8. Thank Goodness
Dahee exchanged a brief glance with Kyungmin before entering Doheon’s office when she heard a voice from across the hall.
Doheon, who had already gone through the files Dahee had organized and sent him, turned his gaze toward her.
“How was it?”
“Just like you said, Director.”
Dahee had gone to KD Health for an off-site meeting that afternoon, and the moment she remembered what she had seen there, her expression hardened.
“There are probably structural problems, but the employees are all a little strange too. Even the look in their eyes didn’t seem normal.”
Even though her superior, Doheon, was right in front of her, she spoke casually and described exactly what she had felt without holding anything back.
The two of them had worked on the same team before Doheon went to America, and Dahee was one of the people he trusted enough to place on the TF team first.
“I’d heard from Secretary Kim beforehand that Yoonkyung was working there, but seeing it in person was something else.”
She had been happy thinking they might be able to have a meeting together. But how had she not even been informed about the meeting when they were on the same marketing team?
Dahee had been particularly bothered by the way the employees treated Yoonkyung.
“When are you going to make the presentation? Can’t you do it sooner?”
“They were refusing to go just a while ago.”
“Since you have to do it anyway, what’s the point of complaining? If you’ve decided to do it, you should do it properly. And after seeing those people today, I actually want to go there sooner.”
Watching them engage in office politics without even realizing the situation they were in made her want to show them the reality they were facing even more.
“That’s all.”
Dahee finished her brief report, going over the matters discussed during the meeting.
“Good work.”
“Director.”
“Yes?”
“I know it’s only natural to separate business from personal matters at work, but I’m saying this because I think this is a little different.”
Doheon looked at Dahee as if telling her to continue.
“Is it really right to put Yoonkyung on the TF team?”
The current situation at KD Health and the target that had to be achieved within six months were clear, and so was the direction Doheon had laid out for the business.
‘Kwonseong’s capital’ and ‘KD Health’s unique product strength.’ It would be a difficult period, but Dahee had the confidence and determination to believe they could pull it off.
‘Director, you know, right?’
The only thing that bothered her was Yoonkyung.
‘You know that the employee you saved three years ago was Yoonkyung.’
Remembering Yoonkyung’s trembling eyes and shocked expression, Dahee sighed. She even felt guilty, as though she had hurt Yoonkyung.
“I’m worried that we might be troubling someone who has forgotten those painful memories and is living well now. If I exaggerate a little, I wonder how this is any different from workplace harassment.”
“Yes, that’s an exaggeration.”
“You weren’t there back then, Director.”
The atmosphere at the company at the time, and how sharp everyone’s eyes had been whenever they looked at Yoonkyung.
Yoonkyung had also been a victim of the hit-and-run accident, but because Doheon had lain unconscious for fifteen days, public opinion had formed as though Doheon had been injured because of her.
Before long, Doheon had become the poor victim, while Yoonkyung had become the perpetrator who had caused his injuries.
Everyone casually put her name on their lips, passing around stories without even knowing whether they were true.
After Doheon regained consciousness but lost the memories of the previous two years, people sympathized with him while looking at Yoonkyung with discomfort.
Even when Yoonkyung submitted her resignation and left Kwonseong, rather than worrying about her, people labeled her as someone who had run away.
“I understand. You can go.”
“Can I ask you just one more thing?”
“You have a lot of questions today.”
“How did you find out that Yoonkyung was the employee you saved?”
“Looks like I recovered some of my lost memories.”
There it was.
Whenever Doheon didn’t want to answer, he often used that tactic. Dahee could do nothing but close her mouth.
“I’ll get going.”
As soon as Dahee left, Doheon immediately turned his attention back to the monitor, but unlike before, the words on the screen would not register.
A certain face kept appearing in his mind.
Habitually checking the time, Doheon opened a drawer and pulled out a paper clipped together.
It was Yoonkyung’s résumé.
‘Did something happen this morning? The atmosphere seemed strange today.’
‘Director Kwon’s secretary came by today. Apparently, he asked for the résumé of one of the former employees…’
‘That woman? Who?’
‘The female employee Director Kwon saved.’
Standing outside the conference room, Doheon had accidentally overheard the HR employees talking and learned another fact about Yoonkyung.
‘What? Did Director Kwon recover his memories?’
‘I’m wondering the same thing, so I’m…’
‘D-Director…’
It had been a major accident that had made headlines and even appeared on the news.
He had been unconscious for fifteen days, and perhaps because of that, he had lost the memories of the previous two years.
Therefore, Doheon already knew that the traffic accident three years ago had been caused by a hit-and-run driver, and that he had been injured while protecting a female employee who worked at Kwonseong.
“I just didn’t know that employee would be this woman.”
Doheon murmured as he looked at Yoonkyung’s photograph on her résumé.
That day, for the first time, Doheon searched for articles about the accident from three years ago.
He finally understood Kyungmin’s strange behavior when he had mentioned Yoonkyung while carefully watching Doheon’s reaction, as well as Yoonkyung’s excessive response.
Whatever the circumstances had been, the son of the owner of the company where she worked had been seriously injured. It must have been difficult for her to continue working there. Wherever people gathered, eyes followed, and rumors spread.
‘You said you were going to be Yoonkyung’s mother, not Kang Yoonkyung’s mother, remember? So stop bothering me and go take care of your daughter.’
And that evening, Doheon learned another secret Yoonkyung had been keeping.
‘You don’t have a hidden child, do you?’
Judging only by the way Seonghee and Jihyun treated Yoonkyung, it was easy to infer that their relationship was far from pleasant.
He had never cared about complicated family matters involving other people, but if that family happened to be his fiancée’s family, things were different.
Regardless of whether there was a biological daughter or not, hiding such a fact from Doheon and his family was an entirely different matter.
<Father: Kang Jongwon>
The family section of Yoonkyung’s résumé listed only one person—her father.
He couldn’t understand why she had joined KD Health after leaving Kwonseong, but when he considered the accident three years ago and the fact that it was the family her biological mother, Seonghee, had married into, it wasn’t completely incomprehensible.
Doheon didn’t even know why he had become so curious about this woman named Kang Yoonkyung in the first place, so he had intended to stop doing things that were unlike him.
If only a memory hadn’t surfaced in the taxi on his way home after leaving the hotel.
‘……Who?’
After regaining consciousness following fifteen days in a coma, a woman wearing the same patient gown as him had once come into his hospital room.
It had been a time when the people who constantly hovered around him had become unbearably uncomfortable, and for some reason, there had been a brief moment when the hospital room was empty.
There were two things Doheon remembered clearly.
The woman had a bandage wrapped around her ear.
And she had been crying as she looked at him.
He couldn’t remember her face clearly, but he remembered how drenched in tears it had been. Perhaps it was precisely because her face had been covered in tears that he couldn’t remember it more clearly.
Even when he asked who she was, the woman said nothing and only shed tears. There was so little sound from her that he even wondered if she had injured her throat rather than her ear.
If it hadn’t been for the tears streaming from her eyes, he might have thought time itself had stopped. Not even the slightest sniffle came from the woman.
She was the first person he had met besides his fiancée Jihyun and her family, and his own family.
Why was this woman crying so sadly?
‘Why…….’
‘……is it.’
Just as her closed lips parted, the previously closed door opened and Jihyun and Seonghee entered.
He couldn’t remember what they had said, but the two women had angrily driven the woman out of the hospital room.
‘Who is that woman?’
‘You don’t need to worry about her. She’s a stranger.’
‘A stranger came into a VIP room?’
‘That female employee is the reason you got hurt. So I’ll make sure she never sets foot in this hospital room again.’
Jihyun’s fierce expression from the past flashed through Doheon’s mind, while the faint image of the woman drenched in tears gradually became clearer.
‘She’s the one who caused this to happen to you.’
The outline of her face gradually became more distinct, and when those lines finally formed a person, Doheon finally remembered the face of the woman who had come to his hospital room.
“Kang Yoonkyung.”
As he looked at the youthful face smiling from the résumé, Doheon murmured Yoonkyung’s name.
As though reacting to that name, a sharp pain tormented him.
With a piercing headache, Doheon covered his head with his hand before opening his eyes again.
‘……Thank goodness.’
Why was the woman he had saved working at KD Health, and why had she started working there immediately after the accident?
Why had Jihyun, including Yoonkyung’s mother Seonghee, treated Yoonkyung as a stranger in the hospital room?
‘Really…….’
Why had she cried like that while looking at him?
‘……Thank goodness.’
Remembering Yoonkyung’s sorrowful voice as it fell to the hospital floor along with her tears, Doheon finally made up his mind.
One thing was certain: that morning had been a more pleasant commute to work than usual for Yoonkyung.
The bus she had been waiting for arrived immediately, she found a seat right away, and pink cherry blossoms were visible through the window.
She had worked overtime all week, but today was Friday, and she had even received the good news that Hyeonseo’s surgery date had been set.
So when she arrived at the office, when she sat down at her desk and turned on her laptop, and even right up until the moment she checked her inbox, Yoonkyung had no doubt that the morning had started pleasantly.
At least, until she opened the email from Kwonseong.
“What’s…… this?”
Until she read the contents of the email informing her that she had been selected as a member of Kwonseong’s new project TF team, there was no doubt that it had been a pleasant morning.
“What on earth is this……?”
