The white light of the Seoul Private Hospital didn't feel like a beginning. It felt like a void.
Jun-ho stared at his hands. They were pale, steady, and clean, but they didn't feel like his hands. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw flashes—fragments of a silver butterfly, the smell of burning rubber, and a girl's voice calling a name that sounded like his, but felt like it belonged to a stranger.
"You're doing it again," a voice drawled.
Jun-ho didn't look up. He knew that voice. It was the only thing that had been consistent since he woke up in this "gilded cage" two weeks ago. Dr. Hana. She was leaning against the foot of his bed, her lab coat draped over her shoulders like a cape, her eyes tracking his every blink.
"Doing what?" Jun-ho asked, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears.
"Searching," she said, stepping closer. She reached out, her fingers grazing his temple. "Searching for the files I deleted. It's no use, Jun-ho. The trauma from the 'accident' was quite thorough. Your brain decided that being a Kang was too heavy a burden to carry, so it simply... let go."
Jun-ho pulled away, his jaw tightening. "If I'm a Kang, why am I here? Why does every person who walks through that door look at me like I'm a broken machine they're trying to fix?"
Hana laughed, a sharp, cold sound. "Because you are a broken machine, Prince. And in three days, that machine is being sent back to the factory. You're being released."
"Released to where?"
"To your life," she whispered, leaning in so close he could smell the mint on her breath. "To the boardroom. To the press. To the enemies who are waiting for you to trip over your own forgotten feet. And your little 'friends,' Min-ki and Dae-hyun? They'll be released a week after you. They're parentless, Jun-ho. Nobody is coming for them. They'll be back on the streets of Seoul, forgotten, just like the memories you're chasing."
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a silver butterfly clip. She dangled it in front of his eyes. "Does this spark anything? Or is it just a piece of cheap metal to you now?"
Jun-ho stared at the clip. His heart hammered against his ribs—a physical reaction his brain couldn't explain. A name hovered on the tip of his tongue. Seo... Seo... "I don't know what that is," he lied, his voice trembling.
Hana smirked, dropping the clip onto his lap. "Liar. Your pulse says otherwise. But keep your secrets, Jun-ho. They're the only things you actually own right now."
The door hissed open, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Two people walked in, followed by a tall man in a dark suit who moved with the precision of a predator.
"Stand up, Jun-ho," the older man said. His voice was like grinding stones.
Jun-ho looked at him, searching for a spark of recognition, a feeling of "Father," but there was nothing. Just a cold realization that this man was powerful. "Who are you?"
The woman beside the man gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Her eyes were wet, but her face was perfectly frozen with Botox and expensive creams. "Dong-gun... he really doesn't remember us."
"It doesn't matter if he remembers our faces," Kang Dong-gun said, ignoring his wife's distress. He looked at Jun-ho with a chilling indifference. "He needs to remember his function. You are the heir to the Kang Group. Your 'vacation' in this ward has cost us billions in market confidence. You have three days to regain your composure. On Monday, you will be in the office."
"I don't know how to run a company," Jun-ho said, his voice rising. "I don't even know my own middle name!"
"You will learn," his father snapped. "Or you will be replaced. A Kang does not fail because of a 'headache.' Myunhoon here will be your shadow. He will tell you who to speak to, what to say, and who to crush."
Myunhoon stepped forward, bowing slightly. His eyes were the only ones in the room that didn't look at Jun-ho like he was a disappointment. There was something else there—pity? Or maybe a hidden agenda. "I have the briefings ready, Young Master. We will begin your re-education tonight."
"And the girl?" Jun-ho asked suddenly. The question came out of nowhere, a reflex from a part of his brain he couldn't control.
His father's eyes flashed with a sudden, violent rage. "There is no girl. There is only the firm. If I hear you ask about 'her' again, I will ensure that the next facility you wake up in doesn't have windows. Do you understand?"
The room went silent. Jun-ho looked at his mother, but she looked away, fascinated by the stitching on her Chanel handbag. He looked at Dr. Hana, who was leaning against the wall, watching the destruction of his identity with a bored smile.
"I understand," Jun-ho whispered.
"Good," Dong-gun said, turning on his heel. "We will see you at the gala on the night of your release. Do not embarrass me."
They left as a unit, a wall of power and coldness that left Jun-ho feeling smaller than ever. Myunhoon stayed behind for a moment, looking at Jun-ho with an unreadable expression.
"Why did he get so angry?" Jun-ho asked, clutching the butterfly clip so hard the metal bit into his palm. "Who is the girl?"
"Someone you're better off forgetting, Jun-ho," Myunhoon said softly. "But I suspect you won't. You were always stubborn, even before the accident."
As Myunhoon left, Jun-ho collapsed back onto the bed. His head was throbbing. He felt like he was drowning in a sea of names and faces that didn't belong to him. He looked at the butterfly clip and flipped it over.
There, on the back of the wing, was a microscopic scratch. He squinted, his breath catching. It wasn't a scratch. It was a set of numbers.
Coordinates.
His phone, hidden beneath the thin mattress, vibrated once. It was a message from an unsaved number.
[You don't remember us, but we remember you. Don't trust the man in the suit. Meet us at the coordinates in 3 days. - M & D]
Jun-ho looked at the door, then back at the phone. Min-ki. Dae-hyun. The names felt familiar, like a song he'd heard a long time ago. They were parentless. They were "trash" according to his father. But they were the only ones reaching out to the version of him that was currently missing.
He didn't know who he was. He didn't know what he had lost. But as he stared at the coordinates, a single, clear thought formed in the chaos of his mind.
He wasn't going to that boardroom on Monday.
He was going to find the girl his father wanted him to forget. Even if he had to burn the Kang Empire to the ground to remember her name.
The silence that followed his father's departure was heavier than the shouting. Jun-ho stared at the silver butterfly clip, his thumb tracing the sharp, cold edges of the wings until his skin turned white.
"You're trying to force it, aren't you?" Hana's voice drifted from the corner of the room. She hadn't left. She was sitting in the guest chair now, her legs crossed, watching him with a predatory curiosity. "You think if you stare at that piece of tin long enough, a movie will start playing in your head. A beautiful girl, a sunset, a promise... isn't that what the stories say?"
"Get out," Jun-ho whispered, his head beginning to throb with a dull, rhythmic pain.
"I can't," she sighed, though she looked like she was enjoying every second. "I'm your doctor. And right now, your vitals are spiking. Your heart is trying to remember something your brain has already buried. Do you know what happens when you fight your own biology, Jun-ho? You break."
She stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the glittering skyline of Seoul. "Your father is a powerful man. He didn't just pay for your surgery; he paid for your 'clean slate.' He thinks a son without a past is a son who can finally be controlled. And honestly? He's right. Without your memories, you're just a suit with a famous last name."
Jun-ho looked at her reflection in the glass. "Why are you telling me this? You work for him."
Hana turned, her smirk softening into something that looked dangerously like pity—or perhaps just boredom. "I work for the highest bidder, Prince. And right now, the most interesting thing in this city isn't your father's bank account. It's the look in your eyes. You're terrified. You don't know if those boys—M and D—are your friends or the people who put you in this bed."
She walked to the door, pausing with her hand on the handle. "Three days. That's all the time you have left to decide if you want to be the King of a company you don't remember, or a ghost chasing a girl who might not even exist."
As the door clicked shut, Jun-ho felt a single tear track down his cheek—a physical reaction to an emotion he couldn't name. He gripped the phone tight, the coordinates burned into his mind. He didn't know who Seo-ah was. He didn't know why his father hated her. But as he looked out at the dark Seoul sky, he realized that the pain in his chest was the only thing that felt real.
If the memories were gone, he would just have to make new ones. And he would start by finding the people his father called "trash."