Finally, Taeyun shouted.

Ina could see just how furious he was.

His face was flushed with rage, and his clenched fist trembled violently. Yet she did not flinch. Instead, she deliberately lifted one corner of her mouth and gave him a faint, mocking smile. He would see it.

“So you came all the way here. I must say, it’s rather exhausting.”

“Ha.”

When he heard the word ‘exhausting’, a hollow laugh escaped Taeyun’s lips.

Despite his anger, he took in her appearance.

She looked worn out — pitifully so.

Her face was drained of color. The skin on her fingertips was so cracked that blood had seeped through them. Her hand, which was resting on the table, looked unbearably dry, too.

“However, there was no husband listed in the family registry.”

Youngmin reported this as he handed over the background documents.

A name change? A child? And a husband. There wasn’t even a trace of divorce. Of course not. There had never been a marriage to begin with.

“You said there’s another man.”

“Yes. You saw the child.”

Ina answered shamelessly.

At her immediate reply, Taeyun let out a disbelieving chuckle.

“So you’ve become quite good at lying. There’s no husband in your registry.”

His eyes sharpened.

Under his piercing gaze, Ina’s lips tightened. She had anticipated this from the moment he arrived, but it appeared that he had already investigated everything beforehand.

“We dated briefly and broke up. I had the child on my own.”

She added the explanation as though it meant nothing.

“I wonder what kind of b*stard the father is.”

Guilty people are easily startled.

When he made that casual remark, her heart sank sharply.

For a moment, panic flashed through her. Quickly composing her expression, she bit down on the tender flesh inside her cheek.

“Why? Is she’s mine?”

Taeyun did not miss a single change in her expression.

“As if that’s possible.”

Ina shot back, her face draining of color.

“You already looked into everything about me. You know how old Dahyeon is.”

She was only four years old.

She had been born more than a year after Ina disappeared without trace.

The moment he heard the child’s age, any faint hope he had harbored that she might be his shattered instantly, despite it being irrational.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t misunderstand. And it’s been years. What does any of it matter now? It’s all in the past.”

Taeyun was momentarily speechless at the way she frowned, as though she found the entire situation tiresome and distasteful.

She gathered her loose hair and tied it back.

A quiet sigh escaped his lips.

She was pretending to be unaffected, but he could tell she was shaken.

He knew Yoon Ina well enough to read her from the slightest shift in her breathing or a single flicker in her eyes.

A bitter smile curved across Taeyun’s face.

“I suppose all your questions have been answered now. Please see yourself out.”

She didn’t want to look at him for even a second longer.

She was afraid he might see through her.

She was afraid he might notice how uneasy she was.

Desperate to leave, Ina rose quickly from her seat.

But in an instant, he stepped forward and seized her slender wrist.

“Wh-what are you doing?!”

His grip was too tight. A sharp pain shot through her wrist, causing her to frown with discomfort.

His fierce gaze bored into her.

Under that intense, breath-stealing stare, her heart began to pound wildly as though it were malfunctioning.

“A misunderstanding? This is my misunderstanding? Is that it?”

He enunciated each word, stressing every syllable.

“Yes. A misunderstanding. I forgot you a long time ago. Wouldn’t anyone hate it if someone suddenly showed up like this? It’s disturbing.”

She deliberately hurled the cruel words at him.

“Let go.”

She tried to break free, but his grip only tightened further.

Her face crumpled further as he glared at her with murderous intensity.

“Don’t wrap this up with pathetic excuses like that. Come back with something more convincing.”

A few empty words could never sum up the past five years.

Until the day she disappeared, they had whispered their love to each other every day. They had shared their hearts without reservation.

Nothing about this made sense.

It was as though she were hiding something.

“The reason you ran. Why you suddenly vanished. Why you’ve been hiding all this time.”

His neck muscles strained as he fought to keep his anger in check.

Seeing him like that threatened to make her cry.

Ina took a deep breath and looked him directly in the eye.

He had never looked at her like this before.

His gaze had always been full of love — tender and devoted.

The distance between then and now made her heart ache.

“You’re going to tell me everything. Not a single thing left out.”

“Ah…!”

Taeyun released her wrist roughly.

After glaring at her with a murderous look in his eyes, he turned and walked straight out of the restaurant.

Silence fell in his wake.

“Ha…”

Ina stared blankly at the doorway through which he had left, then slowly slumped to the floor.

The tears she had been holding back finally slid down her pale cheeks.

***

Taeyun sat at the bar, drinking whisky one glass after another without pause.

The bar was owned by Hyeseong, a junior whom Taeyun was particularly close to.

Hyeseong ran a bar in the bustling Gangnam district, and he was the only person who knew about Taeyun and Ina’s past.

“Slow down. You’ll end up being carried out if you keep drinking like that.”

Despite Hyeseong’s concerns, Taeyun paid no attention and reached for the bottle again.

As the group’s heir, he was perpetually busy. It was rare for them to meet at all, let alone under these circumstances.

Whenever the pressure became too much, he would come here to drink.

There was only one reason he put himself through this.

Knowing this, Hyeseong found it impossible to stop him completely.

Alcohol seemed to be his only escape.

“Brother”

He was drinking far more recklessly than usual tonight.

Noticing the concern on his face, Hyeseong slid into the seat next to him and gently pushed the bottle out of his reach.

“That’s enough.”

“Give it back.”

“This is already your second bottle.”

“Then why am I still completely sober?”

“What happened? Is it because of Ina?”

Taeyun remained silent, raising the glass in front of him. Despite drinking strong liquor, there was no sign of him being drunk.

Hyeseong watched him as he poured himself a drink and took a small sip.

“It’s already been five years. You’ve done more than enough.”

“……”

Taeyun said nothing.

After Ina’s sudden disappearance, he had spent years barely functioning. It hadn’t even been that long since he started pretending to function normally again.

He had thought that even if everything inside him had festered and rotted, he was at least a little better now.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

“Let her go. It’s time.”

Upon hearing Hyeseong’s words, Taeyun scoffed faintly.

Since she had left so abruptly, he had assumed that she must be doing well.

But she wasn’t.

He could still vividly picture her in that small, dilapidated restaurant, looking exhausted.

And a child.

The existence of that child — something he had never imagined — stirred up his anger all over again.

With a bitter smile, Taeyun finished his drink.

“Ha…”

No matter how much he drank, his mind only grew clearer.

‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t misunderstand. It’s been years. What does any of it matter now? It’s all in the past.’

Her voice, looking him straight in the eye as she almost mocked him, echoed in his head.

“A misunderstanding…”

Hyeseong blinked in confusion when Taeyun suddenly burst out laughing.

Muttering something unintelligible, he let out a hollow chuckle.

“I almost wish it were.”

“What are you even talking about?”

After not seeing each other for years, she told him not to misunderstand.

How many times had he been hospitalized because he couldn’t keep food down after she left?

The thought of him suffering alone like this left him with a bitter sense of betrayal.

“Brother… did something happen?”

Noticing how different he seemed, Hyeseong asked cautiously.

Taeyun lifted his glass and let out a long breath.

“Ina said, Don’t misunderstand. She said she was sick of it.”

“……What is she talking about?”

“I found her. Yoon Ina.”

Saying it out loud finally made it real.

He had found the woman he had been waiting for all these years.

Hyeseong’s eyes widened in shock.

“Really? Where is she? You saw her?”

“Yeah. In Tongyeong. She’s living there under a different name.”

And she even had a child.

He swallowed the rest of the thought.

“She changed her name? Why? What is she even doing there, living alone like that?”

“I’d like to know too.”

“Wow. That’s… unbelievable.”

Hyeseong was just as stunned. He immediately understood why Taeyun had been acting so strangely tonight.

“I’m going to find out, little by little. I’m going to find out why Yoon Ina left like that.”

He had to know.

No matter what the truth was — even if he had misunderstood everything, as she said — he needed to find out what her life had been like these past years.

After draining his glass, Taeyun clenched his teeth hard.