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Chapter 11
Han Gyeoul.
Born January 15, 1991.
Dropped out of Insan University’s Department of Theater and Film.
Debuted in Director Lee Hyukjin’s The One Who Gives Without Holding Back.
An unknown actress in her tenth year of acting.
Her only family was her younger sister, Han Yeoreum, who was one year younger than her.
And then there was top star actor Choi Jihoon, who had been her friend for over twenty years.
Ridiculously enough, that was the end of it.
Everything Taewook knew about his wife, Gyeoul, was information anyone could find by searching her name on a portal site.
The same information every Korean citizen already knew was all he knew about his own wife.
Ah, no.
There was one more thing.
Unlike him, Gyeoul couldn’t drink coffee and preferred tea.
Suddenly, the box of tea bags sitting in one corner of the kitchen came to mind.
Taewook’s face darkened as he remembered that not a single tea bag had been used since the accident.
On the monitor screen, Gyeoul was smiling brightly.
Her large eyes curved into crescents, and her red lips lifted beautifully, yet somehow she still looked lonely.
The strange sense of discomfort that had plagued him for the past few days continued to linger in his mind.
Tapping his desk with the pen in his hand, Taewook finally stood up.
A cold wind resembling Gyeoul drifted in through the open window.
“I think Miss Han Gyeoul is suffering from severe guilt.”
“I heard that when she first woke up, she called you ‘brother-in-law.’ Perhaps she couldn’t accept that her younger sister had died and unconsciously projected her sister onto herself.”
“She even asked me about PTSD herself.”
When he first heard those words from the doctor treating Gyeoul, Taewook had thought they made sense.
The accident had happened regardless of Gyeoul’s intentions.
It was tragic that Gyeoul survived while her sister died, but Taewook did not believe the surviving Gyeoul was at fault.
So when he heard she carried guilt for surviving alone, he couldn’t fully understand her feelings, but he thought it was understandable.
Because he knew one thing better than anyone else:
Gyeoul had cherished her younger sister deeply.
That was why he thought perhaps, just as the doctor said, guilt-stricken Gyeoul might unconsciously be imitating her sister.
Lately, he had genuinely felt that Gyeoul seemed strangely different.
Still, Gyeoul was an actress too.
Imitating her younger sister wouldn’t be difficult for someone like her.
Then perhaps this unsettling feeling was merely his imagination.
As Taewook stared blankly out the window, an image suddenly crossed his mind:
Gyeoul rapidly flipping through documents.
The way her eyes sparkled while reading the case files Yeoreum had handled.
“If that’s acting, then her next Best Actress award is practically guaranteed.”
A faint smile slipped onto his lips.
As he replayed Gyeoul’s expressions in his mind, something suddenly occurred to him. He picked up the internal phone.
“Secretary Lee, could you come in for a moment?”
“Yes, sir.”
Not long after the call ended, Sangwoo entered the office.
Watching him bow politely, Taewook pulled out his phone.
“Please get me another phone with the same model as mine.”
“The same model, sir?”
“Yes. Ah, and register it under Han Gyeoul’s name.”
At those words, Sangwoo flinched briefly before nodding.
After glancing at his own phone for a moment, Taewook added,
“Once it’s activated, send the number directly to me and bring the phone here.”
“To Miss Han Gyeoul?”
“Yes, please.”
Sangwoo bowed once more at Taewook’s calm request, then cautiously spoke again.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“There’s a prosecutor downstairs investigating Miss Han Yeoreum’s case. He says he’d like to speak with you briefly. What should I do?”
Listening silently, Taewook glanced outside the window.
A man was pacing anxiously near the building entrance.
That man—
“Who’s Won?”
“The prosecutor in charge.”
“What?”
“The man who’ll be handling my case— no, Han Yeoreum’s case.”
“…Won.”
“Sir?”
“No, it’s nothing. Please bring him in.”
“….”
“He’s here because of the investigation. We can’t send him away.”
“Understood, sir.”
Taewook answered calmly, though his gaze remained fixed outside.
Soon after, the building doors opened and the man entered.
An inexplicable sense of displeasure stirred in his chest.
Knock knock—
With a short knock, a familiar-faced man stepped into the room.
“Good afternoon, CEO Joo Taewook.”
“……”
“I’m Prosecutor Kim Won from the Criminal Division 2 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.”
Kim Won.
The very man Gyeoul had cried in the arms of.
“Where? Where did she figure it out?”
“Who are you?”
“You’re not Han Gyeoul.”
To be honest, she had panicked at the woman’s icy voice last night.
She had never imagined that a woman who barely even knew her sister could notice that Gyeoul had changed.
She thought she had been imitating her sister fairly well, even if not perfectly.
Had she really been that different after all?
What had only been meant as a simple attempt to confirm whether the woman from the funeral hall was the same person had instead turned into a disaster.
With belated regret, she replayed last night’s conversation once more.
“Don’t worry too much. They’ll catch the culprit soon.”
“Unni, are you okay?”
“Still, it’s a relief you have someone living with you. Being alone when you’re hurting just makes everything worse.”
Up until then, the woman’s face had clearly been full of concern for Gyeoul.
And then—
“That’s true. I don’t know what I would’ve done without Taewook.”
Was that the moment suspicion had begun to bloom?
Thinking about it now, she remembered that her sister always called her husband “Representative” out of habit.
“Yeoreum, you really don’t like the Representative, huh?”
“He’s genuinely busy. He even felt really bad about leaving for a business trip today, but I told him to go.”
“The Representative likes coffee, so we have coffee beans at home too. Sit down for a second. I’ll brew some for you.”
“Yeah, the Representative’s tastes are similar to yours. He never drinks tea, only coffee. That’s why I’ve gotten pretty good at making coffee now.”
But could someone really conclude that Gyeoul was a different person just because her way of addressing him had changed?
“Ugh, I don’t know anymore…”
The more she thought about it, the harder it became to judge the situation clearly.
She couldn’t understand exactly what had convinced the woman.
Right now, she had no way of knowing.
Shaking her head, she forced herself to stop replaying the memory.
Yeah… maybe it was actually fortunate this happened sooner rather than later.
If this had happened after her body had fully healed, she wouldn’t have been able to pretend to drop the documents because of her casted arm, nor use that as an excuse to escape the situation.
Sighing at the uncertainty surrounding everything, she slowly looked around her sister’s room.
“Han Gyeoul…”
The room, devoid of her sister’s scent or warmth, felt unbearably lonely.
Biting her lip, she looked around the empty room, which lacked even a trace of her sister’s cute, delicate tastes.
Was it really a loveless marriage, just as she suspected?
Even in this enormous house, the two had kept their spaces completely separate.
Even their meals and bedrooms.
For her, that was fortunate.
But why had her sister chosen a marriage like this?
“I’m definitely going to marry someone who loves me like crazy.”
Yes.
Just as that woman had said, her sister always talked about marrying someone who loved her deeply.
And she wanted to ask her sister this:
Where in this house was that love?
“At least in the situation I was in, there wasn’t anyone more perfect than him.”
What kind of situation had her sister been in?
What kind of circumstances had made her decide on this marriage?
“…Han Gyeoul, what were you thinking?”
No answer came back.
She looked around the room once more.
At that moment, she noticed a piece of paper sticking slightly out from between the drawers of the vanity table near the foot of the bed.
Why hadn’t she seen it before?
Rising quickly from the bed, she hurried over to the vanity.
A strange tension ran down her spine.
Her heart pounded as she slowly opened the drawer.
Inside was a drama script.
“Twisted Fate”
She pulled out the worn script, its pages softened from heavy use.
As she flipped through it, a piece of paper tucked inside fluttered to the floor.
Things I Want To Do in 2021
- Become an older sister Yeoreum can be proud of.
- Work on Director Lee Hyukjin’s project one more time.
Those were the only two wishes her sister had written down.
And one of them—
“Become an older sister Yeoreum can be proud of…”
Why did those carefully written words feel so heartbreaking?
Holding back the tears surging up inside her, she widened her eyes before tilting her head at a familiar name.
“Director Lee Hyukjin?”
The name sounded oddly familiar.
Then she noticed another line written beneath the script title.
Director: Lee Hyukjin
“So this was the project.”
The project her sister had wanted so badly to do with Director Lee Hyukjin.
Clutching the script tightly, she slowly lifted her head.
Her sister’s reflection stared back at her from the vanity mirror.
The face of the sister who wanted to become someone Yeoreum could be proud of.
At that moment—
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
