Chapter Three
565 Words
The city lights of Seoul shimmered below Joon-ho’s penthouse window, but he saw none of it.
Alone, he poured himself a glass of whiskey — untouched — and sank into the leather armchair.
For years, he’d kept the memories buried deep. But tonight, as rain tapped softly against the glass, they rose like a tide he couldn’t stop.
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The Past
He was eight years old again.
The house had felt so cold that night — colder than any winter storm. His mother’s soft voice, always his comfort, had been strained and trembling for weeks.
He’d watched as his father’s family whispered behind her back. How they criticized everything she did — the way she dressed, the food she cooked, the way she raised him. Nothing was ever enough for them.
And his father… his father had turned away. Silent. Absent. As if he, too, blamed her.
Joon-ho remembered the sound of shouting that night. His mother’s sobs.
And then — silence.
He’d crept down the hallway, barefoot on the cold floor, heart pounding.
When he pushed open the door to the study, he found her.
Her fragile body hanging from the ceiling beam.
Her face pale, her eyes closed as if in sleep.
His scream tore through the house.
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The Years After
His world shattered that night.
The family covered up the scandal, but the whispers never stopped.
His father remarried a year later. A polished woman from a “good family.” The perfect daughter-in-law his grandparents had always wanted.
She came into their home with fake smiles and cold eyes.
At first, she pretended kindness. But behind closed doors, she undermined him at every turn — planting poison in his father’s mind, grooming her own son to be the heir.
Joon-ho withdrew, his heart growing harder each year.
The house that had once been his home became a prison.
Until, one day, at seventeen, he packed his bags.
His father barely noticed.
The stepmother didn’t try to stop him.
And he left — for America.
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The Return
Years later, when the call came — his father’s health failing — Joon-ho hesitated.
Why should he care?
But his old nanny’s voice, trembling over the phone, broke through his bitterness.
“Your father… he asks for you. Just once. Please, young master.”
And so, after years abroad, Joon-ho returned to Seoul.
No longer the broken boy who had fled.
Now, he was a man carved from ice, his grief hidden behind sharp suits and colder eyes.
He faced his father one last time. Accepted the apology offered too late.
And watched him die.
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The War Begins
The will was read.
Joon-ho, named as the rightful CEO — as his mother should have wanted.
His stepmother’s fury was quiet but deadly. Her son given a mall to manage — not the company throne she had schemed for.
The battle lines were drawn that day.
And Joon-ho vowed he would not lose.
Not again.
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Present Night
A knock at the door.
Joon-ho blinked, dragged from his memories.
“Sir? Your schedule for tomorrow,” came the assistant’s voice.
He straightened his tie, masking the storm inside.
“Leave it on the table.”
When he was alone again, he let out a long breath.
No more weakness. No more ghosts. Only victory.
He drained the untouched whiskey in one bitter swallow.
- Writer
