Chapter 08

Delusional Cove

A few hours earlier, Sa-heon had been sitting on the living room sofa, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

“This really doesn’t feel familiar…”

Even though this was supposedly the place where he’d lived, everything felt strange and unfamiliar, as if he’d come to someone else’s home.

I wonder if I’ll even be able to sleep here. At this rate, I might as well stay up all night.

Then he suddenly remembered the phone he’d put in his pocket.

Sa-heon took it out and searched through it, wondering if there might be something that could help him recover the memories he’d lost. But the messages were surprisingly clean, as though he had been the type to delete them immediately, and there was nothing particularly noteworthy in his contacts either.

The photo album was just as painfully boring.

There were only a few screenshots he’d occasionally taken of company-related articles.

“Hmm…”

As Sa-heon’s finger lazily scrolled down the screen, it stopped on one particular photograph.

Beneath a banner emblazoned with large golden letters reading Hyun-gang Group 71st Anniversary Ceremony was a group photograph of dozens of people smiling broadly at the camera.

Standing in the center was his father, Chairman Lee Kang-moon. Immediately to his right stood Sa-heon in a blue tie, while several people who appeared to be executives stood beside him in neat rows.

Sa-heon’s gaze passed over the unfamiliar faces before stopping on one he recognized.

At the edge of the very back row.

Ji-an stood there in an ivory blouse and navy slacks, her hair neatly tied back, wearing a slightly awkward smile.

Sa-heon spread his fingers across the screen and enlarged the photograph. Ji-an’s small, delicate face filled the space between his fingertips.

He had left this photograph in an album that didn’t contain even a single ordinary picture of scenery.

For some reason, Sa-heon had the feeling that the version of himself from before losing his memories must have stared at this photograph for quite a long time.

“Interesting.”

After murmuring quietly, Sa-heon tapped one of the recorded files in his call history.

“It’s quite late, but you’re certainly full of energy, Vice President.”

It was a recording of the call made on the day of the accident. Hearing his own voice felt strangely unfamiliar, almost as though it belonged to someone else.

—You bastard! What the hell are you plotting right now?! And what the hell are all these documents?!

“Ah, did you receive the present I sent you?”

—Present, my ass! How dare you try to frame me with this kind of shoddy evidence?!

The recording continued with raised voices and desperate protests, followed by mockery and arguments. It even captured the frantic moments when they were trying to stop the car by any means possible.

When the call finally ended, Sa-heon’s lips curved into a crooked smile.

I more or less get it now.

“Hmm…”

After humming softly and falling into thought for a moment, Sa-heon searched his contacts for Lee Jae-kwon and pressed the call button.

After a short ringing tone, Lee Jae-kwon answered. Sa-heon greeted him casually.

“Hello, Brother.”

……………So, I heard you’ve been discharged.

“I happen to be pretty hard to kill.”

A brief silence followed from the other end of the phone.

Sa-heon could almost hear the gears turning in his head.

—I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt.

“Thank you for worrying about me.”

“But, Brother…”

Sa-heon gave a quiet laugh before continuing.

“When you’ve stood on the brink of death and come back, all sorts of thoughts cross your mind.”

…What kind of thoughts?

“Nothing in particular. I just felt… unsettled. I thought that if I died, there probably wouldn’t be anyone who would genuinely cry for me. It made me wonder what kind of life I’d been living all this time. It felt so empty and pointless.”

Meanwhile, Lee Jae-kwon had been lying in bed when Sa-heon’s call suddenly jolted him fully awake. He paced anxiously around his bedroom without answering too quickly, remaining silent.

Hearing Lee Sa-heon’s suspiciously gentle voice, he couldn’t help wondering what kind of scheme the bastard was plotting this time to screw him over.

Who was Lee Sa-heon, after all?

Wasn’t he the absolute craziest of the crazy bastards who had crippled his second younger brother’s legs just to snatch away a one-trillion-won contract?

He was utterly selfish and completely devoid of compassion. He was also constantly waiting for an opportunity to get rid of both Jae-seong and himself.

“I’m sorry you came to think that way, Sa-heon. You have me and Jae-seong, and Father is still here. Don’t you have a family who would genuinely grieve for you?”

When they had been brought into the Hyun-gang estate under their father’s direction, Lee Sa-heon had been only an elementary school student.

The youngest young master of a wealthy family.

His expensive clothes, pressed to perfection, his impeccable table manners, even the way he spoke…

Standing in front of that mere child, Jae-kwon, who was already a high school student, had felt like a lowborn commoner.

Perhaps it was because he had been born out of wedlock and had grown up under people’s pointing fingers, whispered about as a stain on his father’s reputation. Compared to him, legitimate son Sa-heon seemed to possess an almost innate dignity.

Jae-kwon knew better than anyone that what he was feeling was nothing more than his own ugly inferiority complex.

Honestly, at that age, shouldn’t any normal child have followed newly arrived brothers around calling them “Big Brother,” no matter how they had entered the family?

That’s why he’d thought beating him a few times would be enough to establish the hierarchy.

But Lee Sa-heon had been different from an early age.

No matter how hard Jae-kwon and Jae-seong beat him in an attempt to break his spirit, the murderous look in his eyes only grew more vicious with every passing day.

It was only after Jae-kwon tried applying Lee Sa-heon to the “Sociopath Self-Diagnosis” checklist he’d once seen on television—and found that most of the symptoms matched—that he finally came to understand what kind of bastard he was dealing with.

“After the accident, Father was very worried about you.”

These days, after discovering that Lee Sa-heon had finally uncovered his secret slush funds and had a blade pressed right against his throat, Lee Jae-kwon had been unable to sleep properly at night.

Even when he managed to fall asleep, he’d suddenly wake up drenched in cold sweat, instinctively reaching for the back of his neck as though checking whether his head was still attached.

That was why he’d wanted to warn him.

Of course, there had also been the small matter of getting revenge on Jae-seong.

The accident had ended up being far more serious than he’d originally planned, but since things had gone this far, he’d almost wished the bastard had simply died.

That bastard who would probably crawl out of a pit of fire itself.

After a brief silence, Sa-heon spoke.

There was loneliness in his voice over the phone.

—You said something during our last call, Brother.

“……I did.”

—You said that even though we’re half-brothers, we’d been brothers for more than twenty years.

“It took me until now to understand what you meant by that.”

It was obviously an act.

Lee Sa-heon was frighteningly good at lying without even blinking.

Lee Jae-kwon remembered the psychopathy checklist he’d once seen.

First: an absence of guilt or remorse.

—You said there was nothing for me to gain by trying to bring you down, didn’t you?

“Yes.”

—When the car overturned and I thought I was going to die without being able to do anything, I finally understood.

Checklist item two: a strong tendency to manipulate others through an attractive appearance and eloquent speech.

Lee Jae-kwon remained silent as the questions ran through his mind.

—The only people who would stay until the very end at my funeral would probably be my two brothers… In the end, family are the only people who remain by your side. It made me wonder why I’d been so hostile toward you all this time.

I’m not falling for it anymore.

How many times had he been fooled by that bastard’s silver tongue?

People didn’t change.

That was what Jae-kwon thought, but Sa-heon let out a bitter laugh through the phone.

—I really almost died.

“……”

—I’m talking to you now, laughing and perfectly healthy, but the situation was truly serious. They said it was nothing short of a miracle that I survived without suffering major injuries.

But even so.

If there was ever one thing that could make a person change…

—Honestly, I was scared.

It would be someone who had actually stood at the threshold of death.

If there was one thing that was truly equal for everyone, it was that every person had only one life.

—In that brief moment, I realized something. You hated me enough to want me dead. That’s how far it had gone. And I started wondering… what exactly do we gain by constantly attacking each other like this? Hyun-gang is already a massive corporation. If the three of us brothers joined forces, couldn’t we make the company even greater?

No matter how extraordinary Lee Sa-heon was, he still had only one life.

After remaining silent for a moment, Lee Jae-kwon finally spoke.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you. If the three of us brothers join forces, isn’t there anything we can’t accomplish?”

Then a hollow laugh came from the other end of the phone.

—Exactly. I only realized that now. I suppose I have you to thank for teaching me that lesson, Brother.

The lingering sense of unease still wouldn’t disappear, but Jae-kwon couldn’t help letting out a derisive snort.

What an idiot.

So even you become helpless in the face of death.

—That’s why, Brother…

“Go ahead.”

—I think I should hand over the original copies of the materials I have. For the sake of mutual trust.

Lee Jae-kwon fell silent again.

As expected, he couldn’t bring himself to trust Sa-heon so easily.

—But I have a favor to ask as well.

“What is it?”

—Sell one of the shares you hold in one of the affiliates and give me the money in cash. I should at least receive that much in return, shouldn’t I?

In the end, money is what matters to you too.

Lee Jae-kwon gave a small chuckle before answering.

“I’ll think about it. For now, I’ll send Manager Kim to your house, so expect him.”

Lee Jae-kwon hung up and immediately summoned Manager Kim.

At any rate, it seemed that, for tonight at least, he would finally be able to sleep peacefully.

“Haha.”

As soon as the call ended, Sa-heon covered his forehead with one hand and laughed aloud.

Materials?

He didn’t even remember what those materials were. He had only made a rough guess based on the contents of the recorded call he’d listened to earlier.

It was obvious enough without even seeing them.

Probably evidence of the slush funds that had been foolishly gathered.

Naturally, he had no intention of handing anything over.

Even if such materials existed, he couldn’t even remember where they were.

Apparently, his acting had been convincing enough, because Lee Jae-kwon sent his secretary over in less than fifteen minutes.

Sa-heon promptly reported the secretary who entered his house for trespassing.

Upon hearing the news, Chief Secretary Choi Kang-hoon appeared with a lawyer, his face drained of color, and hurried to resolve the situation.

And Sa-heon called Ji-an.