Chapter 9.5

“…Ugh!”

From the roiling nausea within her, Eun-sol eventually felt the surge of dry heaving. She ran to the bathroom, clutching the cold toilet as she vomited uncontrollably.

“Eun-sol, are you okay?”

Vice Minister Yoon’s voice came from outside the door.

She tried to stand up, but her legs trembled uncontrollably. It wasn’t just because she hadn’t eaten much recently. The sudden weight of life bore down on her, crushing her spirit.

‘My mother passed away when I was in middle school, and now I find out my only family—my father—is a criminal.’

That life could never have been peaceful.

She recalled a photo Hye-mi had once shown her, a picture of herself from her past. It was taken during her time working at a department store.

In that photo, she appeared gloomy and exhausted—a face so unfamiliar it felt like it belonged to someone else. 

But now, she thought she understood that expression. It wasn’t just a tired face. It was the face of someone consumed by the weight of life.

“Eun-sol, are you okay? Should I come in?”

Vice Minister Yoon kept knocking on the bathroom door.

“…I’m fine. I’ll come out in a little while.”

Leaning against the cold tiled wall, she caught her breath. When the tiles warmed up from her body heat, she shifted to a cooler spot nearby. 

By the time she calmed her overheated mind, she had circled nearly all the walls of the spacious bathroom.

When she finally opened the door, Vice Minister Yoon was standing there in an awkward posture. In her hand was a water-soaked envelope of mail.

“It’s the DNA test results. It just arrived by express delivery.”

Even Vice Minister Yoon couldn’t hide the tension in her voice.

“Hah, there’s no time to even catch my breath.”

Eun-sol muttered as if she were about to cry.

It felt like standing in the middle of a minefield. Whether she stepped to the right or the left, there were bombs buried beneath her feet.

‘The moment I lift my foot, the truth will explode, and this happiness will scatter into fragments, like dust blown apart.’

Her father’s matters were part of the past, but what was inside that envelope was no different from a verdict that could dictate her future.

“Eun-sol, are you sure you’re okay?”

Her heart pounded so loudly that Vice Minister Yoon’s voice barely registered. Like a woman out of her mind, she nodded and received the envelope.

Her fingertips were numb. She couldn’t feel anything. She needed to open the envelope without damaging the test results inside, but the envelope, soaked from the rain, made it even harder.

“Eun-sol, let me at least open the envelope for you.”

Unable to bear it any longer, Vice Minister Yoon opened the envelope with a paper knife. Just as she was about to hand it back to her—

“Ding-dong, ding-dong—”  

The sudden sound of the doorbell echoed through the house.

Eun-sol and Vice Minister Yoon’s eyes met simultaneously.

“Who could it be in this torrential rain? There’s no one expected to come. Hae-seong said he’d stay over at a friend’s house. Eun-sol, stay here. I’ll go check.”

Swoosh—  

As soon as the front door opened, the deafening sound of pouring rain roared from outside.

“CEO K-Kwon?!”

Vice Minister Yoon’s normally composed voice cracked and stretched.

He came? Could it be?!

Eun-sol’s legs gave out beneath her.

The question she wanted to ask was voiced instead by Vice Minister Yoon.

“CEO Kwon, how are you here? Weren’t you supposed to return next Monday with the government officials? There weren’t even any available flights….”

As a high-ranking government official, Vice Minister Yoon had been receiving real-time updates on the delegation’s schedule. According to the reports, the delegation was scheduled to return three days later aboard the presidential plane.

“I heard my wife was here, so I came to find her. I apologize in advance if I’m being rude.”

His calm, rich voice pierced through the sound of the torrential rain, resonating clearly.

He brushed past the hesitant Vice Minister Yoon with ease and snatched the document envelope from her hand.

Vice Minister Yoon, startled and moving too late, tried to stop him, but there was no way to retrieve what had already been taken by Jeong-hyeok.

Eun-sol stood still, watching him close the distance between them. Her head spun.

Despite his slow and quiet movements, he looked as though he had clawed his way out of hell.

His gaunt jawline, hair soaked and disheveled from the rain, and tightly pressed lips.

Above all, his bloodshot eyes, as if thorny vines had been driven into them, glared in all directions…!

The moment their eyes met, her breath caught in her throat. His dark pupils reflected a blood-red glint.

It wasn’t the first time she had encountered his fierce gaze, but today, his demeanor was different.

It was indescribably savage… yet also unbearably sorrowful.

She had never seen such an expression before. Unconsciously, Eun-sol lowered her gaze. As she stared silently at the floor, she saw his shoes.

The soles of his shoes were worn out and caked with dirt. The mud was so thick that even the relentless rain couldn’t wash it away, leaving clear traces of dried soil that had clung to them for a long time.

One look at his appearance was enough to tell. He had not arrived here through any ordinary or conventional means.

“…Why…?”

Why did he come here in such a hurry?

The words that followed remained unspoken.

“…So there really was something you were desperately trying to hide.”

The reason for abandoning a national-level project tied to immense profits and the company’s prestige to rush over like this…  

That, in itself, was the perfect answer to the question she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Through her blurred vision, a memory of his voice from not long ago replayed in her mind.

“…Don’t you have anything you want to ask me?” 

That abrupt question he had thrown out. At the time, she thought it was just a meaningless remark brought on by a fever…  

But thinking back, he was never one to say meaningless things—not even once.

“Just as I thought… What on earth are you trying so desperately to hide?”

Still, she asked. Hoping to hear his voice denying it, saying there was nothing to hide.

“…….”  

“…….”

But he didn’t deny it. He didn’t tell her there was nothing. He didn’t say it was all a misunderstanding.

“…Ah.”

So it’s true. There really is something.

At the moment she realized it, a low groan escaped her lips.

Eun-sol staggered backward, as if silently struck by an invisible force.

“You were curious, weren’t you? Go ahead and look.”

He handed her the envelope containing the test results. It was unexpected that he would give it up so easily, but there was no reason not to take it.

Eun-sol stared at it as though it would steal her very breath, then pulled out the test results with trembling hands.

Of the two test results, the one she grabbed first was the analysis comparing her DNA with that of Chairman Kwon Gi-jo.

[Based on the analysis of the submitted DNA sample and Kim Eun-sol’s DNA sample, no parent-child relationship exists.]

“…What? What is this?!”

It was an outcome far from what she had expected. Frantically, Eun-sol checked the test results comparing Jeong-hyeok and Chairman Kwon Gi-jo.

[Based on the analysis of the submitted DNA sample and Kwon Jeong-hyeok’s DNA sample, a 99.999999% parent-child relationship exists.]

In other words, Jeong-hyeok was indeed the biological son of Chairman Kwon Gi-jo, while she had no connection to him whatsoever.

Both Chu Seo-jin’s and her assumptions had been completely off the mark.

“Th-then… why?!”

But she couldn’t feel relieved.

“Why did you shut down the ramen shop? And why did you come rushing here like this?”

A deeper sense of unease swallowed her heart like a massive wave.

He was definitely hiding something. However, the secret he was concealing wasn’t this one.

***

Lightning flashed outside the window.

In Chairman Kwon Gi-jo’s study, Writer Hong, who was ghostwriting his memoir, was seated.

Having braved the path of a typhoon to get there, Writer Hong appeared somewhat exhausted. He wanted to ask for a brief break, but the solemn expression on Chairman Kwon’s face prevented him from uttering even the word “rest.”

“Well then, let’s begin, Chairman.”

At that moment, one of Kwon Gi-jo’s close aides knocked on the door urgently and entered.

“Chairman. In the news coverage of the overseas visit, there’s no sign of CEO Kwon Jeong-hyeok. He was clearly visible in the photos from yesterday morning’s schedule.”

Suppressing a groan, Kwon Gi-jo picked up his phone and called a journalist he was acquainted with, one who had participated in the overseas trip.

– CEO Kwon Jeong-hyeok hasn’t been seen since yesterday. Rumor has it that he’s already left this place.

As he ended the call, the wrinkles on Kwon Gi-jo’s lips twitched.

“It seems that boy is on his way back to Korea. He might have already returned.”

The sharp glint in Kwon Gi-jo’s eyes, hidden beneath his wrinkles, flashed. As expected, his son was not someone to be underestimated.

“But this is why I hired you, Writer Hong.”

“Pardon? Me? W-what do you mean…? I don’t engage in anything illegal.”

Writer Hong quickly raised his head. While he had been pleased with the manuscript fee, which was several times higher than the market rate, he had also felt uneasy from the start.

“It’s nothing illegal. Today, I’m going to tell you everything about my story. You’ll need to deliver a copy of this recording to the person I mentioned.”

Writer Hong felt conflicted. Judging by the atmosphere, it didn’t seem like a simple task.

“You must deliver it properly. It’s a crucial recording that could drive my son to ruin.”

Rumble, crash—!

Just then, another bolt of lightning struck behind the window of Chairman Kwon Gi-jo’s study.