The Sunday morning sun began to peek through the modern architecture of the city, casting long, peaceful shadows across the Gleam Tower lobby.
Jin-woo stepped out of his apartment, dressed in his usual sharp black athletic gear, and headed toward the elevator with Hajun in tow.
He found himself glancing at the floor indicator as the lift descended, wondering if he might run into Eun-soo.
He wasn't sure if he was actually anticipating it or just curious, but the thought stayed with him until the doors opened at the gym level.
To his surprise, he saw Eun-soo just as she was exiting the fitness center, looking radiant in a black cropped workout top and matching shorts.
Her long hair was slightly tousled, and she was dabbing at her face with a white towel, her skin glowing from a high-intensity session.
Jin-woo felt a momentary lapse in his composure, momentarily struck by how effortlessly she commanded the space around her even in gym wear.
Hajun, however, had no such hesitations and immediately broke into a run toward her. "Teacher! Teacher!"
Eun-soo looked up, still slightly out of breath, and waved him down before he could collide with her.
"Wait, wait! No hugs today, Hajun," she laughed, holding up her hands. "I'm all sweaty from my workout. I don't want to get your clean clothes dirty!"
Hajun stopped instantly, his little shoulders slumping and a pitiful expression crossing his face. "Okay..."
Eun-soo's heart melted at the sight of his cute, pouting face, but she remained firm for the sake of his laundry.
She then looked up at Jin-woo, who was standing a few feet back, observing the scene with his typical calm gaze.
"Hello, Mr. Jin-woo," she said, her voice a bit higher than usual as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"Hello, Miss Eun-soo," he replied smoothly. "You're finished quite early today. You usually come in later on Sundays."
Eun-soo felt a flicker of hesitation, her mind jumping to the secret blind date she had scheduled for the afternoon.
"Oh, yes," she stammered slightly. "I... I have some personal things to attend to this evening, so I wanted to get my training out of the way early."
Jin-woo noticed the slight shift in her tone but decided not to pry into her private schedule.
"I see," he said with a polite nod. "Then we won't keep you. Have a productive day."
"Thank you! Enjoy your workout, Hajun!" she called out as she hurried toward the elevators.
After finishing his own grueling routine, Jin-woo headed back to the apartment to prepare for a very critical day at the office.
He pulled out his phone and dialed his mother, Young-sook, who was currently staying at the Lotte Hotel World with his father.
"Mom? Are you and Dad busy today?" he asked once she picked up. "I have a major shipment arriving at the cluster, and I need to be at Parc1 all day."
"Jin-woo! We're just enjoying a quiet Sunday in the Deluxe Twin room," his mother replied warmly. "Why do you even ask? Bring Hajun over immediately!"
"I'm sorry to disturb your vacation, Mom," Jin-woo said, feeling a bit guilty. "I know you were looking forward to a break."
"Disturbance?" Young-sook's voice rose in mock anger. "Hajun is my grandson! You are becoming more infuriating every day with this 'politeness.' Just bring him here!"
"Sorry, Mom. I'll keep that in mind," Jin-woo chuckled. "I'll drop him off in thirty minutes."
After dropping Hajun off with his delighted grandparents, Jin-woo drove to the towering Parc1 complex in Yeouido.
He headed straight to the 50th floor, where A2 Square's "Heart" cluster was housed—the roaring forge of their machine learning models.
The office was a marvel of engineering, divided into a sleek guest reception area, a workspace for his ten core engineers, and the glass-enclosed server room.
Inside that glass vault sat the heart of the company: a combined cluster of 224 NVIDIA GPUs, including the new H200 nodes that could do in a day what used to take a week.
Every dollar they had earned had been poured into this hardware—the massive NVMe storage, the Alluxio caching layers, and the Flyte scheduling brain.
As Jin-woo walked through the doors, his team of elite engineers stood up as one, acknowledging their founder with respectful nods.
Park Min-jae, the calm genius who managed the infrastructure, walked over to meet him near the reception desk.
"Morning, sir," Min-jae said, checking his tablet. "The final shipment of the H200s is on the truck. It should be here within the hour."
"Excellent," Jin-woo replied, looking through the glass at the humming blue lights of the servers. "I'll be in my office. Let me know the moment they arrive."
"Will do, sir," Min-jae nodded. "We're all ready for the final integration. Today is the day A2 truly wakes up."