My Brother's Friend Wasn't a Guy - Chapter 38

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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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38.

Deep into the night, a suppressed sob drifted from somewhere in the darkness.
At the sound, Go Myeong-suk’s eyes opened.
“Uh, uh-huh, huh.”
Half-asleep, she’d thought she’d misheard, but she hadn’t. It was crying stifled deliberately, as if terrified the sound would escape. The moment she recognized it, sleep fled entirely.
Go Myeong-suk padded out and stood motionless before her daughter’s door.
“Huh-huh, huh.”
The heartbroken weeping continued.
What was wrong? She’d never seen Lee Jin cry like this before.
Or had she? Was it possible that whenever she wasn’t around, her daughter wept just the same? Go Myeong-suk’s hand trembled as it reached for the doorknob.
Since their connection had grown distant, she hadn’t known how to treat Lee Jin. She could neither draw closer nor pull away—caught between the two in a suffocating limbo.
It was maddening, as though her chest would burst, but since her son’s death, something had broken inside her. Emotion and time both had gone numb, dulled.
And so, putting off reconciliation over and over, she’d arrived at this point.
Go Myeong-suk was suddenly terrified that her daughter would resent her attention. She dreaded that Lee Jin would ask why she cared now, when she hadn’t spared her a glance before.
“Uh-uh, huh, huh-huh.”
Yet she couldn’t ignore the crying—it seemed to tear her very heart to shreds.
Creak—
As she opened the door, Lee Jin, curled beneath the bed, started in alarm.
“Lee Jin, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, it’s… nothing. Nothing at all.”
Flustered, Lee Jin hurriedly wiped her cheeks, drenched with tears.
‘When did she become so thin?’
Go Myeong-suk caught her breath at the sight of her daughter’s gaunt face.
“I know I’m no help to you. But still… still… can’t you tell me what’s happened?”
Go Myeong-suk sat down beside her daughter, showing no sign of leaving after a quick glance.
At that, Lee Jin’s eyes contorted painfully. She was still struggling to hold back her sobs, and now, faced with her mother’s undivided gaze, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Could she really tell her mother about this? Would her mother understand? She’d been hurt enough. So many conflicting feelings tore through her at once.
She was exhausted. She was in pain.
Ordinarily, Lee Jin would have painted on a bright smile and assured her mother everything was fine, but now, with her heart in ruins, scattered like wreckage, she didn’t have the strength.
So the words spilled out. She was grasping at straws.
“Mom, Kang Hyun…”
“Kang Hyun? What about him?”
Go Myeong-suk was startled by the unexpected name, but as she listened to what followed, she could piece together what had happened.
Chaebol. Class divide. A tree she could never climb. As she heard her daughter’s disjointed words, her heart shattered.
What have I been doing? My daughter’s been treated this way, and what have I been doing?
No—I treated my own daughter the same way, so of course others did too.
Go Myeong-suk, overwhelmed by a wave of remorse, howled like a wounded animal.
“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. All of it. I’m so sorry, Lee Jin.”
“How is this your fault?”
Mother and daughter wept openly. It was the first time. The first time they’d leaned on each other like this.
Yet strangely, the knot of resentment in their hearts began to unravel, little by little.
“If you hadn’t been born as my daughter, you wouldn’t have to face this. It’s all my mistake.”
Go Myeong-suk truly believed it.
She’d been so focused on supporting Lee Hwan that she’d given her daughter nothing, yet Lee Jin had grown up so upright, so beautiful. If only she’d had better parents, how much more splendid might she have become?
No matter how inadequate a parent, they should want their daughter treated like a princess.
The world bows to money and power, yes—but a true parent bows their own knee before they’d ever let their child kneel.
Go Myeong-suk came to her senses. She couldn’t afford to lose her daughter too. She had to pull herself together.
“Kang Hyun is a good person, but it simply wasn’t meant to be between you two.”
She offered what comfort she could. It was pitiful how little that was—the best she could manage.
Go Myeong-suk’s eyes fell on the envelope lying carelessly on the floor. No matter how she tried to see it charitably, it was two hundred million won—a parting gift to forget and move on.
In their poverty, two hundred million was a fortune. Yet she didn’t want to use it. With or without it, they’d live the same meager life anyway.
Go Myeong-suk had maintained her pride all these years, raising her two children alone without a husband.
She’d leaned too heavily on her son and wounded her daughter in the process, but she’d never broken the law, never abandoned her conscience.
“What do you want to do with this money?”
“I told him I wouldn’t take it… but he just left it anyway.”
As the humiliation of that moment returned, Lee Jin trembled. She’d believed all people were equal. She’d been wrong.
In that instant, she saw herself standing at the very bottom of a social hierarchy controlled by money.
“I’ll get it back for you. How dare they treat my daughter like that.”
At Go Myeong-suk’s words, Lee Jin wept even harder, and seeing her daughter’s anguish, Go Myeong-suk found herself crying alongside her.
From now on, I have to be there for my mother. I haven’t been able to give her anything until now—it’s time I did.
Mother and daughter wept together for a long time.

***

The next day, Go Myeong-suk dialed the number written on the envelope.
She hadn’t expected to reach someone of such rank directly. She left a message saying she was Lee Jin’s mother and asked for a meeting because she had something to discuss. Some time later, a call came from the executive secretary’s office.
Once Go Myeong-suk received the location and time of the meeting, she sat before her makeup mirror for the first time in ages.
She couldn’t remember when she had last done her makeup and fixed her face—it felt like a lifetime ago.
Go Myeong-suk, having taken great care with her appearance and dressed in her finest clothes, opened the door to Lee Jin’s room.
Her daughter, worn down by worry and heartache spent alone, looked as though she’d come down with something overnight.
Go Myeong-suk pressed her hand to her daughter’s warm forehead and sighed.
“I’ll be back soon.”
Go Myeong-suk whispered the words to her sleeping daughter, who couldn’t hear them, and left the house.
It had been so long since she’d dressed like this and stepped into the sunlight that she kept catching her breath—almost gasping at her own reflection.
When Go Myeong-suk entered the elegant Hotel Cafe, she gave her name to the staff and was shown to a table.
While she was turning over what to say and how to say it, the woman she’d arranged to meet arrived.
“Hello, I’m Jin Ae-ran. So you’re Lee Jin’s mother.”
The woman who appeared in unmistakably elegant attire carried with her an air of natural confidence and arrogance that seemed woven into her very being.
“Hello, I’m Go Myeong-suk. I apologize for the imposition, but I came because there’s something I needed to say.”
Jin Ae-ran, looking at Go Myeong-suk—whose face bore the marks of hardship but held a certain quiet dignity—easily recognized Lee Jin in her features.
What on earth could she want to say? Jin Ae-ran had almost ignored the call, but decided to come and hear her out. If she didn’t listen and the woman went complaining to Kang Hyun instead, that could be troublesome.
Jin Ae-ran considered the possibility that the woman might be short on money and looking for more. After all, it was only human greed to try to squeeze out another won if the opportunity presented itself.
“Yes, I’m listening. What did you want to say?”
Speaking as though inviting her to go ahead, Jin Ae-ran watched as Go Myeong-suk drew an envelope from her bag and extended it.
“What is this?”
Jin Ae-ran, not understanding the situation, frowned.
“I’ve come to return it.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. So she came to return it, not to ask for more. How unexpected.
“Why?”
Go Myeong-suk answered the sharp question calmly.
“We’ll break up regardless of whether we accept this money. My Lee Jin isn’t leaving your son because she was paid to—she and he are simply young people who dated and turned out to be incompatible. That’s all.”
Jin Ae-ran found those words almost amusing.
It was understandable to stand on pride when you had something to stand on, but to stand on pride when you had nothing seemed less like dignity and more like recklessness.
“Won’t you regret this later?”
A smug smile played at the corners of Jin Ae-ran’s mouth—the smile of someone saying she wouldn’t stand in her way if she insisted on returning it. Go Myeong-suk tried hard to appear dignified rather than servile.
“I won’t regret it. It seems to me that you don’t understand why I’m returning this money in the first place.”
At Go Myeong-suk’s pointed words, Jin Ae-ran let out a short laugh.
“Should I?”
“No, you don’t need to. You’ve lived your whole life doing whatever you pleased. But understand this one thing clearly: there are things in this world that money cannot buy. Things that money cannot fix.”
Those words struck no particular chord in Jin Ae-ran. She had never experienced anything money couldn’t solve.
“Well then, my business here is finished. I’ll take my leave.”
“Yes, please do.”
Jin Ae-ran saw Go Myeong-suk off without attachment, believing this would be their last meeting and thinking little of the encounter.
Unaware that this relationship would one day be entirely reversed.

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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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