London morning light leaked into the conference room, pale and cold like it had been filtered through layers of fog. The city outside was just waking, but inside LJ European Headquarters, the atmosphere was already wound tight with urgency. A dozen screens glowed across the large table, each one showing documents, logs, CCTV grids, and shipment routes. It looked less like a corporate office and more like a war room.
Joon-hyuk stood at the table's head, sleeves rolled up, his expression composed but carved from stone. He hadn't slept. Not properly. Not in days. Yet he moved with the sharp, precise efficiency of someone who lived on pressure.
Min-jae entered without knocking—because he never knocked.
"You're early," Joon-hyuk muttered.
"I'm always early," Min-jae replied smoothly, dropping into the seat beside him. "Unlike you, who works until insanity and then pretends it's normal."
"That's because I am normal," Joon-hyuk said deadpan.
