The café was the kind of place that didn't want to be found.
Tucked beneath a dripping overpass in Mapo, it smelled of old espresso grounds and damp concrete.
The rain outside was a gray curtain, washing the color from the afternoon.
Ha-eun sat at a corner table, her back to the wall, watching the door.
Tae-sik arrived like a storm surge.
He didn't bother shaking the water from his leather jacket, just let it drip onto the scarred linoleum as he slid into the seat opposite her.
His eyes were bloodshot, the amusement gone, replaced by a flat, pissed-off intensity.
"Working for him."
He didn't make it a question. The words were a low accusation, stripped of his usual lazy irony.
He leaned forward, forearms on the table, invading her space with the smell of wet leather and stale smoke.
"You moved into his annex. You take his orders. What's next, Yoon? Having his coffee served in your office? Sharpening his pencils?"
Ha-eun took a slow sip of her tea. It was too bitter, over-stepped. She let the taste sit on her tongue.
"Being inside the structure is the most efficient way to map its weaknesses."
"Bullshit."
The word cracked like a whip. A few heads turned at other tables. Tae-sik didn't lower his voice.
"That's the line you feed the idiots. Not me. I've seen it before. The brilliant outsider gets seduced by the palace. The gold, the power, the view from the tower. You start thinking you can change the rot from within. You can't. It changes you. It eats you."
He jabbed a finger toward the window, in the general direction of the Haneul Tower, invisible in the rain.
"He's not a project, he's a prince. A damaged, dangerous prince who knows exactly what you are. You're not mapping him. You're walking into his mouth and calling it strategy."
There was a sliver of truth in his anger, sharp enough to prick.
She'd felt it herself, the gravitational pull of Jun-ho's orbit, the confusing heat that had nothing to do with vengeance.
She set her cup down, the ceramic clicking with finality.
"My focus hasn't changed."
"Hasn't it?"
He laughed, a short, ugly sound.
"You think I don't see you watching him? Not like a consultant watches a client. Like…"
He searched for the word, his mouth twisting.
"Like a cat watching a bird it's not sure it wants to eat or play with. It's disgusting. And it's going to get you killed."
"Is that concern, Tae-sik? Or are you just annoyed your favorite source of chaos is on a shorter leash?"
For a second, he looked like he might throw his own coffee at her.
Then the anger deflated, leaving behind a weary cynicism that was somehow more unsettling.
He slumped back, running a hand over his face.
"You know what the old man did to my family. To my sister. You think the son is any different? Blood is blood. The apple might be bruised, but it rots from the same core."
He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, not for a cigarette, but for a small, matte black object.
He placed it on the table between them with a soft click.
It was a drone, no larger than her palm, its surfaces seamless, its propellers folded tight like a dead insect's wings.
"A gift," he said, his voice back to that low, conspiratorial rasp.
"An extra eye. It's quiet. Links to a secure, disposable feed. In case you need to see what's happening in a room you're not in. Or follow someone who thinks they're alone."
Ha-eun looked at it. A tool of her old trade. Of surveillance, of control.
To be caught with it in the Haneul Annex would be a confession of espionage. A death sentence dressed in corporate policy.
She didn't touch it.
"I have eyes."
"You have his eyes on you," Tae-sik corrected.
He pushed the drone an inch closer.
"Take it. Or don't. Throw it in the Han. But know it's there. A reminder that some of us still remember what you came here to do."
He stood up, his chair scraping loudly.
"Don't drown in the perfume of the palace, Consultant. It's just masking the smell of the grave."
He left without another word, the café door swinging shut behind him, cutting off the sound of the rain for a moment before it returned, a constant, dreary static.
Ha-eun finished her tea, the bitterness now a familiar companion.
After a full minute, she picked up the drone. It was lighter than it looked, cool and inert.
She slipped it into her bag, where it settled next to the cold weight of the golden pen.
Two gifts. Two traps.
She paid and walked out into the rain, not bothering with her umbrella.
She let the cold droplets soak into her hair and run down the back of her neck, a small, physical punishment for the confusion churning inside her.
---
The Transition Team war room hummed with a nervous, exhausted energy.
It was past eight, the artificial pond outside the glass walls a black mirror reflecting the sterile white lights.
Ha-eun was at her terminal, cross-referencing severance packages with productivity metrics, a grim calculus of human cost.
Jun-ho entered, and the hum dialed down a notch.
He'd been in back-to-back meetings with union lawyers all day. It showed.
His jacket was gone, his shirtsleeves rolled up haphazardly, revealing the tense cords of his forearms.
His tie was loosened, the knot sitting at the base of his throat like a noose he'd decided not to tighten.
He had a tablet in one hand, and he moved directly to the large interactive screen where the list of twelve hundred names from the old steel division glowed, a scroll of impending ruin.
He didn't greet anyone. He just started speaking, his voice a dry rasp that commanded the room's silence.
"The redundancy plan for Section C. The melt shop."
He swiped, bringing up a sub-list. Eighty-seven names.
"We need a thirty percent cut here to make the new logistics hub's numbers viable in year one."
A manager, a man named Park with kind eyes and a permanently worried frown, cleared his throat.
"Sir, the skill transfer for those men will be difficult. Most have been pouring steel for thirty years."
"Then they'll learn to scan barcodes," Jun-ho said, his tone leaving no room for sentiment.
His finger scrolled, paused. He tapped a name.
"Kim Dae-jung. Foreman. Fifty-eight. Productivity score… adequate. But his absenteeism spiked six months ago. Medical leave."
Ha-eun's eyes flicked to the profile.
The data was dry: Kim Dae-jung, employee for thirty-two years, salary grade, dependents listed as one: a daughter.
Jun-ho's finger remained on the name.
He wasn't looking at the manager. He was looking at the screen, but his gaze seemed turned inward.
"Move him," he said, the words abrupt.
Park blinked.
"Sir?"
"Move him. Off the redundancy list. Find him a position. Logistics coordinator, warehouse supervisor, something with a roof and a chair. Create the position if you have to."
The silence this time was different.
Not the silence of fear, but of pure, uncomprehending surprise. Jun-ho never intervened for individuals.
His entire mandate was ruthless, impersonal efficiency.
Ha-eun watched him. He still hadn't looked away from the name.
A muscle in his jaw worked, a tiny, rhythmic pulse.
"May I ask why, Mr. Seo?" Park ventured, his voice hesitant. "His skill set is not a direct match, and creating a role—"
"Loyalty," Jun-ho cut him off, finally turning his head.
His eyes were dark, hollowed out by the screen's glow.
"A man who has given thirty-two years to a company, even a dying one, represents institutional memory. And loyalty in the new structure is more valuable than the few million won you'll save on his severance. It's a strategic investment."
He delivered the explanation like he was reading from a corporate psychology textbook.
It was logical. It was cold. It was almost convincing.
But Ha-eun heard the faintest hitch in his voice on the word 'loyalty.'
She saw the way his thumb, resting on the edge of the tablet, pressed white against the glass.
"Understood," Park said, clearly not understanding at all, but wise enough to stop questioning.
Jun-ho gave a short nod, his business concluded.
"Do it. Report back tomorrow."
He turned and left the war room, his footsteps echoing in the sudden, buzzing quiet.
The managers went back to their work, murmuring about the unpredictable heir.
Ha-eun stayed at her terminal.
She opened Kim Dae-jung's full employee file. She read the dry facts again.
Then she opened the attached medical leave authorization. The reason was coded, but the approving clinic was listed: Seoul Mercy Chronic Care & Hematology Center.
A cold, precise click sounded in her mind.
She minimized the file. Opened another, older database—one she wasn't supposed to have access to, a legacy HR system from before the digital migration.
It took three different algorithms to bypass the rusted firewalls.
She searched for the clinic name.
Two results.
One: Kim Dae-jung. Authorization for extended caregiver leave. Dependent: Kim Soo-bin (daughter). Condition: Aplastic Anemia.
Two: A confidential, executive-level medical billing log. Patient identifier redacted. Authorization code: SJH-P1. Treating facility: Seoul Mercy Chronic Care & Hematology Center. Specialty consultations: Immunology. Experimental drug protocols. Dates spanning the last five years.
SJH. Seo Jun-ho.
P1. Patient One.
His sister.
Ha-eun leaned back in her chair. The war room faded into a blur of light and low conversation.
On her screen, the two lines of text sat side by side.
A foreman's sick daughter. The heir's sick sister. The same rare, expensive, hope-devouring clinic.
Loyalty in the new structure is more valuable.
It wasn't strategy.
It wasn't a calculated investment in institutional memory.
It was a flicker.
A tiny, desperate act of recognition.
One man, drowning in the medical bills for his child, seeing another drowning in the same dark water.
A life raft thrown not from compassion, but from a raw, unspoken understanding of the weight.
A moment where the prince had looked at a ledger and seen not a cost, but a reflection.
The crack wasn't in the Haneul empire's finances.
It was in him.
And she was staring right into it, holding her breath, waiting to see what would spill out.
Understanding him didn't make him safer.
It only made him impossible to ignore.