"How?" he asked at last, his voice rough.
Yerin didn't blink.
"Frame her," she said flatly. "For attempted murder, Kim Suho."
Hyunwoo's eyes widened, breath catching. "But—"
She cut him off without mercy.
"Everything is already prepared," she said, tone eerily calm. "All you have to do is surrender yourself and confess. Admit that you both did everything because she asked you to."
His head snapped up. "What?" Panic cracked through his voice. "Why would I go to jail? I didn't do anything!"
Yerin tilted her head, almost amused.
"Oh? Then should I tell the police," she said lightly, "that you were the one who planned the Gangnam Street attack on Suho?"
The air left his lungs.
Hyunwoo went completely still, trapped between fear and fury, the memory of that night burning fresh in his mind.
She leaned forward again, voice lowering, pressing where it hurt most.
"Think carefully," she murmured. "If you help me, your life will be set. Yes, you'll go to jail for a while." She shrugged. "But I'll make sure every accusation shifts onto Hauen. I'll get you out. Clean."
His fingers trembled against the table.
"And after that?" she continued smoothly. "I'll help you settle in America. New life. New identity. No humiliation. No one is looking down on you."
She paused, letting the silence suffocate him.
"So," Yerin said softly, eyes glinting, "what do you want, Kang Hyunwoo?"
"To be treated like trash for the rest of your life?"
"Or take one risk… and rise?"
Hyunwoo stared at her, breathing unevenly, his morals crumbling under the weight of resentment, money, and wounded pride.
Yerin watched it happen, patient and cruel.
She already knew his answer.
Hyunwoo met her gaze, mind racing. Fear still clung to him, cold and stubborn.
"I want half the money in advance," he said at last, voice tight. "Before I surrender."
For a moment, Yerin said nothing.
Her eyes hardened, sharp enough to make his spine prickle. Hyunwoo forced himself not to look away, holding her stare even as his pulse thundered in his ears.
A long minute passed.
"Fine," she said finally, her tone smooth and dangerous. "You'll get it within this week. But the moment you receive the money, you surrender. Immediately."
Hyunwoo hesitated, weighing the cliff he was about to step off.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
Yerin's lips curved into a satisfied smile. "Good."
She laid out every detail after that. What he had to say. What he had to omit. How his confession would unfold, word by word. Cornered and already half-broken, Hyunwoo agreed to it all.
A contract followed. Clean, cold, and an airtight nondisclosure agreement binds him to silence.
An hour later, Hyunwoo stood and walked out of the restaurant, shoulders heavy, fate sealed.
Yerin remained seated. Her reflection stared back at her from the dark glass of the window, eyes calm, victorious, and burning all the same.
Back to the present.
Suho's eyes burned, vision blurring as tears spilled freely, one after another, unstoppable. He stared at the truth laid bare before him, his chest tightening as reality crushed in.
He couldn't believe it.
Not even in his darkest nightmare had he imagined Yerin capable of something like this.
His body trembled.
Hauen's hand slipped around his arm, grounding him, steady and warm. The moment her touch reached him, he flinched, as if the weight of everything finally pierced through his shock. He turned to her, eyes wild, broken, searching.
And then he pulled her into himself.
Hard.
Like she was the only thing anchoring him to the present.
Words refused to come. His throat locked, breath uneven, lungs burning. Anger surged first, sharp and violent. Then disappointment, heavy and suffocating. Betrayal followed, cruel and absolute, crashing through him all at once.
His mind stalled under the flood of it.
So Hauen said nothing.
She only held him tighter, letting his silent grief and fury pour into her shoulder, letting him feel without forcing him to explain.
And in that moment, with everything collapsing inside him, she became the only place where he could still breathe.
Kevin looked at Suho for a long moment.
He didn't need words to understand what the man was drowning in. It was written all over him, in the way his jaw stayed locked, in the way his arms clutched Hauen as if letting go would shatter him completely.
"I was there… at that elite party," Kevin spoke at last, his voice slow, careful, like stepping around broken glass.
Suho heard him. He didn't respond. His grip around Hauen didn't loosen even by a fraction.
"That night," Kevin continued, "I saw Yerin again. After she left America." He paused, watching Suho's profile. "And unexpectedly… I saw you too. Both of you."
Suho's gaze stayed fixed somewhere far away.
"I heard your conversation with her," Kevin said softly. "Every word." He took a breath. "That's when I understood everything. Your past. Your pain. And most importantly… that you had already moved on from Yerin."
Still, Suho said nothing.
His mind felt numb, disconnected, as if his thoughts refused to travel to his lips.
"But Yerin," Kevin went on, a quiet edge creeping into his tone, "she wasn't over you. Not even close."
Suho remained silent.
Kevin added the words heavy. "I tried. One last time. I told her to let go. To stop chasing something that no longer belonged to her." A bitter smile crossed his face.
"She didn't listen. She left again."
Kevin's gaze hardened slightly. "But I didn't let it end there. I kept my eyes on her. Because I knew she was planning something. I could feel it."
Suho's breathing grew heavier, chest rising and falling unevenly.
"And then," Kevin said quietly, "I found out about her plan." A pause. A regret that sat heavy in the air. "But by the time I moved… it was already too late."
Silence swallowed the space between them.
"Hauen was arrested," Kevin finished. "Trapped. Completely."
The memory slammed into Suho like a blade. The clink of handcuffs. The chaos. The way the police had dragged her away right in front of his eyes.
His breath hitched sharply.
His hands tightened around Hauen instinctively, protectively, as if his body remembered the terror before his mind could stop it. Anger burned through his veins, hot and merciless, threatening to scorch everything in its path.
Hauen felt it immediately.
She slipped her hand into his, squeezing gently, reminding him she was here. Still here. Safe. Alive.
Suho lowered his forehead against her hair, eyes burning, heart roaring.
He still couldn't speak.
But inside him, something had cracked beyond repair.
To be continued....