My Brother's Friend Wasn't a Guy - Chapter 35

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

35.

—I’m just having dinner with a friend and heading straight home after.

Kang Hyun felt a wave of relief at Lee Jin’s message. He’d been worried she might be at the Pottery Workshop. Not without reason—he’d just received word that his mother was heading in this direction.

—Sounds good. Enjoy yourself. I’ll call you later.

Kang Hyun sent the message as though nothing were amiss, then planted himself in front of the darkened Pottery Workshop like a stone monument, waiting for his mother to arrive.
Even when he’d tried to block information from reaching her, word about Lee Jin had somehow found its way to his mother anyway. And she, determined as always, had made the journey to Lee Jin’s workshop.
A black sedan pulled into the parking lot in front of the workshop, its surface gleaming even in the darkness. Jin Ae-ran stepped out of it with her spine rigid and perfect.
The sharp tap-tap of her footsteps struck Kang Hyun’s ears like needles.
When Jin Ae-ran reached the workshop entrance, she raised one eyebrow in a sharp gesture and spoke.
“What are you doing here?”
Kang Hyun didn’t bother masking his displeasure as he answered back.
“I could ask you the same thing, Mother.”
Mother and son locked eyes. It was Jin Ae-ran who broke the silence first, her voice low and dangerous.
“You’ve deceived me, haven’t you? Using Eun-jeong as a shield while you carry on with another woman behind closed doors?”
“If you’ve already figured it out, then you know.”
At her son’s calm tone, Jin Ae-ran’s fury erupted.
“Why are you doing this? Everything I do is for your sake. How can you be so blind to your mother’s heart? Why do you keep tormenting me like this?”
Watching his mother pour out her anguish, Kang Hyun spoke with chilling clarity.
“Why should you decide the path I take? You wanted me not to see Seo I-hwan for five years, and I complied with that. But that was the last time I’ll bow to your wishes, Mother. I won’t live by your will anymore.”
At the resolve that hardened in Kang Hyun’s eyes, Jin Ae-ran felt her breath catch. Where on earth had this stubborn streak come from? Certainly not from her.
After a few steadying breaths, Jin Ae-ran glared at him and continued.
“So that’s it? So it’s Seo I-hwan’s younger sister? Out of all the women in this world, why her? Why does it have to be someone from that family?”
With almost any other household, she might have closed her eyes to it. But that one? There was nothing—absolutely nothing—there.
A shabby single-story house that held the sum total of everything that family possessed. Poverty incarnate. No matter what they did, that household would never meet Jin Ae-ran’s standards.
“What’s wrong with that family? There’s nothing for you to criticize about them.”
True, the gloom of Seo I-hwan’s death had cast a shadow over them now, but before that, they had lived with diligence and integrity.
Seo I-hwan had always spoken of opening a private legal practice to help people who suffered injustice because they had no means.
“Nothing to criticize? A family with nothing shouldn’t dare covet my son! They shouldn’t even harbor such thoughts!”
Kang Hyun let out a hollow laugh. Covet? When it was he himself who clung to Lee Jin desperately, clinged like his life depended on it.
“Mother, listen to me clearly. I’m the one who clings to her. I’m the one frantic with the fear that she might run away.”
“What? You? Why would you—?”
My brilliant son, why would he? Jin Ae-ran seemed to be losing her grip on reason.
The resentment that had overflowed when she believed Lee Jin had seduced her son now became a torrent when she heard that her son was the one doing the clinging.
“So you must never appear in front of her again. If you do, I won’t stay quiet about it.”
“You ungrateful wretch! Disrespectful fool!”
Jin Ae-ran’s fury finally boiled over. She swung her hand to strike his face.
Kang Hyun caught her wrist lightly. He could have let the blow land, but he knew that if he did, his mood would sink into an abyss from which he couldn’t climb back out.
“Don’t strike like that. Your nails will break, and that would only cause you pain.”
It sounded like tenderness on the surface, but his action was as cold as a blizzard in the depths of winter.
At that contradiction, Jin Ae-ran’s shoulders trembled. After stroking her hand gently a few times, Kang Hyun released her and spoke.
“Please go home now. Standing here like this doesn’t look good, does it?”
When Kang Hyun let go, Jin Ae-ran swayed as though she might collapse. Her son didn’t so much as move to steady her—he simply watched.
She glared at Kang Hyun once more, then spun on her heel. Seeing him so unmovable, so coldly resolute, chilled her to the bone.
Was Cheon Eun-jeong a co-conspirator, or was she an innocent victim caught in all this? She still hadn’t determined which.
Because of that uncertainty, she couldn’t even call Eun-jeong to demand the truth.
Her chest felt tight. Anger coiled inside her.
With a long, drawn-out sigh, Jin Ae-ran climbed into the sedan and spoke to her driver.
“Take me home.”
“Yes, Madame.”
The sedan glided smoothly into motion. Through the window, Jin Ae-ran watched her precious son receding into the distance.
His silhouette, swallowed by the darkness, seemed unusually large and imposing tonight.
When Kang Hyun’s black eyes met hers through the glass, Jin Ae-ran’s expression twisted without her meaning to.
Those eyes, fathomless and dark as pitch, held the desolate weight of an abyss.
“Stubborn fool. That reckless, wild boy.”
She huffed irritably, muttering harsh words under her breath, but instead of relief, only deeper frustration settled in her chest.
‘Even so, she’s just not right for him.’
Jin Ae-ran stared at the glittering city lights reflected in the car window, her jaw set with stubborn resolve.

***

Lee Jin had spent the night with her eyes barely closed. No matter how many times she turned the problem over in her mind, no answer came—only the heavy, indigestible weight pressing against her chest.
So she threw herself into work. Whenever something troubled her, whenever she couldn’t untangle a knot, she simply drove her body harder.
She’d arrived at the Pottery Workshop before dawn, losing herself in the clay. After all, Kang Hyun was her client, separate from whatever personal entanglement lay between them. He’d commissioned the work, and work was work.
Whatever passed between them, the commission had to be finished. She worked with the fervor of someone preparing for an ending, as if this might be the last chance she’d ever have.
By afternoon, the shop door chimed softly.
At the sound, Lee Jin’s breath caught before she even realized it. She washed her hands and stepped out from the studio to find Kang Hyun gazing out the window.
The sight of his back made her heart race unnaturally, her pulse tightening in her throat.
“Hey. You came.”
She greeted him as casually as she could manage. At her voice, he turned.
The movement seemed to unfold in slow motion, burning itself into her vision with strange clarity.
“You look busy.”
“Yeah, I went out to the sea last week and couldn’t work, so I’ve been backed up since then.”
“You can take your time, you know.”
“No, if I get too loose with the schedule, I’ll just end up slacking off.”
“You really do think things through.”
He smiled, his face exactly as it always was.
‘A tree you can’t climb—better not look at it at all. You’re only hurting yourself.’
His expression revealed no intention whatsoever, as if her tangled thoughts held no sway over him.
“Want some coffee?”
Lee Jin asked it to cover the awkwardness.
“Sure.”
Kang Hyun agreed readily and sat down. Lee Jin steadied her racing thoughts and moved to brew the coffee.
Kang Hyun came from a chaebol family so far beyond her reach that she’d never even dared to dream of such heights—yet that didn’t mean she could simply erase him from her life as if he’d never existed.
She couldn’t pretend that all the years they’d shared together were nothing.
And that was precisely what made it harder. How was she supposed to handle this? Should she hold on, or should she let go?
One thing was certain: she couldn’t go on as his lover indefinitely.
‘It’s fine. We started this thinking only of dating anyway.’
Her brother’s friend, Kang Hyun. Somewhere along the way, he’d become something more than a substitute for her real brother—he’d become a man to her.
Rather than dwell on how the nature of their bond had shifted, Lee Jin recalled the moment he’d first asked her to date him, when she’d thought lightly that there was nothing wrong with trying love.
Like countless lovers who meet and part and meet again, we’re just another pair going through the same cycle. There’s nothing difficult about it.
Having steadied herself, Lee Jin took the coffee to him and set it down before his seat. As she turned to step away, his hand caught hers.
The sudden pull sent her tumbling onto his lap. The position was achingly familiar, yet somehow it felt nothing like it used to.
“Hey……”
Lee Jin called out in protest, and he brushed his fingers lightly across her cheek.
“You didn’t forget, did you? I told you that whenever you’re close to me, I react automatically.”
“I remember you saying that, but I didn’t think you meant every single time.”
Lee Jin answered with exasperation, and he laughed softly before leaning closer.
Their faces drew near enough that their noses almost touched. His heart seemed to begin its rhythm, and so did hers—a heavy, insistent thud.
Trembling as if experiencing physical intimacy for the first time, her eyelashes quivered against her cheeks.
Just as their lips seemed about to meet, he lowered his gaze and asked softly, “But Lee Jin. Has someone been saying something to you?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————