“Ouch. My head’s going to split.”
Park Jinhyeok clutched his aching head and forced himself upright.
“Huh? Where am I now?”
Opening his eyes and looking around, Park Jinhyeok frowned at the unfamiliar sight.
Ever since he changed from Yoo Jeonggeol to Park Jinhyeok, he had spent some time struggling to adjust.
He had started to feel somewhat accustomed, but now, faced with this new scenery, he was thrown off once again.
The numbers floating above the objects in the room were anything but ordinary.
Even a single plate casually displayed tens of millions, and each painting hanging on the wall was tagged with figures ranging from hundreds of millions to billions.
The blanket covering his body represented hundreds of millions, signaling this room was far more luxurious than it seemed.
“Young Master, you’re awake?”
Someone greeted him from outside the door and then entered.
A middle-aged woman dressed in a maid’s uniform, the kind seen only in dramas, came in and respectfully bowed to Park Jinhyeok.
She handed him water and a towel.
Park Jinhyeok thought the maid uniform didn’t suit someone her age and wiped his hands and face with the towel before asking,
“Where is this?”
“This is your family home, Young Master.”
“Family home? In Pyeongchang-dong?”
“Yes.”
Park Jinhyeok took a sip of water, trying to recall.
He remembered being excited, holding the card Oh Seoyoung had given him, heading to a bar near Changdong Station where he often went in his Yoo Jeonggeol days.
He recalled how, as soon as he entered, he set up drinks, called for hostesses and a band, and drank to his heart’s content.
He remembered pulling out checks from his wallet, spreading them on the table, and sticking them to his chest and stomach as part of the show.
“After that… yeah. When the drinks really hit, some people barged in…”
At the time of the interim payment, Park Jinhyeok was already half-drunk and half-conscious.
While calling Madam Jeong for the first settlement and choosing a second round of hostesses, some burly men dressed in black stormed in.
They greeted Park Jinhyeok politely.
He thought they might be the staff managing the place and tried to be generous, reaching into his pocket to tip them… but…
“I don’t remember. I must have drunk too much.”
Since he got home safely, nothing seemed wrong, but his memory was patchy.
He recalled being dragged upstairs, leaning on someone’s shoulder, and a middle-aged man speaking harshly to him.
He remembered a familiar woman trying to stop the man, then closing the door with a look of contempt as the man left.
“Ah, it can’t have been anything serious.”
Park Jinhyeok threw off the blanket and sat up in bed.
His clothes had been changed into pajamas, and there were no injuries on his body.
After all the times in his early twenties at university when he got so drunk he crawled on the floor, getting covered in bruises and wounds, he always checked for injuries when he sobered up.
There were none now.
Satisfied, Park Jinhyeok headed to the bathroom to wash his face.
Just then, someone burst into the room.
“Hyung, you’re back? Where were you last night? Did you go somewhere fun by yourself again?”
Park Sanghyuk opened the door and greeted Park Jinhyeok with the warmth of a long-separated family member.
“Why are you so happy to see me after just yesterday?”
“Still, it’s nice to see you in Pyeongchang-dong. Come on, let’s go. Father is looking for you.”
“Father?”
Hearing the word ‘father’ reminded Park Jinhyeok that this place was the dreaded Pyeongchang-dong.
No matter how much the Grim Reaper had told him to live as Park Jinhyeok, and no matter how determined he was, this was still unfamiliar territory.
In his Yoo Jeonggeol days, he wasn’t close to his parents, and even after turning forty, the most contact they had was a call or two a month.
His new parents were unfamiliar to him.
Besides, having someone like Park Sanghyuk as a younger brother was manageable, but older family members were inevitably uncomfortable.
Still, Park Jinhyeok tried his best not to let the awkwardness show.
“If I have a chairman ranked tenth in the business world as a father, I guess I have to endure some discomfort.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Let’s go. He’s looking for you.”
Park Jinhyeok and Park Sanghyuk stepped outside.
Outside, Park Jinhyeok couldn’t help but marvel at the size of the house and the absurd numbers displayed everywhere.
An ornamental porcelain vase on the stairs displayed a price in the billions.
A huge framed painting was worth tens of billions, and even the dusters carried by the staff showed values in the hundreds of thousands.
“This is what having money looks like.”
Seeing trivial items flaunting values no ordinary person could even touch, Park Jinhyeok let out a hollow laugh.
Even in his Yoo Jeonggeol days, when he dreamed of what life would be like if he won the Lottery, he never imagined a scene like this.
His own home in Samseong-dong, worth five billion and spread across eighty pyeong, felt big, but this house made his place look tiny.
With a glass-walled living room nurturing trees you’d only see in a forest, no further explanation was needed.
Park Jinhyeok just laughed at the surreal disconnect between this and the reality he knew.
When employees passed by and greeted him, he lightly nodded back and followed Park Sanghyuk toward the study where their father was.
At the study door, Park Sanghyuk’s smile faded.
“Hyung, it’ll be okay. Mother’s stopping Father now, so nothing serious.”
“Huh? What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry. I’m here too. Don’t worry too much.”
Without explaining what to worry about, Park Sanghyuk knocked and opened the door.
Park Jinhyeok followed him inside.
The large study boasted a desk, a sofa, and walls lined with bookshelves full of books.
The study alone was big enough to be a small house.
Sitting in the best seat on the sofa was the man who visited the hospital a few times—his father. Oh Seoyoung sat beside him.
Behind Park Junman stood a middle-aged man who greeted Park Sanghyuk and Park Jinhyeok lightly as they entered.
Just as Park Jinhyeok was about to return the greeting, a cup flew toward him.
Crash.
Park Jinhyeok easily dodged the cup. Park Junman shouted at him,
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Chairman, please hold back.”
“Hold back? You can’t even hold it together on your first day after being discharged?”
Park Jinhyeok silently stared at Park Junman, who was flushed and stomping his feet in frustration.
Being in situations where objects were thrown and dodged was common in Yoo Jeonggeol’s company days, so it didn’t mentally affect him much.
But the problem was this was Park Jinhyeok’s family home, and the one throwing things was his father.
‘What the hell?’
Park Jinhyeok waited silently for what would come next.
Park Junman yelled again at the silent Park Jinhyeok.
“Are you seriously hanging around third-rate bars now? Are you going to have me drag you out of a brothel next?”
“Chairman, please don’t be so harsh. Jinhyeok is still young, and I’m a woman, so I don’t fully understand, but don’t men usually want to be with many women? Young people miss women, so don’t be too hard on him.”
“Miss women? You think that’s an excuse? The number of women that guy’s touched could fill a truck. It’s not missing women; it’s an addiction. And I’ve always protected him. But where was he yesterday? What was that Secretary Hwang saying?”
Secretary Hwang, standing behind Park Junman, bowed slightly and whispered into his ear.
Then, she gave Park Jinhyeok an apologetic glance.
“I’m speechless. How on earth did you even find such a place? Let’s hear your story.”
Park Jinhyeok smiled at Park Junman’s words and answered,
“You mean the Room Club Shinsagae I went to yesterday? It’s fine. The atmosphere is better than I thought. The level… I admit it’s decent. Though it’s called a room club, it’s not much different from a danran (karaoke bar). The management there…”
“Ah, hyung!”
Crash.
Before Park Jinhyeok could finish, Park Sanghyuk interrupted him, and another coaster flew, hitting the wall.
“You…”
“Chairman, please calm down. Jinhyeok, hurry and apologize. You don’t know how much trouble the Chairman went through looking for you yesterday.”
“Looking for me?”
Only then did Park Jinhyeok realize the burly men in his blurry memory weren’t gangsters managing the bar but people sent by Park Junman, who was pointing his finger at him.
“Why? I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Why? Why? Do you want me to see your face on the newspaper’s social pages? Now you’re even going to those places for drugs? Are you even human?”
“Drugs?”
Unable to grasp what was going on, Park Jinhyeok looked at Park Sanghyuk.
Park Sanghyuk wore a troubled expression and didn’t know what to say.
So Park Jinhyeok turned to look at Oh Seoyoung.
He caught a fleeting smile from her.
Realizing someone might see, Oh Seoyoung quickly wiped the smile from her face, bowed lower toward Park Junman, and said,
“Chairman, please don’t be so harsh. Addiction isn’t something you can just snap out of.”
“A young guy who can’t even control women, now turning to drugs? Do you think I’ll live long enough to meet your grandfather? Don’t you remember how much your grandfather doted on you? How can you bring shame to the face of our family, built by him?”
“Wait a minute. Drugs? What do you mean I’ve done drugs?”
Even Park Jinhyeok admitted to the womanizing.
The past Yoo Jeonggeol had liked it, and the present Park Jinhyeok did too.
A man living alone who gave up on marriage tends to think about women first when he gets money, and Park Jinhyeok enjoyed that a lot.
But after turning thirty and heading toward forty, he had grown weary of it.
Still, yesterday was a special day, so he went out on a whim.
But he couldn’t understand what was meant by drugs.
“Jinhyeok, it’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes when they’re young. And the Chairman here will cover for you, so don’t worry so much. Aren’t we family? Families understand and forgive each other.”
“No, I mean, what exactly are you understanding? I, the one involved, don’t even understand, so how can you say we’re forgiving?”
Frustrated by the absurd situation, Park Jinhyeok couldn’t stay silent and started talking.
Seeing this, Park Junman almost jumped up from the sofa, shouting as if to attack Park Jinhyeok.
“Do you really not know why you collapsed? Are you seriously that clueless?”
“Since I don’t know, I’m asking you to explain. Why exactly did I collapse?”
Unfazed, Park Jinhyeok’s calm tone made Park Junman sink back deeply into the sofa.
He just stared at Park Jinhyeok without saying a word.
If the past Yoo Jeonggeol—now Park Jinhyeok in his twenties—were here, he might have been cowed by Park Junman’s furious outburst.
But having experienced society, tasted bitterness, and hit rock bottom, Park Jinhyeok saw this as nothing but a fake act to overpower him.
If his father truly wanted to do something about him, he wouldn’t have resorted to such theatrical antics.
Oh Seoyoung glanced at the silent Park Junman.
Worried that he wouldn’t speak, she stepped forward and said to Park Jinhyeok,
“It’s okay if you don’t remember. But you collapsed that day because you had taken drugs before meeting us. We had no idea you would ever touch drugs.”
“Drugs… So you’re saying I’m on drugs?”
Oh Seoyoung glanced again at Park Junman, then smiled as she spoke to Park Jinhyeok,
“It’s okay. Secretary Hwang has handled everything, so you don’t have to worry. Many guys your age have tried drugs, so don’t be concerned. You’re also getting psychological therapy, and if needed, we’ll arrange for you to rest quietly somewhere. We’ve found a few places unknown to others, so we’ll visit them later.”
Park Jinhyeok couldn’t hold back a laugh at her words.
‘No wonder a fifty-year-old treats me so well. The Grim Reaper’s eyes didn’t deceive me. Fifty was a generous number.’
A smirk curled at the corner of Park Jinhyeok’s mouth.