Endure It If You Can
The time was sliding toward evening.
Kang In-hyuk had spent the afternoon collecting documents at the office, handled a few additional errands, and then made his way to Donui-dong in Jongno District. Deep in an alley there, he opened the door to a modest restaurant called Seunghwa’s Home-cooked Meals.
Inside, Tae Seok-ho sat at a round stainless-steel table, chasing kimchi stew with shots of soju.
Every time he saw people tied to his past life, fragments of memory kept surfacing.
In-hyuk’s brow twitched. The moment he stepped inside, Lee Jae-jun, who had been standing by the entrance, locked the door behind him.
“Excuse the intrusion.”
Lee Jae-jun casually patted In-hyuk down, relieving him of his wallet, phone, and car keys before dropping them into a steel briefcase on the adjacent table.
His hands didn’t stop there. He ran a portable metal detector over In-hyuk’s entire body with clinical thoroughness before finally stepping aside.
It was a deliberate display, making it clear the situation was anything but relaxed.
“If you’re finished, come sit.”
Tae Seok-ho emptied the soju glass he had been using onto the floor and held it out to In-hyuk.
To In-hyuk, the face across from him belonged to a man he had sent to the grave years ago in his previous life. Seeing it again felt strangely distant.
He studied Tae Seok-ho for a moment, then stepped closer and accepted the glass. Once it was filled, he turned his head, drank, and sat down opposite him.
“…What did you call me here for?”
In the original Kang In-hyuk’s memories, their last meeting had been roughly six months earlier. Nothing important—just a cursory check on how things were at Tae Shin Asset Management and whether he faced any discomfort.
Of course, In-hyuk knew that had never been the real purpose.
“Ju-ha will be returning to Korea sometime next week.”
He was speaking of his niece—and In-hyuk’s wife—Tae Ju-ha.
“Is that so?”
“She’s coming in as the new Representative Director of Tae Shin Asset Management, the place you work. That was the condition in the deal I struck with my brother that led to your marriage. What, you didn’t know that much?”
It was information absent from Kang In-hyuk’s original memories. The previous version of himself had been kept in the dark.
But with the memories he now carried, In-hyuk knew it was an event from his past life. He gave no outward sign of that knowledge.
“Yes. First I’m hearing of it.”
“That father of hers really is something else. Marrying off the kid he brought in from outside just so she wouldn’t steal her siblings’ spots, then tossing her a subsidiary to keep her quiet.”
Listening to him, In-hyuk nearly let a curse slip but swallowed it. In his previous life, Tae Seok-ho had been every bit as bad as Tae Seok-hyun—if not worse.
“….”
“You’ve had a hard time of it, haven’t you?”
“Well… yes.”
A bitter smile crept across Tae Seok-ho’s face.
“Then you must already know what you need to do going forward, correct?”
He was referring to the reason he had been contacting Kang In-hyuk all this time.
“You want me to report on Tae Ju-ha’s movements after she takes the Representative Director position at Tae Shin Asset Management?”
“Along with every piece of information she gathered in New York.”
“Did she uncover something?”
This part was new even to the In-hyuk of his previous life.
Tae Seok-ho stared at him for a long moment before speaking.
“I’m debating whether to tell you right now. …Can I trust you with this?”
It was a clear admission that he did not yet fully trust Kang In-hyuk.
Tae Seok-ho had never trusted anyone. He weighed people on a scale and discarded them the moment their usefulness grew light. The empty space was simply filled by the next piece.
“If it’s difficult for you to trust me, assign it to someone else.”
“…What?”
The original Kang In-hyuk had never fawned over him either. He had treated him purely as a transactional partner—a means to an end.
Yet Tae Seok-ho had assumed the man would accept this task without question. The unexpected pushback left him visibly thrown.
“Didn’t you say this was something only I could do? If you don’t trust me and the results fall short of what you want, I’m the only one who loses.”
“Hah…!”
“If you want only the exact outcome you desire, then find someone else who fits the bill.”
Having said his piece, In-hyuk picked up the soju bottle himself, filled a glass, and drank.
Clack—
Tae Seok-ho let out a hollow laugh and stared at him with piercing eyes.
“You always kept your mouth shut so quietly I never noticed. You’ve got quite the spine.”
“It simply seemed rude to show an ambiguous attitude.”
The answer must have pleased him. Tae Seok-ho spoke slowly.
“It’s data on a place called the H&T Fund. Secure it and hand it to Manager Lee here.”
His gaze flicked briefly toward Lee Jae-jun standing guard by the door, then returned.
In that instant In-hyuk’s expression stiffened. The SD card he had found at the office earlier contained exactly those account records.
So that place was connected to Tae Seok-ho.
It was somewhere he had never known about during the time he followed the man. Most likely it had been disposed of before In-hyuk became one of his limbs.
“The name alone sounds ominous… If the data is that important, wouldn’t it be faster for the Executive Director to use a separate person? Especially before Tae Ju-ha arrives in Korea.”
In Korea they had no choice but to fear the influence of her father, Tae Seok-hyun, and the Taeshin Group chairman, Tae Geon-seung.
“Who doesn’t know that?”
“So there’s a reason you can’t do it yourself.”
“Once Ju-ha arrives you’ll understand, but not long ago the chairman attached a direct TSS team to her.”
Commonly known as Taeshin Security—shortened to TSS—it was the special protection unit originally under the Taeshin Group that In-hyuk had once belonged to.
However, the chairman’s personal guard team was on an entirely different level from the units commanded by the eldest son Tae Seok-hyun or the second son Tae Seok-ho.
Besides, although they shared the TSS name, they operated independently, making recruitment impossible.
“It means Tae Ju-ha has obtained information the chairman must not learn about.”
Tae Seok-ho’s expression had grown deadly serious.
“Correct. But I don’t yet know whether the chairman learned something and assigned the team, or whether Ju-ha requested it. Either way, you must obtain that information by any means necessary. Understood?”
“Are you certain Tae Ju-ha possesses it? I will do my best, but if you’re asking me to find something that doesn’t exist, even I have limits.”
At a gesture from Tae Seok-ho, Lee Jae-jun approached and produced a photograph.
The background looked like a parking tower. A blonde Caucasian woman sat inside a car, appearing to hand Tae Ju-ha a document envelope.
“She’s the secretary to an H&T Fund executive. I don’t know how Ju-ha found and persuaded her, but this is the moment the woman passed internal information to her.”
“You don’t know the exact contents?”
“When they caught her and questioned her, she said it was documents. But there’s no guarantee Ju-ha still has them in that form. Find a USB, another device—anything.”
Tae Seok-ho was leaving nothing to chance.
“Understood. I’ll locate it. Is that all?”
“For now.”
“Then I’ll take my leave first.”
In-hyuk retrieved his belongings from the briefcase Lee Jae-jun had opened and stepped outside.
Left behind in the restaurant, Tae Seok-ho watched the door close with a complicated expression.
“Manager Lee. That friend… doesn’t he seem different somehow?”
Lee Jae-jun had locked the door again and returned to the table.
“He doesn’t appear exactly the same as before.”
The answer contained not a shred of speculation.
Tae Seok-ho downed another glass of soju and let out a low hum.
“Hmm… He used to stay quiet unless spoken to, but just now I couldn’t read him at all. Instead he only made moves that demanded confirmation from me. What’s your take?”
“…My insight is too shallow to judge that far.”
Once again, no personal opinion was offered.
“This is why I trust you. The way you speak without planting any misunderstandings.”
“Thank you.”
“…He may have reached some kind of decision. Earlier he even suggested it might be better to handle Ju-ha while she was still in America.”
The marriage had always been a tool to suppress Tae Ju-ha’s potential. Within that arrangement, Kang In-hyuk had been an unwelcome sacrifice for both sides.
Of course it was her father, Tae Seok-hyun, who had forced the marriage through, but since the plan was to use and discard him, they had never placed any real trust in Kang In-hyuk.
“If things continue this way, the day will come when I can use him spectacularly. Ah, that matter is prepared, yes?”
“Duplicated without issue.”
Hearing the reply, Tae Seok-ho emptied another glass of soju.
.
.
.
After leaving the restaurant, In-hyuk stopped in Yongsan to purchase a new phone, laptop, and bug detector before returning home. He then meticulously checked every outlet, light fixture, fluorescent lamp, air conditioner, and surface for listening devices or cameras.
“So Tae Seok-ho isn’t willing to go that far just yet?”
He muttered to himself as he powered on the newly bought laptop and the phone he had kept switched off since leaving the restaurant.
On the laptop he visited an online magic-tool shop called Wizard’s Shop. At first glance it looked like any ordinary site.
He searched for the product “Red Witch.” A wig the color of fresh blood appeared.
Entering the product description, he scrolled down and clicked the right margin beside the typo that read “wear it and enjoy.”
Click—
The screen changed. A page with an entirely different atmosphere from the magic-tool store rose up.
A dark-web marketplace that had been operating for several years.
Access granted.
That wasn’t the end. An input field appeared; he typed naturally.
Tap-tap-tap— Tap-tap-tap—
After entering the password and clearing the final gate, the main page revealed itself.
“I wondered whether it would still be here… and of course it is.”
In-hyuk first downloaded the programs he needed from the dark-web site, then inspected his original phone.
WARNING
WARNING
WARNING
Before long the alerts appeared. Checking the details revealed a duplication history.
As expected… he doesn’t trust me at all.
Lee Jae-jun must have planted something in the bag where the phone had been placed.
In-hyuk downloaded a virus from the site and injected it into the device. It immediately clashed with the duplicated program; the phone screen went completely black and refused to turn back on.
“This should raise a little suspicion, but he might write it off as a software glitch.”
He then clicked the message box for the site operator tucked away in a corner.
In-hyuk smiled faintly and closed the chat window.
The operator of the dark-web site known as the Red Witch’s Store was a woman named Go Mi-ah.
Her real identity was, of course, kept strictly secret from users. So when someone suddenly messaged her real name, it was only natural for curses to fly first.
Go Mi-ah was a computer prodigy currently attending KAIST. With her skills, two minutes would have been more accurate than five. And In-hyuk knew those exact skills would be indispensable for the work ahead.
In the original future, this incident had turned Go Mi-ah into a slave of the National Intelligence Service. They had promised to release her after five years of service, but that promise was broken just before the term ended when she became entangled in an information leak. She escaped their safe house, smuggled herself into the Philippines, and survived by building illegal gambling sites and working as an information broker—until the day she met him.