Hyun Woo walked into the Queens Group legal office, a place he had always entered with a slump in his shoulders and a knot in his stomach. Today, he strode in. His back was straight, his chin was up, and his eyes, usually downcast, met those of his colleagues with a calm, confident gaze. The change was immediate and palpable.
The first person to notice was Park Seo-joon. As Attorney Baek passed his desk, Seo-joon's head shot up. "Attorney Baek, did you… did you get a haircut?" he stammered.
Hyun Woo just gave a faint smile and shook his head. "No. Just had a good night's sleep."
Seo-joon watched him walk to his desk, baffled. It wasn't a haircut. It was something in his posture, a new energy that hummed around him. He seemed taller, more formidable.
The rest of the office felt it, too. When a junior lawyer came to him with a complex contract issue, Hyun Woo didn't just offer a solution. He listened intently, then, with a few precise questions, he unraveled the core problem, presenting a solution so elegant and simple that the junior lawyer just stared in awe. His usual hesitancy was gone, replaced by a sharp, analytical focus.
Later, during a staff meeting, the air grew tense when a senior partner proposed a questionable legal strategy. The original Hyun Woo would have silently fumed. This new Hyun Woo, however, calmly raised his hand.
"With all due respect, sir," he said, his voice steady, "that approach leaves us open to a Class B misdemeanor on the third clause. It would be far more efficient and legally sound to pursue an alternative interpretation of the recent Supreme Court ruling."
The senior partner, flustered, had no counter. The room went silent. Everyone was stunned. The "prince consort," as some of the more snide colleagues called him behind his back, had just single-handedly dismantled a senior's argument with cold, hard logic.
Rumors, as they always do, began to circulate with the speed of a wildfire.
"Did you hear? Baek Hyun Woo talked back to Partner Ahn."
"I heard he was looking at documents so fast, it was like he was just scanning them."
"He's been working out, right? He looked… bigger."
The gossip found its way to Na Chae-yeon, Hae In's secretary, while she was grabbing a coffee. A colleague from the legal department sidled up to her, wide-eyed. "Secretary Na, you have to tell me. What's wrong with your brother-in-law? Did he have a fight with Director Hong?"
"What are you talking about?" Secretary Na asked, confused.
"He's acting… different. Confident. Like he owns the place. The whole legal team is buzzing about it."
Secretary Na listened, her interest piqued. She knew the original Hyun Woo—the quiet, polite man who always seemed a little out of place. The man being described to her sounded like an entirely different person. She took the information back with her, mulling it over. She didn't want to bother Director Hong with office gossip, but this felt significant.
When she finally had a moment alone with Hae In, she carefully broached the subject. "Director, forgive me for this, but… there are some rumors going around about Mr. Baek."
Hae In didn't look up from her tablet. "And?"
"They're saying he's… changed. That he seems more confident. More… assertive. The legal team is quite surprised."
Hae In finally looked up, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. "He's probably just trying to get on my nerves," she said, but her voice lacked its usual conviction. She turned back to her work, but the image of a newly confident, assertive Hyun Woo, a man she hadn't seen in years, lodged itself in her mind. It was an unwelcome distraction, yet one she found herself unable to shake.