Take Care of My Sister
“He probably won’t, but if he comes looking for you again or tries to contact you, tell me.”
“I’ll tell you everything we talked about, too.”
“No need.”
He’d only sought her out because he was curious what kind of person Yuju was. With a powerful backer in the legal world and an image he had to protect in public, he’d calculated that marrying her would keep him from doing anything reckless. No matter how little he liked the situation, he wouldn’t dare treat her carelessly.
Of course he’d be curious about the real reasons behind such a sudden marriage. All things considered, it was better if both Prosecutor Han Beom-su and Chairman Choi believed the two of them had simply fallen head over heels and rushed into it. By now it was getting harder to call their arrangement a pure contract, anyway.
“…….”
Seo-won brushed the place near his collarbone where Yuju had left a mark the night before. The moment his fingers found it, a sharp sting made him bite down against the bone. The imprint remained there, clear as day. Simply tracing it was enough to send a hot rush through him for reasons he couldn’t name.
She had been the one to push him down, clinging to him with desperate need. This hadn’t been some impulsive accident born of the moment. His body had genuinely stirred with lust, and he had been the one to act on it first. He still didn’t understand why. He had never done anything like that with anyone else. Only with Yuju.
The thought left him unsettled, though the expression he wore remained perfectly calm and unbothered.
“I’ll drive you.”
“Me?”
“Tae-ju used to take you sometimes, didn’t he?”
“He did, but you don’t have to go out of your way, Oppa—”
“Think of it as me standing in for him.”
Considering what they’d done the night before, even saying that felt ridiculous. Seo-won swallowed the rest of the thought and drained the bitter coffee instead. Across from him, Yuju’s eyes went wide and round before she finally started on her late breakfast, realizing that the first lecture of the day was nearly upon them.
Seo-won poured a glass of water and set it in front of her as she bolted her food.
“Slow down.”
“Yes—yes.”
She must have nearly choked; she gulped the water in a rush. Even that brief action somehow looked combative. A quiet laugh slipped out of him, as if the serious mood from a moment earlier had never existed. He didn’t touch his own meal, simply watching her instead.
He’d thought he could see straight through her—that even without deep conversations, her insides were completely transparent. Living together, though, had made him realize how much of Yuju he still didn’t know.
Seo-won found himself just a little—truly only a little—curious about what kind of person she really was.
“Prosecutor Han Tae-ju is here.”
He had just finished the morning meeting and was nearly at the executive office when Secretary Lee dropped the news without warning. Seo-won stopped cold. He checked his watch. Working hours. Tae-ju had visited the company before, but never during the workday.
From that single detail alone, Seo-won knew what had finally come.
“Clear my afternoon.”
“Sir? Ah—yes.”
With that brief order he walked into the office, offering no explanation even as Secretary Lee shot him a puzzled look, sensing the strange atmosphere.
“Ugh…”
The moment he stepped inside, the carefully blank expression cracked. A sudden blow of pain slammed into his stomach. He lifted his head and met Tae-ju’s eyes. His friend had been standing by the door, watching the hallway, clearly waiting for him to walk in.
Seo-won realized he’d just been punched.
“Since when do you hit people?”
He clutched his aching midsection and said something completely off-topic. Other people probably thought the two of them were alike—upright, righteous men who could live perfectly well without the law. But their natures were entirely different. Seo-won sometimes moved according to advantage; Tae-ju remained consistently, unshakably good. It was almost mysterious how he managed to wrestle with criminals every single day.
Even in their teenage years Tae-ju had never thrown a punch in the usual schoolyard fights. The sudden violence was simply astonishing.
“I figured I was someone who could get away with at least one hit.”
Seo-won had no answer for that. Through Yuju’s own words he had already felt how fiercely Tae-ju cherished his younger sister. Anyone who watched the way he acted would have expected as much. He’d known a punch was coming someday; that day had simply arrived.
“What’s with that look?”
The odd expression lasted only a moment before Seo-won subtly avoided Tae-ju’s gaze. Because it was the first time, Tae-ju caught the strangeness instantly.
After the news of the marriage broke, Tae-ju had interrogated him relentlessly—so thoroughly that Seo-won had almost felt like a criminal. He’d brazened it out every time. Today, though, his reaction was off. Meeting Tae-ju’s eyes head-on was hard enough; looking at that face so similar to Yuju’s only brought back everything they had done the night before.
“…Sit down first. This is going to take a while.”
Heat climbed through him. Caught between guilt and the sudden bloom of something far more carnal, Seo-won hurried to take control of the situation. He guided Tae-ju to a seat and sat facing him. Even after a lifetime of friendship, the whole process felt awkward.
They fell silent, as if some unspoken rule forbade either of them from speaking first. At last Tae-ju opened his mouth.
“Honestly, I still don’t get it. That you two dated—and got married. It always seemed like you barely even spoke a few words to each other. Yuju isn’t exactly a great actress. It was too perfect to be a lie she told me.”
That had been the one thing Seo-won had worried about most while arranging the marriage: that Yuju’s clumsiness would expose everything in an instant.
Yet today’s atmosphere from Tae-ju was subtly different from everything since the wedding. He didn’t feel like someone here to dig up the truth or pick a fight.
From the brief exchange, Seo-won sensed that Tae-ju’s reason for coming today was not the same as before.
“She might look innocent, but she’s more fragile than she seems.”
Tae-ju probably believed he knew everything about his sister… but he was wrong about that much. Yuju was sharper than expected, good at reading a situation and acting on it. She might even be more cunning than her dense older brother.
Seo-won didn’t bother correcting every detail for him. He finally understood why Tae-ju had come all the way here.
He looked his friend straight in the eye. For the first time, Tae-ju bowed his head to him in complete seriousness. Even knowing Seo-won came from a powerful family, he had never once lowered his head before.
“Please take good care of my sister.”
That was the real point, reached after all the circling. So he hadn’t come to interrogate anyone today. Something must have happened; he had settled his heart and come to entrust his sister.
More than the sudden change of heart, Seo-won found himself focused on the deep affection between the siblings. If only the villain were removed, they would be perfect.
“Do you respect your father?”
After a long stretch of thought, the completely unrelated question slipped out. Tae-ju’s brows drew together. They had been talking about Yuju—why the sudden mention of their father?
And the nuance was strange. His mouth asked, “Do you respect him?” but the meaning underneath sounded closer to “Would it be all right if I hit him?”
Besides, this was a friend who had never once spoken of his own father. No matter what that man did to him, Tae-ju had always stayed in the position of a third-party observer.
Seo-won couldn’t understand why he was asking. But one thing was certain.
Without the slightest hesitation, Tae-ju shook his head.
“Not a chance.”
To Tae-ju, their father was simply the man their mother had loved—nothing more, nothing less. Obeying the man’s orders was partly the lingering residue of long-accumulated violence, but mostly it came from the last promise he had made to their mother.
On top of that, protecting Yuju meant he himself needed to grow stronger. That was why he worked so hard.
“…….”
At the decisive answer, Seo-won’s expression turned peculiar. He had already known how Tae-ju felt about their father before he even asked. He had confirmed it anyway, because there was a reason he needed to.
“Then that’s enough.”
“Enough for what?”
Tae-ju pressed, catching the odd nuance. No answer came. Seo-won simply stared into empty space. The face that had been carefully watching Tae-ju’s reaction earlier was gone.
Now it was Tae-ju who held his breath and studied him. There was something meaningful in those eyes.
Right now Seo-won looked exactly like a man about to do something enormous.