The gray of misery is half as near

When golden gleams glean promises from fear

A knife set hard and sharp to future's spine

Reminds us of the loss of things sublime

- E.L.

i.

"You've been quiet."

Woo Hee rolls over on her side, facing Chae Ryung. She has grown tired of those friendly, relentless stares, coming to realize that their rooming together is no accident.

Whoever hired Woo Hee doesn't trust her.

She supposes that is fair. She doesn't trust herself either.

What she hadn't quite expected was that her every waking move would be watched by a girl who fans her hair in twin tails over her shoulders, who applies red lipstick with an expert hand, and never stops talking.

Somehow, that is more unsettling than a shadowy figure around every corner.

"I'm tired," Woo Hee replies, pressing the back of her hand against her yawn. "It's been a long week, and last night…"

The day is splitting open like an overripe fruit. Sun is trickling through their narrow window. It is time to rise for work; later than usual, because the Wang-Hwangbo office is closed until noon in a show of solidarity with Taejo.

"Jinjja? After all that sleep?" Chae Ryung lifts her eyebrows. "You're a funny one. Anyway, I bet you we're getting new assignments today."

"From who?" Thing is, Woo Hee hasn't come face to face with whoever she is really working for. Not yet.

"Don't ask too many questions." Chae Ryung slips a pair of Louboutins out from under her cot. "It pays well. That's all that matters."

Woo Hee carries it all with her as she settles into the work of writing thank-you notes to the guests of last night's gala, assuring them in stilted message after stilted message that Wang Taejo will be perfectly fine. She is weighted down with why she came here—revenge—and what she is doing. She's living a lie.

Something draws tight in her throat, a noose of her own making.

She hears footsteps in the hall, and looks up from her desk.

It is a moment, a single moment. But Woo Hee's life (and all the death it has contained) is distilled to single moments.

Him.

He strides with the same easy purpose, draped in the same soft, pricy garments, as she observed that day at the train station.

She was working behind closed doors at last night's party, she did not see the guests. Now she wonders if he was here all along.

Woo Hee wonders what it all means.

ii.

Baek Ah's father used to have this office. He knows that Wook has his eyes set higher than anything Baek Ah has been or will ever be, but it still rankles. It still rankles, the way Wook can touch anything.

Now, Wook—here before almost anyone else, and drinking green tea out of an enameled cup—smiles warmly. Baek Ah grits his teeth.

"You're here early, my friend," Wook says, and then adds, thoughtfully, "The fact that you're here at all…to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Baek Ah came here of his own volition. He doesn't know what So would want him to say, or if So would want him to say anything at all. Maybe all the questions are Baek Ah's.

"I came to speak with someone about the status of my father's contracts," Baek Ah says. "I would have expected to speak to Yo, but I was told to come to you."

He wasn't, but he wants to see the effect the lie has on Wook.

Wook doesn't so much as blink. "Times are changing," he says. The words slide like chess pieces, Baek Ah thinks. He himself has never cared for chess. "What troubles you about the contracts?"

"It was an agreement between my parents and Wang Taejo," Baek Ah explains, as though Wook doesn't already know. "When he…retires, they come up for renewal." The question he does not ask in words, but which hangs in the air nonetheless is: would you renew them?

Wook wags a finger. "Myung Hee was right about you," he says softly, and Baek Ah's blood rushes hot, so hot in his veins. "She always said that you were a gift to us all. I might say a value. Do not worry, Baek Ah."

Baek Ah thanks him—it is difficult to do it without clenching his teeth—and leaves.

iii.

At the end of the work day, Ha Jin goes home to see her mother. She tells her that she has found a new apartment, and a new job, and she will be too busy to be home for some time. Her mother takes the news hard, but she takes it.

Somehow, this hurts.

In half an hour, Ha Jin and a bag of clothes are standing in front of Baek Ah's home. She climbs the broad steps with her lower lip tucked between her teeth, because she does not think anyone will make her leave here, but nor has anyone asked her to stay.

(Last night, So told her she could spend the night. He said it like it did not matter, but he also did not look her in the eyes. This, of all things, gave her hope.)

She tucks her things in a closet off the kitchen that seems unused and unimportant. Then she tiptoes down a lush-carpeted floor, as silently as she can, and comes to a heavy door. It rests slightly ajar; beyond it, voices.

"I'm…I'm sorry, hyung."

"No need to call me that," So answers. "Why are you sorry? You learned something valuable."

"What?" Baek Ah sounds baffled. "I mean, at first I thought I might learn which way the wind was blowing, but I already should have known. Wook is the wind. I showed my worry, visiting him at all, and he can probably see my plots better than I see them myself."

"You're not a plotter."

There is the clink of glass on glass; So is pouring himself a drink.

"What is the…" Baek Ah stumbles over the last word. "Value?"

"Yo," So answers shortly, "Would have laughed in your face. Wook didn't. Wook will use anyone. He has no pride."

"Because he's not a Wang," Baek Ah mumbles, but if it's loud enough for Ha Jin to hear, it's loud enough for So.

So doesn't exactly laugh, but he seems to come close. It warms Ha Jin, to think that he and Baek Ah have each other, here, too. "He's the farthest thing from a Wang," he agrees. "But it's no compliment, this time."

Ha Jin doesn't want to be spotted so she slips away to the kitchen, where one of them will find her and she can explain her plan to stay.

Once there, the thought she has feared so far springs to mind.

Wook will use anyone.

Wook, given the chance, will be all too eager to use her.

iv.

"We should have foreseen this." Yoo smooths a lock of hair behind her ear. "Worms can grow into snakes, if they're not watched." She tilts her gaze at her eldest son again. "Why were you not watching him more closely?"

Yo bows. He only ever bows to her. "Mian haeyo."

"I don't want your apologies. I want action." Yoo hisses out a sigh through her teeth. "If the doctors are right, your father has weeks to live. Gwangjong can be yours, but you need control. Decisive control."

"Subject to his appointment?"

"Better that he appoints you than that it is left to the board." His mother's hatred of the company's board is no secret to Yo. "Who will he whisper words to but his own wife?" His mother smiles. "He is angry at Wook. That will not be a hard story to sell. Mu is ruined. You are the one, Yo."

A little prickle of a thought has been teasing at Yo's mind of late. "What about So?" He knows even the mention of that name will make his mother angry, but he has to ask.

Her red lips twist. "So has nobody's trust, except for that weakling, Mu. Your father thinks of him like the trigger of a gun. Useful enough, if you want something killed."

Yo has a suspicion that their mother shares that belief. He does not say so.

"Double your deals," Yoo says. "You can go higher. If Taejo wakes up, I will promise him that you are prepared to provide for Jung—and even Mu. There will be no further need to derail shipments, with Mu gone. We no longer need the contrast with his enterprises."

"I'll task the assistants with watching Wook." Yo stirs in his seat. The teacup in front of him is twice emptied. "If he has been preparing deals of his own, we take them over."

Yoo waves a hand. "That won't be enough." Her gaze dances over him like the graze of a knife-edge. "I will only ask you this once," she says. "Wook learned Mu's weakness and exposed it. Are you in the same danger?"

"No," Yo answers.

He is lying.

v.

So follows the sound of laughter. It is coming from the kitchen—Baek Ah's kitchen, which is always stocked with good things. Three times a day, cook-staff arrives to prepare meals. Supposedly the meals are for Baek Ah and Eun, but Jung and So share in them as well.

Not at the same time, of course. He and Jung continue to orbit each other uneasily, if at all.

He finds Jung in the kitchen, as luck (or un-luck) would have it. Beside him, across the table with her knees tucked up against her chest, is Ha Jin.

They are both laughing.

So knows jealousy like an old friend. He has few enough of those, of course—perhaps it had better be called something else, then. He is tightening his fists without knowing it, setting his jaw as if bracing for a blow.

Jung sees him and stops laughing. "So."

He shifts his gaze to Ha Jin, and does not address Jung. It makes him feel like his mother, to cast someone aside. There is no power in the gesture, though. Not for So. "You're still here?"

She chews her lip. Soft, pink. He wants her mouth, and he wants—

Shame, as familiar as jealousy and much better-earned, rolls over him. He'll be asking for more than his birthright, soon enough. He shouldn't ask for anything else.

"I thought I should stay here," Ha Jin says. "Not just…for a night. To be of better help to you."

He has still not gotten through to Soo-kyung. He doesn't know what Soo-kyung arranged for this girl, this spy. Perhaps So was meant to look after her.

(Last night, he saw her as she slept. Again, it had shaken him. Again, it made him into something he is not. Something else, and not like jealousy.)

He shrugs, and turns away from her, from Jung, from the echo of their laughter. Why should he care for what makes her laugh? She has proven her usefulness, yes, and he trusts almost no one but he does not quite distrust her. That is enough for her to stay here.

It should also be enough for everything else, but instead So finds himself fleeing, returning to the better-known territory of violence and vengeance and the upward climb.

vi.

I'm sorry about your father.

She shouldn't have sent that text. It lingers, read and un-replied to, and Yeon Hwa feels a twinge of embarrassment whenever she thinks of it. She should have known better than to expect Yo to be overly concerned about his family.

She always wants to believe better of him than she has a right to.

Truly, the text would have been better sent to So—but she doesn't have So's number anymore and it seems unlikely that So's relationship with his father is much warmer than Yo's is. It's better than his relationship with his mother, surely, but that is not saying much.

She tosses her phone aside. She felt only disgust when she watched Taejo rant, and no pity when she watched him fall. He is not her father.

Yeon Hwa's father is already dead.

Perhaps she should go to America. Istanbul. Paris. Somewhere where she won't have to worry about Wook climbing to the top of the empire that has already shunned them. Somewhere where she will stop dreaming of So and reaching for Yo.

She was never meant to be weak.

The next time everything changes, maybe she will change with it.

Or maybe she is already doomed.