The Seheon Club in Cheongdam. From the street, all you could see was a dark stone facade and a small metal nameplate.

There was no lit sign, and no staff out front drumming up customers.

The main gate opened only when a car with a reserved plate number turned into the drive.

At the entrance, staff checked names, took coats and showed guests to a private elevator.

Tonight, the Cheonghwa High School Management Studies Society had booked the whole banquet floor.

It was the graduates' New Year's gathering and a welcome for the hoobaes who had come of age.

Around a hundred men and women, from twenty to twenty-nine, were gathering in one place.

Ttarang~♬ Tididing~♩

When the elevator doors opened, soft piano music drifted out.

Small paintings hung at even intervals on the dark wood-paneled walls.

The thick carpet swallowed the sound of dress shoes, and whenever the staff spotted an empty glass, they quietly took it away without interrupting the conversation.

Round tables filled the banquet hall.

The innermost seats belonged to the older classes.

Staff in charge of seating first led the newcomers to the senior tables at the back.

Only after they'd paid their respects were they shown back to their own seats near the entrance.

"It's been a long time, sunbae-nim!"

"It has. How's your father?"

"Well, thank you. I'll pass on your regards."

Family news and a little talk about their groups went back and forth.

Between sunbaes and hoobaes who were close, laughter broke out now and then, but no one skipped a class and sat out of order.

It was an important occasion, one where who had to be greeted first mattered far more than who had arrived first.

Gu Changjin was sitting at the innermost table. His class wasn't the most senior.

Sunbaes who had graduated before him had the nearby tables.

But of all the graduates there tonight, Gu Changjin was the one with the surest claim to succession, as the son of the head of a group.

There was the Hyundo Group behind him.

It was third in the…