joo more than the child she bore herself. How upset must this kind-hearted person have been for the words ‘bad boy’ to come out of her mouth? The more so, the more Chairman Kwon resented his eldest son. In the end, what he had been hesitating about continuously slipped out.

“Contact Seung Hyun and tell him to come.”

Her ears perked up, but Yeon Hwa played dumb and asked,

“Why Seung Hyun all of a sudden? The kid is studying well and minding his own business.”

Kwon Seung Hyun, the son Yeon Hwa bore, was thirty years old this year. After graduating from college in Korea, he was getting his MBA at a foreign university. In fact, it was because he couldn’t get into a prestigious university in Korea no matter what, so he went abroad for degree laundering. He was in his third year of a two-year MBA program and still hadn’t graduated.

“He’s almost going to graduate soon anyway. If that punk Seung Joo is going to keep his seat empty, what else can we do? We’ll have to leave it to Seung Hyun.”

Yeon Hwa’s heart raced.

Chairman Kwon had always disliked his eldest son Seung Joo. Partly because Seung Joo was born from an unpleasant ex-wife, partly because Seung Joo took his mother’s side, but there was a more fundamental reason.

The ex-wife Kang Hye Sun was originally the only daughter of the Daewon Group chairman. In contrast, Chairman Kwon Yong Chul’s family was at best a small to medium enterprise, so from the moment the two got married 30 years ago, there was much talk of him being a male Cinderella or a live-in son-in-law.

In fact, there was a reason Yong Chul played around early on even after a love marriage with Hye Sun. Marrying above his status and constantly being treated like an inadequate man living off his wife’s family made him favor Ji Yeon Hwa who worshipped him like a king.

As time passed, Hye Sun’s parents both died and the son-in-law became the Daewon Group chairman, but the actual shares were all held by the wife Kang Hye Sun.

After Kang Hye Sun was declared missing, most of the shares she held were inherited by her spouse Chairman Kwon. Even the portion of shares inherited by her only son Kwon Seung Joo were mostly taken by Chairman Kwon in exchange for paying the inheritance tax on his behalf.

In other words, he was now both the nominal and actual evident ruler of Daewon Group.

However, the world still did not properly acknowledge Chairman Kwon. Even though he had worked hard enough to raise Daewon Group’s ranking in the business world by over 20 places since becoming chairman, it was the same. They pointed fingers, saying the man who inherited his wife’s family’s fortune and became a conglomerate chairman had no conscience and even kept a mistress.

In contrast, Kwon Seung Joo, the son born from Kang Hye Sun, was the only maternal grandson who carried on the bloodline of the original Daewon Group owner Chairman Kang. With outstanding appearance and management skills, everyone said Kwon Seung Joo should naturally become the Daewon Group chairman. As if Chairman Kwon was merely temporarily occupying that position.

A king without legitimacy and a crown prince with legitimacy. That was the relationship between this father and son.

So the king was fed up to death with the crown prince. And with the prince born from the favored concubine present, he had long been anxious to dethrone the crown prince and appoint that prince as the new crown prince.

It’s just that it was obvious he would be criticized for seizing his ex-wife’s fortune and giving it to his later wife’s child, who was originally a child born out of wedlock, so he hadn’t been able to take any action yet…

If he brought Seung Hyun and sat him in Seung Joo’s seat, it would be the first official move to formally make Seung Hyun his successor.

Chairman Kwon said preemptively as if setting the tone.

“You too, don’t even think about taking Seung Joo’s side this time. It’s all for the company. No matter how much the chairman is his father, what can I do if the punk does his job like this?”

Yeon Hwa tried hard to calm her pounding heart. The goal was finally right before her eyes.

“But… what will people say?”

“Since when did you care what people say? Let them babble on as they please.”

A look of determination appeared on Chairman Kwon’s face.