Gwak Seung-hyeon turned and walked out.
Seon-woo, whose attention was entirely consumed by that single fact, froze like a broken machine, all movements coming to an abrupt halt.
It didn’t seem like Seo Eun-jae had intended for things to unfold this way either. Looking flustered, he stared at the door Seung-hyeon had just passed through, then quietly backed away from Seon-woo. But Seon-woo was already too far gone to care what Eun-jae was doing anymore.
Suddenly snapping back to himself, Seon-woo tried to sit up. He was about to chase after Gwak Seung-hyeon. But…
His right hand moved clumsily, but it was functioning decently now. As he gripped the IV needle still stuck in his left arm, seemingly ready to yank it out, Eun-jae quickly reached out and covered Seon-woo’s hand.
In a hurried, panicked voice, he pleaded with him.
“You can’t do that!”
It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, but Eun-jae was right, and Seon-woo calmed himself down. He’d nearly acted on impulse and made a mess of things.
Sure, pulling out an IV might be common in dramas, but this wasn’t a drama. Yanking it out without care could easily cause blood to backflow. Maybe he’d been too soaked in media portrayals.
Seon-woo shifted the hand that had been about to remove the IV and ran it through his hair instead, messing it up. Burying his face in his palm, he finally spoke. His voice was a bit impatient.
“Seo Eun-jae. Let’s just end this here.”
“End this?”
Eun-jae echoed the words in a dry tone. He looked somewhere between indifferent and disappointed. Watching that expression, Seon-woo asked,
“Is there more you want to say?”
“…And you, Director?”
“I think I’ve said everything I needed to.”
“You’ll be okay with that?”
Two calm questions, one after another. Seon-woo, unable to hide his urgency, answered both quickly—except for the last one. That one made him pause.
But the hesitation didn’t last long.
“If you’re worried about the consequences of my decision, that’s something I’ll deal with myself.”
The hesitation lingered longer on Eun-jae’s side. He lowered his head and fell silent for a moment. Then, slowly, his hand slipped away from the IV. Judging from the look on his face, he had probably forgotten he was even holding it.
With a dazed expression, Eun-jae spoke slowly.
“…Alright.”
The next words came much faster.
“Go ahead, Director.”
For the first time, Seon-woo hesitated.
But it wasn’t because he didn’t know whether he should leave or stay. He simply didn’t know whether he should say something—or say nothing at all.
In the end, Seon-woo chose silence.
Instead, he bowed lightly in farewell.
<Your Gwanggong Score has decreased by 6!>
Eun-jae let out a faint smile.
Seon-woo ignored the system notification, turned his back to him, and reluctantly dragged the cumbersome IV stand as he stepped out of the hospital room.
He couldn’t walk as quickly as usual, so he worried whether he’d even be able to catch up to Seung-hyeon, who had stormed out just moments ago. But to his surprise, it didn’t take long.
He spotted Seung-hyeon sitting at the far end of the hallway, slouched on a chair.
But before their eyes could meet, Seung-hyeon, seemingly lost in thought, got to his feet. He didn’t even glance in Seon-woo’s direction.
Seeing his back again stirred a renewed urgency in Seon-woo. He hastened his steps, calling out.
“Wait. Just stop there for a second.”
Seung-hyeon flinched slightly. But though his steps paused, he didn’t turn around.
Anxious and pressed, Seon-woo followed after him with growing desperation. Even from behind, he could see the hesitation in Seung-hyeon’s posture. Reaching out, Seon-woo grabbed his shoulder.
“You could at least listen to what I have to say before leaving.”
The warmth of his body came through the touch.
Seung-hyeon, unusually tense, didn’t turn around until it seemed Seon-woo was about to call out to him again. Then, slowly—very slowly—he turned to face him.
His eyes avoided Seon-woo’s gaze. A faint smile played at his lips. It wasn’t forced to the point of being fake, but it certainly didn’t look natural either.
Running a hand through his hair as if unsure of what to say, Seung-hyeon finally opened his mouth.
“My aunt contacted me.”
The words caught Seon-woo completely off guard. He was left speechless for a moment—it was the last thing he’d expected to hear right now. But Seung-hyeon remained calm, as if simply stating the obvious.
“She said she found evidence.”
It sounded like he was shifting into a business-like tone. Seon-woo forced himself to stay grounded and responded.
“This isn’t really the time—”
“All this time, it was strange how nothing ever stuck, but it turns out someone practically left all the key evidence lying around the house.”
But Seung-hyeon cut him off.
That alone was such an unfamiliar experience for Seon-woo that he was left completely shut down, unable to say anything in return.
Seung-hyeon rubbed his chin, as if pondering something—but it wasn’t the expression of a man deep in personal thought. It looked more like he was deciding how best to summarize a report.
“Apparently things were so urgent, I only got a quick explanation. But… it makes sense, doesn’t it? They moved in secret, probably on purpose. And they put people like your uncle or your eldest uncle at the forefront—people who would draw all the attention. That way, no one would suspect the real player behind the scenes. It’s like they deliberately planted just enough suspicion to keep everyone distracted.”
In a way, it was exactly the kind of news Seon-woo had hoped for. Contrary to his worries, Gwak Sang-hwa had found the evidence and even informed Seung-hyeon—so perhaps there was no longer any need for Seon-woo to throw himself into the matter further.
But right now, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
After seeing what he and Seo Eun-jae looked like together, Seung-hyeon had left in apparent misunderstanding. And now, instead of confronting him, instead of pushing him away… he was reporting facts, as if nothing had happened.
It didn’t feel real.
Seon-woo steadied his breathing and finally spoke.
“That’s not what we should be talking about right now.”
“…It just feels like the most important thing I have to talk about at the moment.”
Seung-hyeon answered without hesitation.
The words Why are you talking like that…? rose all the way up Seon-woo’s throat.
“Why…”
But just as he was about to question Seung-hyeon for not questioning him, Seon-woo shut his mouth.
He couldn’t quite figure out what Seung-hyeon was thinking when he said those things—but he also couldn’t afford to charge ahead with just his own impatience.
Because even though Seung-hyeon sounded calm and detached while reporting facts, the truth was… he had just learned who had orchestrated his father’s death.
Seon-woo forced himself to calm down.
At the very least, Seung-hyeon hadn’t turned his back on him. He hadn’t walked away. That was enough. There was no need to push him further.
“…Are you okay?”
“…You should be furious.”
It was a foolish question. There was no way he could confidently say Seung-hyeon wasn’t angry.
Hell, Seon-woo didn’t even know why he’d walked out of that hospital room in the first place.
And yet, here he was, asking if he was okay.
It was laughable. But he couldn’t laugh.
And Seung-hyeon didn’t laugh either. Instead, he smiled with no hint of amusement and said,
“It’s strange, really.”
Seon-woo opened his mouth, about to ask what’s strange, but the words refused to come out.
Seung-hyeon gave a sharp, dry laugh and this time rubbed his lips instead of his chin.
“I should be furious. That’d be normal, right? Gwak Sang-cheol and Nam Jeong-dong—they’re practically my father’s murderers.
“Right about now, I should be losing my mind, raging about how I want to rip the two of them apart with my own hands. Or if not that… then at least getting angry, or breaking down, or drowning in grief.
“That’s what a normal reaction would be, right?”
Seon-woo flinched instinctively. The tone of his voice was so clinical, so detached, it didn’t match the weight of what he was saying at all.
Seung-hyeon muttered to himself,
“Even Aunt Sang-hwa… she wasn’t in her right mind. Whether it was the shock of being betrayed by her husband or what…”
At some point, even that faint, unreadable smile had disappeared from his face.
He fell silent.
Seon-woo remained still, unable to do anything but watch, caught in the fog of confusion.
Then, as if something had just occurred to him, Seung-hyeon spoke again.
“My father was always that kind of person. He used to say, Don’t waste your heart on things that only eat away at you.”
“Even if I hate those two now—even if I curse them—nothing will really change. They’ll get whatever punishment’s already been decided for them, no more, no less.
“And honestly… it’s possible that, in time, even the fact that they drove my father to his death will just disappear, like it never happened.”
Seon-woo wanted to say he could change that outcome if Seung-hyeon wanted. That he’d do whatever it took to make sure they suffered more—that their punishment matched what they’d done, all for Seung-hyeon’s sake.
But this wasn’t the time.
Seung-hyeon’s words came too fast, too forceful. There was no space left for Seon-woo to say anything at all.
“And yet the reason I’m not angry right now… it’s not because I take after my father. It’s not because I remembered his lessons and took them to heart.”
Then why?
The question felt both obvious and unknowable at the same time, and it shook Seon-woo. Seung-hyeon fell silent again… until suddenly, as if under a spell, he spoke.
“I think I’ve gone completely insane.”
Once again, the words seemed to have no connection to what came before.
“All I could think about was you, Director.”
But the moment Seon-woo heard that voice, he understood exactly why this was the next thing to come out of Seung-hyeon’s mouth.
He didn’t just listen anymore. Instead, he opened his mouth, his tone firm and demanding.
“Why did you walk out on me?”
Seung-hyeon slowly lifted his head. And finally, their eyes locked. For the first time, Seon-woo felt like he could truly read his expression.
Seung-hyeon was smiling—but it looked like it took everything he had just to hold it there. And then he said:
“Because I didn’t want to be angry at you.”
