“Hyung,” he said, slumping back in his chair. “If this is about the party—”
“It is.”
Of course it was. The voice on the other end was low, even, perfectly civil; only people who’d known Seungho too long could hear the iron under it.
“The boy. From last night.”
“Cheonsa?”
A pause that felt like heat from a furnace door opening.
“That’s his stage name,” Jaewan added quickly. “Real name’s Han Eul. Means—”
“Sky,” Seungho finished.
Jaewan stared at the skyline through the glass. The back of his neck prickled. “You already knew?”
“I heard it once. It stayed.”
“You don’t even remember half the board’s names but you remember that?”
“Find him,” Seungho said simply.
Jaewan sat upright. “Are you out of your mind? He slapped a shareholder, flipped a table, and walked out barefoot. We’re still writing NDAs. You want me to—what—send him a fruit basket?”
Silence. Long enough for Jaewan to hear the faint clink of glass from the other end—Seungho pouring another drink, probably still in last night’s suit.
“Find him,” Seungho repeated. “I’ll handle the rest.”
“Handle the rest?” Jaewan laughed once, no humor in it. “You hate this kind of chaos, Hyung. You fire people for less. Why do you even care?”
“Because,” Seungho said after a beat, voice roughened, “I don’t know how, but when he looked at me, it felt like déjà vu that could kill a man.”
Jaewan’s pen stilled over the report. Through the glass, Seoul shimmered under noon haze—steel and sunlight, smoke and distance. He rubbed his temple.
“Alright,” he muttered finally. “I’ll ask Yul. But don’t make me regret this.”
“You won’t.”
When the call ended, the office seemed smaller. Jaewan stared at the blank page on his desk where the ink from his pen had bled in a slow red circle.
Somewhere across the river, in a cafeteria that still smelled of broth and youth, a boy with frost in his veins folded a napkin into his pocket.
And in a tower of glass, a man of fire reached unconsciously to the same place on his chest—where, long ago, a flame-lit core used to burn.
??????
Chapter 9 — The Name Behind His Teeth
Deadlines stacked like kindling. Every hour was a forest fire.
Seungho hadn’t slept a full night in twenty-six days. He kept count. Not because he meant to, but because his body remembered each one. His limbs moved with the rigid clarity of someone perpetually submerged — not drowning, not quite, but deeper than breath allowed. His assistant had stopped knocking. She only slid folders into his office like offerings to an altar and fled.
The board demanded audits, end-of-year fiscal projections, overseas procurement reviews. Hong Kong, Busan, New York. Every time he blinked, there was another call, another obligation.
He completed them all. Without error. Without pause. Without soul.
But something had shifted.
