KMH – Chapter 7

The only one smiling innocently here was Kim Soon-woo.

“Director-nim, this is Patent Attorney Ha Jugyeong. She’ll be assisting with today’s copyright consultation.”

Introducing Jugyeong while looking at Seju, Kim Sunwoo turned to Jugyeong next.

“Jugyeong, this is Art Director Cheon Seju, who trusted me enough to make the difficult trip here from Berlin.”

Unlike when he was young, Seju didn’t avoid her gaze. He stayed languid throughout.

In the heavy silence that had settled over the office, Jugyeong felt the pulse she’d barely managed to subdue quicken again.

Jugyeong had no intention of letting Seju discover the past—when, due to circumstances she couldn’t avoid, she’d had to leave Seoul, and when she herself had been at her most wretched.

One of the few people who knew about that period was Kim Sunwoo.

…Everyone lives with at least one thing they can’t tell other people. Don’t shrink.

Once she made up her mind and stepped forward, the table was only a short distance away.

Jugyeong calmly took out her business card.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Patent Attorney Ha Jugyeong.”

He didn’t move an inch—only tilted his chin, looking up at her from an angle.

She endured the blatantly rude stare in silence, and a short exclamation slipped out.

“Ah.”

As if cupping his jaw and stroking it, he murmured,

“So we’re… strangers again.”

Seju rose slowly.

“Ms. Ha Juyoung?”

Jugyeong, her attention snagged without meaning to by the deep dimple that cut into one cheek, lifted her gaze sharply.

Heat flared at once, swallowing her palm.

Then her small body was tugged forward—yank.

“I’m Cheon Seju.”

Every nerve in her body funneled into the fingertips he’d clamped around. There was only heat.

Her hand throbbed as if the back of it were burning away.

Jugyeong drew her lips inward tightly, and Seju lowered his head, slow and deliberate.

“I’m really happy to see you.”

Pure malice sparkled right in front of her.

***

After sitting down and putting on her glasses, Jugyeong said to Seju,

“Please provide the materials you brought.”

Resting his chin on his hand, tapping his cheek with his fingers, he asked,

“Were your eyes always that bad?”

Jugyeong stared at Seju.

Caught in the stiff, frozen atmosphere, Kim Sunwoo—looking thoroughly at a loss—carefully tried to speak.

“Ah—Jugyeong’s eyesight was, when she was little—”

The moment a frigid look slid toward him, Kim Sunwoo’s lips snapped shut.

A beat later, Seju smiled with his eyes only.

“I wasn’t asking the lawyer.”

Cold sweat beaded across Kim Sunwoo’s forehead as he nodded.

“Yes. Right. Yes….”

“You might be more shy than you look?”

Kim Sunwoo blinked blankly.

From the situation, it seemed like he was asking Jugyeong—so why was he staring holes through Kim Sunwoo’s face?

Kim Sunwoo parted his lips a few times, then, remembering he’d just been told off, leaned back slightly.

Only then did Seju’s gaze—now deliberately softened—roll over to Jugyeong.

“Mmm?”

Even at Seju’s prompting, Jugyeong kept her silence.

Stuck in the middle, Kim Sunwoo rolled his eyes in discomfort. For a second, he wondered if Seju was asking him.

Scratching at his temple, he opened his mouth uncertainly.

“Originally, our patent attorney is—”

Seju whipped his head toward Kim Sunwoo.

“Our?”

“…Pardon?”

“You just said ‘our patent attorney.’ You two seem awfully familiar. Surely not on hyung-dongsaeng terms?”

The hand Kim Sunwoo had unconsciously pressed to his chest lowered, awkward and hesitant.

Seju’s stare was so sharp it felt like a fist, not wind, had slapped him across the cheek.

A chill crawled up Kim Sunwoo’s neck as he fumbled his words.

“N-no, not quite hyung-dongsaeng…”

“It’s not to that extent.”

“Y-yes. Right.”

Then Kim Sunwoo thought of the retainer Seju had wired just a few nights ago—and the success fee if they won in court—and steeled himself.

This wasn’t the time.

“Ahem. Director-nim.”

Seju lifted one eyebrow.

“The materials I mentioned earlier. Those—”

“Oh, that? I thought it was something serious.”

At the sticky low register, Jugyeong felt as if her eardrums were vibrating—but more than that, she was stunned.

‘Hyung-dongsaeng terms?’

Just then, the stack of papers Seju slid across the table bumped her solar plexus.

Jugyeong stared down at the contract and clicked her tongue inwardly.

He really hadn’t changed.

Especially in this way—when Seju did whatever he pleased—ten out of ten people would automatically lower their heads and try to cater to him.

After scanning the contract quickly and precisely twice, Jugyeong looked up.

“The contract is vague. The usage scope and the term are the most ambiguous.”

Meaning it was a bad contract—full of room for interpretation. Enough to wonder if Seju had properly read it before signing.

“Mmm…?”

Kim Sunwoo, who’d been looking over the contract Jugyeong handed him, tilted his head. He’d only communicated by email and phone until now; this was his first time examining it directly.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eye, but the corporate name stamped neatly under the commissioning party was still there.

Samjeong Trading.

The parent company of Samjeong Electronics.

“I—”

“…….”

“Didn’t you say before that the opposing party was your cousin…?”

At Kim Sunwoo’s question, Seju nodded once.

“The bastard who fed me that shit nice and deep is my cousin. My maternal uncle’s son.”

“How did that even happen….”

“My cousin came all the way to Berlin, talking about how this was something that would decide the fate of Trading. Said he wanted to hand me the rebranding, completely.”

“Ah….”

“He begged me to help to the point it was annoying, and I’m not such a piece of trash that I’d ignore that.”

Kim Sunwoo listened intently, pushing his glasses up with his index finger, then added carefully,

“The litigation process itself could be far more exhausting than you imagined. Many say even just commuting to court over a stranger drains you dry. So…”

Seju, who’d been half listening while repeatedly glancing at Jugyeong—sitting silent, idly flexing her ankle—lifted his brow.

“If the work I skinned and tanned and molded with my own fingertips was walking around with its arms and legs chopped off, how do you think I’d feel?”

“…….”

“Think about it.”

Seju’s chair, with him nearly sprawled back against the seat, slowly turned left and right.

Then it stopped.

As if dropping an anchor, Seju lifted his eyes sharply and said,

“Since you picked a fight with me and went red in the face, I’m guessing you were ready to roll in the mud with me, too.”

“…….”

“If you came at this without even that much resolve, then you’re even more shameless.”

“…….”

“Aren’t you?”

All at once, Seju threw his gaze at Jugyeong.

Jugyeong blinked, having unconsciously thought, ‘That does sound like the kind of conclusion Cheon Seju would reach.’

Samjeong was Seju’s mother’s side.

Jugyeong had checked the corporate name first, and she’d already been roughly piecing together why Seju had come all the way here.

Usually, must-win or large-scale lawsuits flock to Euljiro or Gwanghwamun. But no matter how much money overflowed, if major law firms refused the case, it was useless.

From Kim Sunwoo’s explanation, the “top of the industry”—based in Berlin, working with major global brands, a director who made people watch their words for no clear reason—had likely ended up at this improvised law office in a Seodaemun-gu officetel for exactly that kind of reason.

Then Seju knocked—tap, tap—on the table, stealing Jugyeong’s attention completely.

Only after trapping her gaze on him did Seju stretch his mouth into a deliberate grin and lean back again.

“Have you ever…”

“…….”

“Had the axe you trusted chop your foot¹? Or been stabbed in the back?”

To Jugyeong, it almost sounded like he wanted that to be true.

Or maybe not.

His stare—pressing in like it wouldn’t allow her even a crack to slip through—started to set her nerves on edge.

Determined not to be pulled around by him, Jugyeong answered more quickly than usual, almost too hastily.

“Not yet.”

The gaze that had been sliding down her profile toward her nape paused.

“Really? That’s good to hear.”

“…….”

“Watch it carefully. I still feel my head go numb at the drop of a hat.”

She couldn’t tell if it was a curse disguised as concern, but either way, she had no intention of ever making an “axe she trusted” in the future.

And yet a sudden impulse surged—to press down, indiscriminately, on everything Seju’s gaze pinned her under.

Eyes. Lips. Neck. Ears. Fingertips….

Gathering that impulse back with difficulty, Jugyeong changed the subject.

“…I heard the company is claiming that broadcasting the re-edited video abroad had already been agreed upon with you verbally, Director.”

Seju looked at her openly, as if he’d realized she’d decided to ignore him.

It was so blatant that Kim Sunwoo, after sneaking a glance at Jugyeong’s profile, even turned his head over his shoulder several times like—

‘Is there something behind her?’

Jugyeong steadied the tongue that wanted to stiffen and continued.

“Of course, the contract clearly states that the copyright belongs to you, so there’s a strong chance it’ll be interpreted in your favor. I’ll watch the video and then give you my full assessment.”

Jugyeong, who had been about to ask Seju for additional prior works, quietly logged into a streaming site instead.

No envelope, no proper file—just a contract with coffee stains, brought by hand.

It didn’t seem wise to expect more preparedness than that.

Luckily, there were people who had uploaded the videos he’d worked on.

Jugyeong’s eyes sharpened at once.

Color combinations. Luminance. Composition. Cut edits and sound usage. The texture of the footage. Even symbolic objects.

Seju’s work had an unmistakable directorial signature.

It felt as though his fingerprints clung to every frame.

The longer the playtime ran, the more it felt like being pulled into the screen.

Whenever Jugyeong came across a book, film, or exhibition that kept her from sleeping, she always found herself thinking about the creator who had made it.

People who existed to shape something out of nothing.

Maybe it was because her father had been a painter—talented, perhaps more gifted than most, but not a genius.

If there were people born to do this—

Then that person was Cheon Seju.

For a moment, Jugyeong sank into that private thought—then paused the video and organized her reasoning.

The re-edited video strayed from that signature pattern.

Even the company’s claim—that it had been a cut discussed verbally beforehand—didn’t seem credible.

That was the conclusion Jugyeong arrived at after careful consideration.

When she lifted her head, her eyes met Seju’s immediately—as if he’d been watching her the entire time.

Jugyeong looked at him steadily.

Seju, arms crossed, lifted one eyebrow.

Jugyeong opened her mouth with a blank face.