Chapter 15: Four Votes

The boardroom of Ryu Content was on the twelfth floor, and it had a long table of pale wood and a wall of glass.

Yeo-reum sat in the back row of chairs along the wall, in the only dress she owned, with a sketchbook closed on her knee.

Jin-woo stood at the head of the table in a dark gray suit.

Hye-jin stood at his left shoulder with her tablet.

Seven chairs sat around the table, and six of them were full.

Dong-hwan sat halfway down on the left with his gold pen on the wood in front of him.

Three members of the board had signed his letter, and he looked at each of them.

"Before we begin," Jin-woo said, "I will say one thing."

His voice came out too loud, flat and clear, and the older woman at the far end of the table raised her eyebrows.

"Last Saturday, I could not hear the fire alarm in my own building," he said. "I am deaf, and I read lips."

Nobody moved.

He did not look at his uncle.

He looked at the room, and he turned slowly so each face had a turn at his mouth.

"I have hidden this for six years," he said. "My uncle is right that I hid it. He is wrong about what it means."

"You see," Dong-hwan said at once, loud and pleased. "He admits it. Fitness is the issue."

He was looking at the man across from him, not at Jin-woo.

Jin-woo's eyes stayed on the wall.

Yeo-reum lifted her pencil from her knee, high and straight.

Hye-jin saw it, and touched his left elbow, and repeated his uncle's words in a calm voice at his right ear.

Jin-woo walked around the long table.

He walked all the way to the chair where his uncle sat, and he stopped in front of it, close enough that Dong-hwan had to tip his head back.

"Say it to me," he said.

"I said what I said."

"Say it facing me, Uncle. I cannot hear you from the side."

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