MHF 15

Chapter 15

Woojin’s arm, which he had thought would at least catch Sua’s face, swept past her instead. A moment later, the water that had been pouring from the shower like rain finally stopped.

Sua let out the breath she had been holding, feeling both inexplicably relieved and disappointed.

Meanwhile, Woojin looked at the scratches on her cheek and the red, irritated marks on her wrist where hot oil had splattered.

“This is why I told you not to come.”

“It’s… it’s just a little scratch.”

Sua made an excuse as she covered her cheek with her palm.

“Liar.”

Woojin immediately shot back.

“Do you really think I wouldn’t recognize a wound caused by a ring?”

Strangely, it sounded as though Hajin himself were scolding her.

“If my brother had seen this, he wouldn’t have liked it.”

In truth, the incident in which Sua had been slapped wasn’t particularly significant to her.

Nothing could compare to the shock she had endured one after another following Hajin’s death.

If anything, she had even felt relieved that she could avoid her mother-in-law’s suspicions by playing the role of a greedy daughter-in-law.

“So, please be more careful.”

Yet hearing Woojin say that made her feel strange.

All of a sudden, the wound began to sting more sharply.

“Sometimes, I think you do it on purpose.”

She forced the corners of her lips upward, trying to smile.

But she knew, even without looking in a mirror, how awkward that smile must have been.

“As if you know that bringing up Hajin-ssi is the one thing that can leave me completely helpless.”

For some reason, there was a faint trace of puzzlement in Woojin’s eyes.

As though he had only just realized that his brother’s presence meant more to his sister-in-law than he had expected.

Without meaning to, Sua was gradually letting Woojin glimpse the feelings she had for Hajin.

“Sister-in-law…”

Woojin carefully chose his words.

Sua wanted to hear what he was going to say.

But Woojin suddenly stopped and sharply turned his gaze toward the door.

“Where did that boy Woojin go without even eating?”

And a beat later, Sua heard her mother-in-law approaching as well.

Her face went pale.

Her mother-in-law, who had been searching the entire house for her suddenly missing son, had apparently made her way all the way to this rarely used bathroom.

Sua nervously shuffled her feet, unable to think of an excuse that would possibly work.

Then Woojin suddenly did something unexpected.

He pulled Sua to her feet and, in one swift motion, took off the shirt he was wearing.

His lean, well-built body was revealed in full.

Seeing her brother-in-law’s bare skin—something she had never once imagined seeing in her life—made her mind go even more blank.

Woojin pushed the frozen Sua against the wall and covered her mouth with his hand.

At the exact same moment, the bathroom door flew open.

Without even a knock.

“Woojin, are you in here?”

Sua nearly screamed.

She certainly would have if Woojin’s hand hadn’t been covering her mouth.

As though he understood everything, Woojin reassured her with his eyes.

Then, completely calmly, he leaned his upper body out of the shower stall.

“You don’t even knock?”

Sua, who was still trying to comprehend what was happening, soon found herself marveling at him.

The steam-covered glass and the shower stall’s recessed position happened to align in such a way that Sua couldn’t be seen from the bathroom entrance.

Just one step. A mere centimeter.

That razor-thin difference was enough to hide her body.

It was astonishing that Woojin had managed to calculate all of this in that brief instant.

“Were you showering?”

Even though he was her son, he was a grown adult, so his mother-in-law hurriedly turned away without looking too closely.

“Why are you using this bathroom when there are other bathrooms?”

“It seemed like this one was the quietest. I don’t want to listen to all the bickering and whatnot.”

Woojin’s fingers grew warm from Sua’s breath. Yet he simply endured the heat without moving.

“Didn’t you see your sister-in-law?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t seen her.”

“……All right. Hurry up, wash up, and come eat.”

Only after the door closed did Woojin remove his hand.

Sua collapsed to the floor.

She had been so tense that her fingertips were tingling.

Unlike her, Woojin calmly put his shirt back on.

“I’ll go out first, so please be careful when you come out too.”

Then he left the bathroom as though nothing had happened.

Watching his back disappear, Sua covered her face with both hands and sank into despair.

She couldn’t deny that there had been an inappropriate tension between them just now.

Her heart had raced while looking at Hajin’s younger brother—not Hajin himself.

To put it bluntly, it was the first moment in which she had felt she had betrayed Hajin.

If she had experienced such feelings toward a complete stranger, she probably wouldn’t have felt this much self-loathing.

Sua was afraid that Hajin, dead somewhere beyond her reach, might be watching her, and she couldn’t bring herself to raise her head.

If she were to meet his hollow gaze, how could she possibly explain herself?

No.

Perhaps no explanation would matter at all.

“Did you manage to talk to Sae-ah?”

At dinner, when the entire family was gathered around the table, there was exactly one person missing.

Sua.

Woojin’s great-aunt suddenly asked Geum Seo-ryeong, Woojin’s mother, as she ate the jeon Sua had prepared.

Instead of answering, Geum Seo-ryeong let out a sigh.

The great-aunt immediately became animated.

“I told you, didn’t I? She’s no ordinary girl. Sis, you’re more naive than you look.”

The other relatives nodded in agreement.

“She was suspicious from the very beginning. Even if her family was struggling, how could she just marry a man she didn’t even know? And after he’d even finished his military service?”

Woojin, who had been picking at his food without much appetite, stared pointedly at his great-aunt.

Chairman Do-young also seemed annoyed by the disturbance that was about to erupt, so he got up and left.

“And you think someone that ruthless would willingly give up Hajin’s inheritance?”

“Well, she says she’s going to stay, so what can we do? We can’t exactly force her out. Besides, there’s nothing illegal about a spouse inheriting Hajin’s estate.”

Woojin picked up the glass in front of him.

It contained a very strong liquor.

Normally, it would be diluted with ice or water before drinking, but Woojin downed it straight.

Heat burned down his throat as the liquor passed through.

“Oh, how happy she must have been when they told her Hajin had died.”

“Are you drunk? What’s gotten into you?”

“What? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

The great-aunt’s remarks were increasingly crossing the line, and her husband stepped in, but she showed no signs of calming down.

Instead, she went on a rampage.

“Don’t all of you think the same thing I do? She’s still young, her husband is dead, and she’s going to inherit an astronomical fortune. What luck! If it were me, I’d be dancing with joy.”

Woojin silently curled the corner of his lips upward.

But there was nothing amused in his eyes.

They had only grown colder.

“This is why people with no proper background shouldn’t be brought into a family. They’ll claw and fight their way toward anything if it means turning their lives around. Hajin made a terrible mistake marrying her. He was completely taken in by a gold-digger.”

Unable to tolerate it any longer, Woojin slammed his glass down on the table.

He had struck it with such force that a crack appeared in the glass.

With a loud crack, silence descended over the table.

“You seem to be seriously mistaken about something.”

Woojin easily shattered the heavy silence that no one else dared to break.

“It was Father who went to my sister-in-law and proposed that she marry my brother.”

After Hajin’s death, Woojin had changed.

It wasn’t simply because he had become the heir wielding enormous power within LOW in place of Hajin.

His position had changed, but so had his presence.

There was an inexplicable sense of intimidation surrounding him now, making even those who had once looked down on Woojin reluctant to treat him casually.

“Not my sister-in-law.”

Liquor seeped through the cracks in the broken glass.

“We were the ones who used her first, seized her weakness, and held her life hostage. And have you forgotten? Who was it that pushed her to the verge of tears and ultimately forced her to pressure my brother into leaving the military?”

Sua had had no choice at that moment.

She had simply been swept along by circumstances.

The great-aunt was unable to answer Woojin’s sharp question and avoided his gaze.

“Then who’s the real gold-digger?”

Woojin’s excessive reaction shocked Geum Seo-ryeong.

She was frightened that, after her eldest son, even her second son seemed to be taking Sua’s side.

“Woojin. What kind of way is that to speak to your aunt?”

Geum Seo-ryeong scolded him, first wanting to restore some semblance of order to the disastrous atmosphere.

“Apologize.”

The tension in the room had expanded to its breaking point, as though it could snap at any moment.

Woojin stared blankly at his mother.

Then, suddenly, he smiled.

“I’m sorry. I seem to be a little drunk, just like Aunt.”

But an unmistakably chilling atmosphere radiated from him.

“I’ll leave before I make any more mistakes.”

No one dared object to Woojin’s insincere apology.

They were overwhelmed by him.

Woojin gave a slight bow and turned around.

“Fuck.”

The profanity slipped from his lips as he left the dining room.

His already miserable mood had somehow become even worse.

Feeling exhausted, Woojin unconsciously found himself standing in front of a familiar room.

By now, he had completely forgotten that he was no longer someone who was allowed to enter that room.