The Discarded Card

"What did you just say?"

Jung-hui's cheek twitched, a spasm she couldn't suppress. For an instant, Yun-seul's cool gaze felt like the tip of a blade pressed against her throat.

But it lasted only a heartbeat. Yun-seul's eyes softened back into their usual docile warmth, and Jung-hui, thrown completely off balance, dismissed what she'd seen as a trick of her own nerves. There was no way Yun-seul would ever look at her like that.

"You must be so surprised — winning a contest held by a major corporation like Hansan Group."

"Yes. My daughter winning an award at a company that big... Mom was so shocked I was speechless for a moment."

Jung-hui scrambled for an explanation, never once dreaming that Yun-seul could see right through her. Inside, her mind was a tangled mess, reeling from a bomb that had gone off without warning.

Why, of all things, did it have to be the Hansan Media contest?

She'd been planning that for roughly next year, timed for a dramatic reunion between Yun-seul and Chairman Jung. Instead, the thing she'd been carefully holding back had detonated on its own.

No. I can still contain this. She didn't meet Chairman Jung in person — all she did was win a contest.

Yun-seul had been a child who told her everything, every single detail of her life from the moment she could talk. That was how Jung-hui had raised her, trained her to be that way. So of course — Yun-seul must have gotten the call about the win this afternoon, and in her excitement, bought a bouquet and rushed home.

Jung-hui forced down the anxiety crawling up to her chin.

All I have to do is keep her from the awards ceremony. That's the end of it.

Preventing the reunion between the two — keeping Yun-seul from that ceremony was child's play for a woman like Jung-hui. One word, one claim of feeling sick that day, and Yun-seul would forget the ceremony entirely, staying faithfully at her bedside like the devoted girl she'd been made to be.

"When is the ceremony? Big corporate contests usually hold them so grandly.... Let's go to the department store together this weekend, honey. I'll buy you the most beautiful dress to wear."

The words spilled out without a shred of sincerity. She'd expected Yun-seul to melt into her arms, face glowing with gratitude — but that certainty had just been shattered to pieces.

"Oh, the ceremony already happened, Mom. There were even photos in the articles. It was a small piece in the culture section, though — nobody would know unless they went looking for it."

"...The ceremony is over?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me something that important?"

"Ah, that's.... The date overlapped with your business trip, and I didn't want you to feel bad about missing it."

"You should have told me anyway!"

Jung-hui lost her grip on herself and barked. If Yun-seul had attended the ceremony, there was a strong chance she'd already come face to face with Chairman Jung. Unless the man was blind, he would have recognized her in a single glance — because Yun-seul was the spitting image of Seol-hye in her youth.

Jung-hui's heart began to pound like a runaway drum. The moment she had waited for all this time had slipped past, meaningless, without her even knowing it was there.

She can't meet him yet. Not yet.

Her elegant face crumpled at the sight of a plan collapsing in her hands.

"M-Mom?"

Yun-seul's frightened voice reached her ears, and only then did Jung-hui snap back to her senses as if doused in cold water. She had never once raised her voice in front of the girl, and she immediately regretted the slip. Sure enough, Yun-seul wore the expression of a fragile child on the verge of tears.

A disaster.

Jung-hui let the contorted muscles of her face loosen, smooth and slow, then arranged her features into one heavy with wounded sadness.

"It's just — your business trip, of all things.... I raised my voice because I was so sorry to have missed it. Did I scare you?"

"N-no, I'm fine."

Fine in words only. Yun-seul kept her eyes lowered, utterly deflated.

"It was such an important day for you and I couldn't be there, and it hurt me so much. It's times like this that make me wonder — is it because I'm not your real mother that you find me so hard to approach?"

This was how Jung-hui always gaslit her. It was what made Yun-seul report her every move, every breath, without being asked. Jung-hui fully expected the girl to come crawling with apologies this time too — and then she would do whatever it took to block any contact with Chairman Jung and drive a wedge between them for good.

She was running the calculations in her head when it happened.

"It's okay, really. All the other writers came alone too. If you had been there, I honestly might have felt a little embarrassed."

"D-did you, now? Well, thank goodness. At least you weren't the only one alone.... Still, Mom is so sorry."

The conversation was drifting somewhere Jung-hui hadn't anticipated, and it made her chest tighten — but she told herself that as long as she kept a grip on Yun-seul's heart, nothing was lost.

"From now on, you tell Mom everything. Every little thing. My daughter."

"I will."

Jung-hui warmly took Yun-seul's hand in both of hers, just as she always did. But Yun-seul slid her fingers free and glanced up warily. At that gesture of quiet rejection, Jung-hui's heart plummeted.

She's this terrified over one shouted sentence?

Even as she cursed Yun-seul inwardly for a spineless little thing, outwardly Jung-hui pulled her into a tender embrace. The girl must have been genuinely rattled — her body was still trembling, faintly but unmistakably.

Jung-hui leaned close to her ear and dripped in the sweet, soothing words she knew so well.

"Thank you so much for the bouquet. I'm the happiest mother in the world because of you. Let's have a little celebration party this weekend. What do you say?"

"That sounds lovely."

Yun-seul nodded with a small smile, and only then did Jung-hui finally set her worry aside and begin turning the gears of her mind at full speed. Chairman Jung now knew Yun-seul existed. Time was running short.

I have to push the marriage forward.

A husband was her best card — the one piece that could keep Yun-seul bound to her side until the very last moment. It was the position that had to be filled before the girl could reunite with her birth father. Chairman Jung might interfere, and if men of far greater standing than Tae-gyeong came courting, Yun-seul's heart might waver. So before any of that could happen, she had to get her married off to Tae-gyeong first. An insurance policy, nothing more.

"Let's invite Tae-gyeong too."

While Yun-seul was riding high on the celebratory mood, Tae-gyeong would propose, and she and Sara would step in and coax her along. Yun-seul wouldn't be able to refuse. Then it would be a straight shot — set the wedding date, hold the ceremony, done.

Jung-hui was busily sketching out the new plan in her head when an impossible sentence slipped out of Yun-seul's mouth.

"Mom, there's something I haven't told you.... Tae-gyeong and I broke up."

"What?"

Jung-hui froze, momentarily forgetting how to breathe. The surest card in her hand had just become a discarded one. For a moment, the world went black before her eyes.

"What on earth are you saying? Did you two have a fight?"

"No. It's over completely."

"But why?"

Afraid of frightening Yun-seul again, Jung-hui couldn't even raise her voice; she asked calmly, though fury and rage were boiling up from her core. But Yun-seul only pressed her lips together and offered nothing, and Jung-hui's blood ran dry. Unable to bear the silence a second longer, she coaxed with forced gentleness.

"Why did you break up? Tell Mom. You loved Tae-gyeong so much."

"Ah.... Well...."

When Yun-seul trailed off again, Jung-hui squeezed her eyes shut. She strangled the impulse to seize the girl by the shoulders and demand the truth this instant.

"I was afraid it would upset you to hear it."

"No, no. Mom needs to know too. It's all right, so go on — tell me."

Watching Jung-hui pour every ounce of herself into cajoling her, Yun-seul bit the soft inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. The sight of Jung-hui staring at her mouth with that desperate, anxious expression was something to behold. She must have been counting the days until she could marry her off to Tae-gyeong — no wonder the news had rattled her so badly.

"Tae-gyeong was cheating on me."

"Cheating?"

"Yes. I saw it with my own eyes. There was a woman hiding in the closet of his officetel."

"What did you say?"

Jung-hui clapped a hand over her mouth in horror. That the woman hiding in the closet had been Sara. That Sara had known the whole truth and buried it without breathing a single word about it. Now that it had all come to light, how was she supposed to wrap her head around this?

Yun-seul suppressed a bitter laugh, keeping it locked tight behind her teeth.

"Honestly, ever since I turned down his proposal, something felt off. I was planning to tell him I'd marry him after you got back from your business trip, Mom, and then this happened...."

The revelation that she'd been about to marry Tae-gyeong anyway — had nothing gone wrong — only poured more fuel on Jung-hui's blazing rage. And Yun-seul, without mercy, heaped oil onto the fire already burning.

"Don't worry about me, Mom. I'm fine now. Unni listened to everything and cursed him out for me, so I feel so much better."

"...Sara did?"

"Yes. While you were away on your trip, I told her everything, and she got angry on my behalf and swore at him for me."

Having pointedly reminded her, one more time, that Sara had known everything and said nothing, Yun-seul wrapped her arms around the ashen-faced woman and whispered into her ear.

"So please don't be upset too, Mom. I'm really okay."

At the edge of Yun-seul's vision, she could see Jung-hui's fist trembling uncontrollably. She knew that her mother's fury would come down on Sara's head like a hammer in her place — and that was exactly why Yun-seul could smile brightly, even in the arms of her enemy.