Unhealthy - Chapter 44

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 44. The Guest Who Came First

Finally arriving in front of her aunt’s house, Hae-yeong breathed in the piercing cold night air and looked up at the old 2-story wooden house.

Even within Ueda’s quiet residential area, the house stood in particularly isolated silence, and on its nameplate was carved the unfamiliar name ‘Fujita Family’.

Hae-yeong stared blankly at the nameplate, faded from enduring the storms of years past, then carefully reached out and pressed the doorbell, breaking the silence.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, the heavy front gate opened and a middle-aged woman appeared through the gap.

The moment Ji-min spotted Hae-yeong, she froze in place as if time itself had been preserved.

A trembling Japanese greeting flowed from between her lips, but Hae-yeong could instinctively sense it.

This woman was her only remaining blood relative in the world, and the final beacon of salvation that Taejun had pointed to.

Hae-yeong swallowed back the tears welling up hotly and barely managed to get to the point with a cracked voice.

“I… I came looking for my aunt.”

Ji-min gazed quietly at Hae-yeong’s face for a long while, and then at her blue eyes.

She had a vague memory from childhood. That her aunt’s close blue-eyed Westerner had caught her father’s eye and they had fallen in love. And that her aunt had disapproved of that fact.

Since she looked exactly like her mother’s eyes, there would be no room for Ji-min to doubt.

When Hae-yeong raised her gentle eyes to meet Ji-min’s gaze, Ji-min, who had seemed to be weighing something, soon let out a short, deep sigh and opened the gate, clearing the way for her to come inside.

“Come in.”

Ji-min opened the gate that had been heavily closed. Barely managing to support her legs that nearly gave way from relief, Hae-yeong followed behind her aunt.

The first thing to greet Hae-yeong upon entering the foyer was the coolly settled, distinctive dry grass scent of tatami.

If Korean houses held warmth and liveliness, this place was so terribly quiet it seemed to have swallowed all sounds within.

The sound of the old corridor creaking in rhythm with Ji-min’s footsteps pierced her eardrums. Each time, Hae-yeong’s heart rattled along with it.

Hae-yeong followed Ji-min’s back while observing the scenery of the unfamiliar house.

Along one side of the corridor, dark antique wooden pillars stood at regular intervals, and between them, low-saturation lighting stretched dim shadows long to the end of the corridor.

Beyond the sliding doors covered with washi paper, only an unidentifiable silence pooled.

It felt as if the essence of the peace that her aunt had tried to protect by changing her surname and erasing her name was embedded in this space that was neat to the point of being obsessively clean, making one corner of her heart flutter.

Ji-min said nothing. She simply walked silently down the narrow, long corridor, showing only her neatly combed back hair.

At the end of the corridor, Ji-min stopped in front of the sliding door leading to the living room and reached out her thin, dry hand to grasp the door handle.

“There was a guest who came first.”

As soon as Ji-min’s dry voice cut through the quiet interior, the old sliding door opened with a sliding sound.

Beyond it, the silhouette of a man sitting in the center of the neatly arranged tatami floor filled Hae-yeong’s vision.

A man sitting with his back to the yellow lamp, casting strange shadows down to his feet. The moment she confirmed who he was, Hae-yeong’s steps froze solid like stone, as if roots had taken hold right there.

The smoke rising hazily from the low wooden table felt surreal.

The man holding the teacup turned his head with an utterly leisurely and elegant posture, as if he were the longtime owner of this house.

It was Gi Jae-jun.

The end of that ugly greed had already coiled itself in her aunt’s residence, waiting for Hae-yeong.

The time that Taejun had earned and the place he had tried to hide from the world were shattered and scattered by Jae-jun’s cheerful yet cruel smile.

Hae-yeong instinctively clutched the bag in her arms tightly. As if that bag were her only defense mechanism.

“How did… how did you get here, oppa…”

“You’re later than I thought, Hae-yeong. I’ve been waiting quite a while.”

Jae-jun lightly set down the teacup he was holding onto the table and slowly rose from his seat.

Unlike his gently curved eyes, the gaze that swept down Hae-yeong’s entire body was as terribly cold as that of a snake targeting its prey’s throat.

“For our marriage, I thought it would be right to get approval from the living elder. I had a hard time finding your aunt.”

Jae-jun wore his usual hypocritical affection on his face.

“How did you know I would come here?”

Jae-jun’s gaze slid past Hae-yeong’s shoulder toward the tightly closed front door.

“I just had a feeling somehow. We’ve lived together for so long, there’s some connection between us.”

Once upon a time. Yes, once upon a time she had been fooled by this affection and mistaken Gi Jae-jun for a good person.

Normally, she might have believed his words at face value, but not now.

“Are you alone?”

Knowing that the intent behind the question about Taejun’s whereabouts was not pure, Hae-yeong carefully considered her answer.

“I came alone.”

At Hae-yeong’s reply that she came alone, Jae-jun’s eyes curved even more narrowly.

“Gi Taejun is quite interested in you. He wouldn’t have sent you alone. Oh, or maybe not. Maybe Gi Taejun is thoroughly business-minded.”

Jae-jun’s eyes, somehow grown arrogant, persistently scanned Hae-yeong’s face.

“At least Taejun oppa doesn’t act arbitrarily without my consent. Marriage, finding my aunt – he’s much better than an oppa who acts as if my opinion doesn’t matter at all.”

At Hae-yeong’s sharp retort, Jae-jun’s brow furrowed.

“Hae-yeong, what kind of hurtful thing is that to say? I care about you. I’m very interested in you. That’s why I rushed all the way here to get permission from the elder. I’m fundamentally different from Gi Taejun. Did you forget?”

Though it was a whisper-like low voice, it was clear pressure.

Despite still wearing his sincere and moderate mask, the cold pressure he emanated felt like a noose tightening around Hae-yeong’s neck moment by moment.

Just then, Ji-min returned with a new steaming teacup, observed the tense, thin-ice atmosphere between the two, and calmly broke the heavy silence.

“Have a cup of warm tea.”

Ji-min had no idea how desperate a battle Hae-yeong had crossed to reach this place.

Only the miraculous fact that her dead brother’s daughter had appeared before her eyes as an adult was violently shaking the composure that Ji-min had built up solidly over her lifetime.

Ji-min carefully set down the teacup and showed Jae-jun a smile that was gentle yet had resolute spirit beneath the surface.

“I’m sorry, but could you step aside for a moment? It seems I need to have an important conversation with this child.”

At Ji-min’s polite request, a subtle crack appeared in Jae-jun’s leisurely expression.

Jae-jun seemed regretful and wanted to ask this and that, his lips twitching. However, faced with Ji-min’s courteous yet by no means easy-going authoritative attitude, he had no justification to persist further.

“Ah, I was being inconsiderate. I shouldn’t interfere when you two are catching up.”

As Jae-jun quietly turned and passed by Hae-yeong’s side, in the brief moment, he whispered in a voice low enough for only her to hear.

“I’ll wait outside, Hae-yeong. It seems we have a lot of unfinished business to discuss.”

Ji-min accompanied Jae-jun as he headed toward the foyer.

Left alone, Hae-yeong finally let out the breath she had been holding.

Her hands holding the bag to her chest were filled with tension.

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