“…Suit yourself.”
Only then did the warmth lingering on his hand fall away.
Munyeong stood there, rooted to the spot, an odd, dazed look on his face. A moment later, the rustling of blankets being pulled all the way up over his head marked Haejeong’s silhouette in the darkness. Ha — a faint, involuntary laugh escaped him. Munyeong felt the warmth that refused to leave his hand, felt the heat rising through his body. Something had shifted, subtle but undeniable, and his heart lurched at the feeling. Afraid that sound might give him away, he quickly slipped out of the room.
**
The strange night passed, and an awkward morning arrived.
Munyeong settled into the driver’s seat for the first time in a while, leaning back against the cushion that had somehow come to feel familiar, and ran a hand once over the firm steering wheel. It had started as something forced upon him, but by now he’d grown accustomed to it to some degree. The housecleaning was one thing, but driving like this wasn’t bad either. The problem was Haejeong — sitting not in the backseat, but in the passenger seat beside him.
“What.”
He always sat in the back. Today, for whatever reason, he’d taken the seat right next to him. And thanks to that, the weight of it came back doubled.
“…Nothing. I’ll get going.”
“…Do that.”
Haejeong rested his chin in his hand toward the window and answered absently. Somehow it seemed like Haejeong too was feeling the awkwardness and was deliberately looking away.
Munyeong found himself smiling faintly without meaning to as he pressed gently on the pedal. The bright morning sun could be felt even through the deeply tinted windows. The sky was clear to the point of being almost unsettling. Warm enough to make even the strained air inside the car feel soft.
“…Yesterday.”
He’d been drinking in that crisp, clear feeling when Haejeong broke the silence first.
“You brought it up, and it got me thinking.”
Munyeong had assumed Haejeong was just staring out the window to avoid the conversation, but he had turned inward somewhere along the way, his face caught in thought.
“……The guy who helped me.”
“…….”
“He called me by name. Real casually.”
Haejeong-ah.
There were very few people who called the prickly Haejeong by name like that, so familiarly. At most, Chairman Yeon, or his older brothers, or the handful of people he’d briefly dated. And then one more. The one sitting quietly beside him, driving…
“…Is that so…?”
Munyeong replied with an awkward smile. He stared resolutely ahead, desperate to keep his face neutral, to pretend he knew nothing.
Whether a strange suspicion had surfaced in him, Haejeong tilted his head slightly and studied Munyeong’s profile. It couldn’t be, he told himself — and yet the image kept overlapping, kept aligning with that moment. It had been so long ago that he’d let himself forget for a while, but the sudden fragment of memory had risen up all at once in sharp clarity. That voice, calling out so desperately through the haze of fading consciousness.
“…You said you found that person.”
“I told you, it’s not him. How would some guy I’ve never even seen before know my name.”
“……Even if you didn’t know him, that person might have known you.”
Munyeong continued calmly, as if speaking on someone else’s behalf. He had no desire to revisit something that was already over and done with, let alone to reveal that he was that person. It would only make things worse if Haejeong figured out that his injured hand was somehow because of him. He didn’t want Haejeong thinking that way.
“The suspicious thing is that your mother brought that person in willingly in the first place.”
“…….”
“She was the one who orchestrated the kidnapping. There’s no way she’d just openly bring in the person who ruined it.”
Haejeong dropped the name of the mastermind behind it all as if it were nothing. Munyeong’s eyes went wide with a start, and he turned his head mid-drive.
“Eyes on the road. You’ll cause an accident.”
Haejeong said flatly when their startled gazes met.
“…You already know.”
“…….”
“That I’m not my father’s son.”
In this entire world, aside from Madam Chu Yeonan and Haejeong himself, the only one who knew that fact was Im Munyeong.
“…Oh…….”
Munyeong made an odd sound and went quiet. He hadn’t expected to hear that — something so deeply personal, something he had only stumbled upon by chance so long ago — come out of Haejeong’s own mouth like this.
“You also know that my real father is my uncle.”
“…….”
“Doesn’t it all paint a pretty clear picture?”
Haejeong let out a quiet, hollow laugh and sank deeper into the car seat. Munyeong’s eyes trembled as he swallowed dryly.
“Still hard to believe, isn’t it.”
“…….”
“That a mother would try to have her own son killed.”
Haejeong’s face was perfectly even as he tapped his fingers idly against the door trim. Even and calm.
“She’s out of her mind.”
“…….”
“And I’m exactly like her.”
Haejeong let the words fall like a sigh, bitter and exhaled, and gave a thin, twisted smile. Just then, they arrived at their destination, and Munyeong brought the car to a careful stop. Haejeong, who hadn’t even noticed they’d arrived, was still lost somewhere else entirely, his expression low and distant. Munyeong hurried out of the driver’s seat to escort him, walked around the hood, and opened the passenger door. Only then did Haejeong realize they were there.
“…….”
Haejeong unclipped his seatbelt and rose. Even that simple movement looked effortlessly elegant. He stepped out of the car and straightened his clothes with practiced ease, then spoke to Munyeong — who still had a hand on the passenger door — in a businesslike tone.
“…I have an off-site appointment before lunch, so stay put and don’t go anywhere.”
What he meant was: don’t move, stay right here — but Haejeong said it in a roundabout way. Munyeong, who would ordinarily have answered promptly, was uncharacteristically quiet. The silence made Haejeong glance over with a questioning look, and Munyeong was clearly working up to saying something, fidgeting in place.
“…What. You have something to say?”
Anyone could see he had something on his mind. When Haejeong’s face creased in impatience, Munyeong moved his lips and forced the words out with effort.
“……It… it might not have been like that.”
At the abrupt remark, Haejeong opened his mouth with a baffled expression.
“What?”
Munyeong hesitated, and hesitated some more, before barely managing to add:
“……You don’t know for certain.”
“…….”
“She might have…… not been able to go through with it in the end.”
“…….”
“In the end…… she might not have been able to.”
That’s what Munyeong thought. Even if his mother had orchestrated the kidnapping, it was possible she ultimately couldn’t bring herself to go through with it. She might have wavered until the very last moment. She might have given up in the end. Since it never came to that, there was no way to know. He himself had been abandoned by his parents, and Haejeong had had a kidnapping plotted against him by his — and yet, even so.
His own parents might have been in so much pain that abandoning him felt like dying. And Haejeong’s mother might have spent that same unbearable time wavering and regretting. No one could know. Each person’s circumstances were something only that person could truly understand. And if his mother had really intended to kill him… Haejeong wouldn’t still be here right now. One attempt, foiled. If that was the end of it, then it could have been a single terrible moment of weakness.
Of course, this wasn’t his place to say. It might be overstepping, might be an arrogant judgment. Or it might have sounded like hypocrisy. But he thought it would be better for Haejeong — that believing his mother had made a mistake, that she had hesitated and regretted what she’d done, would be easier for him to carry.
“…Ha….”
Understanding the meaning behind the words, Haejeong let out a hollow breath. It was hard to tell whether it was a laugh or something more broken. But he didn’t look angry at the overreach, didn’t seem outraged at the presumption. Just that bewildered exhale, slipping quietly from his lips.
“…That’s strange.”
And then, almost in a daze, the words came out.
“……I’ve never once thought about it that way.”
