Jeong-eun looked at Seong-ho standing before the operating theater and said, as if she found it curious,

"How could a thing like this happen right when he was having a health checkup?"

"So how fortunate is that? A neurosurgery doctor happened to be right there too, and if the symptoms hadn't been grasped at once, it would have taken that much longer… I can't tell you how fortunate it is."

"Fortunate it is, all right… I just find it strange, is all."

Turning her head away from Yeong-su Cha, who was saying how fortunate it was, Jeong-eun looked around at the other family members seated there. From the very back, arms folded, Tak-hyeon spoke with a frown.

"So you're displeased about it?"

"It's not that I'm displeased. It's just that I find it a little strange…"

"If you're going to say that sort of thing, go home."

"Father."

Tak-hyeon, arms still folded, glared at Jeong-eun and said,

"The youngest is inside the operating theater locked in a fight for her life, and her older sister sits out here blathering this and that—it grates on the ear, so just go home."

When Tak-hyeon told Jeong-eun to get out of his sight, Jeong-eun turned herself around to say something. Just then, Jeong-eun's Yeong-su Cha hurriedly apologized to Tak-hyeon and Seong-ho.

"Chairman. She said it only because she found it so strange—meaning that it turned out well. Brother-in-law. Don't misunderstand. She said it out of a wish for her sister-in-law's health."

"I don't misunderstand. I know well it's said out of worry."

Cha sent a grateful look to Seong-ho for accepting his apology, then took Jeong-eun's arm, which she'd turned away, and pulled her straight. Jeong-eun flung off Cha's hand and sat up straight with a face full of discontent.

Having quietly watched all this from the very back, Tak-hyeon asked Seong-ho,

"What do you mean to tell the press?"

Still standing before the operating theater, watching the surgery time counting up above it, Seong-ho turned his head to Tak-hyeon and answered.

"We'll prepare and put out to the press that she's abroad…