Chapter 2

A members-only luxury golf course in Yongin.

“Hey! I told you I was going out on a round! Why the hell are you calling my direct line over nothing?”

Joo Su-deok snapped as he picked up the phone.

Despite his standing order to handle anything short of a genuine emergency without bothering him, his phone kept buzzing insistently, and by now his temper had worn down to nothing.

Um, Vice Chairman. It’s not the company — there’s a problem at Jaedamjae. It’s…

At the secretary’s next words, Su-deok’s expression hardened. His face went cold for a moment, then confusion spread across it.

“What? Who’s coming?”

he shouted.

His raised voice made the men he’d come with turn to look. Looking faintly embarrassed, Su-deok waved a hand at them, then lowered his voice as far as it would go and went on.

“Why the hell would she come here?”

She says she has something she needs to look for at Dongwoo Hall.

So the kid had turned up at Dongwoo Hall. His dead sister’s daughter. Joo Sae-i — that girl who was quiet on the surface but had a cunning streak underneath.

She’d always known how to make herself scarce — so why show up all of a sudden like this? Something about his niece’s visit sat wrong with him.

Should I let her in?

“Let her in, nothing. What’s wrong with you, a grown man who can’t even keep one kid out?”

Chairman Joo had left the authority to approve access to Dongwoo Hall entirely in Su-deok’s hands.

Which meant that as long as he kept his own mouth shut, the Chairman would never even hear about his niece’s little visit.

“Just send her packing, nice and quiet. Make sure it never reaches the Chairman’s ears.”

Su-deok worried at his lip. He forced his unease down.

It’s not like anything bad will come of keeping one kid out.

As long as Father doesn’t find out. Just Father. Su-deok repeated it to himself, silently.

He hung up abruptly, and with his face composed back into calm, Su-deok walked back to the other members of his golf party.

Dongwoo Hall.

I’d come braced to run into my uncle face to face, but he wasn’t there.

In his place stood someone planted like a totem pole, blocking the entrance to Dongwoo Hall.

“Are you planning to keep standing in my way like this?”

I widened my eyes as brightly and innocently as I could and looked up at Secretary Park.

It really has been a while, Secretary Park.

Secretary Park Cheol-won.

A man Su-deok had worked to the bone for years. He’d eventually turn his back on Su-deok, but for now, he was my number one person to watch out for.

“Please step aside.”

“Miss, the Vice Chairman ordered that no one is to be let in without his permission.”

“I heard family of the Joo name can come and go pretty much freely. I happen to share the Chairman’s blood too, you know.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but…”

Look at that face. Just look how uncomfortable he is.

The moment he’d seen my face, he’d said he needed to make a quick call — I didn’t even need to guess what that was about. It was obvious he’d been ordered by my uncle to keep me out.

I can’t afford to be turned away here.

I spoke, letting a note of disappointment creep into my voice.

“Did my uncle really tell you to keep me out? He told me I could come to him any time I needed help…!”

I put on a tone of wronged, pitiful hurt, but what I’d said wasn’t entirely a lie, either.

Back around this time, my uncle had been saying all sorts of pretty things to get on my good side, trying to talk me out of my shares.

Come to me any time. I’ll help you. That kind of thing.

A man like Secretary Park, who’d been practically my uncle’s shadow, couldn’t possibly not know that.

To drive it home, I added, with a face that looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.

“Don’t tell me… he only said that out of pity for someone in my position, and I was foolish enough to actually believe it meant something…”

“T-that’s not it at all!”

Secretary Park, flustered, pulled out his phone again. He could have just let me in, but it seemed he meant to call my uncle once more anyway.

No luck, then?

Just as I was about to let out a deep sigh—

“Just let her in.”

An unfamiliar voice came from behind me.

I spun around, startled, and found my aunt standing there — the youngest of Chairman Joo’s three children, Joo Jeong-hui.

“This came directly from the Vice Chairman himself.”

“And so?”

My aunt, who’d somehow come right up behind me, shot the question back sharply. Without giving him time to answer, she went on.

“Since when can’t someone with the Joo name even cross the threshold of Dongwoo Hall? Should I report this to Father — that my brother’s secretary blocked the Chairman’s own granddaughter?”

I have no idea why she’s taking my side, but — go, go! Beat him!

“Step aside. I hate repeating myself. You of all people should know better than this.”

My aunt grabbed my wrist and swept past Secretary Park, into Dongwoo Hall.

“Why were you so flustered back there?”

I’d been sniffing at the scent of wood, and I snapped my mouth shut. Darting a careful glance at her, I answered slowly.

“It seemed like my uncle didn’t want me coming in. That’s all it was.”

My aunt planted a hand on her hip and let out a breath, as if the whole thing exasperated her.

Had I been too obviously careful? If I end up on her bad side too…

But contrary to what I’d expected,

“If anyone gives you grief over it, tell them I let you in.”

she said, dropping a hand bluntly onto my shoulder. My head bowed on its own.

“Th-thank you, Aunt…!”

“…Just call me Auntie.”

“Is that really all right?”

“Putting something formal after ‘Aunt’ makes me sound ancient.”

Then, with a little huff, she turned her back to me, as if she had no intention of dealing with me any further.

This isn’t the time to be worrying about Auntie, either.

I’d gotten lucky and found a foothold inside Dongwoo Hall this time, but there was no guarantee I’d manage it again.

I had to find the script, fast.

The one my grandmother had supposedly written herself.

Even I didn’t know exactly what it was. All I had was what the Chairman had written in his memoir.

[My wife left behind several scripts during her lifetime. Most were lost to a fire, but the few that survived are kept carefully preserved at Dongwoo Hall.]

I hadn’t picked this just because it was my grandmother’s script. It was because of what came right after that line.

[Someday I want to bring that handful of surviving pages into the world. I want the actors I’ve raised with my own hands to breathe life into my wife’s story.]

There was nothing better than this to prove my worth.

If I botched the performance, I might end up earning the Chairman’s dislike instead, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid. I felt certain I could pull it off.

The only problem was…

I can’t see it anywhere!

I’d roamed through every corner, but there wasn’t anything that looked remotely like a script.

Everywhere I looked, there was nothing but expensive-looking celadon, white porcelain, gold bars, paintings, calligraphy…

He said it was carefully preserved right here at Dongwoo Hall!

Surely he hadn’t put a lie in his memoir. Or maybe it hadn’t been moved to Dongwoo Hall yet…

Aaaargh. I screamed silently inside and sank down onto the floor. And that’s when something caught my eye.

“Joo Jeong-wol…?”

A small box with my mother’s name written on it.

Without thinking, I picked up the box sitting there on the floor.

I had no idea what was in it, but it was light. As far as I knew, Dad had already taken all of her keepsakes with him when he left.

Had there been something of hers left behind?

There was no lock, so I threw the lid open without hesitation.

Inside were three sheets of yellowed, faded paper, covered edge to edge in writing.

“Even now, that day at the sea still shows up whole in my dreams…”

Ah. I read the words on the page out loud, and it struck me, all at once.

I didn’t need to read any further to know.

This is the script.

The old-fashioned handwriting, and the stage directions scattered through it, confirmed this was the very script I’d been looking for.

I spread the three worn pages carefully on the floor, pulled out my phone, and took pictures.

If I took it with me and got branded a thief, that would be the end of everything.

Inconvenient or not, there was no other way.

Only after I’d photographed all six sides, front and back, did I stand up, satisfied.

Why was this in a box with my mother’s name on it, of all places?

There was no way to find out just by wondering. But maybe, someday, once I’d grown closer to the Chairman, I could ask him.

I still have a long way to go.

Still, it didn’t feel entirely hopeless.

Right now, all I wanted was to hurry home and read more of the script. Even in that brief moment of reading it, I’d felt my heart start to race.

“I should get going now. Thank you so much for today, Auntie!”

Once I’d tidied everything up, I bowed deeply at the waist, and with a happy heart, I walked out of Dongwoo Hall.

Watching Sae-i’s retreating back, Joo Jeong-hui fell quietly into thought.

When had that tiny thing, the one who used to cry in her sister’s arms, grown up like that? She was nothing like her brother’s children, who rattled off casual speech to adults before they’d even thought about it.

This isn’t the time for me to be standing around either.

Even with her sister Jeong-wol gone, her sister’s child was still a member of the Joo family.

The girl had come here of her own will — she shouldn’t have to be treated with such contempt.

Jeong-hui shot Secretary Park a sharp glance and headed for Jaedamjae. It was time to report to her father what had happened between the secretary and the girl.