By the weekend, Jihoon finally made his way to the address Yoonjung had texted him.
It was already late afternoon when he arrived, the summer heat lingering even as the sun began to dip.
He looked up at the five-story apartment building and squinted at the stairs.
There was no elevator.
With a sigh, he climbed to the top floor.
At the very top, tucked away like a secret, was the kind of place that young Koreans romanticized in dramas and webtoons—a rooftop apartment.
It was tiny, just one room, a bathroom, and a small outdoor yard area that overlooked the city's rooftops like a private little world.
It wasn't much, but there was something oddly peaceful about it.
He knocked on the door.
Yoonjung answered almost immediately.
She was wearing an oversized white t-shirt and simple shorts, her hair tied up in a messy bun.
She smiled faintly. "You made it."
Jihoon stepped inside, looking around.
The room was sparsely furnished—just a bed, a small table, and an old kitchen setup that looked more symbolic than functional.
There was no TV, no decorations, not even a proper closet.
The only item that seemed valuable was a dusty upright piano sitting quietly in one corner, its keys untouched.
He turned to her with a confused expression. "You live here?"
"Mm-hmm," she said casually, walking to the kettle to make tea.
Jihoon raised an eyebrow. "But... you're the SK Group princess."
"I mean, practically your family owns half the country. You could live anywhere—why here? And don't tell me it's for the view."
Yoonjung chuckled as she poured water into mugs. "Then where should I live? At your place?"
Jihoon gave a snort, scratching the back of his head. "Ha, don't joke. You've got more money than me. Unless... wait, don't tell me SK's going bankrupt?"
He grinned, trying to lighten the mood—but the moment the joke left his mouth, he saw her face falter.
The playful spark in her eyes dimmed, and her smile vanished.
Her shoulders dropped slightly, and she stared at the floor for a second too long.
Jihoon's smile faded too. Something wasn't right.
He walked over quietly and sat beside her on the floor. "Hey... what's wrong?" he asked gently. "Did something happen?"
Yoonjung didn't speak for a moment.
But the silence between them wasn't awkward—it was heavy.
Finally, she looked at him. Her voice cracked. "My parents... they're getting divorced."
Jihoon blinked. "What?"
She took a deep breath and let the words tumble out. "I moved here because I didn't want to stay at home anymore."
"Everything feels fake there. My dad's always out, and my mom barely speaks."
"I just needed space… away from the pressure, from the media, from everyone pretending everything's fine when it's not."
As Jihoon listened, the pieces started falling into place.
This wasn't just a family issue—it was that family issue.
He'd read about it in tabloids during his past life.
Choi Taewon—her father, the founder and current chairman of SK Group.
Her mother, Roh Sohyeong, is the daughter of a former president of South Korea.
They had been married for 35 years, a political and business alliance wrapped in a storybook marriage.
On paper, it looked like a fairytale—princess marries powerful heir, and together they build an empire.
But behind the scenes, things were never that simple.
Jihoon remembered the headlines from his previous life.
Just four years from now, in 2011, a major scandal would shake the South Korean media and business world.
News broke that Chairman Choi Taewon had been involved in a long-term affair with a woman named Kim Heeyoung—an art student he had met during a trip to the United States.
The revelation was more than just a personal betrayal; it struck at the heart of SK Group's carefully cultivated image.
What made the scandal even more explosive was the fact that Heeyoung had already given birth to Choi's son—an affair not only hidden from the public eye but also from his official family for years.
Even more damaging was the discovery that Choi had quietly established a charity foundation called the T&C Foundation, using Heeyoung's name.
While it was presented to the public as a philanthropic initiative supporting education and the arts, those who looked deeper suspected it served a different purpose altogether.
Allegations began to surface that the foundation was being used as a front—a discreet channel for Choi to funnel large sums of money to support his mistress and their child, under the guise of charitable work.
To many, it wasn't just a scandal of infidelity—it was a symbol of abuse of power, privilege, and the blurred lines between corporate influence and personal indulgence.
The public was stunned.
The beloved image of the perfect businessman and father crumbled overnight.
It wasn't until 2022 that the divorce was finalized, after more than a decade of legal battles.
And the cost?
An astronomical 1.38 trillion won.
It was one of the most contested divorce settlements in South Korean history—and it rocked the foundations of SK Group.
Now, sitting beside Yoonjung in that quiet, slightly dusty rooftop room, Jihoon saw everything with fresh eyes.
The scandal he once remembered reading about in a tabloid headline wasn't just gossip anymore—it was real.
It was personal. It was her life.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
She looked so small sitting there, curled up with her knees hugged to her chest, as if trying to make herself disappear.
The sharp, confident expression she always wore had melted away, leaving behind something delicate—fragile, lost, and quietly breaking.
Jihoon had always thought the mistress scandal involving Chairman Choi exploded in 2011 when it hit every major newspaper, but now he wasn't so sure.
Maybe the family already knew long before it became public.
Maybe the story had been carefully managed behind the scenes, delayed, or suppressed—for the sake of the company's image.
That thought made sense.
After all, Yoonjung's mom wasn't just the wife of a chaebol family—she was also a shareholder herself, part of the corporate machinery.
Jihoon had come to understand how these families worked: business came first.
Always.
Even personal pain had to be calculated and timed.
Even betrayal had to be weighed against stock prices and investor confidence.
To them, family wasn't just family—it was leverage.
A name, a brand, a chess piece.
Maybe Roh Sohyeong had tried to keep the story under wraps, not because she wasn't hurt, but because she knew the damage it would do to SK's business.
That's the burden of growing up chaebol.
Emotions had to wait.
Appearances mattered more than the truth.
Jihoon sighed quietly.
It wasn't fair.
She wasn't just another rich girl living in luxury.
She was a daughter caught in the crossfire of empire, reputation, and broken family.
Yoonjung wiped her tears, her fingers trembling slightly.
She tried to smile—one of those tired, practiced smiles people wear when they've run out of strength to pretend everything's fine.
It didn't reach her eyes. In fact, it only made her look sadder.
"I know it's stupid," she said softly, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"But I just… I didn't want to be a part of that world for a while. And maybe… maybe this childish protest could somehow undo the damage."
Her words hung in the air, fragile and unsure—like she wasn't just talking to him, but trying to convince herself, too.
Jihoon didn't respond right away. He simply sat there, still and quiet, then slowly nodded.
"No," he said under his breath. "It's not childish at all."
To others, it might have looked like an immature rebellion—a rich girl running off to live in a rooftop room with no comfort, no luxury, and no one to serve her.
But Jihoon saw it differently now.
This wasn't just escape.
It was her way of fighting for something.
Of trying to protect the broken pieces of a family that had been shattering long before the public ever knew.
Maybe—just maybe—Yoonjung believed that if she stepped away, if she quietly removed herself from the chaos of her home, her parents would finally pause.
That without her in the picture, they might stop arguing for a moment and realize what was slipping through their fingers.
Maybe they'd remember what it meant to be a family.
Jihoon understood that kind of hope, even if it sounded naive on the surface.
In a chaebol household, warmth wasn't guaranteed.
It wasn't something that came with wealth or success.
In fact, in families like hers, affection often became a luxury—something too rare, too fragile to survive under the pressure of power, expectations, and image.
So this wasn't just her trying to escape. It wasn't rebellion.
It was her last quiet attempt to hold things together, not by force—but by absence.
Maybe, in leaving, she was trying to shake her parents awake.
Trying to make them realize what really mattered before it was too late.
Before the cracks in their marriage shattered into something unrepairable.
This wasn't a protest born from pride or anger.
It was born from a kind of quiet desperation.
The kind you carry in your chest when words stop working and being present only makes things worse.
Jihoon sat beside her in silence, taking it all in.
He knew the feeling well—the weight of being trapped in a world where your name speaks louder than your voice.
Sometimes, the only way to survive that kind of pressure is to step outside of it.
To walk away from everything everyone else says you should want, and just… breathe.
And in that moment, Jihoon no longer saw the polished, composed version of Yoonjung—the daughter of SK Group, the poised heiress who always seemed one step ahead, always calculating, always carrying some hidden motive behind her smile.
Instead, he saw someone stripped of all that.
He saw a young woman just trying to feel human again.
Someone weighed down by a name far heavier than anyone should have to carry.
And for the first time, she wasn't covering it up.
She wasn't putting on a brave face or pretending to be fine.
And somewhere in that quiet honesty, the bad impression Jihoon once held of her began to fade—so subtly, he didn't even notice it happening.
[Author's Note: Heartfelt thanks to Wandererlithe, JiangXiu, BigBoobs, Night_Adam and Daoistadj for bestowing the power stone!]