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Chapter 5
Team Leader Oh cheerfully tapped away at his phone screen.
“You’ll probably be hearing from CEO Ki soon.”
…Hearing something like that suddenly made Su-i feel a lot of pressure.
“You know my wife likes you, Assistant Manager Ahn, right? She was saying the other day that a person ought to have time to meet someone, eat together, grab coffee, watch a movie, maybe take a short trip out of town once in a while. She’s desperate to see you go on a date.”
A date.
She had never once thought that sounded appealing.
Besides…
Meeting someone for meals, drinking coffee, watching movies, and occasionally going out to the suburbs—
wasn’t she already doing all of that with Dokgo Beom-jin?
“Life really does go by fast,” Team Leader Oh said. “As we get older, we grow weaker. It’s better to meet a good person sooner rather than later and have someone to lean on.”
He smiled kindly.
“So try to understand the meddling hearts of this old man and old lady who think of you like a younger sister.”
Feeling unexpectedly touched, Su-i replied jokingly,
“And here I thought you wanted me to work hard, drive the president out, and take over the company.”
“Haha. That was when I’d just had a huge fight with Yeon-su. No matter how much we bicker, having a family is a wonderful thing.”
My family.
The weight of those words spread quietly through Su-i’s heart.
“Oh, looks like the district office is calling.”
“Should I go?”
“Goodness, no. You had a rough time cleaning up my mess yesterday.”
Gesturing for her to stay seated, Team Leader Oh stood up.
“If there’s anything unusual, I’ll contact you immediately, so don’t worry.”
Aside from Beom-jin, the only people who knew Su-i was searching for her father were Team Leader Oh and his wife.
Like Beom-jin, he never pried into the details. Instead, whenever an unidentified body was found, he did his best to gather as much information as possible.
“…Thank you, Team Leader.”
“Oh, don’t get sentimental on me. I’m off then. See you tomorrow.”
After seeing him out, Su-i headed to the small room set aside in the corner of the office.
The desk was covered with floral arrangements and design sketches.
Just one or two more designs, then I’ll make them with actual flowers.
For those who had no family and no one to accompany them on their final journey, Su-i had designed a variety of memorial flower frames.
A local newspaper reporter had taken an interest in her work and written an article about it, which received a positive response.
After that, Su-i became responsible for planning memorial products for Seonham Funeral Services.
As graduation drew closer, she had grown increasingly anxious about the future. She had impulsively earned a florist certification after spotting a banner advertisement one day, never imagining she would end up using it like this.
Someday, her father might be brought in as an unclaimed body.
When that day came, she hoped she would be able to offer him one of the floral tributes she had made herself.
Is he even alive?
Before she died, her mother would sometimes speak while drunk.
“Your father apparently even had gambling debts on top of everything else. Somehow he’s managed to keep the creditors away from the house so far, but… at that rate, he might end up being sold onto a fishing boat before long.”
As though amused by her own words, her mother’s frail shoulders trembled with laughter.
“Then he could disappear without a trace. Or maybe he already has. There won’t even be any organs left. He came into the world empty-handed and will leave it with an empty body.”
After becoming an adult, Su-i had searched for her father.
But she found no trace of him anywhere.
That was why she joined Seonham Funeral Services—the only company in the country with a dedicated team that handled unclaimed deceased individuals.
Because she wanted, someday, to be the one who saw her father off.
As a result, every unclaimed funeral felt like it was for her father.
She couldn’t bring herself to do anything carelessly.
How lonely must they be, going on that final journey alone?
“Ugh, my neck hurts.”
She had been immersed in her work for quite some time when she stretched.
Rrrrrrrr—
Her phone rang.
It was Team Leader Oh.
“Yes, Team Leader?”
—Assistant Manager Ahn, could you come over for a moment?
Su-i froze.
Her eyes widened.
Could it be…?
—The body has a mark on its shoulder that looks like a heart.
The moment the call ended, Su-i rushed toward the university hospital.
Bang!
She slammed the taxi door shut and sprinted toward the morgue.
“Haa… haa…”
Yet when she reached the entrance of the long corridor leading to the mortuary, she came to an abrupt stop.
A few strands of hair had fallen across her forehead, but she didn’t even think to brush them aside.
Her entire focus was fixed on the distant door at the end of the hallway.
Could it really… be Dad?
Her father had a heart-shaped birthmark on his shoulder.
Back when they had been a happy family, he had told her:
It was proof of how much he loved Mom and Su-i.
Closing her eyes tightly once before opening them again, Su-i drew in a deep breath.
Part of her felt like she had been waiting for this moment.
Another part wished it would never come.
Holding those conflicting emotions, she slowly walked down the corridor.
“Funeral Director Ahn Su-i?”
“Yes. I’m Ahn Su-i.”
The hospital employee looked her over once, as if confirming she matched the description they had heard, then opened the door.
Team Leader Oh was waiting inside.
His expression was grim.
“Assistant Manager Ahn, you’re here?”
“…Yes.”
With difficulty, as though something were lodged in her throat, Su-i answered.
Then she slowly turned her gaze toward the body he had been looking at.
The moment she saw the shoulder—
Thump.
Her heart dropped.
Blinking several times, she finally released the breath she had been holding.
“Haa…”
“It’s not your father?”
Team Leader Oh asked carefully, watching her reaction.
She gave a small nod.
“Goodness. I don’t even know if this is something that should be called fortunate.”
The man with the large mark on his shoulder was not her father.
As Team Leader Oh said, Su-i herself didn’t know whether that should be considered a relief or not.
“They found him in an abandoned house in a redevelopment area in Seongdong-gu. Looks like he hadn’t been dead long. Cause of death was a heart attack.”
“I see…”
“They also found a small flowerpot nearby. A newly sprouted seedling.”
Life had been emerging beside a man who died alone.
As Su-i imagined the sight of newly born leaves brushing past a breath that had only just stopped, she lowered her head and closed her eyes.
“May the deceased rest in peace.”
After quietly offering her respects to the nameless man, she thought of her father.
Dad.
Where are you now?
Are you alone?
I hope someone is beside you.
At the very least, I hope you didn’t close your eyes for the last time in loneliness.
“Team Leader, I’ll help too.”
“You sure?”
“I came all this way, after all. It’ll be better if two of us see him off. Less lonely.”
“Right. Let’s give him a proper farewell. With all our sincerity.”
As she pulled on the gloves Team Leader Oh handed her, Su-i steadied herself.
I hope you find your way to a good place.
Please don’t be lonely there.
After reciting the words silently like a prayer, she suddenly found herself missing Beom-jin terribly.
That large, absentminded man who never gave loneliness a chance to settle in.
*
Kangho Group Headquarters — Annex Building B
Building B of Kangho Group’s headquarters annex was a restricted high-security area.
It stood far from the main headquarters and was hidden among tall trees.
No one could enter without a specially issued anonymous security pass, and even moving through a single corridor required tagging the pass at card readers installed on every floor.
This was the exclusive territory of Strategic Planning Office 1 under the Future Strategy Division.
Officially, it handled affiliate mergers, acquisitions, and internal political affairs.
In reality, it was the chairman’s private briefing line and the true center of the group’s power—a place unknown to outsiders.
The reason Beom-jin had taken on this important and endlessly troublesome work was the same reason he displayed anything resembling human emotion.
Ahn Su-i.
The girl who had stolen his soul from the very first moment he saw her.
And so, after spending another day dealing with one tedious issue after another, quitting time finally approached.
That was when Chairman Dokgo Hyeong-jun visited the annex.
“I heard you caught a pest today. A mid-sized company CEO, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. A pest indeed. There will be fewer women subjected to sexual harassment and fewer men being worked like slaves without proper pay from now on.”
“Again because of that girl?”
Beom-jin answered by not answering.
Chairman Dokgo Hyeong-jun shook his head with an exhausted look.
“At this rate, if that girl ever says she wants the group, you’ll probably stab your own grandfather in the back and hand it to her.”
