RB 4

The shock lasted for a long time.

When Secretary Hong, standing by his side, cleared his throat, Yeorok seemed to come back to his senses. He let go of Eunho and stepped back. His empty hand brushed slowly down his own jawline. His surprised look disappeared, and his disordered posture straightened.

Then Yeorok spoke in a calm tone.

“You said you are twenty four this year, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Your parents’ names are Sim Minseok and Jang Eunju, correct?”

“Yes. That is right, but…”

“Are you certain they are your biological parents?”

Eunho lifted his head, stunned.

First the man had ripped off his face with his eyes, now he was asking personal background questions. It was absurd enough, but what was worse was that Eunho had no idea why he was being asked this at all.

“They are. More than that… why did you call me here?”

His fear grew so heavy his vision darkened. Being interrogated while knowing nothing made his chest tighten painfully and his knees tremble.

Eunho clenched and opened his sweaty hands but could not calm down. Yeorok bit the inside of his lip in frustration. He too was still dazed from the shock.

“Let us sit down and talk.”

He guided Eunho to the sofa at the side of the study.

As soon as they sat, he spoke straight to the point.

“You look very much like my nephew.”

“……”

“What do you think, Mr. Sim Eunho?”

A photo was placed on the table. Eunho glanced down, and his shoulders flinched. The man in the picture had his exact same face.

“Is this… edited?”

Yeorok leaned his straightened back against the sofa. With a controlled face, unlike before, he said,

“It is not something ordinary to resemble someone this much.”

Though his tone was polite, Eunho felt an unshakable discomfort. Even with a soft sofa beneath him, it felt like he was sitting on needles.

Could they be thinking he was pretending to be the Haegang Foundation chairman’s nephew? He had never even known such a person existed, let alone impersonated him. He was not even capable of that.

The thought alone made his chest feel like it would explode. Eunho sweated coldly, unable to answer.

Yeorok signaled to Secretary Hong, who had been standing still like a fixture. As planned, Hong picked up a small bag and approached Eunho.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

“W-what are you doing…?”

As Hong came closer with tweezers in hand, Eunho asked in a frightened voice. He tried to lean his shoulders back, but Hong skillfully did his work.

Pluck, pluck, pluck.

With a slight sting, some hairs were pulled out with their roots. Hong placed them into a transparent zip bag, then pulled out another tool.

“Ah, please just open your mouth.”

Already terrified, Eunho grew even more afraid with no explanation of what was happening. But he could not refuse, not with the Haegang Foundation chairman right in front of him. He was forced to open his mouth.

Hong rubbed a swab kit against the inside of Eunho’s cheek. Though it was a simple task, Eunho’s stiff tongue trembled, and saliva leaked from his lips. To steady himself, Eunho gripped his T-shirt hem tightly.

Finally, Hong pricked his fingertip and collected a drop of blood before stepping back.

As Yeorok watched Hong seal the samples in the zip bag, he lifted his head and spoke, giving the explanation after the fact.

“These samples will be used for a DNA test. It will be cleaner than having unnecessary doubts.”

“A DNA… test?”

“Is that acceptable?”

“Yes.” Eunho nodded without thinking. From the start, it had been more of a notification than a request.

Then Yeorok spoke again, his tone softer than before.

“As I said earlier, the person in that photo is Choi Yoonho. My nephew. He died the day before yesterday.”

“Ah… yes.”

Eunho only nodded blankly.

Meanwhile, Yeorok did not blink once. He stared at Sim Eunho while running countless scenarios in his head. All other methods carried too much risk. In truth, Sim Eunho was his only hope.

Yeorok crossed his long legs. The fine fabric of his trousers rustled faintly, and the silver watch on his wrist shone coldly under the light.

Eunho gazed at it with empty eyes. Since earlier, whenever he looked at this man, it felt unreal. The place, the situation, it all felt like a dream. But the man in front of him felt especially out of place.

“My nephew’s death has complicated things.”

“……”

“I had plans prepared, but they are about to collapse.”

Though his posture was relaxed, Yeorok’s voice and face stayed expressionless.

He ignored Eunho’s reaction and suddenly went to the point.

“So I want you, Mr. Sim Eunho, to take my nephew’s place for one year.”

Eunho’s lips parted. His eyes, hidden behind his messy bangs, widened. Take the place of his nephew? The shock made words stick in his throat.

“How could I possibly…?”

“We will handle all the work. From appearance to even the smallest habit, everything will be made identical to Choi Yoonho. You only need to follow along.”

He stretched his arm and picked up the tablet PC on the corner of the table. His hand scrolled the screen steadily until he found the document he wanted.

“Choi Yoonho was set to inherit directly from the Haegang Group. Just one year. If you cooperate for that period, I will give you all the inheritance meant for my nephew.”

The sleek tablet PC slid across to Eunho. On the screen was a detailed record of the assets Yoonho was supposed to inherit. Eunho could not fully understand it, but one thing was clear, the monetary value was enormous.

Eunho swallowed, his throat tight at the absurd proposal.

“Well, it’s just, this is so sudden.”

“I understand.”

“……”

“I will give you time. A few days to think.”

Unlike Eunho, who was completely shaken, Yeorok stayed calm, as though he had expected this reaction.

So Eunho gathered courage and asked,

“If… if I refuse, what happens then?”

Yeorok slowly touched his chin. His lips curved into an elegant smile. Anyone could see it was forced, but it was enough to soften his cold impression.

“I would be in great trouble.”

Eunho’s lost eyes wandered over the table. The hem of his T-shirt that he had been clutching was full of ugly wrinkles and soaked with sweat.

He had not eaten, yet he felt indigestion. He tapped his chest silently. Right now, other people’s affairs meant nothing. All he wanted was to run away from here.

***

“What you discussed with the chairman today is confidential. Please be especially careful.”

Secretary Hong spoke in his usual tone. When Eunho nodded and promised, the black sedan he rode in slowly began to roll forward.

The car retraced the road it had come. Eunho leaned his head against the window. The cool glass seemed to calm his tangled mind a little.

He closed his eyes and gave his dry eyeballs a short rest. Maybe because he had regained some composure compared to before, he could now recall what had happened earlier.

The chairman of the Haegang Foundation was younger than he thought. Very much younger.

He had never seen a man so handsome.

His behavior, his words, his clothes, everything showed wealth, yet it didn’t feel like he was showing off. So this is what a born rich person is like. Having met such a type for the first time in his life, Eunho still felt dazed.

That man smelled good. Not just perfume layered on, but a scent that seemed to have seeped into his skin and hair over time. His clean and handsome appearance was stuck deep in Eunho’s head and would not go away.

‘Grandma told me not to trust people easily….’

His late grandma had always said the more beautiful something looked on the outside, the more careful you had to be. Especially if that something was a person.

She said that inside a shell that bewitched others could be a dark hidden core.

‘And he did not look especially sad either.’

Eunho remembered how he had spoken about his nephew’s death. He hadn’t seen a trace of grief eChairman Choi Yeorok.

That made Eunho feel strange. He guessed vaguely that Yeorok was not someone from whom he could expect family affection or human compassion.

To take the place of his nephew. Even if they helped him, Eunho knew he could not become like that dead nephew or Chairman Choi Yeorok. People had clothes that fit them, and pretending to be the heir of a chaebol family was not something he could do.

The excessive reward was also a problem. If it were really such an easy task, would they truly give him such money?

No matter how many times he thought, refusing was the right choice.

Eunho rubbed his face roughly.

“……”

But even after deciding, he felt no relief. His chest still trembled, and the scenes he had just seen floated before his eyes like afterimages.

It seemed his first encounter with the world of a chaebol family and his meeting with Chairman Choi Yeorok had been that much of a shock. When would he ever experience something like that again?

Eunho sighed and tried to calm himself. If he refused Chairman Choi Yeorok’s proposal, the sponsorship would end too. He now began to worry about how he would live.

***

Seen up close, Sim Eunho not only had the same face but also the same height, build, even bone structure as Choi Yoonho. The chance of them being twins or blood relatives was extremely slim, but it had to be checked thoroughly.

Before sending the samples to a professional institution, a quick preliminary test showed Sim Eunho’s blood type was AB. Since both his father and mother were type O, this was a blood type that could not come from them. At least, he was not their child.

But there was the small possibility that one of them had a child elsewhere, so they could not jump to conclusions. But then…

–The base sequence came back 99.9% mismatched. They are complete strangers.

Late at night, Secretary Hong relayed the result by phone. Since it was urgent, the report came quickly. It was now certain that Sim Eunho was not of Haegang’s bloodline.

Holding the phone to his ear, Yeorok tilted his head. He laughed dryly.

“Do you think this makes sense?”

–I was surprised too.

No one had imagined that Sim Eunho would resemble Choi Yoonho this much. Everyone had thought doppelgangers were nothing more than stories for movies or dramas.

When Yeorok pressed his eyelid with his fingertip, the dull pressure spread to his sore eyes. He sighed quietly. He had not slept for days while covering up the incident, and it seemed he would have to stay awake again tonight.

“How are the rumors?”

–They are spreading slowly through the people who often hung around Choi Yoonho. They are saying he needs a year of hospitalization for drug addiction treatment. Most people are responding that they expected it.

Yeorok had never thought he would be helped by Yoonho’s ruined behavior. He must have wasted his life that no one suspected anything, even after he had been out of touch for days.

“What about Sim Eunho?”

–I brought him home.

“Watch him carefully for now. Support him if needed.”

–And if… he refuses, what will you do?

Yeorok did not answer immediately. Normally, he always kept several countermeasures, but in this case, apart from using Sim Eunho as the substitute, no option looked feasible.

“I will make sure he cannot refuse.”

The morgue of a closed-down hospital was cold and dreary. The smell of formalin stung the nose, and only the white glow of fluorescent lights lit the surroundings.

Yeorok looked down with disgust.

On the cold stainless-steel slab lay the frozen corpse of Choi Yoonho.

The same face he had seen earlier.

Even with his nephew’s body lying right there before him, it was hard to believe.

“It really feels like being bewitched by a ghost.”