Chapter 21: The Shadows of the Past

By now, he should have been awake, but there was no sign of movement from inside.

As the Chairman had said, Seonghye was a son who could go mad at any moment, and Manager Park was the one bearing the brunt of it lately. Not only did he have to report Seonghye’s every move, but the Chairman’s constant badgering to bring both Seonghye and Yunhwan to him immediately made every day feel like walking on thin ice.

Furthermore, it was Manager Park who had designated Sanghui-ri as the safe haven to hide Seonghye before he lost his memory, so the weight of responsibility on his shoulders was heavier than anyone else’s.

If he had known things would get this twisted, he never would have come here in the first place.

“Living with Seonghye is alright, I assume? Even though he swung at my head before he lost his memory, he seems quite docile in front of Mr. Kwon Yunhwan.”

The incident where a hole was almost punched through his own skull had been a shock to Yunhwan as well. He still hadn’t fully adjusted to Seonghye acting so gentle around him.

On the other hand, when he thought about how Seonghye visibly beamed just from having his hair ruffled, he looked like nothing more than a younger brother his age.

Ironically, two extreme personalities coexisted within a single body.

“Yes, Seonghye has adapted well, so there are no issues living together.”

At Yunhwan’s words, Manager Park didn’t reply, only offering a dry, awkward cough. It was only when the roar of the tractor faded into the distance that the manager spoke again.

“Keep taking good care of him, Mr. Kwon. Don’t even think about leaving his side…. Ah, but I don’t mean the two of you should start getting involved like that, so please behave like an adult.”

“…Excuse me?”

Manager Park shook his head at the startled Yunhwan.

“You’re the adult here, Mr. Kwon. So, like an adult, make sure you set the boundaries properly.”

Before Yunhwan could grasp the deeper meaning of the words, a voice called out from behind him.

“Hyung.”

He turned around to see Seonghye coming down the stairs. Looking as though he hadn’t just woken up, he approached Yunhwan with a clean face and neat attire. Manager Park stood up from the porch.

“It’s cold in the morning. You should have worn something over your shoulders.”

Seonghye smiled softly as he draped a shirt over Yunhwan’s shoulders.

“Oh, no, it’s not that… when did you wake up? I was talking out here because I didn’t want to wake you.”

Yunhwan looked at Seonghye while rubbing his arms, which were damp with morning dew. Unlike himself, who was wearing old training pants and a stretched-out t-shirt, Seonghye stood in sharp contrast with his well-groomed hair and tidy clothes.

Feeling inexplicably embarrassed, Yunhwan looked away as Seonghye offered a morning greeting.

“Did you sleep well?”

It was a tranquil morning with a cool breeze blowing before the heat began in earnest. In the middle of the peaceful rural landscape, Seonghye held out his hand to Yunhwan, a fresh smile on his lips.

Yunhwan tilted his head at the sudden gesture.

“Take it. This is your money, Hyung. What if someone steals it?”

It was Manager Park’s checks.

As Yunhwan frowned in discomfort, a huff of disbelief came from behind him. Manager Park, watching the scene while leaning on one leg, couldn’t help but mutter, “Anyone would think he was the one giving the money.”

Seonghye tucked the three checks into Yunhwan’s pocket. It happened before Yunhwan could stop him, but Seonghye simply advised him in a nonchalant tone.

“If they offer to give it, you just take it, Hyung. If they try to withhold it, I’ll be the one to rip it out of them.”

“…….”

We aren’t a pair of con artists… Yunhwan couldn’t bring himself to say it and instead gave an awkward laugh. Seonghye patted his back lightly.

“I’ll talk to the manager for a moment before I come in. Go rest inside, Hyung.”

As soon as Yunhwan went inside, the smile vanished from Seonghye’s face, leaving his expression hard and rigid.

Standing tall and unwavering, he looked like a figure in a beautiful painting against the natural backdrop, but his eyes, devoid of any warmth, emitted only a chilling cold.

This version of Seonghye—the one who most closely resembled the man Manager Park remembered—looked at him with a frost-laden aura.

“I believe I told you to contact me before coming. Have you forgotten already?”

His expression was as emotionless as it had been before the memory loss.

Finding this both familiar and unsettling, Manager Park replied a beat late.

“Ah… I had some business nearby and stopped by on my way. Since it was dawn, I thought you’d both be asleep, but Mr. Kwon was awake. We just talked for a bit.”

It was a textbook excuse, and the speaker didn’t seem to care if it was believed or not.

Seonghye nodded silently. Manager Park stole a glance at him, surprised that he let it slide so easily without further interrogation.

Seeing this side of Seonghye today, a memory from the past suddenly surfaced in Manager Park’s mind—the very first moment he met him.

Before Park Jung-sik began this job, he was a site manager at a local construction site. The person who summoned him to Seoul was someone he thought he would never meet: the absolute power of Seoil, Chairman Min Seong-jo.

Although Jung-sik’s mother was one of the Chairman’s half-siblings, she was never on the official Min family registry. The previous Chairman hadn’t cared for anyone who wasn’t born to the primary wife. In short, since the patriarch had only been interested in sowing his seeds, Jung-sik had naturally lived his life as an outsider with no connection to the Min family.

Furthermore, it had been years since all contact with Seoil had ceased following his mother’s death. So, when Chairman Min’s right-hand man, Secretary Choi, appeared before him at a construction site and greeted him politely, he was genuinely bewildered.

‘I think you’ve found the wrong person, Secretary Choi. I have nothing to do with the Min family anymore.’

He had no idea why Seoil—a company with a hand in every industry in Korea—would seek out a man who barely qualified as a distant relative.

But what surprised Jung-sik even more wasn’t the visit itself. It was the fact that Secretary Choi rattled off decades of his life story, including his ten-year service as a Special Forces officer, the missions he undertook, and the countries he was deployed to. The fact that Seoil knew everything was a shock.

‘The Chairman wants you to come to Seoul as soon as possible to take on a task.’

To top it off, being told it was a special directive and being asked if he wanted to work in Seoul made him feel like he was dreaming.

‘You can name your price, but the conditions are strict. It’s easier if you assume you’ll have no personal time other than when you’re sleeping. If a problem arises, contact me immediately. If you can’t reach me, don’t even think about calling the police or outsiders—’

‘What, are you putting me in charge of a beast or something? You’re scaring me before I even say yes. How am I supposed to do this if I’m terrified?’

Perhaps the reaction was more intense than expected, as the other man gave a dry laugh. Jung-sik waited for the next words, already calculating how much money he should ask for.

What stopped his thoughts of adding zeros was a quiet warning.

‘Just lock him up. And wait… until daybreak.’

‘…What kind of talk is that? Are you sure you’re talking about a person?’

Even treating an animal that way would get you cursed at in this world. Yet he was being told to lock a person up without question. Unlike Jung-sik, who was stammering in absurdity, the other man ended the conversation there, leaving behind a reckless choice: contact him if he was interested, or act as if he had never heard it if he wasn’t.

It didn’t take long for Jung-sik to understand the underlying meaning of those words.

After deciding to take the job, he was summoned to Seongbuk-dong. And there, beneath the red walls, he saw the man for the first time: Min Seonghye.

A man with murder in his eyes and blood on his hands—someone who could do anything at any time.

He heard later that when the Chairman’s youngest son began to live independently, he needed a personal secretary to shadow him. This search had been conducted quietly by the Chairman himself, hidden from the rest of the family.

If word got out, the Chairman’s wife and his other children would surely cause trouble. Thus, they had to avoid established security firms or well-known private personnel. They needed someone with no background or connections who could handle things quietly even if an accident occurred.

When Jung-sik found out the truth years later, he was furious, but by then, the work had become second nature. To pull out now because it felt “dirty” was impossible; he had already come too far.

Moreover, by that time, the job of being a shadow secretary—one whose presence the target didn’t even know of—was actually quite manageable.

The only thing that felt truly uncomfortable was how Seonghye would be quiet during the day, only to slip out at night and prowl the streets.

But what could he do?

Jung-sik comforted himself by thinking that all children of the chaebol class had nasty hobbies, and compared to them, Seonghye was actually on the more “normal” side.

He believed that, until he followed Seonghye one night and arrived in front of a commercial building with no sign…