Jang Jiyu's room. Even after she'd taken off her coat, she left the light off for a while.

Light from the garden lamps came in through the window and caught the desk and the end of the bed. The dark room was still.

Kang Junu's drunken voice, and the way Ha Tae-ung had played along with his jokes, still rang in her ears.

With her sitting there all alone, the room felt strangely big tonight.

"Twenty-four stories……."

Jang Jiyu took her phone out of her bag. She opened the photos of the New York building Ha Tae-ung had sent her on KakaoTalk and went through them again, slowly, one by one.

The East River, visible between New York's buildings.

When she'd first seen the wide-open terrace and the living room, she'd imagined spending a day there.

But now what caught her eye were the floors below the penthouse.

These were office floors where people could work.

It would be the space where contracts were signed in Ha Tae-ung's name, the control room that moved his money.

He hadn't gone to America for fun. He'd already gone and set up a place for the future he meant to build.

"He really never takes a break."

Jang Jiyu set her phone down on the desk. Since coming back from St Moritz, she'd been proud of how much she'd changed.

She'd seen a wider world and met and talked with people she'd known only by name.

She'd heard what they worried about and where they mostly spent their money. It was true that she knew more than before.

But Ha Tae-ung had taken that same experience and moved straight on to the next step.

He'd gone to see someone he'd met in St Moritz himself, and found the nerve to ask for what he needed.

Not long after, he'd bought a building in America with his name on it.

It had all happened while she was reminiscing about her trip to Switzerland.

"And me?"

Jang Jiyu walked up to her desk.

Accepted to Seoguk University's business school. The winter she'd come of age.…