Episode 05
The members-only lounge on the top floor of Dowon Hotel.
It was a place where Seoul’s night could be gazed upon from the most expensive angle possible.
An arched glass dome stretched across the ceiling of the 45th floor, beyond which the lights of the Han River rippled like waves. On tables crafted from natural mahogany wood, reflections from hundreds of crystals scattered softly like stains of light.
It was a lounge that political and financial elites longed to visit at least once.
Today, however, only a single table had claimed the entire space.
The problem was—it didn’t look enjoyable at all.
“What exactly is going on here?”
Lee Do spoke toward the crown of the woman’s head across from him.
Ten minutes ago, she had taken her seat without a word and had been gnawing on her lips ever since.
Judging by the fact that she’d shown up here at all, Jin Hu-yeon must have sent her.
With irritation flickering in his eyes, Lee Do swept his gaze over her. She had wrapped a shawl around herself, but it did little to hide how thin her shoulders were.
A dedicated server approached and refilled the woman’s empty glass.
That made five already.
As soon as it was filled, she gulped the water down again—desperate, like someone who had just stumbled upon an oasis after wandering the desert.
The surprise that Jin Hu-yeon—who seemed the type to walk nothing but the straight and narrow through an elite life course—had so boldly sabotaged a blind date faded quickly.
Lee Do was starting to feel bored.
“Did you come here just to drink water?”
She flinched.
At his sharp remark, the woman startled violently.
“You’ve had enough. Start explaining. Where’s Jin Hu-yeon?”
“I… I came instead of my sister. My name is Jin Seo-eun.”
Her sister?
Lee Do’s head tilted slightly to the side.
“Jin Seo-eun? Aren’t all of the Hyu Group kids named with ‘Hyu’?”
“….”
“A sibling—but not really a sibling, is that it?”
The corner of Lee Do’s mouth twisted with venomous amusement.
He’d assumed she was one of the chairman’s illegitimate children—another bastard tucked away in his back pocket.
Honestly, the crotches of chaebols were universally filthy.
Leaning back into the thick leather sofa, Lee Do let out a hollow laugh.
Using a sibling to blow up a blind date was just as distasteful.
“Jin Hu-yeon. I didn’t take her for that kind of person. Guess her outside and inside are completely different.”
“No! My sister isn’t like that!”
The woman—who had been proudly displaying nothing but the top of her head—snapped upright like a spring.
So, she was finally going to show her face.
Lee Do looked at her with indifference—then raised an eyebrow.
She looked strangely familiar.
Soft eyes that seemed on the verge of tears. Pale skin. A painfully thin frame.
Yet somehow, the combination worked. Her features were delicate.
That sucker from the Korea University Counseling Center?
The impression had been strong enough that he recognized her instantly.
“She did this for me. Please don’t misunderstand. If you’re going to insult someone, insult me.”
With that pitiful expression, she looked like the most wretched person in the world.
Last time, she’d let her brother suck her dry down to the marrow while defending their mother.
Now, she was volunteering to take her sister’s abuse.
Was it a mask?
Or was she truly, hopelessly pure to the point of stupidity?
For once, interest flickered in Lee Do’s eyes.
“And… I really am Hu-yeon’s sister. My name is different, but I’m her real sister.”
Lee Do recalled rumors of the Hyu Group’s eldest son—chronically ill, teetering between life and death since birth.
Apparently, he was still clinging to life.
Jin Hu-yeon and Jin Hyu-seok were well-known in these circles.
But the third child had been oddly absent from public knowledge.
So that was why.
Hidden away—kept as a living organ bank.
Only then did Lee Do understand the meaning behind this twisted blind date.
Before it began, Jin Hu-yeon had sent him a cryptic message.
[If you accept this, I’ll give you anything you want. Just one thing.]
A scoff escaped him.
The corner of Lee Do’s lips curved sharply.
Anyone who knew him would have stepped back immediately.
It was the expression he wore when he’d found a particularly entertaining toy.
“Why does coming here benefit you, Ms. Jin Seo-eun? Why did you come?”
He already knew the answer—but asked anyway, feigning ignorance.
Seo-eun’s eyes drooped helplessly.
“I…”
“You?”
Lee Do echoed lazily, tapping his finger against the table as if urging her on.
“….”
“If you’ve got nothing to say, let’s end this here. I’ll hold your sister responsible for this farce.”
“I—I do! I have something to say…!”
Her clasped hands turned white.
Jin Seo-eun was hesitating.
How to reveal the rot of her life.
How to dress up years of exploitation so it would sting less.
He assumed she’d be like other women of her class—unable to remove the many masks layered over her face.
Just as he was thinking that—
She looked him straight in the eye.
“I came because I want to marry you, Kwon Lee-do. I wanted to ask you.”
Lee Do was left speechless.
She had laid herself bare without any prompting.
A short click of his tongue escaped him, and Seo-eun clung on even more desperately.
“I want to leave my house, and marriage is the only way. People said… that if it’s you—if it’s Dowon Group—it’s possible. That’s why I shamelessly came in my sister’s place.”
She was thrashing about, desperately trying to grab hold of the rope she’d finally found.
“I’m not smart like my sister, and as you can see, I’m not healthy either. But I won’t ask for anything. If you just marry me, I’ll live quietly. I promise.”
She gasped internally for breath.
Hu-yeon had made her rehearse these lines hundreds—thousands—of times.
That was the only reason she could say them now, even though she was trembling like a leaf.
Hu-yeon had said this might be Seo-eun’s last chance to escape that house.
Because if their mother ever found out she was dreaming of escape through marriage—
She would place her under twenty-four-hour surveillance.
Knowing better than anyone the depth of her mother Jeong Yoon’s obsession with Hyu-seok, Seo-eun had no choice but to agree.
“Isn’t there a bigger disqualifying factor you should be telling me?”
Lee Do crooked a finger.
The server approached silently and placed a rocks glass on the table.
Lee Do filled it halfway with ice, then slowly poured whiskey over it.
Leaning back into the sofa, glass in hand, he spoke languidly.
“The Korea University Hospital Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Counseling Center.”
“…!”
“Weren’t you called the little sister of a savior? You’re pretty famous there—I’d know.”
The words tore into her like claws.
Seo-eun’s eyes shook violently.
“So what exactly do I gain from marrying a woman who’s having her bone marrow sucked dry by her own brother?”
“….”
“Looks like your sister didn’t tell you that part. What a shame.”
Seo-eun’s mind went blank.
It wasn’t even much of a secret.
Their mother openly said she’d given birth to Seo-eun to save Hyu-seok.
But hearing it so crudely from someone else—
Little sister of a savior.
A woman being drained of her marrow.
Every word flew at her like thorns, embedding themselves one by one.
Most of what Seo-eun knew of the world came from books and dramas.
She desperately searched her memory for scenes from Netflix series that resembled this moment.
If marriage was a transaction, then she needed something decisive to offer.
Family. Wealth. Beauty. Ability.
Anything.
But she had nothing.
Nothing except the promise to live quietly.
To be obedient.
If the man stood up and left right now, she didn’t even have the right to stop him.
As she stood there, lips trembling, unable to even make excuses—
Her phone began vibrating like it had gone mad.
It was her mother.
