There are days that are particularly like that.
When your heart is racing, but circumstances won’t cooperate.
Sitting in the driver’s seat staring at the road, Jaehyuk tapped the steering wheel anxiously with his fingertips.
The road was hardly different from a parking lot.
On the morning Junghyun left, he barely hit any red lights, which felt like flying, but today felt like walking through a swamp.
Just before leaving work, a problem with the new factory site held him back, and after finally resolving it and getting off work, now the road was in this state.
Judging by several emergency lights flashing in the distance, there seemed to be a major accident.
Realizing he wouldn’t be moving anytime soon, Jaehyuk quickly sent a message.
[I’ll be late because the road is blocked.]
After typing this brief text and pressing send, he felt a tightness in his chest.
He had a feeling another scheduled message would arrive.
This too was trauma.
As he drummed the steering wheel rapidly with sudden nervousness, a reply arrived shortly.
[Jajangmyeon] It’s okay. I’m eating bread.
While relieved by the quick response, he was also somewhat bewildered.
He clearly remembered sending a message 40 minutes ago saying he’d be a bit late, and the reply then was that Junghyun was eating ramen.
It’s nice that he was waiting since Jaehyuk had been the one to suggest eating together.
But what was he continuously eating in the meantime?
Of course, it’s better to eat well than not at all, but something felt strange.
No, to be precise, it didn’t feel real.
Exchanging these messages with Junghyun now, and this whole situation.
“What kind of stomach and mentality does he have…?”
He had thought Junghyun had a mentality he never wanted to be close to, going on about jajangmyeon even after being heartbroken, but now he wondered what kind of person he really was.
Thinking about the past month, sometimes he wondered how Junghyun could be so casually by his side, but then he’d recall how he himself couldn’t eat or sleep during that time, and seeing someone who ate and slept so well made him think, should I just kill this bastard?
But at the same time, he also wondered if things were really okay as they were.
Knowing there was a problem but ignoring it had resulted in the incident a month ago.
Though pretending everything was fine, he didn’t know how long this peace would last.
Unless the fundamental problem was solved, the same situation would only repeat itself.
Sighing with frustration as he looked ahead, the road remained completely blocked.
Thinking this must be on the news by now, he reached for his phone to check what accident had occurred, when it rang as if it had been waiting.
It was Suhyuk hyung.
Assuming he was calling about the matter with Junghyun, he answered immediately.
“Yeah.”
— Where are you now?
His voice sounded a bit rough, as if he’d just woken up, and his speech was somewhat incoherent.
It would be dawn where he was, so that made sense.
Checking the car in front that had slowly started moving while on the call, Jaehyuk took his foot off the brake and answered.
“In the car.”
— Alone?
“Yeah. I’m driving.”
— What about Junghyun?
Suhyuk roughly knew the situation. After all, Jaehyuk had called him whining whenever he failed to control his emotions.
So he answered honestly.
“He’s at home. Why?”
— Haven’t you had any contact?
“What kind of contact?”
— Um… then I guess you don’t know yet.
“Know what?”
— I’ll send you a link. See for yourself. I just got it from Junhyuk hyung, and I’m not sure how far it’s spread.
“Spread?”
He was about to ask what that meant when a message arrived.
Turning on the screen and clicking the link in the message, a large title appeared on a new window.
[Chaebol Third Generation’s Marriage Contract? Or Contracted Marriage?]
Below the clickbait title that would make anyone curious, there was a photo.
It was a picture of a laptop screen captured over a man’s shoulder.
The photo, clearly a paparazzi shot, focused not on the man but on the document displayed on the laptop.
And unfortunately, that document contained sentences very familiar to Jaehyuk.
“Agree to divorce one year after marriage. Upon divorce, shares will be transferred as alimony. Additionally, the reason for divorce will be ‘inability to conceive’.” And so on.
Fortunately, neither Junghyun’s nor his name appeared, but it was still easy enough to deduce.
Especially since on the table where the photo was taken, there was a seasonal product—Hanju Hotel’s marron cream cake.
Marron products are typically released in October.
Since chaebol weddings aren’t common, narrowing it down by that time frame makes the answer obvious.
As far as he knew, only two couples had married since last fall until now.
Himself and Suhyuk hyung.
— …The details are quite specific… First, let me confirm this. Is this about you two?
It was a question asked already knowing the answer.
So Jaehyuk didn’t bother responding.
Soon, he heard a sigh.
— I was hoping it wasn’t the case… Junhyuk hyung called right away asking if I knew anything because it looked like you two. He asked what we should do.
Hearing that, he understood why his phone had remained quiet so far.
Whatever this was—an article, gossip, or community rumor—it hadn’t explicitly mentioned who the subjects were.
So people couldn’t easily take action and were probably panicking.
It would be awkward to directly ask “Is this about you?” and even if it were true, taking down the article would be problematic.
Contacting the media outlet would be admitting ownership of the contract.
“…What’s the current situation?”
— Junhyuk hyung is trying to find out who’s behind it… There are a few articles up, but the PR team says they’ve never seen these news outlets before. They’re trying to contact them using business registration numbers, but no one’s answering.
Listening to Suhyuk’s quick briefing as he gradually increased his car’s speed, Jaehyuk immediately asked the next question.
“And?”
— And according to hyung, it seems to be spreading systematically through social media accounts. Apparently hundreds of accounts are moving simultaneously.
“Bot accounts?”
— Probably. I don’t know much about that side of things… but from what I hear about accounts that gather followers by posting trending memes, celebrity gossip, or animal videos, they must be viral marketing accounts.
This was clearly orchestrated by someone.
And the timing was impeccable.
Timed perfectly for people to check while on subways or buses during rush hour, or while stopped in traffic.
And if social media accounts were serving as archives, there was no need to look further.
— …Do you think… it’s your uncle?
“I don’t know.”
Though he said that, honestly Jaehyuk also thought there was no one else it could be.
There weren’t many people in this world who could provoke him like this.
“You should act like you don’t know. I’ll handle it.”
— Are you sure? The article is written so cunningly that it’s difficult for us to take action. It doesn’t explicitly name you, but the comments on communities and social media seem to be steering it toward you and Junghyun.
That would be the case, of course.
Because it is Junghyun and him.
“It’s fine. I’m not so incompetent that I can’t handle this much.”
— …Your grandfather will be extremely angry, though.
“Grandfather more or less anticipated this anyway. Actually, everyone knew. They just kept quiet because there was no evidence.”
Suhyuk acknowledged that was true.
Both Suhyuk and Yeonwoo had noticed to some extent.
They just pretended not to know since he hadn’t spoken about it directly.
— …I won’t ask why you did it because it would be ridiculous at this point. But more importantly, will Junghyun be okay?
“Don’t worry. His mentality is tougher than mine.”
Though everything was chaotic, he could be certain of that one thing.
Lee Junghyun would definitely be fine.
His mentality wouldn’t be shaken by something like this.
— You never know what’s in someone’s heart.
“I may not know what’s in people’s hearts generally, but I know Lee Junghyun’s. He’ll be fine.”
Jaehyuk gritted his teeth hard again, as if upset.
His voice was similar to when he used to call at dawn during the past month to vent his frustrations.
Complaining that he couldn’t sleep and was tired, that he ate and then threw it all up, why he had to go through this, and that he wanted to hit Lee Junghyun first thing when he found him.
Suhyuk figured it out from that.
— Seems like Junghyun has been doing very well.
“Too well.”
Jaehyuk stomped on the accelerator hard, expressing his indignation once more at how Junghyun wasn’t just doing well, but extremely well.
As he drove down the now clear road trying to quell his anger, Suhyuk seemed to sense the situation and changed the direction of the conversation.
— It’s good that at least Junghyun has been well. And just to check, is that Junyoung in the photo?
“Since he’s the one who prepared that document, it must be.”
— Did a paparazzi follow him?
“That’s unlikely.”
Lawyers usually have social affairs reporters following them, not paparazzi.
And divorce specialist lawyers don’t even attract social reporters—they attract private investigators.
He might have been careless, but still, Jaehyuk clicked his tongue at the lawyer for being caught on camera like that, wondering why he was working in a cafe.
No, that’s strange too. Junyoung isn’t the type to work with his laptop open in a cafe.
His motto is that work should only be done in the office, so why would he do something so stupid?
— These days with drones and high-performance cameras, you have to be careful about these things. Junyoung made a big mistake.
“It’s unlike him to do something like that.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
