Chapter 17: The Tabloid

The free paper lay in a rack at the Hapjeong subway exit, and the whole front page was her drawing.

Yeo-reum stood in front of the rack in yesterday's hoodie and stared at it.

It was the sketch she had made the night before.

It had the lamp on his jaw and the brow she had fixed, every line of it hers.

Over it ran the headline in black capitals.

THE FACE OF DOWON: A CEO WHO CANNOT HEAR.

Underneath, in smaller type, it said the owner of Dalbit Toon had hidden a hearing disability from his board, his staff and his investors.

A commuter beside her read it, and glanced at her sleeve, and glanced back.

She pulled the paper out of the rack and folded it with a hand that did not feel hers.

Her phone was lighting up in her pocket with Soo-ah, Hye-jin, and numbers she did not know.

The one she answered was Jin-woo's text.

I saw it. Where are you? Stay there.

She typed with her thumbs.

Stay where? I am coming to you.

She was already running.

The Ryu Content tower stood at the bottom of a wide plaza, and three television vans were parked in front of its glass doors.

A knot of reporters stood at the foot of the steps with microphones.

A man held up the free paper over their heads.

Dong-hwan's black car had pulled up at the curb.

He stood at the open door, heavy and silver, being filmed.

"I have only ever wanted what is good for the family company," he said, to the lens.

"A chief executive should disclose his condition to the shareholders."

"I have been asking him to for years."

Yeo-reum shoved through the reporters, got to the steps, and climbed three of them so she stood above the crowd.

She did not have a speech.

She had a phone, and she held it up above her head with the Blue Hour page open.

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