What the man held out was a hotel key card bearing the hotel’s logo.
“Was this lying on the floor?”
“I thought it was mine, but I’m on the tenth floor.”
His ridiculous answer made her let out a small laugh as she looked up.
Just as the man had said, the sixth-floor button was lit. That meant this key card was hers.
The man’s hand was large and thick-jointed, completely different from hers. She calmly snatched the key card dangling from his long, straight fingertips.
At that moment, the elevator reached the sixth floor and the doors opened.
A brightly lit corridor stretched out beyond them.
Instead of getting off the elevator, the man pressed the button for the lobby again.
Something was definitely strange.
“By any chance, are you the person who fired me?”
As she gripped the handle of her suitcase and asked, the man who had been pressing the button tilted his head slightly.
“What would make me fire you?”
“I thought you were the director of this hotel.”
“Oh?”
The man’s cold, humorless laugh struck her ears.
For an instant, Namu realized that voice wasn’t unfamiliar.
An inexplicable tension made the back of her neck stiffen.
The man tapped his temple lightly before continuing.
“You seem to have pretty good instincts… but I don’t understand what you’re doing right now. Think about it carefully. Why would I go out of my way to fire you?”
So you’re admitting you were the one who fired me.
When she concentrated and tried to bring him into focus, their eyes seemed to meet for an instant.
Or perhaps she had only been looking in the general direction of his eyes. His smooth, well-shaped eyebrows rose as though he were angry.
Then his dark eyes briefly entered her field of vision before disappearing again.
Prosopagnosia.
She had begun suffering from the condition, also known as face blindness, five years ago—the day before the preliminary round of a competition held in Warsaw.
There had been no major accident, nor had she ever suffered from poor eyesight.
It had been the beginning of terrible days.
She had thought getting enough sleep would make it better. She had also believed that taking the medication prescribed by a neuropsychiatrist would help.
But hope was eventually swallowed by despair.
After surviving the preliminary and main rounds as a solo performer, she collapsed unconscious during the final round, surrounded by an orchestra.
It was her first failure—the moment she experienced the lowest point of her life.
Ever since that day, she had been unable to distinguish people’s faces.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t see their features at all. She could clearly see their eyes, noses, and mouths.
The problem was that her brain couldn’t organize those features and store them as memories.
For Namu, playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at first sight was far easier than distinguishing one person’s face from another.
“I don’t think there’s any need to go that far. I was more curious about who fired me than why. Anyway, thank you for picking up my sheet music.”
She lightly tapped the sheet music, which still bore the distinct imprint of his shoe, and stepped out of the elevator with an expressionless face.
As she passed him, she caught the scent he was wearing and frowned.
The smoky fragrance he’d sprayed was mixed with a dried-fruit scent that happened to be exactly to her taste.
Not being able to see the other person’s expression could occasionally be convenient.
It was a peculiar illness that made it easier to build a wall between herself and the world whenever she didn’t want to bother with someone.
It was the same now.
She could imagine what kind of expression the man might be looking at her with, but she wasn’t curious.
Even if she wanted to know, she wouldn’t be able to see it anyway.
She inserted the key card into the slot for Room 610, just as the manager had instructed her. With a short electronic beep, the door opened.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows stretched the blue sea to the south.
For a moment, her suffocating mood lifted.
Namu smiled brightly and dropped onto the sofa in front of the window.
As if it had been waiting for her, her phone rang.
“Yeah, Jun-yeop. I arrived safely.”
The moment she answered, her boyfriend’s gentle voice came through the receiver.
[I already miss you. How am I supposed to survive seven days?]
Namu chuckled and stretched.
“You don’t have to. I got fired right away. If I check out tomorrow morning, I’ll be in Gimpo around lunchtime.”
[Fired? Why?]
“I’m not sure. I guess they didn’t like my performance.”
[So you’re coming back? Tomorrow morning?]
“Yeah. You don’t have to come pick me up. I’ll just take a taxi.”
[No, that’s not what I meant…]
His unusually flustered voice made her feel puzzled instead.
Perhaps he’d moved somewhere else, because when Jun-yeop cleared his throat, the resonance of his voice changed.
[Actually, I suddenly got assigned a business trip to Japan. I was relieved because you were going to be in Jeju, but now it looks like we’ll miss each other.]
“…Really? When?”
[Tomorrow, right away. I’m leaving in the morning too. And unfortunately, I have to go to Narita, so I’ll be departing from Incheon Airport.]
“Ah… Well, it can’t be helped. That’s disappointing. I was hoping we’d go on a date since it’s been so long.”
Jun-yeop sighed as though he was even more disappointed than she was.
But given the nature of Jun-yeop’s work, frequent overseas business trips were inevitable.
They were gradually getting less and less time to see each other, but Namu didn’t resent it.
The ordinary kind of relationship everyone talked about.
Lee Jun-yeop was the first man who had taught her what ordinary life felt like.
Immediately after her father’s company went bankrupt, she secretly entered Korea.
She had simply taken a limousine to Samcheong-dong, where her family home had once been, only to realize that far too many things had changed in South Korea.
It was also the day she painfully realized that, until then, she had never once truly lived independently under the protection and influence of her parents.
When she left the safe greenhouse she had lived in and became lost in the confusion of the outside world, she met Lee Jun-yeop for the first time.
He was a kind man who took her, nearly penniless, to eat udon and then escorted her to where her mother was.
After they continued keeping in touch, Jun-yeop confessed his feelings to her.
‘Ms. Sonamu, would you date me? I like you.’
‘…There is someone I like.’
‘Do I have a chance?’
‘What…?’
‘A chance of things working out with that man.’
‘…No.’
‘Then date me. Let’s have an ordinary relationship.’
Jun-yeop had introduced himself as a newly appointed prosecutor. He was confident and even gentle.
It had already been two years since she took the hand of the man who had offered her an ordinary relationship.
Now, their life together had become more than ordinary—it had gradually become her everyday life.
[Namu, I have to go into a meeting now, okay? I’ll contact you later. Be careful coming up to Seoul tomorrow. And don’t feel hurt if you can’t reach me. I’ll be the one to contact you.]
“Okay.”
Just as she obediently answered and was about to hang up, Jun-yeop hesitated for a moment before calling her name.
“Namu?”
[It’s just… I’m sorry.]
“Why are you apologizing?”
[I don’t know.]
He gave a light laugh and ended the call.
Suddenly feeling sentimental, she called her friend Joo-young.
Joo-young, an MD at a luxury cosmetics company, answered but immediately said she was in a meeting and hung up.
For some reason, everyone seemed to be living such busy lives.
Her mood sank as she felt like she had become the busiest person’s opposite—the only person in the world with nothing to do.
She tapped the dark phone screen before slowly collapsing onto the sofa.
Lying on her side, she looked up at the sky, which remained perfectly clear.
Then, suddenly, she thought of the man she’d encountered in the elevator earlier.
Fidgeting with her phone, Namu reluctantly searched the portal site for ‘Seoryang Hotel.’
‘It’s incredibly luxurious.’
The screen was filled with various promotional banners.
She scrolled past the meaningless information and stopped at the address, the business registration number, and finally the three characters written beside the CEO’s name.
Her tightly closed lips slowly parted.
CEO Kwon Seung-jo.
She took a deep breath, but it was difficult to breathe normally.
As blood seemed to rush through the back of her stiff head, her vision suddenly went hazy.
Namu abruptly stood up and rubbed her eyes hard.
But she hadn’t misread it.
It really was Kwon Seung-jo.
Namu tried to remember Kwon Seung-jo’s face as she had last seen him.
I wish it weren’t him.
But there was only one man in the world with that low, sophisticated voice tinged with a hint of irritation, and that arrogant attitude that never seemed capable of being flustered.
The one man she would rather not encounter again for the rest of her life.
‘Think about it carefully. Why would I “go out of my way” to fire you?’
Only now did she understand why he’d emphasized the words ‘go out of my way.’
Namu paced around the room before her strength seemed to drain away. She covered her face with both hands and crouched down on the floor.
Both her ears burned red, and she felt as though she might cry.
“Ha… How annoying…”
One side of the exit at Jeju Airport had been cordoned off.
After exchanging a nod with the security guards waiting in advance, Seung-jo approached an elderly man who was being escorted out with the assistance of airport staff.
Perhaps he had become tense without realizing it, because his hand instinctively tightened as he straightened his collar.
The elderly man was wearing ordinary hiking clothes and a fishing hat pulled low over his head.
When he spotted Seung-jo, he waved the hand holding his cane.
His face was covered in countless fine wrinkles, but there was a strength in his eyes that didn’t seem like that of a man in his eighties.
“It shouldn’t be this difficult to see my grandson’s face.”
It was Chairman Kwon Ju-cheol, chairman of the Seoryang Group and owner of Seogeumjae.
Seung-jo respectfully bowed his upper body.
But soon, he naturally supported the chairman’s arm with his usual easy smile.
“I told you I’d come up to see you. Why did you come all the way here yourself? When I got Team Leader Jang’s call, I was so surprised I nearly got sick.”
“Hahaha. I told you to come immediately, but then I remembered you were on vacation. I thought I’d come myself before you started resenting me again. And I wanted to look around the island after such a long time.”
The chairman smiled and patted the back of Seung-jo’s hand as he held his arm.
Under the watchful eyes of the security guards, Seung-jo escorted the chairman to the car he had arrived in.
He had already prepared the chairman’s favorite rice drink in the back seat.
“As expected, you’re the one with the best sense of all my grandchildren. The others don’t have an ounce of charm.”
“Why? You like Kwon Yi-hyun the most.”
Seung-jo thought of his cousin, who resembled him quite a bit—the eldest son of his youngest paternal uncle.
Of course, their affiliated companies were different, but Seung-jo knew exactly how much Chairman Kwon doted on Kwon Yi-hyun because he had seen it himself.
“That’s because that boy has been through so much. I love all my grandchildren. Don’t you know that?”
“I know. You’ve loved and raised all of us well, so of course I know.”
Kwon Seung-jo answered with his characteristic dazzling smile.
His jawline was sharp enough to seem cold, and his nose was straight and defined, while his smooth eyes and lips gave his overall appearance a striking elegance.
Seung-jo exchanged a nod with Manager Yoon, the chairman’s secretary, who had taken the passenger seat, and started the car.
Perhaps he liked the exotic scenery outside the window, because a satisfied smile spread across Chairman Kwon’s wrinkled face.
“Jeju Island really is wonderful.”
“The weather is warm, too.”
“I hear you’re doing an excellent job.”
“I’m doing my best.”
“Good, good. Let’s see you protect it well with your own strength. Just like Kwon Yi-hyun, who pushed down his own father and took over SR, make it so International can’t function without you.”
Instead of answering, Seung-jo opened the cap of the rice drink and placed it in the chairman’s hand.
He had made sure it was lukewarm—the temperature the chairman preferred because his teeth were weak.
Looking pleased, Chairman Kwon accepted the drink and stared directly into Seung-jo’s eyes.
“You’re especially handsome today.”
“That’s the power of proper maintenance.”
“When everything is in full bloom, it’s about time you settled down, isn’t it?”
The wrinkles around the old man’s eyes slowly curved downward, revealing an expression whose true meaning was impossible to read.
“Yes. I should.”
Perhaps he liked the immediate answer, because the chairman nodded deeply.
“An answer that’s too quick doesn’t necessarily inspire trust in the other person. Have you still not forgotten that girl?”
For an instant, the corners of Seung-jo’s smiling lips stiffened.
Aware that the chairman couldn’t possibly have missed it, Seung-jo smoothly continued.
“I’m not that much of a hopeless romantic, Chairman. I won’t enter into a marriage unless there’s something to gain, so don’t worry.”
