“What is it? Why the sudden fuss?”

Jeong-eun looked up at Mun-jong, who had abruptly shot up from his seat, with a strange eye.

“What kind of news makes you jump like that? Did something happen at the company?”

Tak-hyeon, who had told him to go ahead and hear the report, seemed no less curious about Mun-jong’s sudden reaction.

Still seated, Tak-hyeon looked up for a moment at Mun-jong, whose face wore a somewhat vacant expression, and spoke in a sharp voice.

“What’s the matter?”

Coming to his senses at Tak-hyeon’s voice, Mun-jong glanced around for a moment.

And he realized this was the once-a-week Pyeongchang-dong dinner.

“What’s gotten into you? Did someone’s parents pass away or something?”

“Father’s sitting right here—how can that joke come out of your mouth?”

“Well, it’s odd, him flailing about like a man whose parents just died.”

At Suk-ja’s scolding, Jeong-eun pointed at Mun-jong and asked wasn’t it strange.

Suk-ja, it seemed, couldn’t make sense of it either, and she regarded Mun-jong with a strange look.

With even Suk-ja looking at him strangely, Mun-jong hurriedly explained why he was acting this way.

“A friend’s father has passed away, they said. That’s why. Right up until recently they’d told me he was perfectly fine.”

“So a parent did pass away, after all. Just not one of mine.”

At Jeong-eun, who’d muttered to herself loud enough for everyone at the table to hear, Suk-ja shot a glare, then turned to Mun-jong and asked,

“Then shouldn’t you hurry off?”

“I suppose I’d better.”

Gathering himself, Mun-jong begged Tak-hyeon’s leave.

“Chairman, I’ll take my leave now.”

Tak-hyeon looked up at Mun-jong for a moment from his seat.

Then he nodded and waved a hand.

“Yes. If you have to go, then you must. Off you go.”

Mun-jong bid farewell to Tak-hyeon and Suk-ja and hurriedly left.

Jeong-eun watched him go with a strange look, then muttered to herself.

“What is it? Why’s he acting like a man being chased?”

Tak-hyeon too watched Mun-jong’s retreating back for a moment, then lifted his spoon and said to the family gathered there,

“That’s enough about the one who’s left—hurry up and eat. The stew’s going cold.”

“Gumi-daek. Warm the stew back up, would you.”

As Tak-hyeon went on urging everyone to eat and Suk-ja called the housekeeper to reheat the stew, the family, who had been watching Mun-jong leave, began once more to take up the spoons and chopsticks laid before them.

But in their hearts, Mun-jong’s strange behavior went on stamping question marks.

Having finished the meal and returned home, Seong-ho sat in his study and opened the leather diary.

[…It was just as Byeong-jin said. The Ilhyeon Group was no better than a den of hell. The people who lived here weren’t human. They were demons dwelling in hell, and to them I was nothing but a paltry soul who had just leapt down into that hell… It wasn’t that I regretted the marriage. Choosing Gyeong-eun was the best thing I’d done in all my life. But coming to live in this place was the worst choice of my life. I should never have come here to live.]

To Seong-ho, the feelings of that time seemed to rise up vividly.

Now he’d secured his footing, recognized in the group and within the family both, keeping good relations with his brothers-in-law—but in his former life it hadn’t been so.

Seong-ho had been treated as lower than the stones rolling about the Pyeongchang-dong yard, and at the company he’d been an object of ridicule as the live-in son-in-law.

That’s why they tried to pull that on me.

Seong-ho turned the page and read on down the next.

[…Brother said he was asking a favor of me. Said that if I’d only take this on for him, he’d open the road ahead for me. The eldest brother was the man most likely to succeed the Chairman as the next Chairman. If a man like that backed me, I could secure my place for certain, in the company and in the family both. But… but with what face could I look at Gyeong-eun? I…]

Seong-ho bit down hard on his lip and muttered to himself.

“This business, from back then… I’ll pay you back for it in full.”

Unlike in the former life, having found his footing at home and at the company didn’t mean everything they’d done to him was forgotten.

That was why the leather diary was all the more necessary.

Just as they say a person is a creature of forgetting, memories could fade.

But the anger written in the leather diary did not fade.

When he looked at the anger, the memories of that time came back to life, and as the memories revived, so too did the will to take revenge on them.

Knock, knock.

Gyeong-eun carefully opened the study door and poked her face partway in.

“Seong-ho. Are you busy?”

“No. It’s fine.”

Seong-ho relaxed his hardened face and answered her.

At his “it’s fine,” Gyeong-eun came right into the study, fruit plate in hand.

“Have some of this while you work.”

Gyeong-eun set the plate of fruit on the desk and glanced down at the leather diary spread open before him.

“Do you like it that much?”

Delighted that what Seong-ho was poring over was the leather diary she’d given him, Gyeong-eun’s face bloomed into a smile.

“What’s the use of always staring at blank pages like that? You ought to write something inside.”

Even as she told him to fill the diary with writing, Gyeong-eun wore a broad smile, as though she didn’t at all mind Seong-ho treasuring it.

Stroking the diary that, to his own eyes, was covered in writing, Seong-ho said,

“It’s the first gift you gave me after we married, so of course I treasure it.”

“I’ll buy you another.”

“Even if you do, the first won’t change. This is the most precious thing I have.”

Gyeong-eun gave an even happier smile at his words, and stepping back a little, she brought up what had happened at Pyeongchang-dong that morning.

“When Father suddenly brought up Chairman Dan and your building came up right along with it, you’ve no idea how startled I was.”

Seong-ho slid the diary forward a touch and pushed his chair back.

Then, turning the chair to face Gyeong-eun, he said,

“Do you dislike it being known that we bought a building?”

“It’s not so much that I dislike it… I just wished it had come out a little later.”

“Are you worried your brothers or your sister might snatch it away?”

At Seong-ho’s joke, Gyeong-eun snorted a laugh.

“I’m not a child and the building isn’t a toy—how would they snatch it away? It’s more that…”

Gyeong-eun wiped the smile from her face and answered.

“It’s that I worry my brothers or my sister might think something strange of it.”

“Something strange?”

“Yes. If word gets out that you suddenly earned that much money… I worry they’ll suspect you used your company position to pocket money improperly.”

“Ha ha ha. The things you worry about.”

Perhaps thinking she’d gotten too far ahead of herself, Gyeong-eun flushed slightly at the sound of Seong-ho’s laugh.

Seong-ho had said it was fine, but he didn’t think Gyeong-eun was wrong.

“The truth is, so long as the Chairman says nothing, it’s a matter of no consequence… but still, there’s no harm in being careful. I may have earned my money fairly and acquired a proper asset with it, but there’s no way to prove to every last person that I earned it fairly.”

“So my brothers or my sister really could pick a fight over it?”

“A brother or your sister might… or someone else could throw up an obstacle.”

“Someone else?”

Gyeong-eun tilted her head, as if she hadn’t considered that anyone besides her brothers or sister might make trouble.

Seong-ho smiled faintly at the sight of her and offered his thanks.

“Thank you. Thanks to you, I’ve grown alert to something I’d been overlooking.”

Still thinking over who else there might be, Gyeong-eun beamed at his thanks.

Then, along with the building talk, she brought up one more strange thing that had happened at the meal.

“But why do you suppose Mun-jong acted like that all of a sudden?”

Gyeong-eun tilted her head, as if she couldn’t understand it no matter how she thought about it.

“Bolting out mid-meal because a friend’s father died… my brother doesn’t have a friend close enough for that, so I can’t for the life of me figure out who it could be.”

Seong-ho turned his head and looked at the diary he’d slid slightly away.

And gazing down at the writing in the diary, he said,

“It could be because a friend’s father died—or it could be for some other reason.”

“Some other reason?”

Gyeong-eun mulled over what other reason there might be, then spoke.

“If it were a company matter, there’s no way you wouldn’t know. And Father certainly wouldn’t be in the dark. But seeing as both of you don’t know, it can’t be a company matter…”

Gyeong-eun’s face showed she couldn’t think of a single thing besides company business that could have driven Mun-jong to his feet.

But to Seong-ho’s eyes, the reason was plain to see.

[…Brother asked a favor of me. Said that since I was already married and time had passed, they wouldn’t be able to drive me out of the family… I told Brother about the shock Gyeong-eun would suffer, but he said that if it was Gyeong-eun, she’d understand…]

Perhaps the emotions of that time came back to him; Seong-ho closed his eyes for a moment.

And with his eyes shut, he felt the texture of the diary’s paper.

The texture, worn down from being opened and folded shut so many times, met his fingertips.

Seong-ho opened his closed eyes and looked down at the diary.

[It seems it was because of me, after all. If only I hadn’t granted Brother’s favor back then… if I hadn’t, Gyeong-eun wouldn’t have ended up that way… I’m left with the regret that she may have died out of anger over me—because of me. In the end, it was I who pushed Gyeong-eun over the edge. If I could go back to when Brother asked that favor, I would never, ever grant it. Never…]

Seong-ho knew that Gyeong-eun’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage wasn’t solely because of this.

But since he knew for a fact that Gyeong-eun had suffered a shock, if asked whether it had no effect at all, he could say that it did.

With Gyeong-eun coming to harm, Seong-ho had fallen into blaming himself, believing everything was his fault, and to people who knew nothing of these circumstances he’d become a sinner.

And with the heart of that sinner, he couldn’t leave the Ilhyeon Group, working like a slave his whole life until, in the end, he was cast aside.

“Seong-ho.”

Gyeong-eun called to Seong-ho, who was turned toward the diary, as if she found it odd.

“What are you thinking about so intently?”

Having to call several times before he came to his senses, Gyeong-eun looked back and forth between him and the diary and stared at Seong-ho strangely.

Under her gaze, Seong-ho smiled and reached out to close the diary.

“I was thinking, if your brother did leave over company business, what it could be about.”

“Do you really think my brother left because of company business?”

Seong-ho rose from his seat, took Gyeong-eun by the shoulders, and answered.

“But no matter how I think about it, it doesn’t seem so. Gyeong-eun. You’ve been to Pyeongchang-dong today and must be tired, so let’s turn in early and rest.”

“Bed already? It’s still broad daylight…”

Gyeong-eun flushed at Seong-ho’s suggestion that they turn in.

And as if she’d never once mentioned Mun-jong, wearing a face that had cleanly forgotten the whole conversation of a moment ago, she said to Seong-ho,

“Then I’ll go wash up quickly. Wait just a bit.”

Leaving behind word that she’d go wash up, Gyeong-eun vanished into the bathroom like a bolt of lightning.

Seong-ho smiled faintly at the sight of her, then turned his head and gazed with sentiment-laden eyes at the diary he’d been poring over just moments before.

“I can’t come to regret it this time either.”

Seong-ho had no intention of once again doing the thing that ranked first among his regrets from the former life.

He meant to set right the wrong choice of his former life, and to prevent Gyeong-eun from coming to harm as well.

And the bomb Mun-jong had brought, he intended to turn back and detonate on someone of the Ilhyeon Group—not on himself.

Seong-ho looked at the diary one more time, then shut the door and headed for the room his beloved would soon enter.

Late that night.

Seated in his study, Tak-hyeon furrowed his brow as he listened to Do-beom’s report.

“So you’re telling me the eldest had no friend whose father died?”

“Yes. I investigated as far back as one week from today, but among Mun-jong’s friends, there exists no friend who has suffered the loss of a father.”

At Do-beom’s words, Tak-hyeon nodded.

“Of course. If it were the father of a friend of his, it’d be someone I know, in which case the word would have come to me before it reached him.”

“Just so. So I dug through everything on the chance he might have some other friend out in the world, but… Mun-jong has no ordinary-citizen friends.”

“Where would that fellow get an ordinary friend? He’s lucky to have any friends at all…”

At Tak-hyeon’s words, Do-beom wore a bitter expression.

Having seen Mun-jong’s sudden, impulsive behavior at the meal, Tak-hyeon had ordered Do-beom to look separately into whether any of Mun-jong’s friends had lost a father.

Because to Tak-hyeon’s eye, Mun-jong’s behavior hadn’t looked normal.

Do-beom had found it strange as well.

So he’d looked into it all the more thoroughly.

He’d combed through everyone—not just the people Mun-jong was ordinarily close with, but those of a younger-brother sort, an elder-brother sort, and anyone he’d exchanged words with over the past several years, all of them exhaustively.

But among them, there existed only a single person who had lost a father.

Aside from a male employee in his second year at the Ilhyeon Group’s General Affairs Department who had lost his father, there existed no one who had suffered such a loss.

And that employee and Mun-jong had no point of contact whatsoever, save for having met during new-hire training in his early days at the company.

Do-beom was certain Mun-jong was lying.

But the reason for the lie he could not for the life of him grasp.

What matter could be so urgent for Mun-jong that he’d have to tell such a transparent, obvious lie—that, Do-beom had no way of knowing.

(End of Chapter 111)