To My Brother’s Friend - Chapter 13

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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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Chapter 13
“Have I ever left you wanting for anything?”
Blood vessels burst across the whites of Jin Seo-ryeong’s eyes as she glared down at Hee-jo crumpled on the floor.
“Have I ever spoken harshly to you, even once? Have I ever shown you displeasure?”
Hee-jo shook her head slightly, brushing her tangled hair back from her face.
“No, ma’am. You’ve always been kind to me.”
“Then why—!”
Jin Seo-ryeong seized Hee-jo by the collar and shook her violently, still kneeling on the ground.
“Why him? Why my son of all people?”
Jin Seo-ryeong had never raised her voice before.
In any circumstance, she maintained her dignity and grace, and even when speaking to Hee-jo, whatever her true feelings, she smiled and called her a cherished child.
During meals, she always seated Hee-jo beside her and urged her to eat, and when Hee-jo expressed a desire to learn from Han Young-sook, she actively supported her.
The establishment of a knot-tying class for VIPs at the Cultural Foundation was part of that support.
“I’ve carried you by my side since childhood and boasted about you to others—how well you’ve grown without parents, how upright and spirited you are, how you’re such an innocent and sincere child without a single greedy desire, how you’d never overstep your bounds. Do you know how much I’ve defended you—!”
Each time Jin Seo-ryeong shook her shoulders roughly, Hee-jo swayed helplessly.
Just as when Jin Seo-ryeong paraded me around, subtly broadcasting that I was an orphan raised without parents, a pitiful creature who could do nothing without her favor, a child of lowly birth, shaking me mercilessly.
Taking me to the highest place only to pin me down at the lowest, summoning people to gawk at me like a curiosity.
Jin Seo-ryeong’s praise was transparent bars set on all sides.
A cage preventing a bird she could neither discard nor continue to raise from daring to fly beyond her reach.
“This poisonous fog has seeped in—it’s seeped into my son and clouded his vision!”
Jin Seo-ryeong grabbed a cushion from the sofa and struck Hee-jo’s body wherever her hands fell.
Thwack, thwack.
The thick cushion didn’t hurt much.
Yet bruises bloomed across Hee-jo’s body, and deep welts bled.
“I knew it would happen—something felt wrong from the funeral! When that doll-like child suddenly screamed and came alive, I knew something was wrong!”
Haah, haah. As Jin Seo-ryeong breathed roughly, that day remained vivid in her mind.
“Please turn off the fire! My brother is burning!”
“Oh my, Hee-jo!”
Though she called out in surprise, Hee-jo—crying out desperately for her brother as if her voice couldn’t reach her ears, her eyes fixed on the burning figure—looked like a vengeful spirit.
It was so pitiful, and yet… unsettling.
The fear that her gaze fixed on her burning brother might shift toward her son.
That this obsession and desperation might turn toward Kwon Yeol.
That she might cling to him with the resolve never to let go, even in death.
“I’ll be there instead of Yoon Hee-jae.”
And she had made those words spill from her son’s lips.
“I’ll be your father, your mother, your brother too. I can’t fill the void Hee-jae left, but… I’m sorry.”
The moment their eyes met—Kwon Yeol cradling Hee-jo in his arms as she lay on the floor—Jin Seo-ryeong understood.
Her premonition would become reality.
This girl would seep in like smoke rising from the coffin that consumed her brother, settling firmly into a corner of her son’s heart.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Kwon Yeol could not become anything outside my control.
Not my son, not the eldest grandson of the Beom Family patriarch and chairman of Beom Ho Group, not anything other than the successor to Beom Ho Group.
He could absolutely never become the older brother or father of some lowborn, worthless orphan—and certainly not a mother.
And a husband least of all.
“…Sigh.”
A husband, she said.
Who on earth was supposed to become whose husband?
“I never realized you had such remarkable talent for business, Hee-jo.”
Jin Seo-ryeong clenched her teeth and rose from her seat, hurling a cushion aside.
“You sold your dead brother for several times his original worth.”
In that moment.
Hee-jo’s pupils, which had been dull and lifeless as a doll’s ever since her brother’s funeral, suddenly dilated and trembled finely.
“Even the god of commerce couldn’t profit as much as you have. You sold your worthless brother and bought the heir to Beom Ho Group—is there anyone in this world as cunning and fortunate as you?”
Hee-jo bit her lip.
As her hands, braced against the floor, curled into fists, her nails dug sharply into her palms.
…I had to endure this.
For Kwon Yeol’s sake.
And if I reacted now, it would be as good as admitting it.
But Hee-jo knew the truth.
What was cutting and slashing at her so keenly right now wasn’t Madam Jin Seo-ryeong’s sharp words—it was her own belief that those words weren’t entirely wrong.
More than the stones others threw, her own timid silence pierced deeper into her bones.
“I heard from Jung-yeon that you told Kwon Yeol not to say in front of you what he wouldn’t say in front of me. That without my support, Kwon Yeol lacks the courage to stand beside you—and that this is entirely Jung-yeon’s fault?”
Her momentary composure shattered just as quickly.
Jin Seo-ryeong hurled a vase from the desk to the floor and screamed.
“You had every reason to spout such nonsense so confidently! When did you start clinging to my son? When exactly!”
Crash—!
As the vase shattered with a sharp sound, red lines appeared across Hee-jo’s cheek and the back of her hand.
“….”
Fragments of the broken vase entered Hee-jo’s field of vision as she kept her head lowered.
They looked exactly like her heart.
“I saw your greed and desire to climb higher!”
No. Not higher—I just wanted to be beside Kwon Yeol.
…But wasn’t that the same as reaching upward in the end?
Staring blankly at the fragments, Hee-jo took a deep breath.
“I apologize.”
At those words, Jin Seo-ryeong grabbed whatever came to hand and hurled it again, venting her fury.
With the endless screams and dull crashes, those waiting outside the Director’s Office exchanged uncertain glances, reading each other’s expressions.
While Jin Seo-ryeong’s screams and shouts continued without pause, not a single sound came from Hee-jo, who had entered with her.
It was impossible to tell who was being vented upon, or who was truly cornered.
Yeom Ji-young, Jin Seo-ryeong’s secretary, recalled Hee-jo’s composed eyes and faint smile that concealed her true feelings.
Even to another woman’s eyes, Hee-jo was truly beautiful.
Enough so that Jin Seo-ryeong’s anxiety was entirely understandable.
Setting aside her refined features, her dignified bearing and graceful demeanor, the gentle cadence of her voice that emanated from her kind nature—all of it was more than sufficient to captivate anyone, regardless of age or gender.
Yet she had always erected a transparent barrier, never revealing the depths of her true heart to anyone.
That subtle distance paradoxically created an air of mystery, leaving people yearning for more.
Still, no matter how captivating she was, Yeom Ji-young had never anticipated this.
She had believed that no matter how exquisite her beauty or charm, she could never breach the heart of Beom Gwon-yeol—a man colder than ice and harder than steel.
‘Marriage within three months? Could it be… is she pregnant?’
But Yeom Ji-young immediately shook her head.
Given his meticulous nature, he would never have allowed either of them to reach such a state.
The moment that thought crossed her mind, the Director’s Office door opened.
“Oh…”
Yeom Ji-young gasped involuntarily at the sight of Hee-jo’s face.
“The Director is quite upset, so it will take some time for him to calm down. I think it would be best to contact Dr. Kim in advance.”
Her usually immaculate hair was disheveled, her right cheek swollen, and a thin line of crimson blood seeped from a scratch across her left cheek.
Yet despite it all, Hee-jo relayed the Director’s condition with her usual composure and even skillfully provided instructions for the necessary follow-up arrangements.
“Miss Hee-jo, shall I call a driver for you?”
“No, I can drive myself. Thank you for the offer.”
Hee-jo bowed respectfully and turned toward the Elevator.
Her unhurried posture and measured stride betrayed not the slightest hint of distress.
Watching Hee-jo disappear from view, Yeom Ji-young reflected.
Only Hee-jo could endure Beom Gwon-yeol and the Beom Family.

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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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