The knock came, three precise raps that somehow conveyed both respect and entitlement.
Colonel Shin moved to the door with military efficiency, hand leaving his sidearm as he reached for the handle. He pulled it open, stance blocking the entrance for just a heartbeat before stepping aside.
"Madam Vice-President."
Jin-woo watched a woman glide past the Colonel, her amber-brown eyes scanning the room in a single sweep that catalogued everything, the Chairman's position, the Colonel's protective stance, and finally landing on Jin-woo himself with laser focus.
For a moment, she stood frozen. Then something shifted in her expression, crumbling from controlled composure into raw emotion. Her hand flew to her mouth.
"Jin-woo?"
She crossed the room in a rush, designer heels clicking against hardwood. Jin-woo's muscles tensed, street instincts screaming at the sudden approach, but before he could react she'd wrapped her arms around him.
"My nephew. My God, you're alive. You're really alive."
Her body shook against him. Tears dampened his shoulder. The expensive perfume, something floral and probably worth more than his monthly construction wages, filled his nose. She held him tight, maternal and desperate, like she'd been the one searching for twenty-six years.
Jin-woo stood rigid, arms at his sides. Every cell in his body rejected the embrace. This woman who his grandfather suspected, who'd been present at both deaths, who'd conveniently arrived now, she felt wrong. Like a knife hidden in silk.
"Daughter."
The Chairman's voice cut through the moment, sharp as broken glass. He'd risen from his seat, pale gold eyes cold as winter.
Kang-sook pulled back from Jin-woo, wiping tears with practiced delicacy. She turned to face her father, composure reassembling itself like armor clicking into place.
"Father." She dipped her head in respect, though Jin-woo noticed she didn't approach him with the same warmth she'd shown moments before.
"A rather urgent arrival." The Chairman stepped closer, his cane tapping against the floor. "So the emergency board session got your attention," He said with a smile on his face. "I didn't expect you to abandon your division's quarterly review to fly here personally."
"How could I not?" She gestured toward Jin-woo, fresh tears glistening in her eyes. "My brother's son. Returned from the dead. What quarterly review could possibly matter compared to this miracle?"
The word miracle dripped from her lips like honey laced with arsenic.
"Indeed." The Chairman's expression remained unreadable. "Which raises the question, why exactly are you here, Kang-sook?"
Kang-sook's hands moved to her face, dabbing away the remaining tears with fingers that trembled just slightly. When they lowered, a smile had replaced the grief, warm, practiced, perfect.
"To greet my brother's son, of course." Her voice steadied, taking on the measured tone of boardroom negotiations. "Jin-seok was everything to me. His loss..." She paused, the smile flickering. "Well. Some wounds never truly heal."
Jin-woo watched her face, searching for truth beneath the performance. The orange-gold eyes that intimidated construction bosses and street thugs found nothing but polished surface.
"When I heard the news," she continued, turning back to Jin-woo with that maternal warmth rekindled, "I knew nothing else mattered. Not quarterly reviews, not division reports, not even the Industrial merger we've been negotiating for eight months." She reached out, gripping his forearm. "You're family. The last piece of my brother that remains. How could I possibly stay away?"
The Chairman's cane tapped once. Sharp. Deliberate.
"How fortunate that family loyalty overrides your usual priorities."
Kang-sook's smile never wavered, though Jin-woo noticed her fingers tightened on his arm, just for a second before releasing.
"Of course it does, Father. You taught us that yourself." She moved toward the Chairman, crossing the space between them with careful grace. "Blood comes first. Always. Isn't that what you used to say?"
"I said many things." The old man's pale gold eyes tracked her movement. "Not all of them proved true."
"Well, this is." She gestured again to Jin-woo, her designer suit sleeve catching the light from the windows. "The next heir of Cheonha Group, returned to us. It's almost poetic, don't you think? After all these years of searching, of hoping…"
"You hoped?" The Chairman's voice dropped lower, colder.
"Every day." Kang-sook met his gaze without flinching. "Every single day I prayed we'd find him. That somehow, impossibly, Jin-woo had survived whatever took him from us."
Jin-woo's jaw clenched. They talked about him like he wasn't standing right there, like he was some prize to be claimed rather than a person who'd spent twenty-six years fighting to survive. The exhaustion from the day crashed over him, the hospital, the helicopter, the revelations, this woman with her tears and smiles and words that felt rehearsed.
His ribs ached. The fresh stitches in his arm pulled. The cut on his hand throbbed beneath clean bandages.
"Where's my room?"
Both heads turned toward him. The Chairman's expression shifted, softening slightly. Kang-sook blinked, her performance interrupted mid-scene.
"I want to rest." Jin-woo met his grandfather's eyes, then his aunt's. "It's been a long day."
The understatement hung in the air. Long day. Right. Just found out he was heir to a trillion-dollar empire, met a grandfather he never knew existed, and discovered his father and mother were murdered. Long day barely covered it.
Kang-sook recovered first, her smile brightening with understanding. "Of course! How thoughtless of me. You must be exhausted, you poor thing." She moved toward him again, but Jin-woo stepped back.
"Just the room."
Colonel Shin cleared his throat from his position by the door. "I'll show you to your quarters, sir."
Sir. The word felt foreign, wrong. But Jin-woo seized it like a lifeline.
"Good."
He walked toward the Colonel without looking back at either the Chairman or his aunt, every muscle screaming for escape from this conversation, this room, these people who spoke in circles while pretending to be family.
As Jin-woo and the Colonel stepped through the doorway, the heavy wooden door closed with a soft click behind them. Their voices leaked through anyway, his grandfather and aunt already resuming their discussion about him. The words faded as he moved down the corridor, his shoulders sagging with relief. He needed space now. A quiet place where he could collapse, let his guard down, and somehow process the impossible truths that had shattered his entire existence.