The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

For an instant the team leader's pupils wavered, ever so slightly.

"You know full well who stands behind me… and if I file an assault complaint and a formal investigation opens up… do you think you can handle that?"

Practical advice, half threat and half not.

The team leader let out a short breath, closed his eyes, and opened them again.

"Agent Kim. Apologize properly."

"Sir!"

Agent Kim jumped as if he'd been wronged, but the team leader's voice sank colder still.

"You want to lose your job right here? No back talk — bow your head. Do it."

At the team leader's flat command, the color drained from Agent Kim's face.

Well, at least the boss has his head screwed on.

He understood that swallowing his pride once here and letting it go was the 'cheapest' way out of this.

Agent Kim, unable to master his outrage, trembled with clenched fists.

But he couldn't defy his team leader's order — he bit down hard on his lip, then bent at the waist with great effort, as if swallowing poison.

"…My apologies."

It was an apology forced out through gritted teeth, but it kept up appearances, and that was enough.

I looked down at the crown of the bowed agent's head and spoke, at my leisure.

"Well, for the team leader's sake, I'll let it slide just this once—"

Right as I was about to finish.

"What in the world do you think you're doing?!!"

A high, needle-sharp shout, piercing enough to make the whole lobby ring, cut my words off dead.

I whipped my head around, startled, and there stood… a white-haired woman with a vaguely familiar face.

Dressed in a knife-sharp tailored suit.

She was striding this way, the crisp click of her heels ringing out with every step.

This is bad, I thought inwardly.

Picture how this situation would look through a third party's eyes.

No good. I've gone to all this trouble laundering my image!

Right now I had to come across not as a headcase but as 'Chae Junhyeok, an entirely sensible, courteous, normal man' saddled with a false accusation.

I made to explain myself in a hurry to the approaching woman.

"This isn't the kind of situation you're picturing—"

But I never got to finish.

Because the woman, who'd crossed to right in front of me in a single stride, fixed the team leader with a savage glare and flat-out screamed.

"Just how badly did you handle the escort, to leave the Director looking like this?!"

"…Sorry?"

The team leader and I both echoed it back, thrown.

Instead of answering, she pointed one long, slender finger at my clothes.

Where it aimed was the hem of my trousers, marked with a faint smudge of dust from when I'd fallen earlier.

"You don't see this? This mark?"

She skewered the team leader with cold eyes, spelling it out crisply.

"Simply walking down a corridor wouldn't leave dust like this on a trouser hem, would it? This is proof — proof he ran into some rough treatment on the way in!"

…Isn't she way overblowing this over a little dust?

But the agents' reaction ran counter to what I'd expected.

"W-we're sorry! We failed to keep proper watch!"

"We'll correct it at once! We have no excuse!"

The murderous swagger of a moment ago had vanished; the big, hulking men had gone ashen and were quaking on the spot.

Like herbivores that had run into their natural predator.

"Posted here at the courthouse, and you've clean forgotten the taste of boot-camp chow? Want me to enroll you again for a refresher, jog the memory? One phone call would do it."

At that chilling threat, the agents' faces went white as blank paper.

At the bizarre sight of bear-sized giants cowering before a woman of such slight build, more and more of the people in the lobby began to turn and stare.

Any more of a scene would get in the way of my plan too.

I cut in smoothly.

"That's enough now. I'm all right."

And then, in that instant.

The woman's face — venomous enough a moment ago to devour the agents whole — crumbled in a flash, as if a curtain had come down between acts.

"Oh, Director…."

As if none of it had ever happened, she flushed at both cheeks and lowered her eyes bashfully.

"If you say so…."

She nodded, meek, then whipped her head toward the agents, who still stood there blankly.

"What are you doing? Didn't you hear the Director? I'll handle the escort myself, so get out of my sight this instant. I can't stand the look of you."

"Y-yes, understood!"

The agents fled the spot in a flustered scramble, not once glancing back.

With the nuisances gone in the blink of an eye, an odd stillness settled over the lobby.

She tucked her hair behind her ear shyly and stepped one pace closer to me.

"Director… I'm sorry. That must have given you quite a scare."

"Ah, no, I'm fine. It was nothing."

"Then that's a relief. Now… may I show you the way?"

The woman held out a careful hand.

Does she want to shake?

Still dazed, I took that white hand in mine.

"Then I'll leave it to—"

"Hk!"

The moment my hand touched hers, the woman gasped.

"…Wh-what's the matter?"

"O-our hands touched… oh no! I really held his hand…!"

The woman's face flushed red as a ripe beet in a heartbeat.

A jarring reversal, nothing like the fierce presence she'd worn while wringing the agents dry a moment ago.

This sudden shift of mood… where have I seen this before?

The snow-white hair.

The manic swing between cold and fever, like some bipolar episode.

"…Haven't we met somewhere before?"

At my question the woman sucked in a sharp breath.

"Y-you… you remember me? Really?"

"Ah."

The sight of her gazing up at me with brimming eyes settled it.

"Don't tell me — at the banquet the other time——!"

The words were barely out of my mouth before fat teardrops came rolling down from her great big eyes.

"My goodness, he remembered me…! Out of all those piles of trash, he remembered me…!"

"Ah — n-no, what are you—!"

Thrown by the sudden sobbing, I hurriedly pulled a handkerchief from my coat and held it out.

There were plenty of eyes on us, and I couldn't very well take on the added disgrace of having made a woman cry here.

"Here, dry your eyes with this for now—"

But instead of wiping her tears, she reverently cradled the handkerchief in both trembling hands.

"The Director's belonging, in my hands…!"

"……"

"Ahh, this is too wonderful…. I feel like I might faint…."

She swayed, overcome, and then all at once produced a clear zip-lock bag from inside her clothes.

Swish— snap.

She tucked the handkerchief into the plastic without a moment's hesitation, squeezing out every bit of air and sealing it up tight — a practiced, unsettling efficiency.

…Where in the world did that bag even come from?

Before I could so much as ask, she'd already stowed the sealed handkerchief away deep in an inner pocket, the one closest to her heart, tucking it carefully into place.

"Whew, now I can relax."

I instinctively edged half a step back from her and asked.

"…So. What brings you here…?"

At my question she gave a start, then drew a business card from inside her clothes and held it out with both hands.

"Ma Dohee, of the [National Central Strategic Planning Office]! I'm here to brief you on the hearing and show you the way."

"Central Strategic Planning Office…?"

The title stamped on the card was far beyond what I'd expected.

The innermost core of the government, a body answering straight to the President and a power broker among power brokers.

The government org chart I'd crammed into my head before coming here came back to me.

Among all the countless ministries and agencies, the one organization that stood alone directly beneath the President.

An unknown department, without so much as a single line anywhere explaining what exactly it did.

I frowned, glancing back and forth between the card with its weighty title and the woman grinning goofily in front of me.

"And what would someone that important be doing here…? The Strategic Planning Office has nothing to do with today's hearing, does it?"

At that she fidgeted her fingers and twisted her body shyly.

"Well… I just wanted to see you so badly, Director…."

"Sorry?"

"…is what I'd like to say! But that's my own private wish."

She cleared her throat, and her playful look turned, just a touch, serious.

"Unofficially, it's an order that came down from 'above.' The VIP is probably watching in real time as well."

"……"

"Though the truth is it's not only the VIP — the whole nation has its eyes on today's hearing."

She wasn't wrong.

Lately someone had been dousing the thing in oil on purpose, feeding the press a steady run of sensational scoops — 'The Institute's Shocking Reality!' and the like, day after day.

Thanks to that, public opinion was fired up like a blazing furnace.

Of course, they'd never dream that the arsonist who'd lit that fire was 'me.'

"Then I'll take you to the waiting room. Right this way."

Hiding the tangle of my thoughts, I followed after her.

"You've been told how today's hearing will proceed, yes?"

I nodded absently. Call it a hearing all you liked; this was, in practice, no different from a trial.

Too afraid to cross the Republic of Korea's number two, Bureau Chief Chae Ganghyeon, head-on, they'd simply dressed it in the shell of a 'hearing.'

In substance it was a place where the verdict handed down could well cost me my head.

Fooling no one and thinking it works.

The government's flimsy little ruse was so laughable that a snort slipped out of me.

They figured swapping the nameplate would keep anyone from noticing?

Ma Dohee seemed to see straight through all that too, and added in a worried voice.

"On paper you're attending as a witness for reference… but they'll most likely go after you with everything they've got, Director. It'll be practically indistinguishable from interrogating a defendant."

She glanced around a moment, then dropped her voice.

"And… I saw on my way in earlier — Park Wonjin was here too. You'll need to be especially careful."

Park Wonjin. At that name, I nodded as if I'd expected it.

Just as I thought.

I'd heard the rumor that his charges hadn't been finalized since he was hauled off last time.

For a man like that to be here rather than in a holding cell — the meaning was plain.

The government had let him off the leash for a spell to use him as a hound to tear into me.

Before I knew it we'd reached the door of the waiting room at the end of the long corridor.

"Here it is."

"Thank you."

She'd been watching my courteously smiling face, and seemed about to turn away when all at once she leaned in toward me.

"By the way, Director, why are you putting on an act today?"

"……?"

When the question came in out of nowhere and I went stiff, she curled the corner of her mouth up.

"Well, the courteous concept is sexy too, so I don't mind. Anyway — good luck!"

She left a loaded wink behind and vanished like the wind.

…Did she catch on?

A chill ran down my spine for a second, but I made myself shake it off.

She was a passing acquaintance I'd have no reason to see again.

In the waiting room the stormy woman had swept through, only a heavy silence settled down.

"Whew."

Only then did I lean back against the door and let out a long breath.

…Well, I've dragged it all the way here…. It had better go smoothly, just as planned.

The trump card I'd prepared to turn this whole board over.

That was the one thing that had to work.

That was when it happened.

Knock, knock.

The knock broke my reverie.

"Who is it?"

There was no answer.

Puzzled, I turned the door handle.

"Huh?"

The instant the door opened, a man with a black cap pulled low shoved me roughly aside and stepped in.

"Who the hell are you—!"

When I backed off, thrown, the man scanned the room quickly instead of answering.

Then he closed in as if to grab me by the collar and whispered in my ear, low and vicious.

"A message from the Bureau Chief."

Bureau Chief? He meant Chae Ganghyeon.

The man looked me dead in the eye and spat the words out like a machine.

"Say nothing at the hearing — exercise your right to remain silent."

"……"

"Above all, if a question about 'Project R' comes up, answer that you know nothing, no matter what. Testify that our institute never ran any such experiment, and that the disclosed documents are all fabrications."

There was a pressure in his voice that left no room for refusal.

"Just do as you're told, and the Bureau Chief says he'll handle the rest himself. Bear that in mind."

Having rattled off his piece like machine-gun fire, the man opened the door and vanished like the wind before I could get a word in.

I stared blankly at the open door, then laughed.

If the Bureau Chief is warning me this openly… he must be pretty rattled.

It was the reaction I'd expected. No — the reaction I'd been hoping for, if anything.

All that remained now was to gift him the 'worst-case scenario' he didn't want.

I turned today's strategy over in my head one more time and steadied my gaze.

"Director, it's time for you to enter."

At the voice calling me in, I brushed off my jacket, rose, and walked toward the firmly shut door.

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