My Brother's Friend Wasn't a Guy - Chapter 36

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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36.

“W-what are you talking about?”
Her heart plummeted. She played dumb, asking the question back, but her chest hammered as though her secrets had been laid bare.
“Anything about me. You haven’t heard anything?”
“About you?”
The moment she parroted his words back at him, Kang Hyun’s eyes narrowed. A chill of warning crept down her spine.
“I don’t know much, honestly.”
Lee Jin deflected without thinking. The words tumbled out almost reflexively.
She hadn’t taken this relationship seriously from the start—there’d been no talk of marriage, no grand intentions. So of course it would end someday.
Yet something like reluctance clung to her, held her back. She understood what he was really asking, but pretended otherwise.
They were destined to part anyway. Just a little longer, just a little more…
Until the pottery was finished.
She wanted the exhausted ground beneath her feet to stay solid. She craved stability, peace.
If she met his eyes and told him the truth, she feared the foundation would crumble, that this fragile thing between them would shatter in an instant. So Lee Jin made a choice: to be greedy.
To feign ignorance and buy herself more time.
“People have said it’s nice having such a successful boyfriend. Was that supposed to be flattery you needed to hear?”
“Not exactly. But people do have eyes, don’t they?”
Kang Hyun answered with his usual smooth deflection, though his searching gaze didn’t soften.
“Oh, right—I almost forgot. There’s cake in the refrigerator. Give me a moment.”
Lee Jin escaped the danger with a flimsy excuse. The moment she left the room, Kang Hyun pulled a crumpled business card from his pocket.

―HS Group, Director of Strategic Planning — Do Hyun-soo

He’d found it in the trash when Lee Jin had stepped out for coffee. She had no idea he’d fished it out of the bin.
His eyes grew cold as they fixed on the name printed there.
Do Hyun-soo—he’d always known the man was careless, but to show such poor judgment as this?
He’d warned him explicitly: don’t speak her name, don’t ask about her. And yet Hyun-soo had treated that warning like a joke.
Kang Hyun clenched his jaw, already calculating the price Do Hyun-soo would pay.
But beneath the cold anger, his chest felt heavy. He still didn’t know what exactly Hyun-soo had said to her.
Had he just run his mouth carelessly, pushed himself on her? Or had he somehow discovered the truth Kang Hyun had kept hidden, and deliberately revealed it to her?
There were no permanent secrets in this world. If someone wanted to find out—if they wanted to learn he was connected to the Munseong Group—they could.
The real problem was that Do Hyun-soo hadn’t just learned that fact and stayed silent. He’d gone and met with Lee Jin anyway.
‘I’ll find out what he said soon enough.’
His lips twisted. The already-damaged card crumpled further in his grip, nearly disintegrating.

***

“D-Director! We have a problem!”
Do Hyun-soo had never heard his secretary raise her voice like this before, and he was utterly caught off guard.
“What kind of problem?”
How serious could it really be? Do Hyun-soo asked the question flatly, unconvinced.
“Kang Hyun is here. He’s asking to see you.”
“What?”
Do Hyun-soo shot up from his chair in shock.
Had Lee Jin not been able to keep quiet? Surely she hadn’t told him already—he hadn’t even done anything that serious. Why would Kang Hyun track him down here, to his office?
Do Hyun-soo’s thoughts tangled uselessly, leaving him momentarily paralyzed like a broken machine.
Then came his decision.
“Tell him I’m busy. No—tell him I’m not in the office!”
Do Hyun-soo barked out the order.
His secretary, who’d investigated Kang Hyun’s background, had tried to stop him from going to see Lee Jin. But she couldn’t break the stubborn will of a spoiled young man born to privilege.
She’d suspected that if Kang Hyun found out, he’d retaliate somehow. And now that she’d learned he was the owner of the Munseong Group, she couldn’t afford to provoke him carelessly.
Either way, Do Hyun-soo was at a disadvantage.
Yet despite all this, his strange arrogance and stubbornness had driven him to visit Lee Jin anyway, only to come back muttering that she wasn’t his type after all. His type, his preferences—why didn’t he listen when people warned him? The secretary felt her frustration mounting so sharply she almost wanted to quit on the spot. That’s when she heard a voice from outside.
“Do Hyun-soo, are you yelling so I can hear you? I know you’re in there. Let me see you.”
Damn this soundproofing. Should’ve had it replaced ages ago.
Do Hyun-soo was thinking this when he remembered that Kang Hyun was actually an expert in this field, and his scowl deepened.

Outside the office, an assistant was stammering while trying to stop Kang Hyun. Realizing there was no way out, Do Hyun-soo let out a long sigh and spoke to the secretary.
“He won’t cause a scene at the company, at least. Let him in.”
“Yes, understood.”
Right—you clean up your own mess. The secretary tucked away her true thoughts and headed out to manage Kang Hyun.
Do Hyun-soo decided that since it had come to this, he might as well face Kang Hyun without flinching.
But the moment Kang Hyun leaned back against the sofa, the office felt like his own workspace. He commanded the space entirely, his gaze cold as he spoke.
“I told you to stop taking an interest in Lee Jin.”
“Who do you think you are, ordering me around? Are you Lee Jin’s guardian or something?”
Having resolved to show no weakness, Do Hyun-soo pushed back hard.
Of course, his outward composure was a lie. His wrist throbbed as if it still felt the twist from their last encounter.
Damn stone bastard. That crazy son of a bitch. Having glimpsed Kang Hyun’s true nature, Do Hyun-soo cursed him silently—it was the only way to keep his face neutral.
“Lee Jin’s guardian? Well, if not that, then as her boyfriend I’d say I have every right to keep other men in line.”
“I never told her to come see me, and I sure as hell didn’t ask her to a hotel room. So what’s there to control?”
As he spoke, something caught in his throat. Do Hyun-soo had wandered outside that convenience store for hours waiting to run into Lee Jin that day.
This precious man had invested all that time to see her—and how had she treated him?
“And Lee Jin, honestly, her personality’s changed. She didn’t used to be like this, but when did she get so fierce?”
God, the way she attacked you—Kang Hyun’s eyebrow twitched as he heard Do Hyun-soo mutter.
If he was calling her fierce, it meant she’d handled herself well.
“I’ve heard enough of your worthless observations. What exactly did you say to her?”
“W-what did I say?”
With no sign of accepting deflection, Kang Hyun pressed him. A glimmer of something faintly unstable flickered in those cold eyes, and fear coiled through Do Hyun-soo’s chest.
“Recite every word you said. Then you can leave.”
“Come on, how am I supposed to remember all that!”
Do Hyun-soo cried out indignantly.
“If your memory’s failing, maybe I should jog it for you?”
…….
Do Hyun-soo felt like a prisoner of war captured by enemy forces. Kang Hyun was like a skilled interrogator squeezing information through torture.
Damn, what a miserable day. Do Hyun-soo grumbled but eventually haltingly recounted what had happened that day.
Of course, his own words were considerably embellished—polished enough that no one overhearing them would find anything wrong.
“So you revealed my entire identity?”
When Kang Hyun asked with a twisted smile, Do Hyun-soo felt cornered. He’d only stated facts—what was wrong with that?
But he scrambled to find words to avoid meeting Kang Hyun’s piercing gaze.
“Well, yes, I did say that—but Lee Jin already knew everything before I opened my mouth.”
“What?”
Kang Hyun’s eyes narrowed instantly.
“Lee Jin already knew? About my identity?”
“Yeah, she already knew. That’s why she treated me like a fool—asking if you could offer her more money than someone else.”
Despite how she looked, that girl is too sharp. Do Hyun-soo’s muttering didn’t register.
The unexpected information sent a dark shadow across Kang Hyun’s features.

***

Jin Ae-ran stood by the window of her high-rise office, gazing down at the streets below. Her eyes took in the various sights, but her mind churned with other thoughts entirely.
Her son’s expression outside Lee Jin’s pottery studio, and the warnings he’d given her.
Jin Ae-ran was stubborn. That stubbornness seemed to have passed down to her son, but she was the original source of it.
Jin Ae-ran never bent her convictions or her will. A relationship that tilts too far to one side might seem fine at first, but it was destined to fail in the end.
Love burned hot in an instant before cooling just as quickly.
When love is present, it feels like anything can be overcome—but when that love fades, only a harsh, bitter reality remains.
If her son was about to take a wrong path because he didn’t understand something, it was a parent’s duty to step in and set him straight. After reaching that conclusion, Jin Ae-ran called for her secretary.
“Secretary Kim.”
“Yes, Director?”
“Find out Kang Hyun’s schedule. I want to know when he’s busy enough that he won’t be at that pottery studio. Especially if he’s out on business—if he’s away from Seoul, that’s even better.”

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