A sharp knock cut through the low hum of the office.
Kim Ha-joon didn't look up from his laptop. "Come in."
His secretary entered, composed as ever: crisp blouse, hair pinned with mathematical precision, every motion quiet and calculated. "Sir," she said, "Mrs. Kim is here to see you."
Ha-joon's fingers stilled on the keyboard. His jaw flexed once. Before he could respond, the door burst open.
"Ha-joon!"
Mrs. Kim swept in like a winter storm, her heels hammering the marble in perfect rhythm with her anger. She was elegance sharpened into weaponry: pearls like armor, her perfume heavy with judgment. Her gaze landed instantly on the blonde secretary and narrowed, slicing her from head to heel.
"Leave us," Ha-joon said, his tone even, stripped of warmth.
The secretary bowed and slipped out. The door shut softly behind her.
He leaned back in his chair and finally looked up at his mother, one eyebrow arching. "Really, Mother. You're becoming predictable."
Mrs. Kim's chin lifted. "So she's the reason you've been refusing to see your fiancée? That woman?"
Ha-joon gave a humorless smile. "Please don't make a scene in my office. Sit."
"Don't tell me to sit down, Ha-joon!"
He sighed, pressing his temples. "Mom, we've had this conversation too many times. You want the merger, the reputation, the wealth. I get it. But forcing me into a relationship with Park Choon-hee is not going to make me love her — or you — any more."
Mrs. Kim's eyes flashed. "Love is irrelevant. Stability is not. The Parks are expecting you tonight. You will attend dinner, and you will behave like a man who understands the weight of his name."
And just like that, she turned on her heel and swept out, her exit as theatrical as her entrance.
The door clicked shut, leaving behind the echo of her perfume — cold and expensive.
Ha-joon sat in silence, staring at the space she had occupied. His fingers drummed against the desk once before curling into a fist.
Marry Park Choon-hee. A strategic alliance. A social noose wrapped in gold. He let out a bitter laugh and muttered to no one, "What a fucking joke."
He pressed the intercom. "Ms. Han, prepare the reports for tomorrow's board meeting. And cancel my evening schedule."
A pause. Then, her polite voice: "Understood, sir."
He almost smiled. "Almost" being the keyword. Because, of course, he couldn't cancel his life. Not this part. Not yet.
Hours later, rain stitched thin silver lines across the city as his Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR slid through the glowing streets. The wipers worked tirelessly against the storm, but the blur outside only mirrored the one inside his head.
By the time he pulled up in front of the Park mansion, night had descended like velvet — thick, suffocating, shimmering faintly under the floodlights.
The butler opened the door before Ha-joon could touch the handle. A bodyguard rushed forward with an umbrella.
"Lord grant me divine patience," Ha-joon muttered as he stepped into the downpour.
The grand double doors swung open. And then came the voice.
"Ha-joon!"
Park Choon-hee descended the staircase as if gravity had been designed to flatter her. Powder-blue silk clung to her form, diamonds glittering at her throat, each movement rehearsed to perfection. Her smile was too bright, her perfume suffocating.
She threw her arms around him. "I missed you!"
He went rigid. Her embrace was all heat and desperation; her perfume crawled down his throat like poison.
"I can tell," he replied flatly.
She didn't hear the sarcasm. She never did.
Dinner was an orchestrated performance — polished laughter, glasses chiming, topics curated for civility. The Parks smiled like royalty entertaining the press, their conversation slick with flattery.
Ha-joon sat through it with the poise of a man trapped inside a gilded cage. His plate went untouched. He offered mechanical smiles and hollow nods. Across the table, Choon-hee giggled at her own stories, her manicured hand clutching his sleeve as if proximity could force affection.
Her voice was a shrill melody that refused to end. Gossip. Jewelry. Scandals. Influencers.
If hell had a sound, it would sound like her voice.
He caught his reflection in the wineglass — expressionless, eyes unreadable. The devil behind the suit. The perfect heir.
When dinner finally ended, he rose, lips curving into a polite ghost of a smile. "Excuse me. Business matters to attend to."
He didn't wait for permission to leave.
Later that night, the world had quieted into rain and static. From his penthouse balcony, Seoul sprawled beneath him — veins of neon light pulsing through a body of glass and sin. The city looked alive, hungry, infinite.
Ha-joon leaned against the railing, cigarette in hand, the smoke curling upward like the tail of something dark. Below him, the streets buzzed with life — taxis cutting through puddles, the red glow of traffic lights bleeding into the mist.
He took a drag and let the smoke fill his lungs, chasing the sharpness that reminded him he was still human.
Maybe this was all he had become — a man in a suit made of silence, watching the world burn beneath him.
His phone buzzed.
He answered without looking. "Talk."
The voice on the other end was distorted, urgent. "Sir, we've got movement. Red Velvet Club, down Hongdae Street. It's not just a strip club anymore. We've seen a few of the rookies hitting it—same crew, same time frame. There's talk it's being used for trafficking. You want us to move in?"
Ha-joon's gaze flicked toward the skyline. The rain shimmered under the lights, each drop a fleeting star.
He exhaled slowly, the ember of his cigarette glowing in the dark. "Not yet."
The silence on the line was taut. "Sir?"
"Wait until I say so," he said, voice low and deliberate. "I'll take care of it personally."
The line clicked dead.
Ha-joon crushed the cigarette in the ashtray and leaned back, eyes narrowing.
There was something poetic about the irony. The same streets where the elites pretended to own purity were the ones dripping in corruption, filth, and blood. And somewhere among them, someone thought they could hide.
A slow smile touched his lips — the kind that didn't reach his eyes.
Beneath the tailored suit, beneath the veneer of charm and power, lay something far older and darker. A force that had learned to wear civility like a mask.
Kim Ha-joon didn't just run companies. He hunted.
And tomorrow, he would hunt again.
Below him, Seoul glittered — beautiful and rotten, unaware that its devil had already chosen his next hunting ground.