7. Do You Know?
Yoonkyung pressed the send button on the email, stretched her arms high above her head, and leaned her heavy upper body against the back of her chair. She did not even have the strength to push her slipping glasses back up.
She had already expected Jihyun’s harassment when they met at the hotel entrance, but the moment she arrived at work, there had been nothing but irritation and petty fault-finding. Thirty years old and still acting so childish.
Yoonkyung drank her now-cold beverage and opened the wrapper of her sandwich. Even the glasses that had slipped down to the tip of her nose felt heavy, so she took them off and placed them on the table.
She stuffed a large bite of bread into her mouth and chewed slowly.
‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’
‘At Kwonseong, perhaps.’
As she recalled the conversation she had shared with Doheon the previous night, a deep sigh escaped Yoonkyung’s lips.
‘If I’d known you would react like this, I wouldn’t have needed to check with the HR department.’
‘Secretary Kim told me. He said Kang Yoonkyung used to work at Kwonseong.’
The Kyungmin Yoonkyung knew was not the sort of person who went around telling other people’s stories. And there was even less chance that he would have told Doheon about the accident in front of Doheon himself.
Unless he had not been talking about the incident at all.
After briefly piecing together the circumstances, Yoonkyung remembered Doheon calling her a “connection hire.”
“I guess the rumor that he checked everyone’s resumes was true.”
She had heard employees talking about it in passing, so she had not paid much attention. But if Doheon had actually checked every employee’s resume, then she could somewhat understand why he had called her a connection hire.
‘Why did you quit?’
There had been unmistakable certainty on Doheon’s face when he asked that question. Why had he looked like that while asking why she had resigned?
“…I don’t know.”
She could not tell what he was thinking or why he was speaking to her.
The two years of memories Doheon had lost immediately before the accident, and Kang Yoonkyung. Those were the only things Doheon had lost.
Even if she counted the three years he had spent in America, creating a five-year gap between them, the Doheon standing before her now was completely different from the man Yoonkyung had known.
‘And what I understand least is…’
What had he been about to say before Jihyun appeared?
Yoonkyung put the remaining piece of sandwich into her mouth, making both cheeks bulge. Unlike her comical expression, her complexion had grown even darker.
‘I heard your mother is staying here tonight.’
There was no way his memories had returned.
Could he have seen her with Seonghee somewhere?
Or perhaps…
“Haa…”
Yoonkyung placed her elbows on the desk and let out a groan.
It had only been two days. Before she had even had time to process her reunion with Doheon, one incomprehensible thing after another had happened.
As she fiddled with the sandwich wrapper, Yoonkyung checked a message from Assistant Manager Choi of the same marketing team.
It began by saying that the food had taken longer than expected and she was only now getting to eat, so she would be late returning. She then explained that the meeting scheduled for two o’clock today had been moved up.
It was an unusually considerate message coming from Assistant Manager Choi, who openly excluded Yoonkyung from the team.
Of course, what she really wanted to say came afterward.
“So, in the end, they’re telling me to guide the guests for them because they have to eat.”
They had arrived thirty minutes earlier than the original meeting time, which was their own fault, so they were basically informing Yoonkyung that she could at least handle the greeting.
Yoonkyung rubbed her dry face.
“What an easy life.”
Whenever she saw employees who firmly believed that being acquired by Kwonseong meant the company would take responsibility for everything and look after them, Yoonkyung felt as though she were the abnormal one.
The last message from Assistant Manager Choi said that she had given Yoonkyung’s phone number to the other party without permission.
Yoonkyung checked the time and stood up.
“I heard she was a woman.”
Yoonkyung left the office and slowly watched the numbers rise on the elevator display.
A moment later, the elevator doors opened with a chime.
“…Huh?”
Yoonkyung’s eyes met those of a woman holding a phone to her ear. At the same time, the phone in Yoonkyung’s hand vibrated, and an unfamiliar eleven-digit number appeared on the screen.
“Yoonkyung?”
Before Yoonkyung could say the woman’s name after recognizing her, the woman spoke first.
“Wow, it’s really been a long time. Do you remember me?”
“You’re Dahee, right?”
“That’s right!”
The moment Yoonkyung said her name, Dahee broke into a bright smile.
“I heard from Secretary Kim, but I never thought we’d meet this quickly. Oh, is this Yoonkyung’s number?”
She had wondered whether they would even tell her the name of the person in charge.
Dahee shoved her phone casually into her bag and suddenly grabbed Yoonkyung’s hand. She looked genuinely delighted to see her.
“I can’t believe we ran into each other like this. The world really is small, isn’t it?”
“Apparently. Have you been well?”
“Me? Same as always. As you can see, I’m still hanging on at Kwonseong without getting fired.”
At Dahee’s cheerful remark, Yoonkyung smiled and guided her toward the conference room.
“What about you, Yoonkyung? Have you been well?”
“Me too. More or less.”
Yoonkyung opened the conference room door, but the lingering smell of food from whatever had been eaten inside greeted them.
“Looks like they had quite a feast.”
At Dahee’s comment, Yoonkyung smiled awkwardly and quickly opened the window.
Apparently, the large notice prohibiting food and drinks posted right beside the conference room door was visible only to Yoonkyung.
“I’m sorry. We should leave the door open until the room airs out.”
“Why are you sorry, Yoonkyung?”
Telling her not to worry, Dahee placed her laptop bag on the table.
“Have you eaten?”
“Yes. I grabbed something quickly at the office and came straight here.”
“Then how about some coffee…”
At the sound of laughter from across the table, Yoonkyung checked the time and looked at Dahee.
“You haven’t changed at all, Yoonkyung.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I really wanted to become close friends with you. Didn’t you know?”
The two of them had both started as interns before becoming full-time employees. In other words, they had joined the company together.
“We’re the same age, joined at the same time, and I thought our personalities would get along well.”
“I barely went to any of the gatherings with our fellow employees.”
“You didn’t skip them. You couldn’t go. That witch from Marketing Team 2 who used to hound you relentlessly was so famous among our group.”
Yoonkyung smiled awkwardly at Dahee’s words.
“Even so, watching you stubbornly endure everything made me think you were really amazing, even though we were the same age. You didn’t look like it, but I thought you were actually a very strong person.”
“I cried a lot when no one was around, too.”
“I know. I actually saw you crying in a corner of the rooftop several times.”
Dahee smiled at Yoonkyung across the table before lowering her gaze to the employee ID hanging around Yoonkyung’s neck.
“I don’t know how you feel, but I’m really happy that we could meet again, even like this.”
“Me too.”
“Actually, three years ago… I debated several times whether I should contact you.”
Dahee carefully brought up what had happened back then, watching Yoonkyung’s expression.
“We had never contacted each other before, so I thought suddenly reaching out would put too much pressure on you. In the end, I couldn’t do it. But I regretted it so much. I kept thinking I should have done it back then.”
“Just knowing you wanted to is enough. Thank you.”
“It’s very late, but are you okay physically? The aftereffects of a car accident can last for years.”
Yoonkyung answered with a smile, indicating there was nothing to worry about. There was no need to tell her that the accident had left her with less than half of her hearing in her left ear.
“You worked so hard at that company. Weren’t you sad to leave? I know you couldn’t help it, but I was so angry and disappointed on your behalf. It wasn’t your fault, so why did the person who had done nothing wrong have to leave?”
“No one told me to leave. I just couldn’t endure it anymore.”
“How could you endure it? The person who risked himself to save you wasn’t even your teammate. He was the owner’s son.”
Not only had he saved her, but he had been seriously injured because of it and even lost his memories.
At Dahee’s words, Yoonkyung fidgeted with the phone in her hand.
Three years ago, the world had been in an uproar over the headline:
‘Conglomerate Owner’s Son Hit by Hit-and-Run Vehicle While Saving Female Employee.’
Yoonkyung had been forced to leave Kwonseong with her own two feet.
Even if she had been nothing more than ‘the employee who owed her life to the owner’s son,’ she probably would not have been able to endure the gossip and stares of others.
But to Yoonkyung, before he was the owner’s son, he was the man who had confessed that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
He had been the person she loved, her only man, and the one and only person in the entire world to her.
Could she ever have imagined that the price of owing that person her life would be losing that very person?
Still, Yoonkyung had decided to accept whatever came with it.
She had been unable to approach Doheon as he lay unconscious. She had not even been allowed to see his face by the people guarding his hospital room.
So she had remained confined to the hospital room, praying desperately.
Please. Please, just let Doheon wake up.
Take my hearing, or anything else. Take everything I have. Just please save him.
She had begged and begged.
Even when the price turned out to be Doheon himself—the person who had once been her entire world—Yoonkyung accepted it.
Even when she was left utterly alone, even when another woman stood beside him, she had let him go while watching the past they had built together and the future they had promised each other drift farther and farther away.
“I heard you met Director Kwon at the company… You’ll probably keep seeing him from now on. Will you be okay?”
Yoonkyung answered with a smile instead.
Even if they crossed paths at the company, how many times would someone like her, an ordinary employee, actually have to meet the person in charge?
“Director Kwon doesn’t remember me anyway, so I’ll just…”
“I don’t think so.”
Dahee gave her a strange look.
“He knows, Yoonkyung.”
Yoonkyung looked at Dahee.
“He knows that the employee he saved three years ago was you.”
