F32

Yeonho’s large eyes were filled with suspicion as he stared at Junyoung. Faced with a completely unexpected question, Junyoung scrambled for an excuse, his voice flustered.

“You couldn’t find your pills, so I gave you the ones I brought today. But… you already finished the ones I sent by courier? I sent quite a lot.”

Yeonho didn’t respond. He just smiled faintly, a knowing and enigmatic smile. At that moment, a loud cracking noise came from the ceiling, as if it were splitting in half. Right now, the only person in the world who could stop Siwoo from going on a rampage was him.

Yeonho thought it was absurd that breaking someone else’s resort was a justified reaction to missing an appointment, but regardless, he was the one at fault, so he hurriedly stepped out of the room. Shaking off Junyoung, who tried to grab his arm, he said,

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

“Where are you going?”

“Upstairs. I’m not sleeping in this room tonight, so don’t worry about it.”

“No, wait! Don’t go! Yeonho-ah!”

“What!”

Yeonho rarely raised his voice or got angry, but now he couldn’t hold it back any longer and shouted. Then he turned around and gave Junyoung a sharp warning.

“Don’t interfere with where I sleep. I’m an adult now. Even kindergarteners go to camp without their parents following them. Is it not enough that you’ve followed me all the way here? Now you want to manage where I sleep and when I go to bed too? Just back off already!”

Normally, he wouldn’t have gotten this upset. But right now, Yeonho was certain that Junyoung had drugged him tonight just to stop him from sleeping in another room. He believed it had been out of overprotectiveness, but he couldn’t suppress the fury that boiled up inside him.

He would unleash that anger properly tomorrow. He planned to wrap his brother up in a blanket and kick him senseless. But right now, he had to calm down the handsome killer who was currently tearing apart the room above his head.

“Alright, Yeonho-ah. But that guy’s dangerous. You don’t know what he might do.”

“Of course he’s dangerous when he’s that angry! I’m the one who made him angry, so I’ll deal with it!”

Junyoung, now desperate, clung to Yeonho’s leg as he put on his shoes, shouting.

“I figured it out! Who that bastard really is. What he’s done.”

Yeonho suddenly froze and looked down at Junyoung. Junyoung’s lips were trembling with fear.

“…Who is he?”

Yeonho asked in a low voice. Now that this moment was upon him, he felt afraid. The reason he’d been looking forward to spending the night with Siwoo was because he thought he’d finally hear something sad and romantic like “We were in love. Why don’t you remember me?”

But judging from Junyoung’s expression, there was no chance of that happening. Just how much had he misunderstood? How much had he foolishly hoped? He wanted to know, but at the same time, he didn’t.

Junyoung finally opened his mouth.

“Kim Yeonho.”

“Kim Yeonho? That Kim Yeonho?”

Joo Yeonho had only heard that name once in his life. For five years, no one around him had ever brought up the name Kim Yeonho, but Yeonho had never forgotten it. Of course he hadn’t.

“…The college student who killed our eldest brother at this ski resort.”

The person who shared his name had killed his oldest brother.

It had clearly been an accident, but that didn’t change the fact that the cause of death was due to that person’s negligence. As the conversations he’d had with Siwoo came rushing back, the pieces finally began to fall into place.

“Have we met before?”

“I changed my name. Until a few years ago, that wasn’t the name I used.”

“Did you, by any chance, kill someone? Or something close to that?”

Doing the math, the perpetrator’s age lined up, twenty-six now. He couldn’t remember clearly, but he had been snowboarding on the same slope where his oldest brother died. So he must have encountered that person back then.

Yeonho went completely still, the world falling into silence. The memories of those three chaotic days with Siwoo tangled and overloaded in his mind. Some things finally made sense. Others became even more confusing. Unable to support himself, he sank to the floor by the entrance.

“Here. Look.”

Junyoung held out a screenshot his friend had shared with him. It was a post written three years ago.

The perpetrator of the death at ○Resort is the son of Nam○ Construction (formerly Kang○ Construction).
When the Kang○ Construction heir was in college, he got drunk, went snowboarding on an advanced slope, and killed someone.
Hired a bunch of lawyers, erased the drunk driving charge, and got his sentence massively reduced by calling it involuntary manslaughter.
Got probation, changed his name, and went overseas.
His original name was Kim○○, but he changed it to Kim○○.
After the accident, Kang○ Construction was absorbed into Nam○, and they changed the company name too.

From what Yeonho remembered, the perpetrator had admitted to drinking and snowboarding. But immediately after the accident, both the breathalyzer and blood test results had come back with a blood alcohol level of 0.000%.

Yeonho had been too young at the time to pay attention to corporate mergers and acquisitions, so he had never connected Kim Yeonho to Namyeon Construction. His mother probably knew but didn’t care. The remodeling contractor for the resort would’ve been selected through competitive bidding, and she was someone who strictly separated business from emotion.

Soon, Junyoung showed Yeonho the group chat where his friends had been sending information about Siwoo. Holding the phone with both hands, Yeonho read each line carefully.

He was rich and good-looking, so he was famous even in the next town.
But after the incident, people said the murderer bought his way into probation.

He couldn’t go back to school, so he changed his name and went abroad.
Used the name “Siwoo” written in English and transferred into an architectural engineering program. Did well academically.

Of course, among the Korean community, it was widely known that he killed someone and covered it up.
But after going to the US, he acted totally wild.

Ironically, he made lots of friends and had a good school life.
He’s notorious for being messy as hell in his private life, lol.

Called the emperor of the night, lol. Doesn’t care if it’s men or women.
Yeah, nobody in that area doesn’t know him.

He lived in a big house in the States.
Word among adults was that his uncle raised him like a guard dog.
His dad would fly over to beat him up every so often, then got him through college and said, “Looks like he’s a person now,” and told him to come back to Korea.

Lastly, Junyoung had asked his friends this question: He definitely had work done, right? His eyes, nose, jaw, forehead, all touched up.

Nah, he looked the same when he started high school.

Then did he get it done in middle school?

Crude and immature as ever, Junyoung snatched his phone back from Yeonho’s hands and asked with feigned warmth and maturity, like a caring older brother.

“Nothing weird happened while you were here? He didn’t threaten you or try to hurt you, right? That stuff about coming for work, that’s gotta be a lie. Didn’t he just approach you on purpose?”

A lot of weird things had happened. And he had constantly threatened him. But Yeonho denied everything he’d been through.

“No, nothing like that. If anything, he was too good to me. That’s why I got the wrong idea.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all that bastard’s fault. We should tell the police–”

“No.”

Yeonho cut him off firmly. Then, in a low but threatening tone, he warned Junyoung.

“Don’t report it and blow things up. Mom and Dad would just get worried. I’ll take care of it myself. Let’s not make this mess any bigger.”

“Y-yeah. I think that’s a good idea too. I’ll handle it, so don’t worry.”

Junyoung, terrified that going to the police might expose his own crimes, looked visibly relieved as he patted Yeonho’s shoulder. But Yeonho wasn’t done. He shot down Junyoung’s words coldly, as if to say, Don’t get ahead of yourself.

“What do you mean you’ll handle it? This has nothing to do with you.”

“That bastard killed our brother. How does it have nothing to do with me?”

“You weren’t even in Korea when it happened. I was the one there at the scene. So what does any of this have to do with you? It’s clear Kim Siwoo’s after me. So I’ll handle it.”

Yeonho wasn’t saying this out of concern that Junyoung might get caught up in something dangerous. Not entirely, at least. That wasn’t his main reason. The bigger reason, shameful and stupid as it was, was that he was afraid Junyoung would provoke Siwoo.

Yeonho had thought that finding out who Siwoo really was would bring some kind of closure. But it didn’t. It just made his chest feel like it was collapsing.

He couldn’t remember anything from the day of the accident, but the adults had told him something: based on his condition at the time, it was likely that he’d had a confrontation with them just before the crash.

The CCTV hadn’t recorded during that exact window, so the full picture was unclear. But since Kim Yeonho had confessed, it was concluded that Joo Yeonho wasn’t involved in the collision that led to his brother’s death.

Still, Yeonho couldn’t shake the thought that he might have indirectly influenced the incident. Otherwise, there would be no reason for him to have been so badly injured. That was why he’d been haunted by that day ever since.

He became a criminal overnight, unable to show his face at school. Even now, years later, he still hadn’t shaken off the label of murderer. And hearing that he’d been raised like a dog by his uncle at home, Yeonho thought maybe – just maybe – it made sense for Siwoo to resent him. To hate someone like him who appeared to be living a peaceful life. Maybe his own ruined life made him bitter and resentful.

Was tonight supposed to be the night he came to destroy me? And when Junyoung appeared and messed up his plan, did he get angry?

Yeonho could understand it. That he chose the place where Seong Junhee died to carry out his revenge. That he was so furious now, he was tearing through the ceiling above.

Shaking uncontrollably, Yeonho packed his suitcase. But he wasn’t trembling out of fear of being punished by Siwoo. The pain he felt now came from something else entirely.

It came from the realization that, to Siwoo, he was nothing more or less than “the one I want to ruin.”

He’d only been kind because it suited his goal. And Yeonho had fallen for it, foolishly sweetening everything into a fantasy.

He shuddered as the memory of climaxing in Siwoo’s arms the night before came rushing back.

“How much must he have hated it…”

The peace, the joy, the desire, the hope he’d felt while being with him, all of it now felt shameful and pathetic. The thought that he had wanted to have sex with the man who killed his brother filled him with self-loathing.

And yet, he still didn’t feel any guilt toward his oldest brother. That was the hardest thing of all for Yeonho to bear.