Reset

This work is a work of fiction. All countries, characters, organizations, places, and events depicted in this story are products of the imagination.

0. Prologue

'Did you really think you could live on, having forgotten me?'

Certain cruel words have the power to turn a fate entirely on its head. Perhaps the greatest revenge of parting is to forget someone so completely that you might never have known them at all. And as the price of that revenge, I will never be able to forget you. Not from the moment you erased me from your memory.

We should have ended the way everyone else does.

With a tedious, drawn-out, listless conclusion.

But we missed the timing.

Cruelly enough, you forgot me at the very moment we burned hottest — and as the price, I became your wife.

For one reason alone: that you had erased your own past.

1. Reset

The woman in the photograph was ordinary. Plain, even. Her eyes were clear and bright, but she was the forgettable sort you could pass on any street without a second glance — though her looks were hardly the point right now.

"She is currently the chief aide to Assemblywoman Min Ji-ae."

Kang-ho lifted his head at Chief Aide Yoon Jung-pyo's report, then commanded the rest with his eyes, as was his habit. Flustered under the weight of that gaze, Jung-pyo took a beat too long before delivering his answer.

"…She's her shadow power broker."

So this was why he'd carved up his precious time — to learn exactly that much. The furrow between Kang-ho's brows deepened, and Jung-pyo's shoulders went rigid for an instant. He hurried to fill the silence, reading the room.

"She worked for years under Assemblyman Son Tae-seung, who was convicted of influence-peddling corruption in the first trial and is now serving his sentence. It was Son who drew her into politics in the first place."

So she was the woman who'd covered for the man rotting behind bars. Something smelled. Kang-ho had never quite managed to shed the instincts of his prosecutor days, and his nose had always been sharpest for exactly this kind of stench.

"So what exactly is their relationship?"

"…I'm sorry?"

At his blunt question, Jung-pyo's eyes went wide.

"Nothing more than strictly professional?"

Kang-ho pressed, interrogating him like a suspect.

"Ah — that is… no, as far as I know, it's not."

Cornered, Chief Aide Yoon hastily laid out everything his investigation had turned up. Recruiting Yoon Jung-pyo — a political-desk journalist long exiled to the periphery — and installing him as chief aide had been a deliberate Red Team strategy. Kang-ho had needed opinions that ran counter to his own. The trouble was that the man was so principled and so clean that he tended to read every situation straight out of a textbook.

Each time it happened, a suffocating frustration welled up inside Kang-ho. He knew he had to swallow it to climb higher — but enduring that particular flaw never got any easier.

"And how can you guarantee that, Chief Aide Yoon?"

Kang-ho kept his voice coolly businesslike, drawing the man toward a reasonable argument. If Yoon claimed there was nothing, there had to be a reason behind it.

"Her reputation is spotless, and her personality doesn't seem the type to—"

But Kang-ho couldn't let such a pat, unconvincing answer slide.

"Chief Aide Yoon."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you actually know this woman? Are you close with her?"

"…No, sir."

"Then where, exactly, does this analysis that she isn't that kind of person come from? Look — what do you make of me? Do people's impressions of me match who I actually am?"

Smart, gentlemanly, the fresh new face of politics. That was the image draped over first-term lawmaker Baek Kang-ho. But what was the reality? A devilishly cunning creature with a hundred treacherous snakes coiled inside him, coupled with an unpredictable streak of lunacy — "the next-generation psycho" was, frankly, the most accurate description out there. The gap was so enormous that even Jung-pyo couldn't deny it.

"I'll dig deeper, sir."

Jung-pyo, who could never bring himself to flatter even with a lie, steered the conversation back to the woman. Kang-ho couldn't exactly vent his irritation, so he rose from his seat instead.

"Forget it. Find out where she is."

"Sir? Right now?"

Startled by his impulsive move, Jung-pyo scrambled after him. Kang-ho had never been the type to move according to plan — even his closest aides found him difficult to serve — but this episode felt more extreme than usual, and it worried him.

"Assemblyman."

Like a lone general answering to no one, Kang-ho strode straight out of his office and headed for the underground parking garage. He didn't even give his driver time to be summoned.

"What are you standing around for? Start the car."

Left with no choice, Jung-pyo fished out the keys and pressed the unlock button. It looked as though he'd be the one driving today.

Kang-ho climbed into the back seat and pulled out his phone, scanning once more the urgent report that had reached him that morning. Somehow, an unfamiliar impatience was creeping over him.

He had to move before the old man did. By now, even the fact that Kang-ho had obtained the woman's photograph would have traveled back to Baek Hee-sang as counterintelligence. Affairs like this were a race against the clock. Putting off the rest of his schedule, Kang-ho headed for the place where the woman was said to be.

"Is this everything for the booth?"

"Yep. Rounded up every last bit, and this is all there is."

Hee-sook answered as she loaded her things into the trunk, then turned back to Mu-young with a look of genuine admiration at the piles of goods crammed into the back seat as well.

"Where on earth did you get this much?"

"I asked my uncle to pull some strings at his store. It all added up."

It was the day of the Citizens' Party bazaar. The party was in a precarious state with its leader behind bars, but the conclusion had been reached that the annual event should not be canceled.

That had been the thinking of Assemblywoman Min Ji-ae, standing in as acting leader in Son Tae-seung's place: use the event to project an image of quiet, diligent renewal. And no one had any appetite to object. Truthfully, there was no one left in the party with enough fight in them to raise their voice anyway. Tae-seung's prison sentence had landed a devastating blow from every angle. Even before it, the Citizens' Party had been a minor opposition — and now the loss of their most recognizable leader's seat, stacked on top of his legal jeopardy, had shaken the party down to its foundations.

"Is Assemblywoman Min coming straight here?"

Hee-sook asked as she opened the passenger-side door. Chief aide to Assemblyman Choi Jeong-min of the same Citizens' Party, she was a veteran with over a decade of experience in the National Assembly — and the benefactor who had taken Mu-young under her wing back when she first arrived in Yeouido knowing nothing.

"She has the Breakfast Forum of the bipartisan coalition today, so she'll come after that."

"Aigoo, she's certainly gotten busier since taking over as acting leader. Still, thank goodness for you. The chairman only said yes to this bazaar because you offered to run the whole thing yourself. Otherwise he never would've cooperated."

Hee-sook was always quick to praise the people around her. It was her own brand of diplomacy — some dismissed it as empty flattery, but Mu-young wished she could be more like her. Yet somehow, those warm words always caught in her own throat, never quite making it out. And because she was constitutionally incapable of biting her tongue once she'd decided to say something, Mu-young's reputation within the party was sharply divided between those who liked her and those who didn't.

"Assemblyman Choi's away on a business trip, isn't he?"

"Yeah. The timing worked out that way. He told me to hold down the fort single-handedly."

At Hee-sook's wink — which said so go easy on me — Mu-young answered with a knowing smile. The lawmakers would only show their faces for the cameras anyway; it wouldn't cause any real trouble.

By the time they arrived at the bazaar grounds, the crowd had already begun to swell. Mu-young led the aides in setting up the event. The date was lucky, and with a street festival running in the neighboring shopping district, the spillover foot traffic sent the venue into full swing almost instantly.

"Oh my — isn't that him? Over there?"

"What? It is! No way. This is my first time seeing him in person. God, he's handsome!"

Hearing the crowd buzzing as people streamed toward the entrance, Mu-young assumed a celebrity had shown up. If some famous face happened to stop by on their way past, the event would only benefit — so her interest was piqued too.

"Christ. What the hell is that man doing here?"

Hee-sook drew close and whispered. Only then did Mu-young realize who it was setting the venue alight with excitement.

Assemblyman Baek Kang-ho. No one in this world of politics didn't know the name. Mu-young knew him too — no, knew was putting it far too mildly. Before she could stop herself, she stood frozen, staring at him, her breath caught in her throat.

"What is it? Were you two in touch or something?"

Mu-young said nothing, even to Hee-sook's question.

"Hey. What's wrong with you?"

"…Sorry?"

Reading her flustered manner, Hee-sook seemed to decide Mu-young knew something, and pressed her.

"There is something, isn't there."

"No. I don't know anything about—"

"Well, well. Hard at work, I see."

Just then Kang-ho came ambling up to the event counter, deploying his disarming grin like a weapon. The river of people parted of its own accord to carve him a path.

"I had business next door, and thought I'd drop in on my way past."

In other words, he was here to press his seal of approval on the organizers. His gaze brushed over Mu-young as well — a light, breezy look that lingered for the briefest moment, brimming with good will.

"Hello, Assemblyman. Thank you so much for coming all this way. What a coincidence — I think I should go buy a lottery ticket today. Hahaha."

Hee-sook, who had been radiating hostility toward him not two minutes earlier, greeted him now with a smile turned one hundred and eighty degrees. Mu-young pulled herself together and tried to read his behavior, parsing his motives — working out the background of his sudden appearance and what he intended by it.

"What's the most expensive thing here?"

Then he stepped up in front of her and asked — and her focus snapped to him. He had pointedly addressed Mu-young, not Hee-sook, and everyone around them noticed.

"This is… our most expensive item here."

Mu-young played the host calmly. Kang-ho picked up the bag she'd selected and, without a moment's hesitation, drew out his wallet.

"Cash would help you more, I imagine?"

He checked the price written on the bag and held out several fifty-thousand-won notes straight to Mu-young. At the fluid generosity of the gesture, a cheer of sorts went up around them. Mu-young accepted the cash and carried it over to the counter with the register.

"Would you like a cash receipt?"

"If you'd be so kind."

"Your number is—"

Just then, Kang-ho leaned in closer. Close enough to whisper, as if sharing a secret.

"Forget the receipt. Give me a moment — just you and me."

At the demand that followed, Mu-young's eyes couldn't help but waver. Without waiting for her answer, he walked off toward the shopping arcade.

Now every gaze in the venue pinned itself to her. Mu-young, wearing the expression of someone dealing with nothing out of the ordinary, walked toward the rest area the man had entered first and opened the door.

A hard, muscular arm shot out from inside, seized her, and pulled her in — the door slammed shut behind them. For a heartbeat their bodies were pressed together, and the scent of his cologne froze Mu-young's heart solid in her chest.

"You'll be hearing from Chairman Baek Hee-sang."

The words came out of nowhere, and Mu-young only grew more dazed. She could not possibly have failed to know who that man was. A legendary kingmaker, the shadow power broker of South Korean politics, a heavyweight who moved the whole board from behind the curtain. And she knew exactly whose blood ran in that man's veins, too.

"He's going to propose that you marry me."

"…I'm sorry?"

"And I would like Lee Mu-young to refuse him."

A request shaped like a command. With that, he gave a brief smile.