RB - 57

57. You are a ruthless invader, an unreasonable scoundrel.

Seo-yeon was on the verge of going insane because Jung-hyuk wasn’t answering her calls. She frowned in pain while hugging herself tightly. A chilling cold spread throughout her body. What on earth is the purpose of all this? How many victims are there in this case? Who should I trust, and who should I consult?

If the opponent is Professor Sung, dealing with him will never be easy.

She made eye contact with Jin-hyuk with a dazed expression. The rain had stopped at some point. The spacious VIP hospital room was eerily quiet, and the sunlight streaming through the window was dazzlingly bright. She felt cold sweat trickling down her back.

“Shin Jung-hyuk isn’t answering his phone. I left him a message, so he’ll come as soon as he sees it. Let’s wait a bit. Hmm… While we wait, tell me about your mother. What kind of person is Jin-hyuk’s mother?”

Caught off guard by the unexpected question, Jin-hyuk’s face stiffened for a moment, but he soon calmly began to speak.

“She’s the one who protected my brother and me from our tyrannical father. Our father takes great pride in his genes. He was exceptionally talented and had outstanding managerial skills, so his expectations for his children were high. In comparison, I’m an ordinary, even lacking son, and my father couldn’t stand that.”

Someone as brilliant as Jin-hyuk calling himself ordinary, even lacking? Seo-yeon wanted to refute, but she didn’t want to interrupt him, so she silently nodded.

“When I was three, I got a stepmother. No… back then, she wasn’t a stepmother but a nanny. I was always scared of the dark nights, and she often held me and put me to sleep. She even sang me the ‘Island Baby’ lullaby. She taught me how to read, made me snacks behind my father’s back… Our father was strict about our diets, even for his sons. Looking back now, my brother and I were able to safely cross that long, dark tunnel thanks to our stepmother. In that sense, Shin Jung-hyuk really is an ungrateful bastard.”

Seo-yeon clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms without her realizing it.

“Jin-hyuk, don’t be shocked, but take a look at this.”

Seo-yeon selected a photo on her phone. It was a picture of Shin Joon-hyuk’s face taken on the rooftop during the pouring rain. She showed it to Jin-hyuk while adding a warning.

“Just so you know, I almost fainted when I saw this.”

Jin-hyuk calmly looked at the photo and said, “This is my brother’s photo…” but trailed off, startled.

He narrowed his eyes and carefully observed the facial features and clothing of the person in the photo, then brought the phone closer to his face. After staring at the screen for a long time, Jin-hyuk’s face twisted in despair. A trembling voice escaped his lips.

“Why do you have this photo, Manager Han? This… this doesn’t make sense.”

Jin-hyuk shifted his gaze back to the phone. A man who looked exactly like his brother Jung-hyuk but had a different aura, wearing a patient gown with half-dazed eyes, filled Jin-hyuk’s vision. It was unmistakably his other brother, Shin Joon-hyuk.

“Do you recognize him? It’s Shin Joon-hyuk, Shin Jung-hyuk’s twin. I met him recently. Quite by chance.”

“That’s impossible. My brother has severe autism and is receiving treatment in the U.S. For that, Taesung Group is investing in a Boston hospital.”

“Let’s see… Then the key figure in the investment must be Professor Sung Ho-yeon, right? That person is the axis of evil, in my opinion.”

Jin-hyuk’s painful childhood, where his stepmother seemed like salvation, was now time to wake up from that sweet dream.

“Manager Han, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Why did you ask me about my stepmother today… Could it be related to this?”

Seo-yeon slowly nodded, and shock spread across Jin-hyuk’s face. He staggered like someone who had just felt dizzy, and Seo-yeon quickly ran over to hold his shoulders. Feeling the weight of his limp body, she hugged him tightly.

“Jin-hyuk, I pray that my assumptions are wrong.”

Seo-yeon slowly recounted the strange behavior of the orphanage director and the story of Park Yeo-wan, a high-value donor. She also mentioned how Park Yeo-wan was referred to as “Her Majesty” at the orphanage and how Shin Joon-hyuk had called her “Her Majesty” when they met.

“So my assumption is… I think Park Yeo-wan might be my biological mother.”

Seo-yeon deliberately avoided Jin-hyuk’s gaze and hugged him tighter. Jin-hyuk was as still as someone who had stopped breathing. After a long while, Seo-yeon finally met Jin-hyuk’s eyes. It took courage.

Jin-hyuk’s handsome, masculine features, yet with a certain softness, were now overshadowed by despair, striking Seo-yeon’s heart. The thought she once had—’How many countries must I save in my past life to be reborn as perfect as Shin Jin-hyuk?’—felt utterly futile at this moment. The loneliness flickering in Jin-hyuk’s brown eyes was truly desolate.

Jin-hyuk couldn’t speak. He just closed his eyes, trying to control the overwhelming emotions. Seo-yeon repeatedly patted his back, clenching her teeth. The betrayal she felt from the orphanage director—Jin-hyuk must be feeling an even greater sense of betrayal.

And finally, a beast-like cry erupted from Jin-hyuk’s mouth.

Click. Jung-hyuk, who had been turning the doorknob, stopped in his tracks. Jin-hyuk’s painful wail filled the hospital room like smoke rising from hell. Knowing full well the reason for that heart-wrenching sorrow, Jung-hyuk couldn’t bring himself to take another step and stood still for a long time.

If only he had told Jin-hyuk about the truth of their stepmother, Park Yeo-wan, without hiding it. Would Jin-hyuk have suffered less?

As the clear hostility he had felt toward his younger brother Jin-hyuk was swept away by the guilt that only blood relatives could resonate with, a series of vibrating sounds rang out. The caller was Ethan. Jung-hyuk answered the phone in a dry voice.

“Yeah, did something come up?”

“I just sent a few photos to the chairman’s phone. I’ve been tailing Professor Sung, and there’s an unexpected discovery. It’s a bit dirty and horrifying, though.”

“What’s the unexpected discovery?”

“Ah… It’s a bit too immoral for me to say. You should check the photos yourself, Chairman. Take a deep breath first.”

Knowing that his autistic brother, Shin Joon-hyuk, was in Korea, Jung-hyuk had suspected Professor Sung. So he asked Ethan to tail him, and within a day, Ethan had results. With a bitter expression, Jung-hyuk opened the photo file and covered his mouth with both hands. He had confirmed the sight of his stepmother, Park Yeo-wan, entangled naked with Sung Ho-yeon.

“Look at these damn bastards?”

Ethan’s voice came through the receiver.

“Hyung, no, Chairman. Did you see the photos? They have a separate villa where they meet. It’s not just a one-time thing. I can tell at a glance, and you know it too, right? My instincts are no joke.”

Jin-hyuk fell into thought. If it wasn’t Professor Sung acting alone, this damn situation made more sense. When the mistress of Taesung Group was an accomplice, Professor Sung’s crimes would have been much easier to carry out. Suddenly, he felt genuine pity for his father, Chairman Shin, who had been reduced to a clueless old man in the back room. The woman he had sacrificed his son for was having an affair. With an icy expression, he muttered softly.

“How did you end up living like this, with your eyes and ears closed, the great Chairman of Taesung?”

A moment later, after waiting for the crying to subside, Jung-hyuk clicked open the hospital room door. The timing perfectly coincided with Jin-hyuk’s tears drying up.

“What’s the urgent matter, Han Seo-yeon? Why did you call Shin Jin-hyuk, this bastard? Are you trying to clumsily reconcile us?”

Seo-yeon looked at Jung-hyuk, who deliberately chose harsh words, with pity. Jin-hyuk, who had composed himself, spoke.

“Tell us. Manager Han, what is it that I need to hear along with my brother?”

“…All the medical staff in the VIP ward are monitoring me. On Professor Sung Ho-yeon’s orders. And there’s one more thing that struck me as odd.”

Seo-yeon recounted how, when she met Shin Joon-hyuk in the rain, he had said, “I don’t want plastic surgery, plastic surgery is scary,” and then added.

“At first, I thought he was telling me not to get plastic surgery. But no matter how I thought about it, it didn’t make sense.”

“So, Han Seo-yeon, you think that ‘plastic surgery’ refers to ‘Professor Sung Ho-yeon’?”

“Yeah, exactly. If you interpret it as ‘I’m scared of Professor Sung, I don’t like Professor Sung,’ everything falls into place.”

Jung-hyuk let out a bitter laugh, recalling the obscene photos of Park Yeo-wan and Sung Ho-yeon he had just seen.

“And above all, do you know what’s the strangest thing about you two brothers?”

The gazes of both brothers turned to Seo-yeon.

“Both you and Jin-hyuk think of yourselves as monsters. Just yesterday, you were like that. When I told you I met Shin Joon-hyuk, you immediately assumed it must have been dangerous. But the Shin Joon-hyuk I saw with my own eyes was just pure and fragile.”

Seo-yeon turned her gaze to Jin-hyuk and spoke firmly.

“Jin-hyuk, you’re the same. You said you tried to kill a rabbit with scissors? Don’t make me laugh. You were crying for a long time because you didn’t want to kill the rabbit. I saw it clearly with my own eyes. You were just a young, weak boy. Are both of you suffering from middle school syndrome? Do you have a psychopath living inside you? Isn’t it more like you’ve been gaslighted by that quack, Professor Sung or whatever?”

Seo-yeon almost pleaded with the brothers.

“Our lives are falling apart. Maybe they’ve been rotting from the start. Lies have obscured the truth, and we’ve been living without even realizing we’ve been deceived.”

But Jin-hyuk, perhaps struggling to accept the shock, coldly avoided Seo-yeon’s gaze. Seo-yeon felt a bitter taste in her mouth but understood his reaction. Someone who had cherished his stepmother so dearly, calling her “Her Majesty,” couldn’t possibly handle the betrayal in such a short time. Did I act too rashly? Seo-yeon bit her lower lip so hard it almost bled.

“Manager Han, I’ll contact you later.”

Jin-hyuk turned away roughly, ignoring Seo-yeon’s desperate attempts to stop him, and left the room. Seo-yeon’s eyelids began to tremble.

“…What have I done? Did I open the gates of hell for Jin-hyuk just to save myself? Was I this much of a trash?”

Seo-yeon’s voice cracked, followed by suppressed sobs. She collapsed to the floor, showing signs of hyperventilation as she struggled to breathe. Jung-hyuk wrapped his arms around her shoulders and spoke in a low voice.

“Sometimes, not knowing is better.”

But his words didn’t reach her. The weight in her heart was undoubtedly the weight of guilt. A maddening self-loathing tightened around her throat. The arrow of resentment aimed at the unsuspecting Jung-hyuk.

“What? Not knowing is better? Being ignored by my birth mother, betrayed by the orphanage director I trusted. Is this the kind of life where not knowing is better?”

She raised her voice fiercely at the silent Jung-hyuk.

“You go too, get lost. Shin Jung-hyuk.”

Seo-yeon’s eyes were bloodshot. Thick teardrops had already fallen from her slender chin. Jung-hyuk remained silent, enduring her anger.

“Get lost, you knew everything from the start, didn’t you? You knew that your stepmother, Park Yeo-wan, was my birth mother, didn’t you? That’s why you did that to me ten years ago, right? You destroyed me with that bet-relationship, didn’t you? You cowardly bastard.”

Instead of answering, Jung-hyuk looked at her with a devastated expression. He wanted to apologize countless times, but not a single word felt adequate. Everything she said was true.

“…I’ll come back tonight, get some rest. Jin-hyuk will be fine. He’s a Shin, after all, with blood that knows no tears or blood.”

Jung-hyuk left Seo-yeon alone in the room. Reflecting on his reality as the executive of Taesung Group, he mocked himself for being a cowardly bastard. He was also pressed for time, cutting back on sleep to investigate Professor Sung. Moreover, there was now another target: Park Yeo-wan, the accomplice.

That night, in the darkened city illuminated only by streetlights, Jung-hyuk returned to Seo-yeon’s hospital room as promised. What lay before him was Seo-yeon, drunk and losing focus, with a bottle of soju beside her.

“Really, you’ve outdone yourself. Are you self-harming now? A woman who collapsed from overwork drinking alcohol?”

Suppressing his rising anger, Jung-hyuk shook Seo-yeon’s shoulders. A woman lying on the street drinking, relying on alcohol to escape amidst a crisis—none of it was like Seo-yeon. He wanted to demand what had driven her to this, but he already knew the answer.

He replaced today’s punishment by pressing his breath against Seo-yeon’s lips, which reeked of alcohol. His experienced tongue licked her red lips. Today’s kiss tasted of soju. Tears quickly welled up in Seo-yeon’s bloodshot eyes.

The heart is a shameless and unscrupulous organ. Even if you carve it out every day, new flesh grows back like a punishment the next day.

“Han Seo-yeon, tell me. Are you feeling good?”

“…Get lost, Shin Jung-hyuk, you bastard.”

Even though she told him to leave, her worn-out lips slowly parted, allowing him in. The lubricant of her hazy consciousness was alcohol.

At the same time, Jung-hyuk’s lips touched hers. The soft yet cold, strange sensation was the beginning of ecstasy.

It was too tainted to be called love, too noble to be labeled obsession—a complicated kiss.

Jung-hyuk’s tongue pried open Seo-yeon’s crimson lips. He was a ruthless invader, an unreasonable scoundrel. She was so dazed she forgot to breathe.

The pressure of his tongue pressing down opened her throat, and his breath flowed into her.

“Haah…”

A shameful moan escaped, finally triggering the desire that had been crouching in Jung-hyuk’s heart. His tongue moved with a different intensity, scraping against Seo-yeon’s soft mucous membrane. It was greedy, as if trying to suck out her very soul, but still filled with sorrow.

Under the faint moonlight streaming through the window, Seo-yeon’s flushed cheeks and swollen lips revealed her raw vulnerability.