4. So That’s Why She Looked Familiar

“Had I known it was going to be this cold outside, I would have gone down with you. I’m sorry for making you wait.”

“Secretary Kim.”

“Yes, Executive Director.”

Kyungmin glanced at Doheon through the rearview mirror.

He had only called Kyungmin’s name and said nothing else. It was something Doheon did whenever he was lost in thought.

Without rushing him, Kyungmin waited. His gaze in the rearview mirror shifted from Doheon to Yoonkyung.

“Looks like she’s finally leaving work.”

Yoonkyung quickly grew smaller in the distance, yet she was still standing in the same spot.

“……She used to work overtime like it was nothing even when she was at Kwonseong.”

“Kwonseong?”

Oops.

The moment he met Doheon’s eyes, Kyungmin hurriedly turned his gaze back to the road. Feeling Doheon’s gaze from behind, Kyungmin hesitated.

“Ah, well…….”

He realized too late that he had misspoken, but Doheon had already heard him.

“……I heard she worked there as an intern.”

“That woman?”

“Yes.”

“As far as I know, Kwonseong doesn’t make interns or contract workers work overtime.”

“…….”

“Maybe things changed while I was in the States.”

Doheon silently looked at Kyungmin.

“She was an intern as well.”

“She was a full-time employee.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

So that was why she seemed to have a style similar to Kwonseong’s.

“I only heard about it. We were both so busy that we never even had a proper meal together. We’d occasionally run into each other, but even that happened only a few times because I was sent overseas.”

Kwonseong.

Ignoring Kyungmin’s excuse, Doheon crossed his arms.

“Was there something uncomfortable about it?”

A woman who had worked at a conglomerate like Kwonseong was now working at a small company like this? And not even as a manager, but as an ordinary employee?

“This hurts my pride.”

“Pardon?”

Once again, Doheon gave no answer.

“Yoonkyung is incredibly diligent and genuinely kind. I had no idea she was working here, so I was really happy to see her.”

“Secretary Kim.”

“Yes, Executive Director.”

“Do you know what year Kang Yoonkyung left Kwonseong?”

Kyungmin was about to answer but tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He had almost let it slip.

“Why do you ask……?”

“There are only two people who have an employment date listed but no résumé. Kwak Jihyun and Kang Yoonkyung.”

“One is the CEO’s younger sister, so I can understand that. But it’s strange that Yoonkyung’s résumé is missing.”

“Go to the HR department first thing tomorrow and get Kang Yoonkyung’s résumé.”

The fact that Yoonkyung had worked at Kwonseong was unexpected, but it was actually convenient if he wanted to obtain information.

“Have you finalized the TF team members?”

“Almost.”

Had he seen her face around the company before? Was that why his eyes had been drawn to her despite her being a complete stranger?

Could that woman also be one of the people hidden within the memories he had lost, one of the people he had erased?

Doheon remembered how deeply Yoonkyung had been shaken by his appearance.

Those large eyes that had looked up at him helplessly, trembling despite not knowing what to do, remained strangely vivid in his mind.

……No.

With a stiff expression, Doheon fidgeted with the hand resting on his thigh.

When the wind had blown her hair aside and revealed her face, when he saw the tears running down her cheeks, he had momentarily wanted to reach out.

He wasn’t kind or selfless enough to wipe away the tears of a strange woman he had just met.

His fingertips had twitched at the inexplicable impulse.

Moreover, he had even said something pointless to the unfamiliar woman in front of him. He had been bothered by the way her gaze had been withdrawn again after being so visibly shaken.

Even he found it hard to believe that he had acted childishly just because he wanted her attention.

……Ah, thank you.

What was so funny about her thanking him?

He had almost laughed despite the situation. The way his body reacted before his reason was increasingly confusing him.

“Executive Director?”

The tears in Yoonkyung’s eyes had caught the light spilling from the lobby. The moisture remaining in her clear eyes seemed to take on color, tinting them with a faint orange glow.

Perhaps because he had just heard about the tree that never bore fruit, it looked as though an apricot had been embedded in her eyes.

Was that why he couldn’t look away?

Was that why even now, his mind was filled with thoughts of that woman?

“Are you all right? Is something……”

“I’m fine.”

When the sharp pain he felt around his chest rose toward his head, Doheon frowned and rubbed his temple.

He dismissed it as the result of having paid far too much attention to another person, something unlike him.

“Ah.”

So that was why she seemed familiar.

“She looked like it.”

“What?”

The rabbit he had raised at school when he was in middle school.

She resembled that rabbit.

The way she repeatedly bowed her head while saying thank you, and those pitch-black eyes, reminded him of the white rabbit in his memories.

“Executive Director, then what about the meeting scheduled for tomorrow……?”

Doheon shook his head.

Kyungmin had been bothered by Doheon’s phone ringing repeatedly for a while, but after realizing that Doheon was deliberately ignoring it, he pretended not to notice and focused on driving.

Doheon switched his phone to silent and leaned his head back.

He turned the phone face down so the screen couldn’t be seen and organized the priorities of everything he had to do in his head.

After all, once tomorrow came, he would have to keep listening to that annoying nasal voice.

So, at least tonight, he wanted to spend a quiet night.

Yoonkyung got out of the taxi and entered the W Hotel.

Someone who changed the location thirty minutes before the appointment?

As she rated the difficulty level of the man she was supposed to meet today, she went up to the lounge where the restaurant was located.

“……Changing both the place and the time however you want, and you’re still late.”

Should she at least be grateful that he had contacted her to say he would be late?

Yoonkyung sighed as she walked toward the seat she had been shown.

It was a corner seat almost completely blocked by a wall, with barely any view of the night scenery. But she actually preferred it that way.

Considering she had managed to get a seat at such a popular place without a reservation, she should be grateful enough.

Yoonkyung suddenly felt like washing her hands. She checked the time and got up.

After washing her hands in the restroom, she raised her head.

Her expressionless face stared back at her.

She tried forcing the corners of her lips upward, but quickly lowered them again at how unnatural she looked.

“Being expressionless is better.”

After drying her hands with a paper towel, Yoonkyung left the restroom.

The hotel restaurant was nice in every way, except for how far away the restroom was.

“Even having too much space is a problem……”

As Yoonkyung walked toward the restaurant lounge she could see in the distance, her body suddenly staggered.

Without warning, an unfamiliar force wrapped around her left arm and roughly pulled her closer.

Startled, Yoonkyung looked at the person.

Her surprise lasted only a moment before she twisted her face in displeasure and pulled her arm free.

“What are you doing?”

“Why are you here?”

Yoonkyung didn’t answer the woman’s question. Instead, she rubbed the arm that had been grabbed.

“I asked why you’re here! Do you know how shocked I was when I spotted you from a distance?”

“My date changed the location.”

“Even so, how could you come here?!”

“They changed it. What was I supposed to do?”

Despite Yoonkyung’s response, Sunghee kept looking around anxiously, tapping her feet.

She looked extremely nervous, as though afraid they might have seen Yoonkyung.

“Did you forget you had plans today? I told you I was having dinner with Doheon’s family.”

Judging from her reaction, Yoonkyung had guessed that this was related to him.

At Sunghee’s words, Yoonkyung gave her a mocking smile.

She had never even heard about such plans in the first place, and they certainly weren’t the kind of people who shared their schedules with each other.

“Of all places, why did you have to choose here……”

“Then call that man yourself and tell him to change the location again.”

Yoonkyung was just as displeased about running into Sunghee.

“Goodness, my heart. I’m really not going to live out my natural lifespan at this rate! Go somewhere else, even now.”

“Please say something that makes sense.”

“You can just say you don’t like this place and go somewhere else!”

“If you’re okay with canceling the meeting, then do that.”

“We can’t! Do you know how hard it was for me to arrange this?”

When Yoonkyung tried to walk past Sunghee, she hurriedly blocked her path.

“I heard Doheon came to your company yesterday.”

“You really tell her everything that happens at work. You two must be very close as mother and daughter.”

“You didn’t…… meet him, did you?”

Yoonkyung silently stared at Sunghee—the woman who was supposedly her mother—who was terrified that something she feared might have happened.

“Why aren’t you answering? Don’t tell me you……”

“What are you so afraid of? Why? Are you scared that he might have run into me?”

Yoonkyung sneered, and Sunghee grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the corner.

“Let go and talk.”

Yoonkyung roughly shook Sunghee’s arm off.

“Are you really doing this because you want to see your mother go crazy?!”

“What is there to go crazy about? Are you afraid that if he sees me, he might remember what he lost?”

“You……!”

“That’s what you’re all afraid of, isn’t it?”

The return of Kwon Doheon’s memories.

Looking directly at Sunghee, Yoonkyung spoke each word slowly.

“If you want to keep it hidden, then make sure you hide it properly on your end.”

“Yoonkyung, listen to your mother.”

“I don’t have a mother. She died three years ago.”

“You dare say that to your mother……!”

“You decided to be Kwak Jihyun’s mother instead of Kang Yoonkyung’s mother. So don’t bother me. Go take care of your own daughter.”

Yoonkyung warned Sunghee, who once again blocked her path.

“You’re the one who has something to lose, not me. So I have nothing to be afraid of, and nothing to hide. There’s no reason for me to hide anything.”

Sunghee stood there unable to respond.

Yoonkyung struck her shoulder hard as she passed by.

“Don’t mistake my restraint for something I’m doing because of you people.”

Then and now, the only reason behind everything I do is for him.