The Things He Overheard

To be honest, even though he was thin, Seha’s tall frame and a face that would draw admiration anywhere certainly helped give him a bright, pleasant image.

People shouldn’t be judged by their looks, of course.

But it was impossible to say appearance had no influence at all.

Still, the vague fondness Donghyeon felt right now wasn’t simply because Seha was good-looking.

More than that, the way Seha spoke, the attitude he carried, had a strangely magnetic quality that drew people in.

Of course, it was far too early to say such things about someone he’d only met for two days.

Donghyeon needed to observe him longer.

From Donghyeon’s perspective, he also had to keep in mind the possibility that Jin Seha really was a scammer, someone who had colluded with a shaman to worm his way into this house.

He couldn’t judge based on vague impressions or feelings alone.

After all, being able to make a good first impression also meant it was easier to slip into people’s hearts and deceive them.

“Ha….”

How had he ended up a shrimp caught between the Chairwoman and the young master, getting crushed from both sides.

Donghyeon let out a small sigh.

Life as an employee was always exhausting.

Jeongyun took short naps several times a day.

He had no choice.

Even going about daily life made his body heavy and exhausted so easily that if he didn’t sleep in between, he would fall seriously ill.

Working like ordinary people was out of the question.

It wasn’t as if Jeongyun had been content to simply lounge around resting.

People who didn’t know any better might envy him, calling him a rich, idle dreamer.

But that kind of life was only enviable if you were healthy.

When you were constantly shuttling back and forth to the hospital like this, you were nothing more than a patient.

So Jeongyun had struggled desperately to do something.

He went to school despite his grandmother’s objections.

He tried just as desperately to learn some kind of work.

It just never went the way he wanted.

He drifted for a while too.

He drank, ran around with unsavory people.

That life wasn’t enjoyable either, but he wanted to do anything other than lie around uselessly.

Even that proved difficult.

Drinking and neglecting his health made his condition deteriorate faster, until he eventually collapsed coughing up blood.

His grandmother fainted from the shock and ended up hospitalized herself.

After that, Jeongyun abandoned all futile resistance and devoted himself solely to recovering his health.

It was only natural that his self-reproach deepened.

The added self-loathing of being born into an environment others would envy, yet living such a pathetic life, weighed on him every day.

Those days dragged on endlessly.

“What the….”

After waking from yet another short nap and stepping out of his room, Jeongyun stopped when he heard an unfamiliar voice near the living room.

Just awake and still groggy, he tensed for a moment.

But he soon realized the voice belonged to Seha.

It sounded like he was on the phone in the kitchen.

If he was going to make a call, he should’ve done it quietly in his room.

Annoyed, Jeongyun was about to step forward and snap at him when a gentle voice reached his ears.

“Yeah, Sejin.

Of course your brother’s fine.

It’s really good here.

Seriously.”

It was a voice warm and soft, like spring sunlight.

Jeongyun frowned.

For someone who had wormed his way into another person’s home to scam them over their life, hearing such tenderness in his voice was unsettling.

And yet, for some reason, Jeongyun couldn’t step out right away.

That soft voice kept drifting through his ears.

“Of course.

The owner’s a good person, and they’ve been really considerate after hearing my situation.

I don’t even have much to do, and the room I’m staying in is amazing.”

The way he kept saying hyung made it clear he was talking to his younger sibling.

And yet, at least eighty percent of what he was saying was a lie.

Anyone could tell he was just saying things to keep his sibling from worrying.

Jeongyun suddenly remembered that Jin Seha was an orphan raising his younger sibling.

He let out a scoff.

So he played the good older brother, at least.

Then again, humans were like that.

Even people who committed crimes would dote on their own families.

There were plenty of criminals who were gentle to their loved ones while doing unforgivable things to others.

Someone who cherished their own family so deeply, yet exploited another family’s desperation, was even more despicable.

“It’s really true.

I’m comfortable here.

I don’t have to work all night anymore, and starting next month I even get one day off a week.

I won’t be doing night driving jobs anymore.

I mean it.”

Jeongyun had no interest in knowing that Seha used to work night driving jobs, or that he hadn’t even been able to rest one day a week.

A hard life didn’t excuse anything.

“Yeah, okay.

Don’t worry about me, just make sure you eat properly.

If anything happens, call me right away, okay.

Don’t just eat whatever.

Make sure you eat breakfast.”

Only after repeating eat properly several times did Seha finally end the call.

In the quiet that followed, a long sigh drifted through the space.

For some reason, the weight mixed into that sigh felt like the weariness of life itself.

Uncomfortable with that unfamiliar sensation, Jeongyun finally moved again and spoke in a cold voice.

“I told you not to draw attention.”

“Ah, young mas—!”

“You’ve got nerve making noise out here.

And I told you not to call me ‘young master.’”

Startled by Jeongyun’s sudden appearance, Seha looked surprised for a moment before quickly composing himself.

“I’m sorry.

I was cleaning the kitchen when my sibling called….”

“…Cleaning the kitchen?”

He’d expected Seha to panic more.

Instead, he calmed down too quickly.

Feeling oddly awkward, Jeongyun asked again for no reason.

Seha lifted the cleaning cloth in his hand slightly as he answered.

“Yes.

Since it’ll be my responsibility anyway, I thought I’d start early.

If I’m going to cook, I should get used to the kitchen layout quickly too….”

“…….”

“The kitchen’s really big….”

Seha smiled sheepishly.

Jeongyun probably wasn’t curious, and Seha didn’t particularly want to say it either.

It was a desperate attempt to ease the awkwardness somehow.

That was what social life was like.

You had to smile even when you didn’t want to.

You had to speak even when you had nothing to say.

Seha was very good at that.

Or rather, he’d had no choice but to be.

From Jeongyun’s perspective, it was nonsense.

That was how it sounded.

And yet, Seha’s comment about the kitchen being big lingered strangely in his ears.

Perhaps because it was something unfamiliar.

Of course, Jeongyun was aware that he lived in better conditions than most people.

But he’d never thought about whether the kitchen was big or small.

In Jeongyun’s world, this house was ordinary—if anything, smaller than the main house or other family residences.

“…Stop saying useless things.”

Jeongyun brushed aside the thoughts.

No matter how harsh Seha’s circumstances were, they couldn’t excuse him.

Seha, apparently having no intention of making excuses, obediently lowered his head.

“Yes.

Sorry for being noisy.”

“I’ll be in the living room, so get out of my sight.”

“Yes!”

Despite Jeongyun’s cold words, Seha didn’t even frown.

He answered briskly, still holding the cleaning cloth, and hurried out of the kitchen.

Jeongyun didn’t know what Seha planned to do with that cloth, but he didn’t care.

As long as that irritating cult freak disappeared from his sight, that was enough.

Though he wasn’t even thirsty, Jeongyun poured himself a glass of water from the purifier.

Only after Seha’s presence had completely vanished did he turn to look down the hallway where he’d disappeared.

The image of Jin Seha’s face—so unbothered even after being told to get lost—lingered like an afterimage.

He’d seen countless people pull pathetic stunts trying to gain something from him.

People who fawned shamelessly.

People who tried to wring sympathy from him when his body and mind were weak.

People who performed poverty, misery, tragic lives in detail.

He was already used to it.

So Jeongyun brushed aside the lingering impression of Seha without much thought.

A devoted older brother sacrificing everything for his sibling, overcoming hardship with a bright smile.

Unfortunately, it was a worn-out script to Jeongyun.

For all he knew, the phone call he’d just overheard might have been part of Seha’s plan.

As if.

Jeongyun set the untouched glass of water down and headed to the living room.

He didn’t know how that shaman had deceived his grandmother, but he would never fall for it.

Never.

A massive crash sent a violent shock through the car.

The child, barely four years old, had no idea what was happening.

He blinked once, and the world was spinning.

A car from the opposite direction had crossed the center line and slammed into the vehicle he was riding in.

The child wouldn’t learn until more than ten years later that the other driver had been drunk.

What he remembered instead was the arms that had pulled him close.

They held him so tightly that even as the world spun before his eyes, he’d wondered why his mother was hugging him so painfully.

The memory of the grip that didn’t loosen even after the noise faded.

Of blood soaking his entire body.

Of his mother whispering that everything would be okay, her voice growing fainter until it disappeared altogether.

He remembered those things.

That his mother, worried about her child, hadn’t been able to close her eyes even in death.

That until the ambulance arrived, the child had been forced to stare at his mother’s wide-open eyes, soaked in blood.

The people who consumed the tragedy of a chaebol family losing their beloved son and daughter-in-law in a car accident as gossip would never know.