IRLPLBIO Chapter 48 Part 1

Chapter 48 #10. Open Your Mouth, The Fraud Begins (5)

Kwang-cheol confirmed Jae-gu’s breathing had stabilized, then gently touched him. He brushed back a few strands of hair that had fallen on Jae-gu’s neat forehead and lightly caressed his slightly thinned cheek.

Jae-gu’s closed eyelids trembled faintly. The shadow of his long eyelashes also quivered.

Kwang-cheol waited for Jae-gu to turn his head the other way with an awkward sleepy murmur, then he too moved to the opposite side. As he gently rubbed Jae-gu’s slightly furrowed brow, Jae-gu’s cheek momentarily tensed awkwardly.

Kwang-cheol suppressed a laugh that almost escaped him. It seemed Jae-gu, with his eyes closed, didn’t realize that his emotions, usually easy to read, were now completely transparent and laid bare.

For Kwang-cheol, Jae-gu was someone with complex and diverse meanings. He was a brother closer than blood, a being for whom he wouldn’t regret giving everything, and a fated partner who had imprinted on him without knowing it.

Kwang-cheol knew that Jae-gu treated him only as a younger brother. However, he wasn’t overly concerned.

Because imprinting wasn’t something that could happen with just anyone. It meant Jae-gu too had, at some point, thought of him as more than a younger brother.

It was just that their long history together was clouding Jae-gu’s judgment. It was simply a matter of waiting for Jae-gu to realize that familiarity had transformed into something else.

Slowly, Kwang-cheol leaned his body towards Jae-gu. The bed, where his hand rested, softly sank.

From a distance close enough for their noses to touch, he quietly looked down at Jae-gu. His tightly closed, wrinkled eyelids, his uncontrollably trembling eyelashes, even his lips, pale from how tightly they were pressed together.

“…What are you thinking?”

Kwang-cheol gently rubbed Jae-gu’s cheek, which was holding its breath in tension. When he slightly shifted and pressed his lips firmly against Jae-gu’s forehead, Jae-gu let out a startled hiccup.

Pretending not to have heard anything, he tidied the blanket. Jae-gu, who was trembling and flushed red all the way to his hairline, was exceedingly delightful.

Kwang-cheol, who had quietly closed the door and stood in the hallway, looked at his mobile phone, which had just vibrated briefly. A low-quality photo had been sent, but he could recognize the subject.

It was Jeong Seung-dae, standing in the airport departure lounge.

Han Yun-cheol had truly agonized for the past few days. Remembering how he first met Jeong Seung-dae, it seemed like a shallow trick by Jae-gu, but the problem was that digging into Jeong Seung-dae’s background yielded nothing noteworthy.

A young man with no criminal record, either a competent swindler so adept he didn’t need a record, or a budding investor just starting to learn the ropes. In his mind, the latter possibility seemed more likely.

Moreover, with the added information that he had departed the country, one scenario gained even more traction. A swindler who gained nothing would not immediately leave the country. It was clear that his investment plan had gone awry, and he had gone to consult with his head office.

However, a strange unease prevented Han Yun-cheol from acting decisively. Han Yun-cheol recalled that matters involving Jae-gu often went subtly awry. If things had completely fallen apart, he would have categorized Jae-gu as an enemy, but it was difficult to find fault with things merely straying slightly off course.

The matter of “Big Hand of Jongno, Madam Shin” in the Jongno loan shark market, as mentioned by Jae-gu, was also like that. He had found traces of the woman named Shin, said to be the successor to the elder. Seeing how contact kept breaking off just as he was about to reach her, it seemed Jae-gu’s information was true, but she wasn’t someone just anyone could approach.

At this rate, he was going to be swayed by Jae-gu’s words again. It was then, as he tapped, tapped on his desk, lost in thought.

“Nephew.”

“Who… ah.”

Han Yun-cheol, whose thoughts had been interrupted, looked at the visitor with an unruffled expression. He immediately knew who it was. It was the father of the twins who had used the Dae-yeong name for profit and then been thoroughly crushed by Jae-gu.

Being busy with work, he hadn’t paid any attention to their affairs, so he had no idea when this person had come to cling to him. Han Yun-cheol sighed, picked up the internal phone, and spoke curtly.

“Who told you to let them in?”

“I apologize. They insisted…”

“Weren’t you hired to prevent such things?”

“I apologize. I will rectify it.”

Clack, at the same moment the phone was put down, the door to the executive director’s office opened. Two secretaries, their faces flushed red, strode in, ready to drag the man out immediately.

The flustered man quickly extended an arm towards Han Yun-cheol.

“Nep-nephew! Just listen to me!”

Who was he calling nephew?

Han Yun-cheol, with a face that showed almost no emotion, merely furrowed his brow slightly. He even made a gesture of shaking off the man’s arm before it could even reach him.

The secretaries seized the man from both sides. Their grip was fierce, as if they were handling a criminal.

Even though it must have been highly humiliating, the man wore a forced smile instead of showing anger. Whether it was himself, a seventh-degree relative by blood, or his twins, eighth-degree relatives, to Han Yun-cheol they were no different from strangers. To get into the good graces of a powerful ‘stranger,’ he had no choice but to grovel and flatter.

“Nephew, I clearly knocked! And came in, but you must not have heard. Since we’ve met face-to-face like this, isn’t it fate? Couldn’t you spare a moment?”

“A moment, you say?”

“Ten minutes…”

“Ten minutes?”

Yun-cheol subtly raised his wrist to check his watch. Noticing one of his eyebrows slowly rising, the man quickly changed his words.

“Oh, no, five minutes! Five minutes is enough! Five minutes!”

“…You may leave.”

Han Yun-cheol’s gesture was directed at the secretaries. Only then did color return to the man’s face.

The man, who had sat down uninvited, clung to Han Yun-cheol with a fawning smile, as if completely forgetting the earlier disregard and cold treatment.

“I heard the support for the cultural foundation has been significantly cut… Nephew, I know why, but you should give us some leeway. What are we supposed to do if you just cut us off like that?”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“No, it’s not that… Oh, right, my kids said they want to apologize. Where should they go, hmm? What should they prepare to satisfy him?”

“I am not the one to receive an apology. You seem to have come to the wrong person.”