Colton set down his teacup.

"A pleasure to meet you."

His enunciation was as precise as ever. That courteous, imposing manner of speech caught the ear every time. His calm, charismatic tone never wavered.

Not even when a bomb had gone off right before his eyes.

But a pleasure to meet me—not a pleasure to meet me for the first time, nor a pleasure to see me again.

The message was clear. I studied Colton while Forden greeted him in a voice fraught with tension. Colton was so extraordinarily good at concealing his thoughts that I couldn't tell how much importance he attached to Forden.

But I knew exactly how I should conduct myself at this table.

Colton remembered me.

We simply weren't going to acknowledge knowing each other here.

A moment's thought made it obvious. Gazes converged on our table in the corner of the reception hall. Prominent figures from every walk of life were watching us. We couldn't have an in-depth conversation somewhere this public.

"It is an honor to finally meet you."

Forden offered the deferential greeting as he sat down. He seemed to have forgotten I was beside him altogether. Fair enough. It wasn't easy to let your attention wander with Colton Wiseman in front of you.

"Please forgive me for beginning with a tedious subject."

"A far more sensible approach than beating around the bush for no reason."

Colton accepted Forden's behavior as naturally as though he really were royalty granting an audience. My gracefully aged friend even offered a compliment as he lifted his teacup.

"Surely it is better than wasting time on unnecessary words."

He was delighted.

Forden was delighted to be praised. That was probably just a hollow pleasantry on Colton's part.

Regardless, Forden looked as pleased as a child praised by a parent, and did indeed launch straight into the matter at hand.

He had a way with words, as befitted a company owner. I listened to his business talk with half an ear.

Something about new construction, something about profitability over there.

Nothing I needed to listen closely to. I let my eyes wander while pretending to pay attention.

An opulent white interior. People pretending to chat while listening intently to Colton and Forden.

Jaeyeon stood a few paces behind Colton, glaring at me with eyes full of hatred.

'He can't talk right now.'

I sifted through my returning memories.

Jaeyeon. Colton's foremost agent. The only person Colton Wiseman gave special treatment in all sorts of ways (probably).

I'd seen this arrangement often. At public occasions like these, Jaeyeon would stand behind Colton like a shadow. He guarded Colton and dirtied his hands for him.

Well, Colton had more than a few people like that, but only Jaeyeon was in a position to kiss his hands and feet personally.

That didn't mean he could run his mouth freely while Colton was working. Colton didn't permit that.

My old friend managed people by adding a drop of mercy to their terror.

"Mr. Hildebert."

Apparently, that round of conversation had ended while I was remembering Jaeyeon. Colton's voice drew me back to reality. I slowly took my eyes off Jaeyeon and looked at the man seated opposite me.

Forden gave me an incredulous look. Paying him no mind, I met those blue eyes.

"Yes?"

"What do you usually do after training?"

The polite formality he adopted for courtesy's sake really didn't suit him.

I wanted to say, "Hey, that formal tone really doesn't suit you. Just hearing it gives me the creeps, so cut it out," but I understood social decorum.

So I suppressed the urge and smiled.

"I play games."

Forden dropped something.

A few of the eavesdroppers couldn't suppress a snort. Several turned around as if wondering whether they'd heard me correctly. One even gaped.

Even Jaeyeon looked at me as though I were truly pathetic.

"Computer games?"

"Yes."

Why ask when you already knew?

"Usually."

It wasn't as though I'd suddenly start sitting around playing poker in refined elegance like you. Not that I disliked card games, but they couldn't match the stimulation of computer games. You knew perfectly well that nagging wouldn't help.

Once again, none of that made it out of my mouth. I merely smiled at Colton's expressionless face.

"I like console and mobile games, too."

Several people drew in a sharp breath.

Stop persecuting games. Stop looking at me as though you couldn't believe I was giving such a trashy answer to the most powerful man alive.

Was reading refined and gaming vulgar, you people?

Of course, no one here would have gaming as a hobby. They were probably all people for whom twenty-four hours a day wasn't enough just to get their work done. Ignoring Forden's expression, which said, "I must have been insane to invite this idiot as my special guest," I watched Colton set down his teacup.

Colton remained silent, eyes lowered.

A strange silence settled around us. I ignored the gazes boring into the back of my neck and waited for his answer. I ignored Forden's irritated stare, too.

The invitation you sent me was probably Colton's handiwork behind the scenes, dear Forden. Not that you'd ever know.

Colton had an innate talent for making other people dirty their hands without it seeming at all unnatural.

My rotten friend finally broke his silence.

"Then, as thanks for rescuing my business partner, I will have a gaming center built on one floor of the reconstructed tower."

Oh, really?

See? Nothing beat an old friend!

My face lit up with pure, unfeigned delight, but Colton continued.

"I have little knowledge of games, however. Would you give my subordinates some guidelines in the third-floor drawing room in an hour? It shouldn't take very long."

"Ah."

So this was the point.

Surrounded by people whose eyes had gone round, I answered with my smile fixed in place.

"Of course."

Right. This was how social gatherings worked.

"I'd be honored. I'll be sure to come to the third-floor drawing room in an hour."

Pointless procedures. Countless gestures for an audience. Today, we had shown a crowd of prominent people who knew nothing that Colton and Hilde had met for the first time. But we'd also shown them that we had now become acquainted for a trivial reason. To conceal the truth and move freely behind the lie we'd established.

To give the impression that it wouldn't be strange for us to meet and talk from time to time, but that our conversations were unlikely to amount to much.

The third-floor drawing room, in an hour.

That would be where the conversation of real substance took place. The message had come through loud and clear, so I left the table without a care.

* * *

"Are you coming too, Commander?"

Ten minutes before the appointed time. Watching the gathering gradually wind down, I put the question to Yehyeon.

My pale superior blinked at me, then lowered his gaze.

"Yes. They say it's a mini-meeting."

"Ah."

Seeing him depressed over the abruptly scheduled closed-door meeting made me feel guilty. It was obvious they'd arranged it at short notice because of me. As Yehyeon drank his coffee bitterly, I offered a sincere apology.

"I'm sorry."

"No. What do you have to be sorry for?"

He looked like a dejected panda.

Beside Yun, who rolled his eyes in disapproval, Yehyeon spoke wearily.

"You're the one who has to walk into a drawing room full of them. Let's get going. They'll already be there."

"Already? They don't strike me as the sort to arrive early and wait for us."

"They'll have plenty to discuss among themselves. All three disappeared half an hour ago."

Aha.

I should have realized sooner why people had begun leaving the reception hall one by one. I looked around the emptier room and nodded. I still had a lot to learn. How had I failed to notice?

Looking over the space left hollow by the loss of its center of gravity, I rose after Yehyeon.

"If I'd known there was going to be a meeting, I'd have worn a black suit," Yehyeon muttered to himself.

"Who cares?" Yun replied flatly.

Lounging in his chair, my training officer looked up at us as we turned to head for the third floor.

"Call me as soon as you're done."

He was speaking to Yehyeon.

"I'll be waiting here."

"All right," Yehyeon readily agreed. "I'll be back soon."

We headed for the third floor.

We passed people gathering up their coats to leave and climbed the stairs. After two flights, we reached a floor where I sensed no one. Soft carpet swallowed our footsteps. The carpeted corridor led to the drawing room at the far end of the third floor.

A door intricately carved with grapevines closed off the drawing room. Yehyeon strode toward it and pushed the wooden door open.

CREAK

The door swung open.

I followed him inside without giving it much thought.

The moment I crossed the threshold, the change in atmosphere made me hold my breath.

The air was tense enough to make my skin prickle.

In air sharp enough to cut, people turned in an instant to stare at me alone. I could barely breathe. Their unblinking gazes drove into me. I felt as though they were seeing straight through me.

Three humans sat at a table that filled the drawing room.

Eric Earhart on the left. Yekaterina on the right.

Colton Wiseman in the middle.

The elders' agents stood behind them, motionless as shadows. Their eyes instantly warned me that they would kill me if I tried anything. All they'd done was shift their eyes, yet the unspoken warning came through unmistakably.

'What a battlefield.'

And there wasn't a creature or weapon in sight.

How could it be harder to breathe here than outside the core?

Appalled, I looked over the agents standing in the drawing room one by one.

Colton Wiseman's agent was Jaeyeon.

Behind Eric Earhart stood a pale man with red hair tied half up and a man with curly blond hair. I'd never met either. Judging by their positions, the redhead seemed to outrank the blond, but both had shot murderous looks at me the instant I set foot in the drawing room.

The redhead's hollow eyes and the blond's bright smile both conveyed that I had better behave.

"Ah. Right on time."

Their master, Eric, greeted me with a bored expression.

"Welcome. You're just as dull a man on second viewing."

"Come in and close the door," Yekaterina said frostily from opposite Eric. "How long do you intend to stand there?"

Like Colton, Yekaterina had only one agent guarding her back.

I closed the door and took what was clearly my seat, studying her agent as I did.

An Asian man in a pitch-black suit. He looked as though he rarely relaxed his furrowed brow, and his gaze bore into me more keenly than anyone else's in the room.

Short black hair and cold black eyes.

A finely drawn face despite its rigid, irritable expression. Handsome, but with a subtly delicate beauty. I blinked as I studied his features. He really did look stern and irritable and handsome, yet pretty.

And somehow, strangely...

Familiar?

What? I felt like I'd met him before.

Judging by the faint ache starting in my head, I probably had. But this was definitely my first time meeting Yekaterina, so why would I know her agent? And why hadn't seeing his face instantly brought back memories, as Colton's and Jaeyeon's had?

Where had I seen him?

I must have lost focus for a moment amid the flood of questions.

CLICK

The sound of Jaeyeon lighting Colton's cigar brought me back to my senses.

Get a grip. This wasn't the time.

I turned my gaze to the center. I saw my old friend slowly put the cigar between his lips, and Yehyeon sit between Colton and Eric like an outsider.

Taking in the scene, which resembled a Mafia meeting, I waited for my friend to speak.

I waited as the man, surrounded by an air that suggested he was about to have someone buried, exhaled a long stream of smoke, leaned lazily against the back of his chair, and looked at me without a trace of warmth in his eyes.

Until he stripped away the empty formalities and spoke in his true, commanding voice.

"Hildebert."

Smoke billowed from the cigar between his fingers.

"Still wasting your time on pointless things."

"I told you to give up."

Even after all this time, he was still on my case.

"Watching opera and playing games are equally unproductive."

"And still as uncouth as ever."

Colton murmured with his eyes closed.

"My old friend."

Someone who had shared long, long years with me.

We had watched time pass, the world transform, and each other change. And seen the things that remained unchanged while everything else shifted.