The Scent of Sincerity
"Excuse me, Team Leader."
"What is it, Associate Kim?"
"Have you by any chance seen the announcement they posted on the company intranet today?"
Cheon Doa shook her head as if she had no idea.
"Which one would that be?"
"Um... they're creating a new team. And judging by the scale of it, it looks like they're practically standing up an entire new department?"
"The Special Strategy Operations Team, you mean?"
"Ah, yes! That's the one!"
"What about it?"
"Well... they said they're accepting applicants. I was wondering if... if I could apply too?"
Cheon Doa set down the report she'd been reading.
Under the icy stare of her team leader, Kim Sujin swallowed dryly.
"I heard about it too. They're selecting the staff who'll be joining that department."
But they weren't hiring ordinary employees.
There would have been no need to post an announcement on the intranet if they were.
"They're picking the core members who'll sit in meetings with Associate Kang Suho every day and make decisions alongside him—no, wait. He's a Team Leader now, isn't he. The core members who'll do that with Team Leader Kang."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And Associate Kim Sujin wants to get in."
"Th-that's right. I always thought I'd spend my whole career buried in the Research Center, but... I really want to be part of that team, just once. I want to learn so much working under Team Leader Kang, and get experience in all kinds of things..."
A short laugh escaped Cheon Doa.
She claimed it was for her own career, but Cheon Doa knew perfectly well that wasn't her real reason.
In truth, she'd noticed it a long time ago.
Kang Suho and Kim Sujin.
There was a certain inexplicable energy flowing between the two of them.
"If it's purely for personal reasons, you'd be better off folding up that application."
"...I'm sorry?"
"I mean, if it's simply because Team Leader Kang is there, and you just want the two of you to spend a long time in the same space together, then you shouldn't apply."
The moment she'd seen this intranet announcement, Cheon Doa had sensed it instinctively.
Daeseong Securities was trying to build a super-team centered on Kang Suho—the first all-rounder in the history of Korean finance.
But no one leads a team alone.
The members who make up that team are what matter.
If they truly intended to assemble a super-team, then talent worthy of the name had to fill it.
"You already know the rumors about Team Leader Kang have spread all through Daeseong Securities, right? His track record has been so extraordinary that everyone's brimming with curiosity. Who exactly is this Kang Suho, the first all-rounder Yeouido has ever produced? If the company is backing a team this hard, imagine what they're going to accomplish—that's what people are thinking."
In other words, every heavy-hitter inside the company was likely to throw their hat in the ring.
"Do you think you can hold your own among people like that?"
"......"
It wasn't that Kim Sujin hadn't thought about that part.
And it wasn't as though she was applying to the team purely because she liked Kang Suho, either.
Watching him move from department to department had awakened a hunger in her too—a desire to build experience outside the Research Center and sharpen her own skills.
"Of course, if it's ever judged that my abilities would be a liability to Team Leader Kang or the team, I intend to step out immediately."
"Hmm. You say that as if the job were already yours the moment you submit the application. Have you and Team Leader Kang already talked it over?"
"Gah! No, that's not—not at all what I meant! Suho doesn't— I mean, Team Leader Kang doesn't even know I'm applying!"
That had been the very thing she was dying to know, too.
And thanks to this, she'd walked away with a piece of information.
"Right. Well then, go for it."
"Th-thank you, Team Leader. And I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Honestly, I was a little curious myself. Whether Team Leader Kang would pick me, or pick you."
"I'm... sorry, what?"
"I submitted my application the second the announcement went up."
At Cheon Doa's completely unexpected admission, Kim Sujin froze solid in her seat.
"Y-you, Team Leader?! You applied?!"
"I did. Like I said a minute ago—everyone's curious. There's a real thrill in imagining what we might accomplish if we joined that team. So I threw my own name in."
"B-but Team Leader, you..."
"It's a losing proposition on paper, sure. I'd have to give up my position. But I want to know, too. What kind of interesting things I could get up to working under Team Leader Kang. And besides... I happen to like Team Leader Kang quite a lot."
"!?"
She likes Team Leader Kang?
Reeling from a second bombshell, Kim Sujin could barely collect her thoughts.
"Don't get the wrong idea. Obviously I mean 'business-related' affection. Team Leader Kang is a remarkable man, after all. He's mastered every corner of finance, and his instinct for investing goes without saying."
"Th-that's true."
"Just like you said, Associate Kim—I applied because I want to learn more, and experience more."
"......"
Kim Sujin stumbled out of the team leader's office, sank into her chair at her own desk, and slumped there.
She stared blankly at her monitor for a moment, then pressed both hands to her burning cheeks.
'Business-related affection?'
Weren't they always saying never to underestimate a woman's intuition?
Her team leader—the living glacier, the woman who wouldn't bleed if you stabbed her—had said that.
That subtle look in her eyes could not be explained away as professional respect or mere curiosity.
And besides, who was Cheon Doa?
The ace of the Daeseong Securities Research Center. Its youngest-ever team leader.
And that woman was going to throw away her position to work under Kang Suho?
Gaining experience, she'd said. Somehow it had begun to sound suspiciously like an excuse.
'Then could it be... Team Leader feels something for Suho too?!'
Clutching her tangled, spinning head, Kim Sujin let out a small, strangled scream.
A perfectly tailored suit that looked like every woman's dream. A beauty that was at once cool and utterly overwhelming.
The moment she pictured Team Leader Cheon Doa standing glued to Suho's side, the world swam dizzily before her eyes.
"Ugh, ahhh—"
It felt as though a formidable new rival had appeared from a direction she'd never thought to watch.
"......"
Tink. Tink.
In the awkward silence, the only sound was the clink of spoon against bowl, ringing out louder than it had any right to.
A private room in an upscale Korean restaurant where courses arrived one after another, each arranged with immaculate care.
Perhaps because of that, the space was so hushed that even breathing felt like an intrusion.
But that wasn't why the two of us—people who normally talked each other's ears off from the moment we met until the day was done—had fallen silent.
"...Ahem."
Before long, the Chairman cleared his throat and broke the ice.
"Even eating at a place this expensive, I swear the side dishes your mother makes taste better."
"......"
I quietly set my chopsticks down on the table.
I hadn't come to this table for an expensive meal, after all.
"Chairman."
At the weight in my voice, he stiffened slightly.
"Are your intentions toward my mother... sincere?"
No beating around the bush—I threw the fastball straight down the middle.
He looked remarkably calm, as if he'd been waiting for exactly this question.
"She's a woman who worked herself to the bone raising two kids alone, children who couldn't even manage their own breakfast without her. She's only just now gotten a restaurant of her own, and she's happy, doing work she loves. All I want is for my mother to be happier than she is now."
"Of course. I know better than anyone how much you treasure your mother."
"Yes. So I have no wish to stand in the way of the two of you—but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. You live in a different world, Chairman."
Even working at the company myself, I'd caught wind now and then of just how formidable our Chairman had been in his prime.
Setting that aside entirely, he had been born into the bloodline of a financial group.
A member of the so-called Royal Family.
From birth itself, his world and my family's had been different.
"Mm."
The Chairman took a slow sip of water and hummed thoughtfully.
He might find it distasteful that I was raising this at all. He might write me off as an ingrate who'd forgotten his debts.
But this wasn't just anyone's business—it was my mother's.
So even if it meant overstepping, some things simply had to be said.
"Suho. I understand exactly what you're getting at. On paper—my background, my titles—I've unquestionably lived in a different world from Jeongsuk. But it's all a glittering shell. For a long, long time, my life was nothing but the shell."
He rested his hand on the glass in front of him and went on.
"I lost my wife early and raised my son alone. But the boy must have missed his mother, because he left me too, and young, just as she did. Moving into that grand, gleaming, freezing house—I felt like I was suffocating to death."
Once in a while, the Chairman had mentioned his son in passing.
I'd always just assumed his son lived somewhere abroad.
At least until I heard the story from someone else, that is.
"You once told me you started hiking mountains because you wanted to breathe. That's exactly how I felt. At home, I simply could not draw a breath. So I ran—fled to the mountains, over and over, drifting aimlessly."
"......"
"Then I met the people in our hiking club. And I met you. Little by little, I opened my heart to the world again. Around then, people started nudging me—why not try meeting a woman? Honestly... I wasn't interested. I didn't believe I could ever come to like someone that way again."
As he said it, the Chairman smiled faintly.
"But the world never guarantees anything, does it? A chance encounter with your mother—and for the first time in ages, I found myself drawn to someone. Thankfully, your mother felt the same about me. And so, Suho—this much I can say with certainty."
Strength gathered in the Chairman's voice.
"This is not a whim, not something light. It is precisely because she is the person who makes me feel, for the first time, that I am truly alive again, that I am seeing your mother now with more seriousness, more care, than at any point in my life."
This was not the face of the Chairman I knew—the charismatic man with the booming laugh.
Just an ordinary man, one who had lived locked away in a terrible loneliness, sitting across the table from me.
"It's only natural that you worry. Some man has suddenly barged into the life of the most precious person in the world to you. If I were in your shoes, I'd have grabbed him by the collar first. Hahaha."
Then he looked me dead in the eye and said:
"But this feeling will never be a light one—not today, and not ever. I will never do anything to wound your mother's heart, never let a hand lay a finger on it. I stake my entire life and my name on that promise."
And at that very moment—
"...!?"
A fragrance filled my nose to the brim.
It was nothing like the sweet smell of money I usually caught off stock charts or investment proposals.
An ancient tree that had weathered years of biting wind and rain without complaint.
From it, a deep, woody scent was stirring my senses.
Breathing it in was like sinking into a warm spring sun—such a gentle, tender aroma that it seemed to wrap the entire private room in its embrace.
'...You truly mean it.'
I felt it there.
The Chairman's heart.
My sense of smell had never once lied to me.
If even a syllable of what he'd said had been false, the air would have reeked, without fail, of something foul enough to turn my stomach.
Instead, I could feel the guarded tension inside me melting away like snow, dissolved by the clean, deep fragrance rising off the man across the table.
"Chairman."
"Yes."
"I believe you."
"...!"
"I haven't known you all that long, but I know you're not a man who speaks those words lightly. And above all, you're a good man."
"Suho..."
Only then did the Chairman's face return to the one I had always known.
"That said, I'll be keeping watch with the eyes of a hawk."
"You little rascal! Hahahaha!"
The Chairman slid the braised short rib dish that had been pushed far away from me right back across the table.
"The hard talk is over, so let's eat. What's the point of sitting in front of a meal this expensive picking at it like a bird?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you for the food."
"Oh, right—I heard the news. They're making you a Team Leader? Daeseong Securities seems determined to roll out the red carpet for you. Whew. I'd wager there's never been a promotion this dramatic in the whole history of Yeouido."
"That's all thanks to you, Chairman."
I gave the credit where it was due.
It was the Chairman who'd taken an aimless bum who did nothing but climb mountains and put him into Daeseong Securities, after all.
And above all, the man picking up the tab for today's pricey meal was him.
"So, is that why you're buying today—out of your promotion bonus?"
"...Suddenly I feel the need to seriously reevaluate the two of you and this relationship."
"Relax, I already settled the bill a while ago, you rascal."
"Then I'll be cheering you on with all my heart."
"Good. That helps. Now eat."
"Yes, sir! Next time it's my treat."
"Fine by me. Just make sure it's several times more expensive than this."
I'd spent days agonizing over what I should say, but with it all settled like this, a weight had lifted from my chest.
Still—our Chairman here.
I might have come around easily, but my sister wasn't going to be nearly so accommodating.
'But I suppose I don't need to worry.'
If the Chairman was this sincere, she would open her heart to him eventually.
'Although...'
He wasn't about to go so far as remarrying, was he?
And if it really came to that—
'Would I have to stop calling him Chairman, and start calling him... Father?'
I was in the middle of finishing my meal, chuckling at my own idle fantasy, when it happened.
"Suho."
"Yes?"
The Chairman set down his glass as the meal wound to a close and spoke again.
And then I felt it—the air in the private room shift entirely.
The neighborhood-elder-brother persona who'd been grinning and sliding meat my way just moments ago was gone without a trace.
"Team Leader Kang."
Even the way he addressed me had changed.
"Right now I need to speak to you not as the head of our hiking club, but as a Director of Daeseong Group."
I straightened my posture at once.
The good-natured Chairman I knew was nowhere to be found—I felt as though I were facing a titan of industry.
It was remarkable, how he could change his entire aura in a single breath.
"The weight that comes with the title of Team Leader will never be a light one. And you, on top of that, will be answerable for an entire department."
He was right.
I had never once taken that weight lightly myself.
"You'll be checked and challenged from inside and outside alike. Your newly created team is the single most watched thing in Yeouido right now. People will dig for your weaknesses and attack however they can. A pressure unlike anything you've faced so far is coming. Can you handle it?"
His expression was deadly serious, but I could hear it in his voice.
Right now, the Chairman was deeply worried about me.
It made sense. A kid barely out of his rookie year had suddenly been pinned with a Team Leader nameplate.
Worse, a Team Leader responsible for a whole department.
He seemed concerned about the crushing weight of that burden.
"I can handle it."
"Truly? All eyes are on you. The road ahead will not be easy. And knowing that, you still mean to try?"
When I first joined Daeseong Securities thanks to the Chairman, I'd never dreamed I'd climb this far, this fast.
At the start, my only ambition was to become an employee worth his own keep. Now, I'd come a long way from that.
I wanted to test myself—how far this ability of mine could take me, how much farther I could succeed.
"Yes. I'll see it through."
"How far?"
"As far as my ability reaches. All the way to the end."
"...!"
The Chairman looked at me with widened eyes.
Had I overdone the swagger?
But in front of the man who'd put me into the company, I couldn't very well whimper that I was scared and the pressure was too much. Not after deciding to do this.
If I was going to commit, I wanted to show him confidence.
"......"
The Chairman studied me for a long moment, then called over a staff member and ordered a bottle of liquor brought out.
Before long, the server carefully carried in a porcelain bottle of soft, muted color.
"This is probably the most expensive liquor in the entire restaurant."
The Chairman filled my glass.
"Think of it as your promotion toast."
"No, really, something this lavish..."
I knew next to nothing about liquor, but the aroma teasing my nose was nothing short of a work of art.
How should I put it—
It was as if the pure, still spirit of a mountain's deep interior had been captured whole, a scent that cleared the head in an instant.
"Let's make a toast. To that 'end' you spoke of."
I had boldly declared "the end" to the Chairman, but truthfully, I had no idea where that end lay.
Still, thanks to the fragrance drifting off this liquor, the atmosphere tonight, at least, was absolutely perfect.
Clink—
With the bright ring of glass against glass, I drained the liquor in one swallow.
A rush of warmth slid down my throat, and its fragrant sweetness seemed to wake every cell in my body.
"Haah—"
I suspected I would never, for the rest of my life, taste a better promotion toast than this one.