The Key to Everything

"Teacher. This is Sung Ji-hoon."

The call had caught Chang-shin the moment he stepped out of his car, and inwardly it flustered him. Ji-hoon said there was something he wished to tell him in person.

"Would tomorrow work for you? I'll come to the school where you teach."

"Could you tell me first what this is about? If it's about our Bo-ra..."

"That's part of it."

He had already heard from his wife Ju-yeon about what had happened at the school that afternoon. Or rather, he'd heard that every wicked deed Bo-ra had committed until now had been dragged into the light by Ji-hoon's hand — and that, emboldened by it, I-eum had no intention of forgiving her sister. When Ju-yeon announced that she and Bo-ra would be staying at her parents' place for the time being, Chang-shin had told her to do as she pleased, then driven straight home. He meant to soothe I-eum and talk her around. To tell her to forgive her sister — that Bo-ra acted out of childishness and jealousy, and couldn't I understand, just this once. But no sooner had he steeled himself to it than Ji-hoon's call came through.

Stepping into the elevator up to his apartment, Chang-shin pressed the button and spoke. "Why don't we meet right now instead? My wife's away at her family's anyway, so the timing's fine."

"It's rather late, sir. Are you certain that's all right?"

"Of course. I'm on my way home this very minute — I can head right back out."

Just then, with a soft chime, the elevator stopped and its doors parted. Punching in the code at his front door, Chang-shin continued. "I've heard a few things today myself, you see. I'd been meaning to sit down with you and talk face to face regardless. If you're willing..."

But the moment he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, Chang-shin stopped mid-sentence.

I-eum was standing right in front of him.

"Welcome home, Father."

This from a daughter who had never once come out to greet him — and she had even smiled, faintly, as she said it.

"Ah... er..."

While Chang-shin answered in a daze, she walked straight into her room. To his ears, still staring blankly after her retreating back, came Ji-hoon's voice.

"Then shall I come by shortly? As it happens, I'm just near your home at this moment."

Inside her room, I-eum pressed a hand to her pounding heart. Then she switched on her phone and opened the gallery.

A single photograph, snapped in haste only moments ago. It showed the phone number of Chairman Sung Hyun-do's secretary at Hyeseong Group — found in Chang-shin's contact file.

Chang-shin's voice drifted faintly through her door. He'd had his phone pressed to his ear when he came in; he was apparently still on a call with someone. "Shall I come to the coffee shop out front, then?" As his voice receded into the distance, I-eum quietly saved the secretary's number to her own phone.

Now I have what I need.

I-eum knew it as well as anyone: there were precious few people in this world who could beat her grandfather, Yeon Ho-nam. Perhaps not even Ji-hoon. But there was exactly one person worth staking her hopes on — Chairman Sung Hyun-do, the head of Hyeseong Group.

The moment the thought struck her, she had gone digging into the man. Every article and column that surfaced under his name, down to the most trivial post — she read them all without missing a single one. And there, I-eum found the key to everything.

Her heart trembled. It was less a flutter of excitement than an ache — because now she thought she understood why, the day she met Assemblyman Park, Ji-hoon had come to her aid as though it were his own fight.

Even so, I-eum resolved to put it to use. She had steeled herself and was only now getting ready to wash up when a knock sounded at her door.

"I-eum."

It was Chang-shin.

"We have a guest coming, so I'm stepping out for a bit."

"All right."

"Your stepmother and Bo-ra will be staying at their grandmother's for a while, so make yourself comfortable."

When I-eum gave no answer, Chang-shin spoke again, looking awkward. "I've just come from seeing your grandfather."

"Is this about what Bo-ra pulled on me?"

Perhaps the word pulled grated on him, because a faint crease formed between Chang-shin's brows. There was no chance today's events hadn't reached the old man's ears. Even if it hadn't made the news, plenty of eyewitness accounts would have gone up on social media — and someone to report to him was always at her grandfather's side.

"You'll be graduating before long. The time has come to discuss your marriage in concrete terms."

"..."

"We'll talk details later. It seems you'll be meeting your grandfather soon enough yourself. Rest now, then."

Leaving her with nothing but that instruction to rest, Chang-shin shut the door and was gone before she could open her mouth again.

The word marriage wrung a suffocating sigh out of I-eum — yet this time, she didn't feel as hopelessly adrift as before. A single number, saved in her phone. With just that much, she felt she could find some way to fight.

"Thank you for coming out to meet me."

Ji-hoon bowed with impeccable courtesy to Chang-shin, who had arrived at the café ahead of him. Chang-shin favored him with a warm, avuncular smile.

"Good to see you. It's late, so I took the liberty of ordering tea — that suit you?"

"Perfectly."

Ji-hoon took a sip of the tea Chang-shin had ordered, set down his cup, and came straight to the point. "It's about your daughter, Miss Yeon I-eum."

Bo-ra was not the reason he had contacted Chang-shin. He wanted to know the exact situation — whether I-eum was truly slated to marry Assemblyman Park when she turned twenty, whether the wedding date had already been set. And if Chang-shin were to ask why he was going to such lengths to protect the girl, he hadn't yet found a justification he could answer with in a single line. He would simply call it the good conscience of an educator — one with no wish to see a girl full of dreams reduced to the bride of some old relic of a man.

"I-eum? Why?"

Chang-shin, by contrast, looked rather uneasy. "As it happens, I was just about to try talking her around myself."

"Talking her around?"

"I hear she's threatening to press criminal charges against Bo-ra."

He seemed to have surmised that Ji-hoon had asked to meet him over the Bo-ra affair.

"If Bo-ra did wrong, she ought to be punished for it. But she's deeply remorseful now, truly repentant. And there's always next year for the college entrance exam, so..."

"So you're asking her to forgive her."

"That's right. What's a little quarrel between sisters?"

Ji-hoon knew exactly why Chang-shin was pleading so fervently for Bo-ra instead of his own flesh and blood. Bo-ra was the granddaughter of a bank president — a match Yeon Ho-nam had arranged. From Chang-shin's position, that marriage had to proceed without a single ripple, no matter what. He had to satisfy his father-in-law's every standard, remain devoted to his wife Kim Ju-yeon, and never once invite the accusation of treating I-eum and Bo-ra unequally.

So he cast I-eum aside first. It was the easiest path — the one he knew best.

"If that's what you came about, I can persuade her myself, so don't worry your—"

"There will be no forgiveness."

Chang-shin's eyes flew wide, as if he'd been struck by lightning. "Wh-what on earth do you mean by that?"

"She's old enough to know that when you hurl a boulder that size into another person's life, a boulder of equal weight comes flying back into your own."

"Even so, that's far too harsh on Bo-ra—"

"That's quite enough. That isn't what I came to discuss today."

Ji-hoon had just loosened the hands he'd clasped together, ready at last to state his purpose, when Chang-shin's phone rang. Drawing it from his pocket, he stole a glance at Ji-hoon's face the instant he saw the name on the screen — which made it easy enough to guess who was calling.

"Ah — Bo-ra. Daddy's in the middle of meeting someone, so..."

"How do you have the presence of mind to be meeting anyone right now?!"

Perhaps because the café was so quiet, the shrill voice that erupted carried all the way to Ji-hoon's ears. "I'm in agony over Yeon I-eum right now! Do you have any idea what that bitch did to me today?! Mom's crying her eyes out this very second!"

Looking mortified, Chang-shin said he'd be right in and hung up.

"It seems a long conversation will be difficult."

"Bo-ra's been hurt a great deal too..."

"Quite all right. I have only one matter to discuss."

He had meant to hear the specifics from Chang-shin — Yeon Ho-nam was not a man to be taken lightly, and he'd wanted to calculate which design would prove most effective. But now, he realized, it no longer mattered.

At that, a flash of panic swept through Chang-shin's eyes.