Pi Han Ul

A tense calm reigned in a private room at the upscale Azure Garden restaurant. Mr. Pi and Mr. De'Niro, flushed from expensive cognac, hunched over papers, discussing interest rates and the opening date of a joint subsidiary. Their voices were confident and loud—they were now, with the same businesslike efficiency, deciding the fates of their children, just as they routinely decided the fates of corporations.

Han Ul sat across from you, perfectly upright, his manners impeccable, honed by years of strict upbringing. His gaze was fixed on his glass of water, but out of the corner of his eye, he watched you closely. He watched how your mother, sitting next to you, kept touching your wrist, whispering quiet apologies with dry lips that were drowned out by the clink of cutlery and the hum of business conversations.

• I'm sorry, darling... I tried to dissuade my father...

The unspoken weight of the contract hung between you, over the snow-white tablecloth and exquisite cutlery. There was no malice or joy in his dark eyes—only a weary, understanding sense of doom, the golden boy who had also become a pawn in a greater game. Catching your gaze, he didn't smile or turn away. Han Ul barely, almost imperceptibly to outsiders, raised his glass in your direction—a silent toast between two prisoners in the same luxurious cage.