The Vice Chairman’s office on the 32nd floor of the S Group headquarters.
Through the massive, north-facing panoramic window, a faint, gray light seeped in, casting a cold streak across the matte black marble desk.
The spacious office was filled with the subtle, luxurious scent of a cedarwood diffuser, but even that was stifled by a bizarre, suffocating tension that weighed heavily in the room.
Jeong Hyun-jin gripped a glass beaded with condensation.
At his slightly trembling fingertips, the ice cubes inside collided, making a sharp, clinking sound. Gulping hard, he downed the ice-cold water in a single breath.
As the piercingly cold sensation surged down his esophagus, his brain felt as though it had flashed wide awake.
Despite having slept barely three hours before coming to work, Hyun-jin’s mind was almost impossibly alert. Every circuit in his head was revving to the point of bursting, like the engine of a brand-new supercar.
"Take this proposal back. Right now."
Hyun-jin tossed a thick leather folder onto the desk with a thud.
"A three-percent return? Are you joking with me right now? Restructure it from scratch and bring it back in front of me in exactly one hour."
There was none of his former languid, raspy tone in his voice.
Instead, it carried a sharp, solid power, like a tightly drawn bowstring.
"Y-yes, sir! We will revise it immediately!"
The Planning and Coordination Chief, pale with fear, along with the secretariat staff, bowed ninety degrees and scrambled in all directions.
Just a week ago, this was not the Vice Chairman who had been deeply submerged in the lethargic bureaucracy of his late fifties, often dozing off even during meetings.
Sinking deep into his high-backed leather chair, Hyun-jin tilted his chin up.
His custom-made Italian suit smoothly wrapped around his newly firmed shoulder lines.
Every time he looked in the mirror, the corners of his mouth naturally curled upward.
The wrinkles had not disappeared. His skin had not returned to its youthful state. Yet somehow, the face staring back at him no longer felt like an insult.
The sagging skin around his eyes, the strands of gray in his hair—they no longer looked like evidence of defeat.
Something deep inside him had come alive again.
He wanted to command. He wanted to take. He wanted to reach for things that did not yet belong to him.
That feeling drove him mad.
For four days and nights, Hyun-jin did not stop his rampage.
Even while presiding over endless marathon meetings, he didn't show a single sign of fatigue. Rather, as time passed, his eyes grew sharper and his voice gained strength.
It felt as though a perpetual-motion engine had been installed inside his body, supplying permanent fuel.
However, on the morning of the fifth day, that sweet paradise collapsed without warning.
When he opened his eyes, Hyun-jin felt a terrible, crushing weight, as if his entire body were buried inside a massive mud pit.
"Ugh..."
A groan escaped him involuntarily. He tried to force his body up, but every joint creaked and screamed like rusted hinges whose oil had dried up.
The bed sheets were damp, soaked with the unpleasant cold sweat he had broken out in overnight.
Barely dragging his feet to stand before the bathroom mirror, Hyun-jin almost screamed.
"Damn it... Why? Why is this happening again?!"
In the mirror, the man who had seemed larger than life just a few days ago was gone. In his place stood the same dull, exhausted old man.
The dark circles beneath his eyes had returned. The weight he had forgotten was there again.
For the first time in four days, he felt old.
The crash that came when the drug completely wore off was several times more cruel and painful than his previous lethargy. It was a sense of utter exhaustion, as if the monster called old age was gnawing away at the deepest parts of his soul.
And on the afternoon of the sixth day, Hyun-jin was sprawled like a corpse, not in his headquarters office, but on a sofa in his Hannam-dong safe house.
His neatly combed-back hair was a disheveled mess, and the collar of his silk shirt was stained with cold sweat.
The more vividly he remembered those four days, the more unbearable his current existence became.
It wasn't youth he missed. It was the feeling that nothing in the world was beyond his reach.
"Yujin... Chae Yujin."
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He called out to Yujin, who was staying by his side, with a cracking voice.
"Yes, Vice Chairman. Please speak."
Chae Yujin, who had been anxiously reading his mood with uneasy eyes, quickly knelt down and approached him.
"That day... the business card that CEO Lee gave us. You still have it, right?"
"Ah, yes. It's right here."
Yujin hurriedly pulled out the business card she had safely kept in a corner of her bag and pressed it into Hyun-jin's hand.
Hyun-jin’s bloodshot eyes locked menacingly onto the name 'Lee Seo-han' printed in a clean typeface.
As if grasping a lifeline, he picked up his smartphone with a trembling hand and dialed the number on the card.
Before the ring could even clear, Hyun-jin shouted urgently into the receiver with a raspy voice.
"CEO Lee, it's me. Vice Chairman Jeong Hyun-jin. I need you to come to my safe house right this instance."
The air hung heavy, like wet lead.
In the spacious living room, where the blackout curtains were tightly drawn, the artificial scent of expensive imported scented candles mixed with the smell of cold sweat radiating from Jeong Hyun-jin’s body, creating a strangely nauseating stench.
Deeply buried in the ultra-luxury Italian leather sofa, Jeong Hyun-jin’s appearance was disastrous.
A dull, dead gray complexion, deep shadows under his hollow eyes, and lips that trembled slightly each time he gasped for breath.
There was no trace left of the S Group Vice Chairman who, just four days ago, had carried himself as though the entire world were once again within his grasp.
"V-Vice Chairman... Would you like some water?"
Standing anxiously beside him, Chae Yujin asked, holding a glass with her fragile hands. Even her voice trembled thinly, suppressed by the heavy silence filling the living room.
Hyun-jin, lacking even the energy to answer, merely swallowed his dry spit with his eyes closed.
Just then, the heavy thud of a thick fire door opening broke the silence.
The rhythmic, crisp sound of shoe heels clicking against the marble floor.
It was Lee Seo-han.
He looked completely out of place in the hellish atmosphere of the room. From his body drifted the subtle, crisp scent of a freshly laundered shirt and the cold aroma of a laboratory.
The moment Hyun-jin's unfocused, dully open eyes caught Seo-han’s silhouette, they began to flicker frantically.
It was a gaze mixed with longing and obsession, like a drowning man spotting a lifeline.
Seo-han quietly looked down at Hyun-jin’s wretched appearance.
There was no emotion like sympathy or scorn. It was merely the indifferent gaze of a researcher studying a test subject.
Seo-han placed the black leather bag he brought on the marble table. The chilly metallic sound of the zipper opening echoed through the living room.
What was taken out of the bag was a small vial no larger than the tip of a finger.
A transparent medicinal liquid that emitted a cold, silver gleam under the light. As Seo-han lightly shook the vial, the viscous liquid slowly flowed down the walls.
Hyun-jin’s eyes rippled along with that movement.
"CEO Lee... please... I can't hold out anymore. Inject me right now, right this second."
Hyun-jin gripped the edge of the sofa, struggling to lift his upper body. His voice was dry and cracked like drought-stricken earth.
Faced with the terrible exhaustion and lethargy that arrived as the drug wore off, the dignity of a Vice Chairman who shook the South Korean business world had long since evaporated.
Without making any reply, Seo-han slowly drew back the syringe plunger.
With a scratching sound, the transparent liquid was sucked into the cylinder. Flicking away a small droplet formed at the tip of the needle, Seo-han spoke coldly.
"Just so there's no misunderstanding, let me tell you in advance: this is my private research material, completely unrelated to the business of Aether Bio, which I founded. I have absolutely no intention of linking this substance to any public investment or equity."
"S-so what?"
"Vice Chairman Jeong, you aren't doing business right now. You are purchasing my favor."
Flicking a speck off his sharply pressed jacket collar, Seo-han continued in a flat tone.
"This is the minimum handling fee for treatment management. Put 100 million won in cash into a bag and send it to me every month. I decline bank transfers that leave a paper trail."
"100 million? Fine, 100 million is nothing. I'll send it by the bagful every month. So please..."
To Hyun-jin, 100 million won was mere pocket change.
Nodding continuously, he reached out as if he would grab Seo-han’s trouser leg. However, holding the syringe high, Seo-han stepped back a pace in a fluid motion.
"The 100 million won is a basic option; the real precondition is separate. Consider it a favor in return for mine."
Seo-han’s eyes stared straight into Hyun-jin's face, as if piercing through it. It was a gaze flashing with a chillingly cold rationality.
"Four times a month."
"Introduce me to the daughters of South Korea's most powerful families."
Jeong Hyun-jin blinked. "Introduce?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I want to meet them."
"..."
"Surprisingly difficult, actually."
Hyun-jin’s eyes widened. "What... does that mean? Do you want women?"
A faint smile hooked the corner of Seo-han’s mouth, but his eyes weren't laughing at all.
It wasn't the greedy smile of a libertine. It was closer to the dry, bizarre longing of a researcher seeking to collect a perfect specimen.
"People who are like soulless shells won't do."
"..."
"Because otherwise, there won't be a supply of Phantom next week."
Demanding that he open up the marriage and social networks of South Korea's most powerful families to him—a titan of the business world—was a blatant overstepping of bounds.
It was more unpleasant than demanding money. Because it meant handing over the keys to the world he had ruled his entire life, not just his wallet.
But if he could only banish this horrific fear of aging that currently dominated his entire body, he was ready to sell his soul to the devil.
"Alright... Alright! I'll mobilize my entire secretariat network and arrange introductions to the very best every week! So please, just stick that needle in!"
Hyun-jin screamed out as if screeching.
A fleeting, cold arc crossed the corner of Seo-han’s mouth.
He approached slowly and rolled up Hyun-jin's sleeve. The sharp syringe needle pierced the vein, sliding in smoothly.
The despair etched across Hyun-jin's face slowly began to fade.
He had not become younger. The wrinkles remained. The years remained. But something dormant inside him reignited.
Focus returned to his eyes. His breathing deepened. Strength flowed back into fingers that had felt too heavy to move.
It was not the desire to survive. It was the desire to possess. It wasn't youth. It was the illusion that he was not finished yet.
And once again, that illusion took hold of his mind.
Seo-han packed the empty vial and syringe, placing them into his bag without a shred of lingering attachment.
"See you next week."
After a brief nod, Seo-han left the living room without looking back.
As soon as the rhythmic sound of Seo-han’s shoes vanished completely past the entranceway, Hyun-jin bounced up from the sofa, entirely erasing the image of the desperate addict who had been begging moments earlier.
An arrogant, cruel smile resided on his face once again.
"Tell the Chief of Staff to come in."
At Hyun-jin's heavy voice, the Chief of Staff, who had been waiting outside the door, hastily entered the safe house living room.
"Bring it. Everything that bastard threw away—don't leave a single scrap, collect absolutely all of it."
Putting on the sanitary gloves he had prepared in advance, the Chief of Staff carefully used tweezers to pick up the piece of alcohol cotton and the plastic cap of the disposable syringe that Seo-han had tossed into the trash can, placing them into a ziplock bag.
Staring at the faint trace of medicinal liquid smeared inside the ziplock bag, Hyun-jin bared his teeth and smiled.
"Did he really think some forty-three-year-old doctor could keep me on a leash?"
Dropping heavily onto the leather sofa, he picked up his smartphone.
"Set up an urgent meeting with Professor Ki Jong-ho of Taesong Seoul Hospital. Proceed in absolute secrecy under the pretext of consulting on drug ingredient analysis."
A despicable greed glinted in Hyun-jin’s eyes.
"The moment we replicate this drug, Lee Seo-han becomes obsolete."