Ji-Eun's POV
The hospital room was a cage of sterile light, the hum of machines a dissonant hymn beneath the howl of the storm. Rain lashed the windows like a thousand ghostly fingers, clawing to seep into the silence that clung to the air—thick, suffocating, alive with the weight of words unspoken.
Ji-Eun's mother lay cocooned in white sheets, her face a parchment of pain etched with lines too deep for memory alone. Her eyes, though clouded by morphine, sharpened as they found Joon-Hyuk. A flicker of recognition, then anguish, as if his very presence had resurrected a specter long buried.
"You…"Her voice was a threadbare whisper, yet it severed the room's stillness like a blade.
Min-jae stiffened, his knuckles whitening around the bed rail. "Noona," he murmured, urgency threading his tone, "do you understand what she's saying?"
Ji-Eun's throat tightened. Her mother's trembling hand rose, skeletal and quivering, pointing at Joon-Hyuk. "His face… it's him."
The words hung, suspended. Ji-Eun's pulse thrummed in her ears. "Mom—what are you talking about?"
Her mother's breath rattled, a dry leaf in a tempest. "Kang Seok-ho… Your father's ghost lives in him."
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Joon-Hyuk's POV
The name struck like a guillotine.
Kang Seok-ho.
Joon-Hyuk's spine straightened, every muscle taut as wire. He had spent a lifetime sculpting himself into a man nothing like his father—a titan of greed whose shadow still choked the halls of their estate. But here, in this sterile room heavy with antiseptic and grief, the past had teeth.
Ji-Eun turned to him, her eyes wide, shattered glass reflecting a storm. "Your father?"
He opened his mouth, but no defense came. Only the echo of his father's voice, cold and imperious: "Legacy is currency, Joon-Hyuk. Never forget."
Legacy. A poison dressed as inheritance.
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A Family's Ruin
Ji-Eun's mother gasped, clawing at the sheets as though digging through earth to unearth the truth. "Seok-ho framed my husband… Stole evidence. Paid witnesses." Her voice frayed, each word a labor. "They called it an accident—a malfunction—but it was murder."
Ji-Eun staggered, the world tilting. Her father's laughter, warm and half-remembered, collided with the image of a coffin lowered into frozen ground. "All these years… You never told me."
Her mother's tears fell, silent and relentless. "I wanted to bury it… Forgive. But seeing him—" She glared at Joon-Hyuk, a lifetime of rage crystallized in her gaze. "—it's like staring into the past."
Joon-Hyuk's chest hollowed. He had heard rumors, of course—veiled whispers about embezzlement, a cover-up. But his father had dismissed them as envy. "Liars,"he'd sneered. "They want to tear us down."
Now, faced with the raw wreckage of Ji-Eun's family, doubt curdled in his gut. Had he always known, deep down?
Ji-Eun's voice splintered. "Did you know?"
"No," he said, the lie ash on his tongue. Or had he?
It didn't matter. Blood was blood.
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Ji-Eun's Escape
The walls closed in, the air thick with betrayal. Ji-Eun's knees buckled, but she caught herself, nails biting into her palms. She had to move. Breathe. Escape.
"Ji-Eun—" Joon-Hyuk reached for her, his hand hovering, a bridge between ruins.
She recoiled. His touch, once a solace, now burned.
"Don't," she hissed, the word a serrated edge.
The hallway swallowed her whole—a blur of fluorescent lights and echoing footsteps. She ran, past nurses' stations and gurneys, until the storm outside met her face, rain mingling with salt on her lips.
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Joon-Hyuk's POV
Her absence was a void, yawning and absolute.
Min-jae stood sentinel at his mother's bedside, eyes accusing. "You should go."
Joon-Hyuk didn't move. The truth settled into his bones, a leaden weight. This wasn't just corporate rivalry or a lovers' quarrel. It was a reckoning.
His father's sins had seeped into his veins, tainting every step toward Ji-Eun. And now, as the storm raged, he wondered if love could ever outweigh legacy.
Somewhere, a monitor beeped—steady, relentless—a metronome counting down the seconds until everything shattered.
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