Chapter 2.

Atlas Robotics was a startup founded by Jeong Taegyeom, the second son of the Cheongshin Group, and it drew public attention from the moment it was established.

The two sons of the Cheongshin Group had distinguished themselves in opposite directions from an early age. The eldest, Jeong Taeheon, had been a troublemaker from childhood, causing every kind of incident imaginable. The group even had a dedicated team just to handle him, and he was considered one of the most notoriously dissolute figures among political and business circles alike.

The second son, Taegyeom, was closer to the model student by comparison. He studied hard and never caused a single problem. Everyone around him naturally assumed he would take over the group. The man himself, however, had no interest in his father’s business. From childhood he had preferred robots to people, and while his brother was absorbed in games, alcohol, and women, he was busy solving math problems or taking things apart and building them back together. The bombshell came when Taegyeom was twenty-five.

“I’m going to go independent now. I’m planning to start a robotics company.”

“……What?”

“Give Father’s company to my brother.”

His father, who had naturally designated Taegyeom as his heir, nearly collapsed on the spot. His mother reassured his father that Taegyeom would come back around soon, but he was immovable. After every attempt failed to show any sign of getting him into the family company, his father eventually concluded it would be easier to straighten out the wayward Jeong Taeheon and bring him in instead. Reluctantly and bitterly, his father set about the project of making Taeheon into a functioning human being, and Taeheon, hurling every curse imaginable at Taegyeom, became one.

“Hey, just take the company yourself!”

“I told you I started my own. Get yourself together now and live like a decent person, brother.”

All of this had come about because of the inheritance left by their grandfather, who had adored his grandsons. Chairman Jeong, caught in the middle between Taeheon, who declared he would never work a day in his life since he had more than enough to live on forever, and Taegyeom, who had used that inheritance as the foundation for his own company, was the only one left fuming.

Thanks to all of this, the two brothers’ lives naturally diverged onto their own paths. Fortunately, Taeheon came to his senses one day and began establishing his footing within the group, while Taegyeom built his company as planned.

Unlike Taeheon, who had become publicly known through a string of celebrity scandals from an early age, Taegyeom had never shown his face to the outside world. He intended to use his shrouded existence to generate even greater impact when his first android product was eventually unveiled.

“Senior, when you stay still like this, you really do look like a robot.”

Did she know? That one sentence had completely changed the course of his life.

Taegyeom’s gaze lingered on the list of contest winners. Kim Yiseo. Just seeing the name made his heart beat faster.

He had known she joined the company a few years ago, but he hadn’t been able to approach her carelessly from the start. At the time he was a director and she was a regular employee. The gap in rank was too wide, and he worried that approaching her out of nowhere when she was still new would make things uncomfortable. So he waited for her to settle in.

A little time passed, and when it finally seemed like it might be alright to acknowledge her, he used the fifth founding anniversary as a pretext to hold an official event that gathered everyone, including regular employees. He was making his way over to greet Yiseo with a glad heart when a crowd suddenly swarmed around him. People only dispersed after the event ended. He had carved out the opportunity by squeezing his already packed schedule to its limit, and it slipped away for nothing.

If he couldn’t run into her at official events, he thought he might try acknowledging her during the commute. Since they worked at the same company, he figured that if he could just time his arrivals and departures, he would cross paths with her at least once. It was only then that he realized why the two of them had never managed to run into each other even by accident. The elevator to the directors’ floor and the elevator primarily used by the marketing team were at the exact opposite ends of the building, and his own schedule had more overseas business trips and external appointments than days spent at the office to begin with.

In the three years since Kim Yiseo joined the company, every moment outside of working hours had been consumed by thoughts of how to get closer to her. At this point it was beginning to feel like he was stalking her. One day, while Taegyeom was wrestling with the problem, his brother came barging into the office.

“Jeong Taegyeom. Sell me your Gangwon-do villa.”

“You’ve been quiet lately. Did you cause some kind of trouble?”

“No. I have a use for it.”

“You have your own villa.”

“Mine faces the sea. Apparently the person I’m giving it to likes the mountains.”

He had never given a villa to any woman he had dated before, so it seemed he had finally met his match in someone. What his own flesh and blood got up to was none of his business, but it occurred to him that he might be able to get Taeheon’s help with his current problem.

“I don’t want to give you mine, but I know a good villa. A contact of mine was considering putting it on the market. Take that one.”

“Okay. Send me the location.”

Taeheon turned to leave. Taegyeom watched his retreating back and spoke.

“……I actually have something I want to ask you.”

“You, asking me? What is it.”

Taeheon turned and looked at Taegyeom with wide eyes. Understandably so. In all the years they had lived, it was rare for Taegyeom to seek his advice or ask him anything in earnest.

“There’s someone I want to get closer to, but we have no point of connection.”

“Just talk to her first.”

“It’s difficult because she’s an employee. A director approaching a regular employee out of nowhere could put her in an uncomfortable position.”

“You want to get close to her but you’re worrying about something like that…… A woman?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.”

Something shifted in Taeheon’s eyes.

His younger brother, whom he had assumed was either gay or simply indifferent, was finally showing interest in a woman. In his early twenties Taegyeom had gone through a few half-hearted attempts at relationships, then after coming back from military service had seemed briefly taken with someone, and since then had had so little contact with women that Taeheon had assumed he had developed a different kind of preference. And now here he was, agonizing enough over getting close to a woman he was interested in that he was actually asking Taeheon for advice. Was there any bigger scoop than this.

“Make up some excuse, anything will do, and call her to your office. Something like you were impressed by her report, whatever. Then just look at her and smile. Set up a lunch and reach out to meet. Laugh at the right moments, throw in a few things she wants to hear. That’s all you need. Done.”

“Done with what?”

“The seduction.”

“……”

Taegyeom’s expression turned skeptical, and Taeheon added more.

“Was my explanation too complicated?”

“The problem is it’s too simple.”

“People like you and me do tend to find that side of things easier than most.”

Objectively speaking, both he and his brother were reasonably good-looking. And there was the history with Yiseo, even if it was in the past, so she likely had no aversion to his appearance. The method his brother described, however, didn’t sit well with him.

“Jeong Taegyeom, in a relationship? I’ll have to send you a proper sofa for the office as a gift when you start dating.”

“There’s already a sofa there.”

“You said you’re doing an office romance. Things like that get worn out fast when you’re rolling around on them.”

Taegyeom’s brow furrowed. His father had mentioned that Taeheon kept breaking company furniture, and he had started to wonder if his brother had taken to actual violence, but apparently it was a matter of not caring about the time or place for that kind of thing.

“Tell me a more proper method.”

“She’s a regular employee, so you would have had no connection to begin with. How do you even know her?”

“We were at the same university during my last semester.”

“Then it’s easy. Just reach out and say it’s been a while.”

“How, without her number.”

Taeheon looked at him like he couldn’t follow the logic.

“You said she’s an employee. You have her number and address, so what’s the problem.”

“Accessing an employee’s personal information without cause is a disciplinary offense.”

“Ha, this isn’t a robotics company CEO, this is just a robot. It’s not strange for someone who went to the same school to have your number. Just pretend you’ve had it all along.”

“If I was going to deceive her like that, I wouldn’t have asked you.”

This guy could live without laws and still be fine. Taeheon muttered it like a curse.

“There is a good way to get close to someone you have no connection with naturally.”

“What?”

“Just move in next door.”

“……”

“What now.”

“Where did you get that from what I said?”

“From where I’m standing, you don’t seem to be in any particular hurry anyway. Never mind your business, I’m in a hurry, so send me the villa address. Spend your spare time putting that impressive brain of yours to good use, legally.”