The intense outcry drew two pairs of eyes to Yu-jin. Winston’s brow furrowed, while Charlotte looked terrified, her eyebrows drooping in fright.
Ah, damn it.
Yu-jin regretted it instantly. He shouldn’t have locked eyes with Charlotte. The moment their gazes met, something inside him crumbled completely. He felt pathetic for being so afraid and trembling all this time. How could anyone possibly do anything more to someone wearing that expression?
Unable to say another word, he lowered his head, visibly shaken. It was Winston who broke the silence.
“Is it enough just to hear the story?”
“Huh?”
Startled, Yu-jin looked up. Winston, expressionless and dry, repeated himself.
“I’m asking if all you want is to hear her story.”
Yu-jin turned to Charlotte again. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks. Watching her try to stifle her sobs with both hands over her mouth, his wariness melted away.
“……Yeah.”
That was when he felt it—an odd sense of unease.
Right after giving his answer, Yu-jin realized something about Winston’s words felt off.
“All you want is…”
Why did it feel like something else was supposed to follow?
While he hesitated, trying to read the atmosphere, Winston turned to Charlotte and gave a command.
“Go on. Yu-jin wants to hear it.”
Charlotte flinched in alarm, and Yu-jin’s eyes widened in shock.
“You—you’re staying here?”
He’d naturally assumed they would be left alone. The unexpected turn caught him completely off guard. Winston, however, seemed almost insulted by his reaction.
“You want me to leave you alone with the woman who tried to kill you? Why, should I leave a gun behind too? So she doesn’t fail this time?”
The mockery in his voice utterly deflated Yu-jin.
“That’s not what I meant… I just thought… you already knew, so there’s no need for you to hear it again…”
There was a huge difference between hearing the truth alone and having a third party present. Charlotte might not be able to say everything with Winston around. If that happened, Yu-jin would never know the full truth. And Winston had no reason to tell him either—after all, wouldn’t he want to keep the disgrace of his own family under wraps?
“I haven’t heard it.”
“What?”
The unexpected answer shattered Yu-jin’s train of thought. He blinked in confusion as Winston, with a slow, deliberate tone, continued.
“There’s no rush. We have all the time in the world.”
A faint, unsettling smile curled at the edge of Winston’s lips. Yu-jin couldn’t read what he was thinking, but an icy chill ran down his spine.
That earlier strange feeling—it was starting to make sense now.
Could it be… was Winston planning to do something to Charlotte?
Maybe something even worse than he’d imagined.
It had to be. Yu-jin would want to meet her. And to make that happen, Winston had left her unharmed—just enough to use her. To prove that he hadn’t done anything to her.
But once this was over… Charlotte definitely…
“I’ll give you what you want—but I’ll be the one to finish it.”
Only then did the sentence fall into place, complete and clear. Yu-jin faltered for a split second.
Was that really Winston saying those words?
The man he’d known had always been so gentle. He’d constantly said “I love you,” treated everyone with kindness, and approached all things with calm rationality.
But the man standing before him now, bristling with sharp tension, seemed ready to eliminate anyone who rubbed him the wrong way. He wasn’t just arrogant or overbearing—there was a cold, murderous edge in the air.
Yu-jin found himself growing afraid of Winston.
Yeah, the Winston I used to know would never have spoken to me like that.
How long would it take for him to truly accept that the Winston he had loved was gone? Once again, he’d let himself get swept up in memories of the past, momentarily forgetting the present. That realization twisted up his insides.
The man before him now was not the same person.
Yu-jin forced himself to realign his thoughts and raised his head. His gaze had steadied a little.
“Fine, then stay.”
He decided to focus on Charlotte now.
Facing her again would take another kind of courage, but Yu-jin lifted his chin resolutely and met her eyes.
She was tall and thin, but she’d curled in on herself so much she looked half her usual size. A bitter taste crept into Yu-jin’s mouth as he finally spoke.
“Charlotte.”
“I—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I… I know it was wrong, I shouldn’t have—!”
All he’d done was say her name, but Charlotte burst into a wailing sob. She cried so hard it seemed like she might pass out at any moment.
Yu-jin stood frozen, not knowing what to do, when Winston’s voice cut through the chaos like ice.
“I’ll give you five minutes. Finish it within that time.”
He didn’t say what would happen if she didn’t.
He didn’t need to. That was enough.
Charlotte gasped for breath like she was choking on air, barely managing to quiet her sobs.
Yu-jin wished he had something—anything—to offer her to wipe her face. But he had nothing.
He could only watch as she rubbed her wet face with equally soaked hands, the gesture more futile than comforting.
“What I want to know is why you went that far with me. That’s all I want an answer to.”
Yu-jin waited a moment before he could finally speak the words.
“Did I do something so unforgivable to you? Something that made you think… I should… die?”
The word caught in his throat. He forced it out in halting syllables, like it was stuck inside him.
Charlotte’s face contorted again like she might burst into tears, but she bit her lip and held it in.
“You… said it,” she finally whispered between trembling breaths.
“You said Gordon hit a woman… said she almost died because of it. And that he… he covered it up with dirty tricks.”
The last thing Yu-jin expected was that. He went blank, stunned into silence.
He blinked, uncomprehending, and then Charlotte erupted with a shout, her voice filled with raw, seething emotion.
“Why do you even know about that?! Why—you—how?!”
“Charlotte…”
Yu-jin, flustered, could only say her name.
He knew he’d crossed a line back then, said something he shouldn’t have. That much was clear.
But for it to drive her to the point of trying to kill him?
There had to be more to it.
Could it be… no, surely not…
“You know who she is?”
Yu-jin’s voice quivered thinly.
Charlotte let out a scoffing laugh.
It slipped out in a hysterical burst from the same woman who had been sobbing moments ago. He held his breath and watched in silence as she glared at him, her eyes wild with emotion, grinding her teeth.
“Of course I do. I know exactly who she is.”
She clenched and unclenched her fists rapidly—whether out of tension, the strain of holding back her emotions, or something else entirely, he couldn’t tell.
And then, finally, Charlotte laid the truth bare.
“Because that woman is my sister.”
Amid the heavy silence, only Charlotte’s ragged breathing echoed through the room.
Yu-jin, for a moment, couldn’t process what he had just heard.
What did she say just now?
Charlotte and that woman… what?
“She’s my sister,” Charlotte repeated, her voice sharp and bitter.
“The woman Gordon nearly beat to death—that was my real sister. Do you get it now? Do you understand why I did it?”
Her usually soft, timid voice, which always shrank back, began to rise in pitch. It trembled like glass being scraped, grating on the ears, but she didn’t care. She kept shouting, defiant and raw.
“That was something no one was ever supposed to find out. Everyone buried it. We were all doing fine pretending it never happened. So why the hell would you bring that up to me? What were you trying to get out of it? You must’ve wanted something! Were you trying to blackmail me? Planning to tell everyone what Gordon and I did?
That I—I—took my sister’s man, that even after she went through that, I still crawled into the Campbell family like it meant nothing, and what I did to make it happen… You were going to tell everyone, weren’t you?!”
She clutched her head and screamed like she’d lost her mind.
Yu-jin shrank back, face drained of color. Just then, Winston rose to his feet.
His towering frame made the spacious hospital room feel like it had suddenly collapsed in on itself.
“That’s enough.”
His voice remained dry and flat.
For the first time, Yu-jin felt a flicker of gratitude that Winston had stayed. Maybe he’d anticipated this outcome all along.
He probably already knew.
When it came to his own family, he would’ve been aware of everything—and guessed the reason, too.
That’s why there’d been no need to rush.
Now, Yu-jin felt like he was finally beginning to understand Winston’s every move.
“…That’s enough.”
He replied after a pause.
Winston immediately seized Charlotte by the arm.
She cried out in fear, trying to resist, but it was useless.
“Wait—”
Yu-jin shouted, just as Winston began dragging her toward the door, clearly intending to hand her over to the guards outside.
“There might be… more I want to ask later. So… don’t do anything too harsh to her.”
Even to himself, the words sounded weak. But he meant them. Deeply.
More than anything, Charlotte’s face had seared itself into his mind.
If anything happened to her, the guilt would destroy him.
It’s for me, he told himself.
Because I don’t want to be hurt. Not for her sake.
Winston looked at him in silence, then turned and shoved Charlotte toward the guards.
Her cries quickly faded into the distance, leaving the hospital room once again with just the two of them.
Girllllllll whyyy