So We Meet Again, All Together

How did that witch end up here?

Yeo In-ok's eyes wavered for an instant.

She thought she must be seeing things. She tried to compose her face, but the corners of her eyes trembled.

Seol-hee offered a faint smile to the woman who had recognized her and gave a small nod of her head.

Dong-chan looked just as stricken, as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Woo Seol-hee, why are you here…?"

Dong-chan was too stunned to close his mouth. Then, as the situation dawned on him, his expression slowly shifted. He'd spotted the Shinwol Foundation employee badge hanging around her neck.

"You little—"

"Quiet down, dear."

Yeo In-ok, standing beside him, hastily cut Dong-chan off.

Because of her husband's political image, she had made donations to the Shinwol Foundation every year. Though her husband's party stood in opposition to them, the foundation's influence within the country was simply too vast — it was a calculated effort to keep the relationship from souring entirely.

She didn't relish asking for a personal favor, but cutting a brand-new employee would hardly be a difficult task.

A bit awkward, perhaps, but nothing more.

And after all that maneuvering, of all places she ends up at the Shinwol Foundation.

Seol-hee was clever, yes — In-ok had known that much. But she hadn't realized the girl was scheming. And now, on top of it all, she seemed utterly shameless.

A cold smile crept across In-ok's face.

"It's been a while, hasn't it."

What infuriated her was that there were too many eyes watching to say anything openly.

Seol-hee responded with perfect courtesy.

"Yes, it has been a while, Ms. Yeo In-ok."

At that briskly professional form of address, one of In-ok's eyebrows twitched upward.

"…And Mr. Jin Dong-chan, of course."

As though it would be a shame to leave him out, Seol-hee threw him an acknowledgment too.

"You won't take my calls, and now you're out here pulling some kind of stunt—"

"Dong-chan, I told you to stop."

With a single word, In-ok silenced her son as his voice began to rise.

Unable to do as he pleased, Dong-chan glared at Seol-hee with his face twisted in fury. She paid him no mind whatsoever; her expression remained as flawlessly composed as it was with any other guest.

In-ok forced herself into the mold of a kindly mother.

"So you found work. The Shinwol Foundation, no less. I never would have imagined."

"Thanks to you. Otherwise, I never would have dreamed of making it this far."

Every syllable dripped with thorns. She was smiling, but she clearly had no intention of backing down.

Faced with Seol-hee, who refused to yield a single word, the corner of In-ok's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

"I had no idea you were so quick-tongued, my sweet girl. You were always such a yes-girl in front of Mommy. Whatever happened in the meantime to make you lose your manners so completely, I wonder?"

At the word mommy falling from Yeo In-ok's lips, Seol-hee barely suppressed the bitter laugh that rose in her throat.

Dong-chan, who had been watching the exchange, stepped forward to reprimand Seol-hee for her insolent attitude.

In that instant, Seol-hee's gaze — cold as frost — swept over the two of them in turn.

"I couldn't say. I'd think you two would know better than anyone."

She withdrew her eyes from them and turned her gaze to Ryu Ah-reum approaching from behind.

"Well then, I hope the three of you have a lovely evening."

With those words, Seol-hee signaled to the staff member in charge of escorting guests.

Dong-chan, who seemed to have more left to say and moved to close the distance again, finally stopped himself. Instead, he seized his tie knot in a fit of nerves.

In-ok's disapproving gaze landed on Seol-hee.

"It seems there's been some misunderstanding — we'll have to talk later. You understand what Mommy means, don't you? You've always been clever, so I trust you took my meaning."

Seol-hee barely resisted the urge to retort. Instead, she forced a smile.

This was, unambiguously, her workplace.

She could not be the one to ruin the most important event the Shinwol Foundation had spent months preparing.

Rather than greet the family herself, she relayed their names and assigned table numbers to an approaching staff member.

Even as the group walked away, Dong-chan's eyes stayed fixed on Seol-hee. She looked right back at him, deliberately, and sent him a meaningful little nod.

Startled by her suddenly changed demeanor, his gaze remained glued to her all the way into the hall — until he walked straight into In-ok ahead of him.

"Excuse me, Ms. Ryu Ah-reum has arrived. Where should we…?"

Seol-hee pulled her attention away from Dong-chan and turned to the hulking man standing before her.

Ryu Ah-reum's manager.

He wasn't hard to recognize. She'd seen him before, in her past life.

"Step aside, hyung."

When Ryu Ah-reum swatted his arm, he shuffled aside without a word of complaint.

So I finally meet Ryu Ah-reum.

Long, dark-brown waves rippled glossily down to the small of her back. In a beige dress that bared her shoulders, she was dazzling enough to stop even another woman in her tracks.

Whatever her memories of Ryu Ah-reum were, Seol-hee remembered them all with perfect precision — not a single detail escaped her. That was how deeply the woman had marked her.

In the past, she was an enemy. In this life, she'll be my hidden card.

Seol-hee smiled to herself.

"Hello, I'm Ryu Ah-reum. I was invited today as a VIP donor."

"Thank you so much for coming, Ms. Ryu Ah-reum. I'll show you to your seat."

Seol-hee signaled to a staff member on standby.

In the brief moment before the staffer approached, Ryu Ah-reum's eyes traveled leisurely down the woman standing before her, from head to toe.

Who the hell is this girl?

As she'd walked through the lobby under the spotlights, she hadn't once taken her eyes off Jin Dong-chan walking ahead of her.

They were supposed to be strangers at any official event, so they had come separately.

But in that brief interval, he'd spent an oddly long time talking with some female employee.

Good riddance to that broken engagement, she'd thought — but now it felt like another mess was brewing, and her feet had quickened without her meaning them to.

Why on earth was he chatting so long with a girl like that? Nothing worth looking at — plain as plain can be.

Halfway through being escorted to her seat, Ryu Ah-reum suddenly turned around and planted herself in front of Seol-hee again.

"Hey, have we met before, unnie?"

The moment she'd turned away, something had prickled at the back of her mind. As she quietly turned the employee's face over in her memory, a strange flicker of familiarity had surfaced.

Seol-hee met her curious, tilted-head gaze with an easy smile.

Met before, she says.

Seol-hee laughed inwardly.

Oh, we've met. On this very night, years ago — I saw you then.

"I've seen you on television from time to time, Ms. Ryu Ah-reum. Where you might have seen me, I really couldn't say."

"Hmm, I must have been mistaken then. Sorry about that."

Seol-hee curved her lips into a light smile by way of saying it was no trouble at all.

She didn't take her eyes off Ryu Ah-reum until the woman disappeared into the event hall.

She'd wondered what it would feel like to face them all again.

For a moment, she had even considered avoiding the encounter altogether.

Because the instant they learned she was at the Shinwol Foundation, they would move heaven and earth to force her out of her job.

They wouldn't stop until they'd severed her livelihood and reduced her to begging for her life — just like before.

And yet, if she had let fear drive her to look away, she knew she would only have regretted it.

Seeing everyone together like this…

It was even better than she'd imagined.

"…What a pleasant surprise."

Seol-hee stared quietly at the doors as they swung shut behind Ryu Ah-reum.

With the newly appointed chairwoman suddenly called away on external business, the secretary general had taken the stage to deliver the address of thanks.

Thankfully, the fundraiser was proceeding smoothly into its final stretch.

Seol-hee moved around the perimeter of the hall, coordinating with the hired event staff so that service to the guests ran without a hitch.

And inevitably, Yeo In-ok, Jin Dong-chan, and Ryu Ah-reum drifted into her line of sight.

In-ok did her best to pretend Seol-hee didn't exist. Dong-chan, by contrast, sent her blatant glances every time she moved so much as a step or struck up a conversation with anyone.

Eventually he was so busy watching her that he knocked over his wine glass entirely.

A jack of all disasters, aren't we.

Dong-chan was a public nuisance wherever he went, and Seol-hee found him nothing short of pitiful.

She shook her head.

A cracked pot leaks at home and causes trouble abroad.

She was just turning away, thinking the man beyond all redemption, when —

A white-haired woman seated at her table and a hulking man appeared to be arguing, their voices rising.

"What's going on over there?"

Seol-hee approached. Listening quietly, she pieced together the situation.

"I've been telling you this whole time — this is my seat. Stomping your feet about it isn't going to change that."

"I'm telling you, this is my seat!"

The male guest slapped his chest in frustration, his face flushed red. Judging by the plate in his hand, his seat had changed while he'd stepped away to get some food.

The reason guests were escorted to assigned seats was that each seat number was matched to the guest's bidding paddle number.

Apparently, in the past the numbers hadn't been unified, which once caused an incident where the wrong auction lot went to the wrong paddle — the system had been overhauled ever since.

"Come all the way here for a good cause, and this is what I get."

"Sir, might I be of some assistance?"

As Seol-hee drew near, she looked past the flushed, red-faced male guest to check the face of the seated woman with white hair.

Wait — that's…

She knew that face.

The guest destined to win Master Go Tae-san's painting in tonight's auction.

The only reason Seol-hee remembered her, despite how long ago it had been, was that striking white hair.

She remembered her name, too.

"You're Ms. Chae Eun-mi, aren't you?"

Korea's first female maestra.

Also the champion who had conquered the Vienna International Conducting Competition, one of the world's three great conducting contests.

The woman's dazed gaze turned toward Seol-hee.

"…My name is… Chae Eun-mi?"

As if hearing it for the first time, she repeated her own name like a stranger's.

On this day, in the timeline before her regression, several incidents had taken place.

Not that Seol-hee had been in any state to pay attention to them — she'd had her hands full merely surviving what happened to her.

But something definitely happened to this woman. I'm sure of it.

Looking down into the woman's vacant eyes, Seol-hee strained to summon the memory.

What was it?

Then it flashed through her mind like lightning.

Oh — right. Her…

A single line from a news article she'd read in her past life rose to the surface of Seol-hee's memory.