Mirror Therapy

Was this what people called mirror therapy? It felt as though he was repeating back, one by one, the murky private life that a woman named Lee Mu-young had shown him all morning by meeting men in succession.

But there was one difference. Not a flicker of wavering in her eyes. She was as calm as if she were facing a complete stranger. Fine, they had agreed not to touch each other's private lives — but how could anyone be that unbothered? It kept prodding at Kang-ho's composure, again and again.

"Good to see you, Assemblyman Baek."

It was Assemblywoman Min Ji-ae, standing beside Mu-young, who was actually greeting him first. Apparently, one of the lawmakers scheduled for today's debate had bailed, and Assemblywoman Min had been summoned as a replacement.

Unlike before, she had appeared in the capacity of acting party leader — a telling sign of just how voracious her ambitions were.

Their last debate had blown up into a major brawl and pulled in strong ratings, so the broadcasting station must have been eager to stage the same spectacle again. And when that target of attack appeared to be entangled in a lovers' quarrel with a rookie announcer at the very station — what juicier bait could there be?

Then it suddenly struck Kang-ho that Mu-young still hadn't told Assemblywoman Min about her marriage to him. She had been far too quiet about it. He'd assumed she would have reported the news to her boss first thing. Apparently not.

That, in its own way, worked in Kang-ho's favor. It meant the woman wasn't the type to bury her own business out of loyalty to her superior. Or else the person to whom she'd sworn her loyalty was someone else entirely. The fact that he could guess exactly who that someone was, and that it soured his mood further, was a separate problem altogether.

"I didn't realize you'd be attending today's debate."

Kang-ho ignored Hee-jin beside him and Mu-young behind her, speaking to Ji-ae first. It seemed like the easiest opening to flip — and settle — this entire situation.

"I got a call out of the blue. I scrambled my schedule to make it. Since Assemblyman Kang is appearing, surely it's a matter of loyalty that I show up as well."

*Loyalty*, his foot. Assemblywoman Min herself and her chief aide — Mu-young — knew better than anyone that this was about visibility and name recognition.

"And with you here, Assemblywoman, I at least won't be bored. It's a pleasure."

"You do seem... rather busy even now."

Assemblywoman Min seized the opening to make a pointed, indirect reference to Hee-jin and his little skirmish. As if he'd been waiting for exactly that timing, Kang-ho struck back immediately.

"Ah... she must be reacting to the news of my marriage."

At the words out of his mouth, everyone except Kang-ho froze solid. Hee-jin had obviously never imagined he'd announce something like this so casually in front of a lawmaker from an opposing faction — and Mu-young would have assumed the same.

She hadn't counted on him telling Assemblywoman Min directly, of all people. That might well have been Mu-young's miscalculation, and Assemblywoman Min could easily take it as a slight, a betrayal from her own chief aide.

Kang-ho continued smoothly, as though he had orchestrated every beat of it on purpose.

"This is announcer Choi Hee-jin — the younger sister of a close friend of mine. She's apparently a little hurt that she heard about my marriage through the grapevine. We've been in and out of each other's homes since we were children, so we're practically family."

Kang-ho laid out his relationship with Hee-jin in painstaking, almost excessive detail. But his eyes weren't on Ji-ae. They were fixed on Mu-young.

"Oh... I see. I had no idea you were getting married, Assemblyman Baek."

Ji-ae offered her congratulations, masking her shock. Kang-ho sent Mu-young a look — one that weighed, deliberately, whether or not to name her marriage partner right now. A kind of blackmail.

If he announced it here, she would lose even the chance to explain herself. Should he let her pay the price for leaping into this marriage without so much as a plan or a contingency? Kang-ho deliberated at his leisure.

Mu-young seemed to read his intent perfectly. Her face grew paler by the second, fading into visible helplessness. It was a reaction he hadn't seen even when he'd caught her standing with another man. What mattered most to this woman was pathetically easy to read. At the cliff's edge she'd walked herself to, Kang-ho withdrew his piece — shifting his gaze back to Ji-ae, as if conceding the move.

"It all happened so suddenly, you see.... Anyway, I'll head in after I have a word with my friend's sister here."

"Oh, of course. Go right ahead."

Assemblywoman Min sent Kang-ho off and walked ahead. Mu-young followed her a step behind, and he could see her ashen face tangling into something even more complicated.

Had he taken the joke too far? A faint twinge of guilt did surface — but then, wasn't this her problem to untangle? All he'd done was toss her the trigger first. Kang-ho stared at the woman's retreating back for a long moment, then turned on his heel.

"Let's go."

"So who *is* this woman already?"

Hee-jin pressed again, almost demanding. Kang-ho held his tongue all the way to the elevator. The flicker of expressions on that woman's face as they'd passed had made his own mind far too tangled. Annoying woman, that was certain. No — *irritating* was the right word. That was the most precise way to put it.

"Legislative aide Lee Mu-young."

"Who's that?"

"You saw her just now."

"Who, though...? Kff— kff."

Hee-jin choked so hard she nearly sprayed her coffee. A few droplets spattered toward Kang-ho, who wiped his clothes with a tissue and then dropped the crumpled rest of the pack in front of her like discarded trash.

At that gesture — devoid of a shred of tenderness — the rims of Hee-jin's eyes reddened yet again. He had drawn the line so ruthlessly that at some point her pride had simply given out, and she'd stopped trying.

But when her parents brought up the marriage, hope had stirred in her again. Living under the same roof, wouldn't other feelings develop naturally? On the strength of that expectation, she'd lost sleep for days.

And then, this afternoon, she'd been hit with a thunderbolt.

*Baek Kang-ho is getting married.*

She'd thought she misheard. Or else her friend — her brother, practically, who was always at the hospital — had lost his mind. So she'd needed to verify it for herself. As it happened, Kang-ho was slated to appear as a debater on a current affairs program at the station, and she'd barged in without warning. She couldn't bring herself to believe it until she heard it from his own mouth.

*Ah... she must be reacting to the news of my marriage.*

But Kang-ho had mentioned his marriage so effortlessly. And in front of a minor lawmaker from some fringe party, no less, a woman who had nothing to do with him. On top of that, he'd publicly rejected *her* — labeling her the little sister of a close friend, practically family.

And the bride-to-be was the woman standing next to that lawmaker? That expressionless nobody who barely seemed to exist? He expected *her* to believe that?

"That woman — why her?"

"Why does there need to be a why?"

Kang-ho swirled the ice in his iced coffee with a straw as he countered.

"Because I wanted to marry her. That's all there is to it."

His explanation was vague, but not incomprehensible. He didn't like or love her enough to marry, exactly — but their interests aligned, and there would be something in it for him. That was the conclusion he'd drawn.

"Do you like her? Do you love her?"

She threw the question back at him, emotional again. Her voice sounded three seconds from tears — and then drops began spilling from both eyes. When she dabbed at them with the tissue she'd used on her coffee, her false eyelashes clumped and peeled away in patches.

Choosing the enclosed private room inside the café had been an inspired decision. Given the situation, nothing good could come of photos like these.

"How could you, oppa? *Sob* — how could you do this to me? *Hic* — how—"

Hee-jin started to cry in earnest, full commitment. A sigh escaped Kang-ho of its own accord. It was pitiable to watch — but only to a point.

He knew how she felt, and it wasn't as though he'd never entertained the possibility. But she was his best friend's little sister. He'd known her since she was a child, and the age gap had always made her feel like a bratty little kid. She could strut around in front of him in nothing but her underwear and it wouldn't register as anything — what, exactly, was he supposed to do with someone like that?

A loveless marriage was possible, sure. But it would be *Hee-jin* who got used. And so, for her own happiness if nothing else, Kang-ho couldn't accept her.

"Why does she get to, and not me?"

"That's literally what I just said."

He answered as if discussing someone else's business and handed her another tissue. Hee-jin demanded, with full bravado:

"Wipe my face for me."

"You still haven't come to your senses, have you?"

When he pulled the tissue back instead, she started clearing his cup onto the tray, gathering things to leave. Wait — no, *he* did. At his cool demeanor, Hee-jin burned with even more injustice, malice smoldering in her.

"I hope the same thing happens to you, oppa. Exactly like this."

"Sure, sure."

Kang-ho let it slide, lifting the tray as he stood. Then he tapped his wristwatch twice — time to head in. When Hee-jin showed no sign of rising, he left the café without another word.

She scrubbed furiously at her eyes. The recording was about to start, and her mascara had smeared into a disaster. Swallowing her irritation, she fished her phone from her pocket. Unable to walk out with her face in ruins, she switched to the selfie camera and started fixing herself up — when a sudden curiosity seized her.

She opened a search portal and typed in the name of that woman she'd just heard about. She couldn't help it; the lingering attachment ran all the way to the end.

Lee Mu-young. No matter how she dug, all that surfaced was an endless scroll of National Assembly group photos — nothing that showed the woman alone. Then, on the very last page she flipped through, she found one old ID photo.

She tapped it, expanding the picture to fill the screen. Though blurred, the woman in it was young — and staring at that younger face, Hee-jin felt something strange crawl over her.

*What is this. Why does she look so... familiar.*

For a long while, Hee-jin hovered over the woman's face, sinking deeper into confusion.