This Is What Emotion Is

"You hurt your ankle earlier, so I thought I might offer some help."

Jae-kyung, standing beside them, hurriedly stepped in between the two men.

"Chairman, it's a misunderstanding."

Yu-gam didn't spare so much as a glance for Jae-kyung as she rose to Mr. Choi's defense.

"It isn't a misunderstanding."

Raising his wrist to check his watch, Yu-gam turned his gaze back on the math teacher. Part two of the performance at the auditorium had ended mere moments ago.

"Any contact outside of regular working hours is, by definition, a private meeting. Wouldn't you say?"

The frost in his gaze and his voice laid his displeasure bare for all to see.

Chastened, the math teacher scratched his head and beat a hasty retreat.

Jae-kyung's eyes darted between Mr. Choi's retreating back and Yu-gam, who stood there in cold indifference.

"Why would you go that far? What did Mr. Choi even do wrong?"

Yu-gam thrust both hands into his pockets and looked down at her without a flicker of warmth.

"Hah. I did warn you earlier."

"...What warning?"

"Not to go creating unnecessary misunderstandings."

Beneath the stage lights, Jae-kyung's face flared red.

"Welcome back, Managing Director Jin."

Jin Hee-yeon, newly arrived at the airport, climbed into the waiting car.

"How is Chairman Do? Did the school event go off without a hitch?"

Fresh from weeks of business travel in Europe, Hee-yeon asked after her son before anything else.

"It seems the Chairman has been devoting considerable attention to the school's affairs. Several media outlets have even come by to cover it."

Director Jin pored over the documents her aide handed her.

When her son had announced he would take the chairman's seat at the Eui-tae Foundation, something about it had struck her as off — but he had made it plain he wanted no involvement with headquarters whatsoever, and there had been no other choice.

Does he really hate working under his mother that much?

He had only just set foot back in Korea after five years away; for now, she intended to let him do exactly as he pleased.

"By the way — the woman next to him... who is she?"

She had already arranged for him to meet a minister's daughter before long, and the shadow of the woman pressed to her son's side needled at her.

"Perhaps one of his secretaries? I'll look into it right away."

"Wasn't Secretary Kwon supposed to be handling his entire schedule? Tell him to watch himself. I won't have him inviting gossip he doesn't need."

She had placed call after call since first raising the subject of marriage, but every time, her son had cut her off, pleading a busy schedule.

"And are you in contact with Chairman Do?"

"He's in a meeting at the moment. I remain in touch with Secretary Kwon."

After the contract marriage had been dissolved and that girl turned out of the house, her son — for reasons she could not begin to fathom — had gone off his medication outright, in defiance of his doctors' urging.

From that day forward, he refused to listen to a single word his mother said, and even since returning from his studies abroad he had cycled through hospitals so many times she'd lost count. She was beginning to wonder whether this one, too, would have to be changed.

"I'm thinking of placing someone inside the Eui-tae Foundation. See to it for me."

"I'll find a capable candidate with a talent for reporting."

If her son would not take her calls, then the only option left was to send someone to the foundation — a pair of eyes to keep watch over Yu-gam in her stead.

After all, she could not afford to blunder the way she had five years ago.

Ever since last night — since the crow that had perched on a transformer and plunged the gymnasium into darkness — Jae-kyung had kept her distance from Yu-gam.

After watching him drive off Mr. Choi, a man who had done nothing but offer her help, she had been holding out against Yu-gam's questions with the shortest answers she could manage.

And perhaps because of the memory of their bodies pressed close, the silence pooling in the office where the two of them sat alone was enough to choke the air from her lungs.

An envelope icon appeared on the right side of her monitor. When Jae-kyung clicked into her inbox, she found that a single file relating to an internal audit had arrived.

The sender was anonymous. She clicked the attachment, and rows of figures swam into view.

Event names, outsourced vendors, unit prices. Nothing seemed amiss at first, and she scrolled down without much thought — until her hand went still.

She had caught it: past a certain point, the numbers began to repeat.

Captures comparing the files from before and after — the unit prices for event supplies had been doctored. Contracts awarded, over and over, to vendors run by relatives. A summary table laying out the pattern of false deductions skimmed from contract teachers' salaries.

And the approval lines... every last one of them bore the vice principal's name.

Jae-kyung swallowed, an unfamiliar tension coiling in her chest.

If this was what Yu-gam had told her to look into, then who on earth had sent it? There was no way this was coincidence. Someone who knew her had almost certainly sent it on purpose.

She swiftly copied the vice principal's files onto the USB drive she carried everywhere.

The moment she pulled it free, the drive was knocked by the files stacked beside it and dropped to the floor.

A soft thud. In the office flooded with afternoon sunlight, the sound rippled out like a single drop of water disturbing stillness.

Just as Jae-kyung bent down to retrieve the USB that had fallen beneath the desk, Yu-gam bowed his head from the opposite side.

The narrow darkness under that desk dredged up the touch and the memories of their marriage — but Jae-kyung pretended not to notice the frost-bitten gaze fixed on her from across it.

She stretched out her arm to grab it, and Yu-gam's fingertips brushed hers. Last night came rushing back, and the mere graze of skin set her heart pounding.

"Excuse me, but..."

Utterly unbothered, Yu-gam covered her hand with his own. Startled, Jae-kyung yanked her arm back, but he didn't budge an inch.

"Chairman. I'll... pick it up."

"Go ahead. Is there a problem?"

"Please move your hand."

"Of course."

But contrary to his word, Yu-gam's gaze never left her — and neither did his hand. It was close enough to be frightening; she could feel his breath ghosting over the back of her hand.

"Mistakes made during work hours are forgivable," Yu-gam said, his voice low. "...As long as what you're careful about outside of work is your emotions."

"Emotions?"

"Flinching your hand away over nothing, the way you just did. Jerking back in such a hurry, as if you were avoiding me."

"I-I didn't pull away."

Jae-kyung took that ice-cold stare head-on, eyes flashing with defiance.

"Not even now?"

His cold fingers were sliding down her skin as if to stroke it, and the back of her hand seemed to crackle with frost.

"Apparently you didn't know. This — this is what emotion is."

"Then it seems it's you who needs to watch out for emotions, Chairman. Not me."

"I know exactly what a flower snake is. I'm always careful."

"Haah..."

A flower snake. Again.

The absurd suspicion, the baseless slander — it stung. Tucked into the cramped little space beneath the desk, Jae-kyung's sour mood was vivid enough for even Yu-gam to read.

Thud. The door swung open, and footsteps sounded.

"Chairman! Where did you... what are you doing down there?"

At Secretary Kwon's voice, Jae-kyung snatched up the USB and pulled herself free of Yu-gam's hand.

"Oh — Secretary Kwon, hello. I dropped something, and the Chairman was helping me pick it up."

"Is that so? It's time for your meeting, Chairman."

By then Yu-gam was already on his feet. He cast Jae-kyung one frigid look and walked out without another word.

The lock clicked shut. Only then did Jae-kyung tuck the USB — crammed full of the vice principal's secrets — into her bag and let out the breath she'd been holding. Sharing the same space with that man was getting harder and harder to bear.

Hours had passed with her buried in the mountain of documents that refused to shrink no matter how many times she read and checked them, never once moving from her seat — and that was when Secretary Kwon, returned to the office, came up to her desk.

"A business trip to Jeju Island?"