Fangs Behind the Smile

Just the day before, Ji-sun had been contacted by the newly established HR team within the Future Strategy Division and thrown into a panic.

It was billed as an aptitude interview for the intern secretary transferring into the department, but nothing like this had ever been sprung on them so abruptly.

What was more, the new hire's looks were far from ordinary.

If she were hired as-is, no matter that she'd be the Division Director's secretary, there would be no escaping the CEO's eye.

And if Deputy General Manager Sung Su-ji found out, all hell would break loose — directed at Ji-sun herself for failing to catch it in advance. That was what frightened her.

Ji-sun leaned close and whispered to Se-yeon, her face drained white.

"Deputy Manager Sung, I'm sorry. I had no idea—"

"Manager An!"

Se-yeon cut her off with an icy tone, then shot a sidelong glance around the room as if wary of prying eyes and shook her head. A moment later she seized Ji-sun by the wrist.

"Get the car ready."

"Yes, ma'am."

The two women vanished into the preparation room, leaving Seo-ah alone at her desk with everything spinning in her head.

It was only her second day after starting, and the morning wasn't even over yet, yet an endless string of strange things had already come and gone.

The strangest of them all was Jin Se-yeon.

Back when they were young, Se-yeon had chased the dream of becoming a singer even before Seo-ah did, and she'd had a stage name she swore she'd use the day she debuted.

Sung Su-ji.

So why was she using that very name as a pseudonym at the company?

And the way Ji-sun groveled before Se-yeon didn't look normal either.

What on earth is going on here?

While Seo-ah was still untangling the mess in her head, the two emerged from the preparation room with faces set in stone.

Ji-sun, carrying a tray, headed for the Division Director's office, and Se-yeon took a seat on the bench placed beside Ji-sun's desk.

The secretaries' stations sat across the corridor from the Director's office — two desks tucked behind a thick, deep-teal partition emblazoned with the corporate logo.

And between the right side of Ji-sun's desk and the bench where Se-yeon sat stood the grotesque potted plant, rumored to be a gift from the CEO himself.

Perhaps because of its cunningly placed leaves, Seo-ah couldn't get a read on Se-yeon's expression.

But she couldn't let Se-yeon slip away like this — not after two months of silence.

Having hit send, Seo-ah turned to look at Se-yeon.

What she met, however, were cold, clear eyes staring back at her through the leaves of the towering plant.

Se-yeon pressed a finger to her lips — shh! — then turned her head away again.

A minute later, Seo-ah's phone rang.

Ha! Furious, Seo-ah was about to fire off a reply when another message arrived.

This unfamiliar side of Se-yeon plunged her into a despair deeper than the two months of silence had.

Because Se-yeon had trampled, without a shred of hesitation, a heart that had been twisting itself sick with worry — wondering, even, whether something terrible had happened to her.

It was now perfectly clear that Se-yeon hadn't given a single thought to what Seo-ah had endured — trembling in a hotel corridor disguised as "Rin."

Struggling to steady her shaking hands, Seo-ah sent back a single word: fine.

A short while later, as if she'd felt the vibration, Se-yeon glanced down at the message.

But that was the last of it. She never turned her eyes toward Seo-ah again.

Meanwhile, the two brothers sitting across from each other in the Division Director's office looked no more comfortable.

"You don't have to keep up the friendly act on my account, CEO Kang. As you know, I'm no good at that sort of thing."

Han-kyung, seated in the place of honor, leaned back against the sofa and arched his sanpaku eyes upward.

"What's with the polite formality all of a sudden? Are you trying to frame me for something?"

"It's you who should watch your mouth at the office. Why do you keep dropping into casual speech every five seconds?"

"Ha... you little punk."

Han-kyung let out a scoffing laugh and spat a low curse.

"You watch yourself. Your honorifics are just words — the tone still grates like hell."

Sharp ears, at least.

Tae-kyung shook his head with a sneer.

"So, why are you here? You think the two of us looking at each other's faces is going to fix anything?"

Han-kyung spun his index finger lazily through the air.

"You saw them earlier, right? All the old fossils with their eyes bugging out. We practically installed the Head of the Future Strategy Division ourselves — so why is he telling me to get chummy with you? Honestly..."

Han-kyung's face twisted as he recalled the executives who had filed in alongside Tae-kyung after the meeting.

They were the same men who leapt at every chance to arrange a lunch between the brothers — so no wonder they'd gaped at finding Han-kyung here in the Future Strategy Division, after being turned down time and again.

The incident in which Chairman Kang Chul-hwan, besotted with courtesan-house women, had nearly capsized the entire company remained a trauma baked into the executive ranks of Taeyu Motors.

Because of that, the way those executives looked at Han-kyung — a man who took after his grandfather to a tee, with all the same weakness for women — had never been exactly warm.

And Han-kyung knew it.

The executives of Taeyu Motors wanted one of two things: for Tae-kyung to seize full control of the company and drag Han-kyung down, or at the very least, for the two brothers to reconcile and run the company as a dual-pinnacle leadership.

Of course, a more conservative faction still wished for the eldest son to remain standing.

It was precisely because he knew this that Han-kyung had formally reappointed Tae-kyung to the Division Directorship — a gesture aimed at soothing the hearts of that faction of executives.

"A bit harsh, isn't it? Half-blind old men worried about a brotherhood that's gone to pot."

Tae-kyung exhaled an indifferent sigh and checked his wristwatch.

"Fifteen minutes, so let's call it. It's a show staged for the elders' benefit anyway — and we've given them plenty to look at."

Han-kyung squinted one eye, gripped the arm of the sofa, and rose.

"Shall we, then?"

Han-kyung, who had been wearing an odd expression the entire time in the office, spoke to him as he walked ahead to open the door.

"By the way. That compassion of yours — can't you do something about it?"

At the abrupt remark, Tae-kyung stopped mid-stride and turned his head halfway.

"You know, the dog. The mongrel that followed its master all the way to India. Or should I say loyal hound?"

The words were clearly intended to get under his skin.

He was needling Hee-joon deliberately.

"You take in some stray with nowhere to go, give him a job. Figured he'd hang off you for life, and yet... lo and behold, this time you've gone and picked up something rather pretty."

The veins stood out on the back of Tae-kyung's hand as his fingers closed around the door handle.

He twisted the corner of his mouth.

"No wonder he kept glancing around with his eyes going feral — first thing in the morning, too. People really are incapable of changing... aren't they?"

Tae-kyung's lightly mocking tone sank, heavy as a low-hanging fog.

"So. Your impressions of the pretty intern?"

The corner of Han-kyung's lips writhed further, as if his brother's uncharacteristically growling manner amused him.

"I worry about you, brother. Eat whatever looks pretty off the ground, and you'll give yourself a stomachache?"

Ha. Tae-kyung let out a short laugh, rubbed the space between his brows, and glared at Han-kyung.

It was a look of warning, aimed squarely at his brother's naked, unashamed leering.

Han-kyung chuckled.

"If the old fossils knew Kang Tae-kyung acted like this, they'd clutch the backs of their necks and keel over."

Something had him thoroughly delighted; he simply couldn't stop laughing. Provocatively, he kneaded both of Tae-kyung's shoulders.

"Who's worrying about whom, exactly?"

Tae-kyung knocked his brother's hands away as if brushing off something filthy.

"You've got your own to mind, don't you? That counterfeit nine-tailed fox reeking of cheap. A loyal mutt is a step up from that, wouldn't you say?"

At those words, Han-kyung — who had been curling his lips upward — snapped his sanpaku eyes wide.

"Oh, so that's why you came — to ogle someone else's pretty intern? How is the fox over there, then... well?"

Tae-kyung needled him, scraping deliberately at his brother's raw spots.

Then he leaned in close to Han-kyung's face — his brother's eyes now flicking nervously aside — and said quietly:

"I worry, you see. That one day I really will carve your liver out. It'd be humiliating, wouldn't it — the great Kang Han-kyung."

Mirroring his older brother's speech down to the last inflection, Tae-kyung tapped a finger lightly beneath Han-kyung's chest.

"Always guard your liver, brother. Your liver."

Pfft. Tae-kyung sneered and flung the door wide open.

The moment it opened, Se-yeon sprang to her feet.

Han-kyung stared at her for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to Seo-ah.

After an extended silence, he uttered a single quiet sentence.

"Take the Director's words to heart."

Han-kyung smiled, one corner of his mouth twitching upward — a smile that looked somehow wrong to any outside observer.

Then, baring his teeth to the gums, he warped it into something grotesque.

"...!"

A violent chill swept through Seo-ah.

And as he walked calmly past her, his sidelong sanpaku eyes never once stopped tracking her figure.

What is he after?

In that instant, a deep premonition of dread flashed through Seo-ah's mind.

A kind of instinct — the sense that this man might be connected to her father's death.

Is this dread nothing more than needless worry?

Seo-ah's anxious gaze lingered on Han-kyung's receding back long after he'd gone.

The chaotic workday finally came to an end.

And yet Seo-ah still sat alone in the secretary's office, long after even Ji-sun had left for the day.

Several days had passed since her first day, but she still hadn't managed to give Tae-kyung a proper word of thanks.

He had done so much to get her into the company — a simple thank-you felt woefully insufficient.

How much time had passed? Unable to wait any longer, she knocked softly on the Director's office door.

"Come in."

At his brief reply, Seo-ah stepped inside.

"You haven't left yet?"

"No, not yet."

Tae-kyung glanced at her, then returned his eyes to the documents.

"Something you need?"

"Um... are you working late tonight, Director?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh... nothing."

Still skimming the paperwork, Tae-kyung curled the corner of his mouth upward.

"Well, what is it? You've got me curious now. I'm listening, so out with it."

Watching him focus on the work that remained, Seo-ah forced the words past her lips.

"If... if you're not too busy, I'd like to treat you to something."

Instantly, Tae-kyung set down the pen in his hand, lifted his head, and looked at her.