“Honestly, I barely remember any of it. Did I even say anything to you?”

“No, we just ate our meals in silence. And I was more grateful for that. I was really proud, you know. And things like that-usually only the person who was helped remembers them.”

“For something called ‘help’ it really wasn’t much.”

“In those days it was more than enough. Today, no one thinks twice about you going out to eat something good by yourself. But in middle and high school, being alone meant that everyone would stare and whisper and ask if you were being bullied. But because you were sitting next to me, I didn’t stand out-even when I was alone.”

She added the last part in a light tone.

“After that, sometimes I was the one who spotted you first and sat down quietly next to you. And you… you continued to chat with your friends, but you always waited until I finished eating before you left.”

Ding-dong.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, interrupting the gentle, cautious flow of our conversation while we were still cautiously sensing each other’s moods.

It was the fruit juice Heo Yeonseo had ordered.

We both fell silent at the same time.

The servant quietly wheeled the tray into the now quiet room and placed the juice and some light snacks neatly on the table.

And to my surprise, Heo Yeonseo had ordered two glasses – one for himself and one for me.

“Have a nice evening.”

The staff politely said goodbye and left the room.

The atmosphere of old memories quickly vanished like smoke. Once again we sat across from each other, awkward and silent.

“Go ahead and try it. I really like the fruit juice here at the Riche Hotel. They use fresh, high quality fruit, so it’s refreshing – not too sweet.”

“Thanks, I’ll enjoy it.”

“If I had known that you could stay here, I would have asked Seol-won to book a room for me a long time ago. I heard that when they built the Riche Hotel, they hired a different architect for each room. It must be heaven to fall asleep every night with this view.”

Holding a glass of chilled juice with dew forming on its surface, Heo Yeonseo sat comfortably on the sofa in the lounge and gazed at the night view.

She no longer looked like my high school junior.

In an instant, she had become Lee Seol-won’s fiancée.

The tension that had been released for a moment returned and kept rising.

Even though we had had a brief relationship in the past, in reality, this was no different than meeting for the first time.

And surely she hadn’t stopped me today just to reminisce about some fleeting memories from our school days.

I picked up my own glass and took a sip of the cold juice, trying to calm the heaviness in my chest.

“So, the reason I asked you to spare me some time earlier…”

It seemed that Yeonseo had no intention of wasting any more time on small talk.

“The other day, Seol-won came to our house.”

She finally got to the point.

“And in front of my parents, he said it himself – that his relationship with his cousins is likely to deteriorate soon, and since he’s adopted, he lacks a solid footing within the family. So he might not be able to provide the support he promised at the time of our engagement. My parents were furious. They demanded to know why he had hidden the fact that he was adopted and said there was no way they could let their daughter marry into such a situation. They called off the engagement on the spot.”

Perhaps because she worked in a profession that relied on physical expression, Heo Yeonseo tended to use vivid gestures and facial expressions while speaking. Even now, her hands were in constant motion, fluttering around her face in a series of expressive movements.

Broken engagement.

Startled, I glanced at Heo Yeonseo’s hand.
The ring finger on her left hand—where an engagement ring should’ve gleamed—was completely bare, not a trace left behind.

She shrugged casually.

“Everything happened so fast. The talk show was about to air, of all things. I had taped the episode that day, talking all about the engagement story. I added a little spice – okay, maybe a lot. So I had to deal with that show first. I’m sure Seol-won was completely overwhelmed that day.

No wonder the content and editing of the talk show felt strangely off.

I put down my glass and spoke quietly.

“I watched the talk show.”

“You did?”

I nodded again.

“The show was a mess, right? But honestly, it was probably the best they could do. They’d already done all the promos, so they had to air it, but then suddenly they were told to cut out all the engagement-related content. The producer probably had to stay up all night and re-edit everything in just one day – cutting the footage to make sure the engagement ring didn’t show up and stuff like that.”

So that was the reason why the camera kept either zooming in on Heo Yeonseo’s face or avoiding her altogether in favor of the host. It was all to hide the engagement ring.

“But… is being adopted really such a big problem? Big enough to call off the engagement on the spot?”

If Rep. Heo Ji-seop had supported the match, I didn’t think Seol-won’s background would have been an issue. The fact that they ended the engagement so abruptly, without even trying to smooth things over, was unexpected.

But surprisingly, it was Heo Yeonseo who seemed even more puzzled by my question.

“He would lose in a succession battle. If we went through with the marriage, my parents would be furious at the thought of people saying, ‘What was wrong with Yeonseo that she ended up marrying an adopted son who can’t even inherit properly?'”

“You mean… it’s because of money?”

“Do you know where SW Company stands in the business world? We’re not talking about ordinary money here.”

She had a point. I nodded quietly in agreement.

“Whenever there’s a succession in a chaebol family, it’s like a modern-day ‘war of the princes’ over shares. Sure, some families manage to come to an agreement and honor the will, but I don’t think SW Company will be one of them. Even now, I hear that members of the branches visit the main house every morning before going to their own companies, just to pay their respects to the chairman and stay in his good graces. The moment he passes away, it’s all going to fall apart. This ‘war of princes’? It’s coming.”

Chairman Lee had three sons. When he finally steps down and his sons and their families begin to fight for control of the company, someone like Lee Seol-won – brought in from the outside – won’t even be allowed a toe in the war, not with his background.

“That family may seem trendy on the outside, what with their drama production and movie distribution, but in reality their traditions are incredibly old-fashioned. You know the story, right? The chairman’s first wife couldn’t bear children, so he threw her out and brought in a second wife – who gave birth to three sons. That story is well known.”

“Do you know Jae-shin unni? Lee Jaeshin-she’s Seol-won’s cousin.”

“Yes, but I only know the name.”

“I am actually close to Jae-shin unni. I tend to get along well with older women, even if there’s a big age gap. In that family, her side is the main branch – and even though she was the first grandchild, she said she faced a lot of discrimination just because she was a girl. Jae-shin unni has a lot of resentment. She originally wanted to study film and become a director, but her family forced her to study business. Later, when she tried to pursue content distribution to match her talents, she did all the work, but her uncle’s side took all the credit. That’s why she started her own platform, even though she received a lot of criticism for “interfering” with the family business.”

It seemed true that she was close to Lee Jae-shin – especially when she pouted slightly at the mention of Jae-shin’s uncle taking credit for her work.

Considering how Lee Jae-hyup and Lee Jae-kwang treated Seol-won, none of this surprised me much.

What did surprise me was something else.

“…In a family so obsessed with bloodlines and so deeply rooted in discrimination, it’s surprising that they adopted anyone at all.”

At the time, it seemed less surprising that Lee Seol-won had been adopted and more of a miracle that the family had been willing to adopt anyone at all, given their values.

“Right after Seol-won left, I called Jae-shin unni. She was really shocked – she couldn’t believe that he had said it out loud himself.”

Heo Yeonseo paused for a moment to catch his breath, then continued.

“Apparently, Jae-shin unni didn’t even know that Seol-won was adopted for a long time. She said that if it hadn’t accidentally come to light because of an incident about ten years ago, she probably still wouldn’t know.”

“An incident?”

“I don’t know all the details, but it sounds like Seol-won had a serious accident – serious enough to be hospitalized. During the routine blood tests, they found a blood type that couldn’t possibly match if he was their biological child. The whole family was thrown into chaos, demanding to know what was going on, and that’s when the truth about the adoption finally came out. Apparently it caused quite an uproar.”

“Unni said she went to visit him in the hospital after she heard about the accident – but Seol-won was kept under strict surveillance. He was not moved to a VVIP ward or anything – just a regular private room, and even that had guards posted at the door. At first, she thought he was a criminal who had done something wrong and was being kept in isolation.”

…Huh?

A sudden sense of déjà vu brushed past my ear, like a whisper carried on the wind.