TMPW Ch 15 part 2

JoonHun silently glared at TaeKyung. He really didn’t understand why he was doing this. Didn’t he get everything he wanted? Didn’t he avenge his mother, Kang Yina? President Min, who had started this tragedy, was incarcerated, and TaeKyung had taken everything away from him. What more did he need to be satisfied?

Did he really need to completely overturn the Dubai project? If only for the sake of his younger sister, he shouldn’t have gone this far.

He couldn’t understand him at all. Not one bit.

“CEO Lee TaeKyung.”

There was a chill to JoonHun’s voice.

“To think that you came all the way over here to personally give us an answer… How delightful.”

“There’s no need to be so delighted…”

TaeKyung snorted. He then walked up to him and grabbed Yuan away from his arms. JoonHun froze, and Yuan looked ghastly pale. The couple that had entered this venue hand-in-hand was now completely split apart.

“What do you think you’re doing…?”

“Take your dirty hands off my sister.”

“What?”

“I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“What did you say?”

“Oppa!”

After taking Yuan away from JoonHun, Lee TaeKyung turned around. He looked at President Seo, who had been glaring at TaeKyung this whole time.

“Now, how do you feel, President Seo?”

TaeKyung took off his glasses.

“Oppa, no.”

Yuan realized what TaeKyung was planning to say. To stop him, she grabbed his arm and tried to pull him away. But it was no use.

“Don’t you think we look alike? I saw a picture of us, and we look like carbon copies…”

“What?”

Seo JaeHyuk was grinding his teeth, seemingly done listening to this nonsense. Still, TaeKyung dragged Yuan with him as he approached him. Once they were standing right in front of him, TaeKyung lifted his face and smirked.

“Take a good look. I’m asking you. Don’t you think my sister and I look very similar to the woman you’ve been obsessing over? Don’t I look similar to the boy that was in the car that you crashed 28 years ago? I take after my father, and Yuan takes after my mother.”

Gradually, all the blood began to leave Seo JaeHyuk’s face. His eyes began to waver. His neck began to redden.

“What… Just what nonsense are you spewing?”

“Nonsense? I’m being totally honest for the first time in my life. What nonsense are you talking about? Look closely. Don’t you remember?”

“Shut up. You don’t even have the credentials to discuss important business matters with me. Now what kind of bullshit is this?”

“Aha, you don’t remember? Then let me help you. Han JinWook, Kang Yina. Must I say their names in order to trigger your memory?”

President Seo’s face became deathly pale. His trembling eyes looked back and forth between TaeKyung and Yuan. And then he realized. They looked alike. They truly were like carbon copies. Lee TaeKyung looked like that man. Yuan looked just like Kang Yina as always.

No…

Seo JaeHyuk suddenly took a step back.

No. It can’t be. There’s no way.

This wasn’t possible. He wanted to deny it. However, the brother and sister standing in front of him really looked like them. It was as if they had come back from the dead. From the past. From his memories that he had tried so hard to erase.

“We’re together.”

That was what Kang Yina had told him that day. In order to see her, he had traveled all the way to Japan. They were childhood friends, and she was the love of his life. However, she had told him the news as if it was nothing. So happily.

“We’re going to get married. Oppa, don’t tell my dad. He’ll kill me. It’s seriously going to get so chaotic.”

Even as she talked about how scared she was of her father, she still giggled. The Yina back then was so pure and lovely. She was so breathtakingly bright.

“As you know, there’s no way I’m going to enter a contract marriage. Even you told me that you’d hate a marriage like that. I’ll hate it too. Ugh, seriously. I really wish they’d stop getting married as a way to seal a deal. Are we royalty? Are we nobles? My father used to be a farmhand in a nobleman’s residence. During the Japanese occupation, he made money by bowing down to the Japanese. It’s nothing to be proud of, so I don’t know why he’s so obsessed with earning more money through marriage and blood alliances… It’s sickening. Don’t you think, Oppa?”

He didn’t have anything to say. He couldn’t say anything. He should have agreed with her and told her to be happy with the man she chose, but he couldn’t do it. In that moment, he just hated her. He couldn’t take it.

“Hyung, please tell me. If I can’t go through with the merger, I’ll die. You know where that woman is, right? I know that you’ve been secretly in contact with her. If you save me just this once, I’ll always be in your debt for the rest of my life.”

A young Min DaeYup grabbed him and begged. He was drunk and his eyes were bloodshot from all the liquor. Crazy bastard. He didn’t care whether Min DaeYup lived or died. However, his next words were enough to turn JaeHyuk’s soul into the devil’s.

“I’ll let you have her. Kang Yina. Hyung, you like that woman, right? Haven’t you been in love all this time? I only need to marry her. I don’t have any other interest in that woman. I’ll look the other way if you start having an affair with her. You only need to tell me where she is, Hyung. I’ll take care of the rest.”

He’ll take care of the rest? Really?

He’ll look the other way? Seriously?

Yina was living well. She was incredibly happy. She had met the man she loved and had even given birth to his son. They didn’t have any wealth or honor to boast about, but the couple was doing their best to live each day to the fullest.

He needed to protect her. He needed to help her so that her beloved son would grow up well. That’s what love was. That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?

But that voice stuck with him.

“I’ll let you have her.”

It was like the murmurs of the devil himself.

“You only need to tell me where she is.”

No matter how much he tried to wash away his sins, they wouldn’t go away. A defiled love was no longer love. With his eyes closed, he handed over Yina’s address to Min DaeYup. He actually knew about the misfortune would be brought upon her family once he did this.

There was no way he didn’t know. Even if he didn’t say it, even if he told himself that it wasn’t true, he knew what hideous desire lurked deep within his heart.

Like that, Yina was dragged back to Korea, and like that, Yina collapsed. Even though he knew that he was to blame, he was blinded by his desire for her. This was the cowardly, horrible, and terrifying true side of Seo JaeHyuk.

“Don’t you remember?”

The revived Kang Yina asked him.

“Don’t you remember what you did?”

“…I-I don’t know.”

His stiff lips barely managed to respond. However, he quickly came back to his senses and yelled out.

“What kind of bullshit is this? Is this bastard completely insane?”

He clenched his fist. There were too many people. They were all looking at him. On top of that, Yina’s daughter, Min Yuan, and his son, Seo JoonHun, were standing in front of him. He had wanted to be linked to Yina in some way, but their twisted relationship was still eerily holding him back.

“Take this bastard out immediately! This bastard has gone completely insane!”

Lee TaeKyung smiled as he watched President Seo throw a fit.

He wanted to make an excuse for himself. He wanted to deny it. But would that absolve him from everything he had done?

Lee TaeKyung continued to stare at him before he took out his phone. He turned his head to look at Yuan. His sister had become as white as a sheet as she looked back at him. However, her eyes remained steady and calm.

“I saw that you deleted the data.”

He began to press a few buttons on his phone as he apathetically whispered.

“Did you really think that I wouldn’t have made a backup? No matter how deeply you hid it within your program, did you really think I wouldn’t know?”

Suddenly, the large screen behind the stage was filled with noise and static before a video began to play. Every cellphone inside the venue began to play the video as well.

“Min Yuan, this is what it means to love someone. Obsession, desire, and ultimately ruin. So don’t fall in love like this ever again.”

In that moment, Yuan’s ‘Book of Death’ was being played. Just like its namesake, it called forth the dead from the middle of hell. The face of the dead appeared on the screen of every hacked device in the room. It was the ashen face of Yuan and TaeKyung’s mother, Kang Yina. She was mumbling in the video. Then she opened her dry lips and began to confess.

“Ahem… My name is Kang Yina… My date of birth is February 8th, 1963. My father’s name is Kang HyungWon and my mother’s is Kim Sena. My husband is Han JinWook, my son… Han TaeKyung, and my daughter Han Yuan. Today is February 8th, 2006. My birthday. Today I will try to kill myself… This video will reveal why I have to die and who is responsible for driving me to my death. This is my last will and testament, as well as a revelation.”

“No! No! Take that down this instant! Take it down! It’s all fake! Aaagh! Aaaaaagh!!!”

Seo JaeHyuk began to scream as if he’d lost it. Someone went up on the stage and tried to operate the computer controlling the screen, but the hacked computer refused to cooperate.

Seeing Seo JaeHyuk go on a fitful rampage, the surrounding reporters began to endlessly take photos of him. When he eventually collapsed, the security guards began to roughly shove the reporters back. The room had fallen into utter chaos.

Within this storm, Yuan couldn’t hear a thing. She merely turned around and looked back at JoonHun. He was also looking at her.

Untreatable wounds began to tear into their hearts.

Cruel fate had reared its ugly head.

He had gone ghastly pale as he just stood there, frozen. Their eyes met. The audience’s silence. Kang Yina’s voice as she gave her confession. President Seo’s screams. Within all that, Yuan continued to look at him.

It was all collapsing. From the moment she had met him until now, every single memory was crumbling. As the ground between them split open, her surroundings were collapsing.

If she only took a few steps forward, she’d be able to return to his side. However, Yuan could no longer approach him. His eyes, those firm eyes that were now lifeless, seemed to say it all.

Someone was running towards him. It was Secretary Kang. She hadn’t heard President Seo faint. She didn’t hear the reporters cry out. JoonHun’s eyes left hers and turned to Secretary Kang. He began to walk towards her. Then he passed by her.

She couldn’t hear anything. She couldn’t see anything. Everything had been revealed. Even though everything had gone back to the beginning, she felt as if everything had ended instead. Yuan felt as if she was stuck and couldn’t move.