Into The Thrill

Kim Soyoung, having changed into comfortable clothes, misunderstood Haewon's intense gaze and awkwardly rolled her eyes. As expected, she didn't remember him from the hotel.

Hyun Woojin, the one Haewon had been anxiously waiting for, finally arrived. As he entered, he greeted as usual.
"I'm here."
"Ah, Prosecutor Hyun, welcome."

"Is Oppa here?"
At that moment, she definitely called him "Woojin-ssi." She greeted him naturally, calling him "Oppa." He turned toward the inner part of the room and, upon seeing Haewon, stopped in his tracks for a brief moment, before continuing as if nothing had happened.
He sat next to Kim Soyoung. Haewon swallowed the taste of blood in his mouth, and with that bitterness, he bowed his head to him.

"Hello, Senior."
Haewon slowly lifted his head, staring deeply into Hyun Woojin’s eyes, which were clearly distant and unfocused.
"…What’s going on?"

"Madam invited me for dinner."
Haewon answered his question. Seok Hwa interjected.
"I met him while going to discuss the charter flight for the orchestra's trip to China. Since he’s Prosecutor Hyun’s junior, I thought it would be fine for him to join us for dinner. Is that alright?"

"Ah, I see. Good decision."
He nodded approvingly at Seok Hwa. His gaze toward Haewon had become stiff.
It seemed that they didn’t know Haewon had seen them at the hotel. Hyun Woojin only remembered the hotel pool, not realizing Haewon had been sitting behind them in the Executive Lounge that day. He probably didn’t even remember taking the elevator up to the fortieth floor with Haewon.

Haewon felt the emotions he had just managed to calm down flare up again as soon as he faced him. His fingertips turned cold. Haewon bit down hard on the flesh inside his mouth, the taste of blood intensifying.
That fucking bastard...
A wave of blind anger surged inside him.

"Dinner is ready. Please, let's eat."
At the assistant’s words, they moved to the dining room.
Kim Soyoung and Hyun Woojin, who had been pretending to be a couple at the hotel, now acted as if they were just casual acquaintances—acting indifferently toward each other, as if they were just an older brother and younger sister when in the house.
Of course, it made sense.

Hyun Woojin was Kim Soyoung’s fiancé. They were meant to be brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and they still seemed to be in that kind of relationship. Whether Hyun Woojin was out of his mind, or if Kim Soyoung was, or if they were both crazy, Haewon wasn’t sure, but it was clear that it was not a normal relationship.
Haewon sat in the seat the assistant assigned him. Traditional Korean food was laid out on the table.
"Do you like Korean food? My husband always has to eat it when he returns from his business trips."

"Yes, I like it."
"Haewon, do you eat a lot?"
"Thank you."

Seok Hwa looked at Haewon as if seeing her deceased daughter in him, and spoke with genuine affection. Kim Soyoung looked uncomfortable, sitting awkwardly as she watched her mother. Haewon ignored Hyun Woojin’s constant stare and picked up his chopsticks.
Through the casual conversation that flowed during the meal, Haewon learned that Kim Soyoung was a graduate student majoring in business and was currently struggling with her professor over her doctoral thesis. Her hair tied back simply gave her a completely different, yet fresh and beautiful look compared to when he saw her at the hotel.
At this point, Haewon began to feel confused about who Hyun Woojin really was. He wasn’t sure if he was even really a prosecutor anymore. Haewon had thought he couldn’t forget his deceased fiancée. He had assumed ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) that, after losing the person he loved, he had closed his heart off, unable to settle down with anyone else. That had led him to believe that Hyun Woojin was only with Haewon to satisfy his physical desires. Haewon had thought that at least Hyun Woojin liked him beyond that, and Haewon also liked him. What was truly maddening was the fact that Haewon realized he liked him.

What overwhelmed him wasn’t betrayal, but disappointment. The Hyun Woojin Haewon thought he knew could never do something like this.
He couldn’t remember how the meal ended or what conversation they had. He vaguely remembered Seok Hwa asking if he was feeling unwell, but the rest was a blur.
When Haewon came to, he found himself sitting in Hyun Woojin’s car. He vaguely remembered Hyun Woojin saying he needed to talk to him and had greeted him before leading him out of the house.

"What's going on?"
"……"
"Haewon."

"……Hmm?"
"What’s going on?"
Hyun Woojin asked. Haewon turned his head and looked at him, who was driving.

He looked like the Hyun Woojin Haewon knew. The face he had spent countless nights staring at. The man who had been with Kim Soyoung’s younger sister at the hotel. Haewon swallowed hard, feeling a sharp pain in his throat.
The dinner he had forced himself to eat felt like it was stuck in his chest, making him feel as though he was going crazy. He rolled down the car window, trying to get some fresh air, but Hyun Woojin quickly rolled it back up, making the car quiet again. Haewon, calming himself down, asked,
"What about you? Didn’t you say you had night duty today?"

"It’s because my mom suddenly called and invited me for dinner, and I didn’t want to refuse, so I stopped by for a bit. I have to head back to the district office."
It was a lie.
When Haewon met Seok Hwa earlier, they had already planned their dinner, and Hyun Woojin was supposed to be there. Haewon was confused, wondering if he had misunderstood, as Hyun Woojin’s lie sounded so smooth that it almost made him question himself.

"I met your mom by chance today at the practice room. She asked me to join her for dinner, so I came along thinking we’d have some nice food."
The mechanical response slipped out. Haewon glanced at him, trying to figure out what was going through his mind, but he could no longer understand it.
"…Your mom?"

Hyun Woojin asked again, as if the term was bothering him. Haewon slapped his chest with a fist, trying to calm the knot in his stomach.
Seeing Kim Soyoung again, Haewon’s heart, which had dropped to the floor, suddenly started racing again.
How could he have been so foolish? Or was it because it was Hyun Woojin that Haewon couldn’t bring himself to accept the situation, with his subconscious rejecting the thoughts and conclusions? His mind was spinning, unable to make sense of it all. Haewon wanted to kill him.

"She told me to call her aunt. Call her however you want."
"When did you two become so close? What happened?"
A bad premonition crawled up Haewon’s spine.

It would have been less shocking if he had seen him walking into a hotel with someone else. But this was Kim Soyoung’s younger sister. He thought Hyun Woojin couldn’t forget his deceased fiancée. He had assumed everything based on his outer observations, but now everything had turned upside down.
Haewon, intoxicated by his wavering emotions, only saw what he wanted to see and heard what he wanted to hear. He had thought of him as a man with a painful past, which made him even more affectionate and pitiful. Knowing that Hyun Woojin couldn’t truly be with him made it all the more heartbreaking.
But that wasn’t the case. Hyun Woojin was mocking his deceased fiancée. She meant nothing to him. Although Senior Choi had said that Hyun Woojin’s ambitions in HanKyeong Group were gone, he was wrong. Kim Soyoung remained in HanKyeong Group.

Haewon felt dumbfounded, frustrated, angry, and betrayed, all at once. The emotional rollercoaster was unbearable.
He said that my feelings were important. He told me that when I developed the desire to only take my clothes off in front of him, that’s when we could start, whether it was a relationship or just sex. He said that treating me like anyone else and acting casually with me was not acceptable. I had to give him all my heart. And so, I did. I really did give him my heart. But someone who values the heart doesn't seem to have any sense of morality or common sense.
"Did you become like this? Why, does it bother you? Does it bother you that I call CEO Kim Jeong-geun's wife 'aunt'?"

Haewon asked him. Hyun Woojin, who had been focusing on the road and adjusting the distance between the car and the one ahead, looked at Haewon for a moment. Their eyes met. Everything about him was laced with lies. Even these small, trivial lies were deceitful, so anything bigger than that—anything that came after—didn’t even need to be confirmed.
He was a liar. His outward appearance betrayed his essence, and nothing about him was true. The words he said about wanting to see me were lies. The things he said about how this life was the only one we had, about how we couldn’t meet in the next life, about how there was no next life—that was all bullshit. Sweet words meant nothing. Even when he said that he didn’t want me to go far because he wanted to see me, even the jealousy he displayed was fake.
"So, what exactly did you do for my mother to be so smitten with you?"

"Curious?"
"I'm curious. You two were a mess that day, weren’t you? You were looking for dogs and cows, and my mother was yelling at the top of her lungs, angry."
He spoke, recalling what had happened in the French restaurant when he had taken me to meet Henry Chang.

"Hyun Woojin."
"Yeah?"
"You… answer me truthfully from now on. Don’t lie."

He sighed, clearly annoyed by the command. His face hardened immediately, and his eyes, sharp with tension, turned to Haewon.
"Why are you acting like this? Why are you calling me 'you' when you’re six years younger than me?"
Hyun Woojin hated being called "you" by me. It wasn’t something he would take lightly, and he couldn’t treat it as a joke anymore. His face instantly turned serious, a sharp, intimidating glare forming.

"Haewon."
"…Hyun Woojin, you—"
Haewon couldn’t speak.

He wanted to ask if he had been fooling around with his deceased fiancée’s sister at the hotel, but the words wouldn’t come out. He had to force the words out, form sentences, and ask with clarity, but his mouth couldn’t move. Haewon moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
It was only then that Hyun Woojin, sensing something was off, stopped the car at a red light and turned to face him.
Even if it was something from before he met me, it would be better for me if he were now two-timing with someone else. The man who was fooling around with the younger sister of his dead fiancée was someone I couldn’t bear to handle.

Perhaps he had become mentally paralyzed from failing to become the son-in-law of HanKyeong Group, or maybe he had been blinded by ambition and didn’t care how he achieved his goals. He might have been numb to guilt and conscience.
"Why do you call my mother 'aunt'?"
"Haewon."

"Why do you call her 'aunt'? She’s not Choi Hyunmi."
"Did you hear something?"
As if catching onto something, Hyun Woojin asked, his tone much softer than before. It wasn’t cold like when he called Haewon’s name with an icy voice.

"You were supposed to marry her. The woman… the one you were supposed to marry, the one who died."
"…"
"Is that true?"

"Yeah."
His calm acknowledgment of the truth, despite knowing everything, made Haewon’s heart thud painfully.
"Did you love her?"

"What?"
"Did you love the woman who died?"
"Of course I did. That’s why we were engaged."

His response wasn’t even in past tense, and he said it like it was someone else’s problem. That attitude of his—his ability to act without feeling any remorse while doing things that made him less than human—made Haewon’s blood boil.
The car started moving again, heading toward Haewon’s officetel.
"Did you love her?"

Haewon’s clenched fist tightened, his knuckles popping. He didn’t answer. Hyun Woojin removed his foot from the accelerator, applying the brake gently, and the car came to a smooth stop.
"Did you love her?"
"Why are you asking about something that happened years ago? What does that have to do with you? And, honestly, what’s the point of asking these questions now?"

He wasn’t avoiding the answer because he didn’t want to respond; he simply saw it as a useless argument. He didn’t invest time in things that didn’t matter. He didn’t waste emotions on things that were pointless. That was how he maintained his career. He focused only on what mattered. Hyun Woojin wouldn’t even consider something that didn’t bring him value. Haewon was no different to him. He could toss Haewon aside whenever he grew tired of him. He was nothing but a disposable object.
"It’s important to me."
"Sure, it’s important. The person I’m seeing now is you. And this kind of question isn’t like you."

"…What’s ‘like me’? Is it ‘like me’ to have no expectations, to let you do whatever you want and only be there for you when you want me to open my legs and take my clothes off?"
"Moon Haewon."
"Do you think asking me questions like this is ‘me’? I just want you to tell me the truth!"

Haewon shouted at him. He pulled the car over to the side of the road. With the car now stopped, he turned his head and faced Haewon directly.
"What do you want to know?"
"Did you love her?"

"…"
He seemed to be thinking, as though he needed to dig into his memories to recall whether or not he had loved her, even though they were engaged.
"I don’t really know what love is, so I don’t know what it was."

"You didn’t love her, but you were engaged?"
"Why do I have to answer this kind of interrogation from you? Moreover, it’s already over. It happened a long time ago. Are you accusing me of secretly being engaged to her? Should I ask all the guys you’ve met if they loved you?"
"You didn’t love her, did you?"

Haewon persisted, staring directly at him. Hyun Woojin, looking tired, rubbed his face with his hand, as if trying to wipe away the questions from his mind.
"Why are you like this?"
His crumpled expression seemed to ask what Haewon had seen or heard to make him so distressed.

"You didn’t love her, so you were fooling around with her sister at the hotel."
"…"
He stopped wiping his face and stared at Haewon through his fingers, his eyes piercing as if they were sinking into him. Haewon could feel his gaze bore into him, his eyes dark and filled with a void.

"I saw you and Kim Soyoung in the lounge that day. I saw you two entering the 40th-floor suite of the hotel."
He lowered his hand from his face and sighed deeply as he leaned back into the driver’s seat. It seemed like he had finally understood the reason for Haewon’s sudden behavior.
"You made her like that, and now you wanted to fool around with her sister?"

"…"
The more Haewon pressed him with questions, the more he felt like he was being pushed to the edge of a cliff. One wrong step, and he would fall off into the abyss, but he kept asking. He just wanted a logical, believable explanation, even if it was a lie. He wanted something that would make sense.