The Madam Appears First

"Please wait here."

The space the secretary led her to was a small room connected to the garage. With only a table and a sofa, it looked like a reception room for visitors.

I-eum let out a trembling breath as she waited for Chairman Sung.

Teacher, trust me and only me.

She had resolved never to leave him to struggle through this alone. She was about to be a legal adult now, and her own problems were hers to solve.

Before long, she heard footsteps approaching from outside the door. As if she had been waiting for exactly that, I-eum sprang up from her seat.

And then, the moment the door finally opened—

"Hello, Chairman! My name is Yeon I-eum!"

Bowing at the waist, she delivered the greeting she had rehearsed with all her might.

But there was no response. Only after several seconds passed and a vague sense that something was off did she slowly lift her head—and standing before her, unexpectedly, was a beautiful middle-aged woman holding a tray.

I-eum's eyes went wide.

She was far too radiant to pass for a servant—flawless makeup, carefully styled hair, and a traditional hanbok made of expensive fabric. Nothing about her seemed ordinary.

And on top of that, she had a sharp, striking face that was uncannily reminiscent of Ji-hoon.

"You said your name is Yeon I-eum?"

Struggling to contain her flustered expression, I-eum bowed to her once more.

"Yes! Ah—hello, Madam!"

Cold sweat trickled down her spine.

The woman was almost certainly Ji-hoon's mother.

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she would come face to face with Ji-hoon's mother before Chairman Sung Hyun-do.

Come to think of it, she had been naive to expect an easy audience with the head of a conglomerate that represented all of South Korea.

Hae-soo, meanwhile, raised one eyebrow gently at the girl's audacious nerve, addressing her without a shred of hesitation as Madam.

She had just been told that a guest had arrived.

The rest of the family would be gathering soon, and she couldn't help wondering who this outsider might be, the one Chairman Sung had granted entry to.

And then, when she heard that the outsider was Yeon Ho-nam's granddaughter, she had no choice but to come down herself.

After all, her son had raised that entire storm to rescue this very girl not long ago.

"I'm sorry for showing up so abruptly."

Hae-soo swept her gaze over the apologetic, bowed head of the girl from the crown of her hair to the tips of her toes.

Black bobbed hair that swayed just short of her shoulders, and skin so fair it seemed to glow in contrast. Her frame was slender, but she wasn't particularly short, so she didn't come across as fragile at all. Her neat, modest clothing had a distinctly student-like air.

Perhaps because she'd spent all these years raising that gloomy son of hers, the girl before her struck her as rather adorable. Her innocent, unguarded look was genuinely pretty, Hae-soo thought.

"Don't you get cold easily?"

"…I'm sorry, what?"

Hae-soo's gaze came to rest on the girl's two feet in short Ugg boots.

"Winter hasn't even properly started yet."

Catching her meaning, I-eum looked down at her own feet, then quickly made an embarrassed face.

"These were the cleanest shoes I had."

"…"

"I thought clean attire was a matter of courtesy."

At I-eum's answer, Hae-soo's eyebrows lifted once again.

The granddaughter of that grand Assemblyman Yeon, and she didn't own a single pair of clean shoes?

But she gave no sign of her thoughts and simply set the tea and refreshments down on the table.

"Have a seat."

"Thank you."

"I'm Cho Hae-soo, the eldest daughter-in-law of this family. What reason did the Chairman give for wanting to see you?"

"That's…"

It seemed to be a difficult question to answer; her pale, slender fingers fidgeted in her lap.

"I'd like to explain myself directly, once I've met with the Chairman."

Hae-soo studied her even more closely—this girl who had been behaving all this time with a courtesy that somehow shaded into impudence, impossible to pin down.

She said she was a student at Haeseong High School.

And a few days ago, hadn't she missed the college entrance exam because of an accident her stepsister caused?

Since Min-jae reported Ji-hoon's every movement to her daily, she was hardly ignorant of this girl either.

In fact, that was exactly what made her so curious. Why would this Yeon I-eum, who so often appeared in Director Joo's reports, come all the way here in person?

"Does your grandfather know you're here?"

"Not yet."

"Yet?"

When Hae-soo echoed the word back at her, I-eum slowly raised her head and met her gaze squarely.

"Once I finish talking with the Chairman, that's when I plan to tell my grandfather."

It seemed less like courtesy and more like sheer audacity.

And yet—the eyes darting blindly through empty air out of nerves, the slightly parted bangs—little things like that softened Hae-soo's sharp wariness a notch further.

"From what I gather, you have something to say about Managing Director Sung Ji-hoon."

In the end, Hae-soo decided to open the door first. Otherwise, she doubted those eyes—burning with the strength of a conviction so pure it nearly glowed—would ever lose their tension.

As expected, the girl's eyes wavered, ever so slightly.

She seemed to assume Hae-soo had come down knowing nothing at all.

"Tell me all about it. I am Ji-hoon's mother, after all."

At that, I-eum swallowed dryly.

Nothing was going according to plan.

She had steeled herself to meet Chairman Sung and win his blessing for her marriage to Ji-hoon. She had even prepared a presentation laying out the benefits Ji-hoon would gain from marrying her.

Only that, she believed, could stop her grandfather's rampage.

"Well, you see…"

But if her counterpart wasn't Chairman Sung but Ji-hoon's mother, it was somehow even harder.

The words simply wouldn't leave her mouth. Who on earth could ask their future mother-in-law to hand over her son?

Still, I-eum found her courage.

This might be a gate she had to pass through in order to meet Chairman Sung Hyun-do. She might never get to meet the Chairman at all—which meant she needed to make her case to the woman in front of her, one way or another.

Reaching into her bag, she drew out the carefully printed marriage sales pitch she'd brought along and began to speak.

"If you'd take a look at this first, I'll explain—"

BANG!

But before she could even turn the first page, the door burst open with such force it seemed it might fly off its hinges.

"Yeon I-eum."

It was Ji-hoon.

I-eum, who had never dreamed Ji-hoon would suddenly appear, let out something close to a shriek and sprang to her feet.

"Tea—Teacher?! What are you doing here?!"

"That's my question to ask, isn't it?"

This wasn't even Ji-hoon's house—only, presumably, his family's main estate. So how on earth…

As the flustered I-eum blinked hard, it finally registered: he was wearing a suit even more formal than the ones he wore at school.

It dawned on her belatedly that some family event must be taking place, and as she was coming to that realization, Ji-hoon closed the distance between them.

"Come with me."

Without warning, he grabbed her arm and pulled.

"Ah—wait, just a second—!"

While I-eum, her wrist caught in his grip, struggled in vain against being dragged off, Ji-hoon suddenly spotted the printed documents lying on the table.

He snatched up the mortifying document before anyone else could lay eyes on it.

He was in the middle of hauling I-eum forcibly out the door when someone stepped in to block his path.

"Coming down out of nowhere and dragging the child off like that—you'll hurt her, you know."

It was Hae-soo.

But Ji-hoon could not back down. If a single member of his family laid eyes on that preposterous document, it would be an unmitigated disaster.

"I just need a quick word with her. We'll be right back."

"Say it here. It's not as if you'd be hiding anything from your mother."

"It's not about hiding—"

It was a story no one stood to gain from hearing.

And more than that—Hae-soo had married at nearly the same age I-eum was now.

Ji-hoon still remembered it. Whenever he came home stung from being teased by his friends, and brooded over it, his mother only grew sadder still.

"Ji-hoon, my love. Yes, I married younger than most people do, but that's because I loved your father that much. Age has nothing to do with love."

That was what Hae-soo would tell him, but even as a boy, Ji-hoon could feel it.

His mother had not been happy.

While her friends went off to university, fell in love, and lived freely, she had been shut inside the suffocating walls of Seongbaekjae, burning away her youth.

Ji-hoon understood, even at that young age, what a crushing burden and wound the title of child bride had been for Hae-soo.

He couldn't bear to show such a mother the girl who might soon be standing in the very same position she had once occupied. Judging that dredging up the past could do no good at all.

"Follow me."

I-eum balked and hesitated, but in the end she trailed after Ji-hoon.

And behind the two of them, Hae-soo watched their retreating figures with an expression impossible to read.