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Chapter 15
“Hey, Yoo. You came into work even though it’s Saturday?”
“Yes, sunbae. The chief editor told me to finish just one urgent article before heading home.”
“Man, that’s rough.”
“Haha, well, gotta earn my paycheck somehow. But why did you come back?”
“Don’t even ask. Looks like I’ll have to go undercover for a story, so I stopped by to grab a coffee and my coat.”
“Ah…”
“It’s freezing outside. Feels like full-on winter.”
“You’re working hard in weather like this.”
Outside, the sky was gloomy enough that it looked like snow might start falling at any moment.
The man glanced at Jaejin, who was sitting alone in the dark office without even turning on the lights.
“But why are all the lights off? Thought you were a ghost for a second, damn it.”
“I was alone, and turning on all the lights in such a huge office felt kind of wasteful.”
At Jaejin’s awkward reply, the man shook his head while pouring instant coffee into paper cups from the office mix-coffee box.
“It all comes out of our salaries anyway. Don’t worry about it and just use them.”
“Haha, okay. Thanks for looking out for me.”
The man nodded, then suddenly seemed to remember something and turned back toward him.
“Oh right. Yoo, I heard you’ve been writing entertainment articles lately. Is it fun?”
“Well… nothing particularly exciting has happened yet, so I’m not really sure.”
Jaejin smiled and shook his head at the casual question.
Handing over a cup of coffee, the man asked,
“Why? Isn’t there that huge scandal everyone’s talking about these days?”
“Hm? Ah, thank you. I’ll drink it well.”
Jaejin accepted the coffee from him.
Sipping his own instant coffee, the man leaned against the partition of Jaejin’s desk and grinned mischievously.
“The Han Gyeoul and Han Yeoreum case. That’s the hottest topic around lately.”
“Ah, yeah. I guess it is.”
Jaejin stared silently at the steaming coffee in his hands.
Watching him quietly, the man suddenly smiled as though he’d remembered something.
“Oh, come to think of it, Yoo, aren’t you acquainted with CEO Joo?”
“CEO Joo?”
“Yeah. Joo Taeuk from JT Entertainment. Didn’t I hear you two went to the same high school?”
“Ah, no. University. We both graduated from Korea University.”
“Really? Well, high school or university, who cares? In this industry, connections are what matter.”
“Haha, but it’s not really a connection or anything. We’re just alumni…”
“Come on, that’s always how it starts. Anyway, if you’ve got even that much of a connection, you should try interviewing Joo Taeuk this time.”
“Pardon?”
“Things are a mess over there lately because of his wife too, aren’t they?”
“Ah, yes. Well… I suppose so. Didn’t you say you went over there to report on it recently too?”
At Jaejin’s question, the man’s cheerful face crumpled like paper.
“Damn it, don’t even mention it. Didn’t get to see a damn thing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Security around the house was insane, so I couldn’t get near it. I did go to the hospital though.”
“The hospital? Didn’t Han Gyeoul get discharged a while ago?”
“Obviously I went before she was discharged. The timing lined up with Prosecutor Han’s funeral, but I still didn’t get anything useful.”
“I see. I remember things being pretty chaotic back then too.”
“What’s the point of chaos? If you only write what everyone else already knows, the article won’t even get clicks.”
“…”
“What matters is an exclusive. Something only I know.”
“Ah…”
Jaejin smiled awkwardly at the man’s words.
Still leaning against the desk partition, the man rolled his eyes as if recalling the events of that day.
“Though I didn’t actually see it myself.”
“Hm? See what?”
“You know how Prosecutor Han’s funeral got postponed for ages because they said her older sister needed time to recover mentally first?”
“Yeah. That happened.”
“Thanks to that, I think it was the last day of the funeral? Han Gyeoul apparently came to the memorial hall with Joo Taeuk.”
“Ah, yes. I think I saw articles about that too.”
The man nodded, then glanced around cautiously.
After confirming the office was empty, he leaned closer toward Jaejin and whispered,
“A lawyer I know pretty well happened to be there that day.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And according to him, after Prosecutor Han died, that woman completely lost it.”
As though replaying the story he’d heard, the man circled a finger around his temple.
Jaejin leaned back in his chair and silently waited for the rest.
“He said Han Gyeoul was laughing like a lunatic at her own sister’s funeral. But somehow, it looked incredibly sad. Like… she was laughing because she couldn’t cry.”
“…It was something pretty cruel.”
“What?”
The man looked at Jaejin as if he’d just said something absurd.
“How does that make sense? If you’re sad, why wouldn’t you cry?”
“Pardon?”
“The moment I heard that story, I seriously thought she might’ve been possessed or something. Creepy as hell.”
“…”
“People always said she was mentally fragile anyway, so it’s not completely impossible, right?”
“…”
“Actress Han Gyeoul — possessed by a ghost after the accident? What do you think? Killer headline, right?”
The man burst into laughter, clearly amused by his own joke.
Jaejin forced an awkward smile as he watched him.
“Maybe I should write an article like that someday. The views would be insane, don’t you think?”
“Wouldn’t JT Entertainment completely blacklist you if you did that?”
“Exactly! That’s why I can only joke about it and can’t actually write it.”
The man chewed on the rim of his paper cup irritably.
Then, smacking his lips in disappointment, he glanced at Jaejin with a sly grin.
“But is that rumor true?”
“What rumor?”
“That CEO Joo married Han Gyeoul under a contract marriage.”
“Pardon?”
“What? You didn’t know?”
Seeing Jaejin’s surprised expression, the man became even more animated.
“Come on, it’s famous. Everyone just keeps quiet because his father’s scary as hell!”
“Ah… I’m hearing this for the first time…”
“But honestly, I don’t think it’s completely baseless. Joo Taeuk never had any dating scandals whatsoever, right? There were even rumors he was gay. Maybe he got married just to bury those rumors.”
“But those kinds of rumors get attached to every male celebrity who doesn’t have scandals, don’t they?”
“Exactly! But if even a non-celebrity like him got those rumors, doesn’t that say enough?”
The man had already disappeared into his own imagination and clearly wasn’t listening anymore.
Jaejin smiled awkwardly as the man rambled on, spraying spit as he spoke.
“Think about it — building a company like that from nothing at his age? He’s definitely not ordinary. A guy like that probably treats marriage like business too. Wouldn’t surprise me if he literally drew up a contract.”
“If that’s the case, then why would Han Gyeoul agree to something like that? Marriage can be devastating for an actress…”
“Come on, don’t sound like such an amateur. That only applies to top stars. Han Gyeoul was a nobody.”
“…”
“For nobodies, even gossip like that can help. You need the public to remember your face somehow.”
“…Is that so?”
“Of course it is. Honestly, before that accident, did anyone even know who Han Gyeoul was?”
“…”
“Wasn’t her last acting role some tiny part in a drama years ago? Even recently, the only articles about her were because rumors started spreading that she was marrying CEO Joo.”
The man rolled his eyes as he retraced Gyeoul’s career history.
Then he glanced at Jaejin’s lowered expression and asked,
“Yoo, are you maybe a Han Gyeoul fan?”
“Huh? Ah, no. Not like that…”
The man watched Jaejin suspiciously as he frantically waved his hands.
Then he casually placed the paper cup he’d been chewing on onto Jaejin’s desk.
As Jaejin glanced at the rude gesture, the man smirked.
“Think of cleaning this up as payment for the entertaining story I shared.”
“Ah… okay.”
“And if you ever meet CEO Joo later, casually ask him sometime. Why he really married that woman.”
“Haha… sure. Maybe.”
At Jaejin’s reply, the man grabbed his coat from his seat.
With a camera slung over his shoulder and his coat in hand, he muttered toward the still-dazed Jaejin,
“Anyway, it’s kind of a shame for us too, right?”
“…”
“If Han Yeoreum had survived instead of Han Gyeoul, we could’ve written some seriously juicy articles.”
“…”
“Honestly, Prosecutor Han wasn’t exactly normal, right? Total loose cannon even inside the prosecution office. If she’d survived, she definitely would’ve gone insane trying to find whoever killed her sister.”
“…Ah.”
“You remember too, don’t you? A year ago when Han Gyeoul got attacked by someone holding a grudge against Prosecutor Han — she completely lost it and tore everything apart.”
“…Yes. I remember.”
“That story got us some great traffic.”
Smacking his lips regretfully, the man patted Jaejin on the shoulder.
“Anyway, I’m heading out for reporting. Good work.”
“Ah, yes. Take care, sunbae.”
Jaejin blankly watched the man leave the office.
Once the man was gone, the office fell silent again.
In the now-quiet office, Jaejin stared silently at the monitor before rising from his seat with the coffee the man had given him and the discarded paper cup.
Without a word, he walked over to the man’s desk.
On it sat a flowerpot — supposedly a gift from a famous politician whom the man had once written favorable articles about.
It was expensive, and the man treasured it like sacred property.
Jaejin quietly stared at the coffee in his hand.
Then, expressionless, he poured the coffee into the flowerpot.
He crushed the empty paper cup and tossed it carelessly onto the desk before returning to his own seat.
Staring at the blank white computer screen, Jaejin eventually clicked open a folder hidden deep within his computer.
[THE WINTER]
Inside the folder were countless photographs of Gyeoul.
From the day she first debuted ten years ago… to the photographs taken on the night the incident occurred.
In the dark office, Jaejin stared expressionlessly at the image of Gyeoul smiling brightly on the screen.
