Don't Trust Jin Se-yeon
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"What is that supposed to mean?"
Seo-ah grabbed hastily at the collar of her husband Lee Dong-ha's coat, already dressed to go out.
"Don't trust Jin Se-yeon."
He had blurted it out of nowhere, Dong-ha, who had been checking his appearance in the mirror just a moment before.
What she had wanted to ask about was her father's death.
Four months earlier, two months after Seo-ah's wedding, her father had taken his own life.
It was a thing she simply could not believe. The day of the incident had been Jin Seo-ah's own birthday. What parent in this world chooses to die on the birthday of their only daughter? And with a family dinner already promised for that very evening.
It was a tragic accident — or so the family insisted, refusing to accept suicide — while the police maintained, just as firmly, that it was exactly that. The two claims stood locked in a tense standoff.
And in the middle of it all, the only person Seo-ah had left to cling to was Dong-ha.
Since their marriage, her father's company, Won Electric, and her father-in-law's company, Dongha Motors, had been dealing with each other more and more frequently. Which meant that perhaps — just perhaps — Lee Dong-ha knew something.
She had waited through the long silence with that hope hidden in her heart, fidgeting with impatience. And then her husband, of all people, had put her cousin's name in his mouth. It was almost laughable.
Se-yeon was the one person in the world Seo-ah trusted most. Dong-ha knew that better than anyone — so why bring up something so uncomfortable?
"Oppa?"
But even at her urging, Dong-ha seemed more concerned with checking his wristwatch.
"Dong-ha!"
As her voice rose, he screwed up his face as though fighting down a sigh that had swollen to his chin — wearing the expression of a man exasperated by someone who would never understand, and had no way of finding out.
"Our marriage. Has it never once struck you as strange?"
"...What?"
As if swallowing back the words, Dong-ha drew a deep breath and shook his head.
"Never mind. Let me get my thoughts in order first. We'll talk after."
Seo-ah could not make sense of him, suddenly bringing up their marriage like this. What on earth did her father's death have to do with the two of them being married?
"I don't know what's supposed to be strange, or what you need to sort out, but please — oppa, just answer my question first."
"This isn't something I can say quickly. Jin Se-yeon, or your father's business. Let me go to the airport first, and then we'll talk."
"Oppa!"
In the months she had lived with him, Seo-ah had never once seen him throw out words carelessly. A man like Lee Dong-ha spilling his sentences this badly out of order had to have a reason.
"Se-yeon and our marriage aren't what matter right now. And the airport? Why are you dodging like this today? I asked you whether you know why my father died. That's what I want to know!"
Seo-ah could believe none of it — not the autopsy findings that called it a fall, not the police insisting on suicide. Who could know what it felt like, walking through that dark reality unable to predict even a single step ahead?
Even in the midst of it, her husband and his family treated her like a stranger — no, like people who could not even manage the decency of strangers — coldly ignoring her, pretending not to see her at all.
"Say what you want about us not being a real husband and wife — but isn't this going too far? He's your father-in-law. How can you just—"
"I'm not fine with it either. Don't push me."
"Fine. Then tell me everything before you go."
Seo-ah spread her arms wide and planted herself in the doorway of the room. Dong-ha's gaze fell on her unyielding face, on a woman who clearly had no intention of stepping aside.
Bloodshot eyes, lips chapped and cracked — and even now, even in this moment, Jin Seo-ah remained dazzlingly beautiful. And yet even with such a woman for a wife, Dong-ha's eyes stayed cold and sharp. All he did was rake a hand through his neatly combed hair and knit his brow, as if he only wanted to be free of this tiresome situation.
"I'm late. I'm going."
The instant he looked back down at his wrist, Seo-ah snatched the watch off it and flung it away.
"Jin Seo-ah!"
"I have to know! I have to hear it today! What it is you know, and why on earth you can't bring yourself to say it!"
At the rising pitch of her voice, Dong-ha squeezed his eyes shut.
He had always meant to tell her everything, in the end. Not a single day had passed in comfort since the day he married her. But right now, the time he had was far too short to give her the whole, honest answer.
"..."
The longer his deliberating silence stretched, the more desperate the look in Seo-ah's eyes became. At last, sensing he could not simply walk away without saying anything, he opened his mouth.
"...Someone deliberately leaked the secrets of your father's company. Won Electric's."
"...What?"
What emerged after that long pause was not something Seo-ah could take in at once. But Dong-ha did not wait for her to understand. He looked like a man desperate to end this exhausting argument a moment sooner and escape his wife.
"And then, on the day of your father's accident, our company launched the exact same—"
His words, tumbling out faster and faster, caught all at once. As if the truth passing through his own lips was something even he could not quite believe.
"Oppa?"
At the sound of her voice, he swallowed dryly, and his lips began to move again as if to start over.
"...The same product. We released it. That's why Taeyu Motors, our partner, terminated its contract with Won Electric — citing the leaked trade secrets as their reason."
It was one unthinkable thing after another.
"What happened?"
"Exactly what I just said."
"Is that supposed to make sense? Why would your company build the same product Won Electric makes? Why?!"
"..."
"D-don't tell me your company did it on purpose? You say the secrets were leaked, that that's why Won Electric lost the contract—"
Dong-ha did not rush to confirm it. Even for him, it was something he could hardly be certain of.
"Answer me! I asked you a question!"
Under her relentless pressing, Dong-ha finally lifted his head with the air of a man resigned, and looked at her.
"Judging by the circumstances, it's possible. But still—"
In that instant, a memory surfaced in Seo-ah's mind. The day her father-in-law's company had come to Won Electric — drowning in financial trouble — with a sudden offer of investment.
An offer with their marriage as the condition.
"Ha! Don't tell me you married me just to use the investment as an excuse? So that was your goal all along? Steal my father's company's secrets and pull whatever scheme you wanted?!"
He seemed to have anticipated her reaction to some degree; even faced with her icy fury, Dong-ha struggled to keep his composure.
"It'll sound like an excuse, but I never knew our side was investing in Won Electric. One day my father suddenly brought you up, and I simply agreed to the marriage. That's all."
Seo-ah was beside herself.
It hadn't been a marriage born of a love that burned to live or die together — but he had still been the man she'd shared six months with. After all that time, time in which even a thin affection might have grown, his excuses were nothing but cold.
"We'll talk when I'm back."
Dong-ha brushed past her and walked out of the room without another word.
"Where do you think you're going!"
As his quick steps took him to the second-floor staircase, Seo-ah's heart raced to keep up.
"No. You talk now."
When she caught his arm and he turned back, his expression was flat, indifferent — but the voice that left his lips, low and level, was trembling in a way that made no sense.
"Ki-young... leaves today. I'm only seeing him off. I'll come straight back."
That name again.
The fingertips clutching the front of Dong-ha's jacket were shaking.
Kim Ki-young and Lee Dong-ha were unusually close, affectionate with each other in a way that bordered on the strange. But even so — with so much left to untangle about her father-in-law's death — why was that name surfacing yet again? Her fury was beyond containing.
"You've got the order all wrong. Even now, Kim Ki-young comes first for you? Is his name really so precious to you? Your family ruined my father's company, and your father died because of it!"
Dong-ha pushed her enraged hands away once more, and at last seized the front door handle without so much as a backward glance.
"I'll be back. When I get home, I'll tell you everything. I mean it."
The man who had never once smiled at Seo-ah smiled then — as if sensing it was the end. The first time, and the last.
"Oppa — Dong-ha! Hey! Lee Dong-ha!"
And then.
Two hours after Lee Dong-ha walked out of the house, leaving Seo-ah's calls behind him, he was killed in a car accident.
She was so very young — just twenty-six years old.
The last week of a bleak February. A university hospital funeral hall in Pyeonghan City, Gyeonggi Province.
A man's shout shattered, all at once, the heavy silence inside the memorial room of Hall 5.
"Team Leader! Director Kang Tae-kyung!"
At that urgent cry, the air in the memorial room stirred at once into commotion. But the man leaving the room paid the shrill calling no mind and only quickened his pace.