POV JAEHYUN
They say that an investor's mind must be able to see patterns where others see only chaos. I have built my career by detecting anomalies in the markets before they occur. But now, all that analytical ability was focused on one person: my wife.
Nabi was sleeping in the next room, but I couldn't close my eyes. I stayed in my study, with the lights dimmed, mulling over the phrase she had said to me: "I am Hayami." At that moment, under the adrenaline rush of the rescue, I took it as one of those literary comparisons she liked so much. A way of saying that she shared the author's pain. But as the hours passed, the idea that it wasn't a metaphor began to take root in my head like an obsession.
That morning, I decided I wouldn't let her out of my sight for a second.
"Ready for the exam?" I asked her when she came down for breakfast.
Nabi nodded silently, but her fingers kept moving against her thigh, a nervous tic she was trying to hide. She wore a pearl-colored silk blouse and her hair was pulled back with an elegance that screamed "Kwon," but her eyes... her eyes were still those of the girl who wrote to survive.
"I'm ready," she replied. "I just want to get this over with."
"Yuseo and I will walk you to the classroom door," I said.
We arrived at the university in a formation that looked more like that of a head of state than a student. As we got out of the car, the campus instantly erupted in murmurs. News of the previous day's photo shoot had leaked, not with the photos of her scars-thanks to my legal team-but with the rumor that I had defended my wife with unprecedented ferocity.
As we walked through the halls of the Finance Department, I noticed that Nabi wasn't looking at the students. Her gaze was lost in the details: the way the light hit the windows, the tired expression on a professor's face, the contrast of the shadows. She was gathering information. She was... narrating.
"Jae, I have to go to the bathroom for a moment," she whispered before entering the exam.
"I'll wait for you here," I said.
"I'm going with her!" exclaimed Yuseo, always alert.
I leaned against the marble wall of the hallway. That's when I saw Chaerin. She was at the end of the corridor, talking on the phone with an intensity that made me suspicious. She didn't come over, but she gave me a triumphant look that made my blood run cold. She had something under her arm, a small object that she protected as if it were a treasure.
When Nabi came out of the bathroom and entered the exam room, I felt uneasy. I spent the two hours of the exam reviewing reports on my tablet, but my mind kept returning to Nabi's behavior. I remembered how, at night, the light in her room stayed on until dawn. I remembered her ease in understanding her father's financial architecture, not as an economist, but as someone who understands the human motivations behind fraud.
When the exam ended and the students began to leave, Nabi was the last one out. She looked exhausted, but strangely calm.
"How did it go?" Yuseo asked, hugging her.
"Fine. I think I passed," Nabi replied with a weak smile.
We walked toward the exit, but in the main lobby, Chaerin blocked our way. She wasn't alone; several students and a couple of faculty bloggers were nearby.
"Nabi!" Chaerin exclaimed in a voice that was too loud, too fake. "I'm so glad you were able to come after your 'crisis' yesterday! You must be exhausted. All that studying finance and, on top of that... your creative life must take up a lot of your time."
Nabi tensed up beside me. I felt her hand instinctively reach for mine.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Chaerin," Nabi said firmly.
"Oh, come on." Don't be modest." Chaerin pulled a notebook out of her purse. My heart skipped a beat when I recognized the small, cramped handwriting I had once seen on Nabi's nightstand. "I found this under your mattress at home. It's fascinating. You have an incredible talent for describing... crimes. Especially those involving money laundering and textile companies."
Nabi's face turned to paper. The silence in the lobby was absolute.
"Give that back to me," Nabi demanded, her voice trembling.
"Why? It's just fiction, right?" Chaerin opened the notebook and began to read aloud. "The emperor was dressed in silk, but its threads were bathed in the sweat of those he himself had buried. The money didn't smell like perfume, it smelled like the oil from the machines that washed his conscience."
Yuseo let out a gasp. His eyes widened as he looked at Nabi and then at the notebook.
"That sentence..." Yuseo whispered. "That sentence is in the draft of Hayami's next book. She posted it on her preview blog two days ago."
My eyes locked on Nabi. Everything clicked into place with the violence of a train wreck. The way she spoke, her knowledge of her father's secrets, her insomnia, her ability to see through people. It wasn't a comparison. It wasn't a pseudonym she admired.
My wife was Hayami. The fragile woman I was trying to protect was the same author who stirred the emotions of millions with her pen.
"GIVE ME THE NOTEBOOK, CHAERIN!" Yuseo shouted, lunging at her, but the Kwon bodyguards (Taehoon's men) stood in his way.
"It's a shame," Chaerin continued, looking at the bloggers who were already recording with their phones. "That the great Hayami is actually a girl who needs pills to keep from losing her mind. What will your fans think when they find out that their idol is a crazy woman who writes about her own family because she can't deal with reality?"
I stepped forward, placing myself in front of Nabi, hiding her from the cameras. The fury I felt was not because of the secret being revealed, but because of the cruelty with which they were trying to use her gift to hurt her.
"That notebook is private property," I said, my voice coming out with deadly calm. "And what's inside isn't just literature. It's a confession of your family's crimes, Chaerin. By reading it in public, you've just admitted that the Kwons know exactly what they're accused of."
Chaerin paled slightly, but regained her viperous smile.
"No one will believe a crazy woman, Jaehyun. Her words are just 'fiction.' But to the art world, Hayami is finished. No one wants to read someone so unstable."
Nabi broke free from my grip and stepped forward. She was no longer trembling. Her eyes shone with an icy light that reminded me of a warrior who has nothing left to lose.
"You can keep the notebook, Chaerin," Nabi said, her voice echoing throughout the lobby. "It's just paper. The story has already been written, and not just on my blog. The original records, the ones that match every word in that book, are already in the hands of the right people."
"What are you talking about?" Chaerin hissed.
Nabi pulled out her own phone and showed a confirmation screen.
"I just sent the final chapter to my editor. And with it, an attachment for the financial crimes unit. If I'm 'crazy,' then the justice system will have a lot of fun analyzing the very accurate hallucinations I have about my father's bank accounts."
The lobby erupted in murmurs. Chaerin backed away, realizing that her attempt at humiliation had backfired.
"Let's go!" Chaerin ordered her men, almost running out of the faculty.
Yuseo turned to Nabi, tears of emotion in his eyes.
"Is it you? Is it really you?" my sister asked, barely breathing.
Nabi nodded with a sad smile.
"I'm sorry, Yuseo. I wanted to tell you under better circumstances."
"This is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me!" Yuseo shouted, hugging her so tightly that she almost knocked her over. "My sister-in-law is a genius! Screw the Kwons!"
I approached her. I wrapped my arms around her, feeling her heart beating hard against my chest. I looked into her eyes, trying to process the magnitude of the woman standing in front of me. She wasn't just Nabi, my beloved wife; she was the voice of a generation, a woman who had turned her pain into an empire of words.
"So... Hayami," I whispered, just for her.
"Do you hate me for lying to you?" she asked, a trace of fear in her eyes.
"I hate you for making me believe that I was the only one who could protect you," I replied, giving her a short but intense kiss. "It turns out that my wife has a weapon much more powerful than all my money: her truth."
But as we walked toward the car, I saw Taehoon watching us from a dark car across the street. He wasn't smiling anymore. The secret had come out, and now that Nabi had admitted to being Hayami and had real evidence, she was no longer just an inconvenient heiress. She was a mortal threat to the entire structure of the Korean mafia.
"Jaehyun," Nabi whispered, squeezing my arm as we got into the car. "Taehoon won't let that final chapter be published."
"Then we'll make sure it gets published on every screen in this city," I replied, closing the door securely. "Yuseo, call our media division. I want a press conference this afternoon. Not for the Kwon heiress, but for the worldwide launch of Hayami's book. We're going to give the world the story they've been waiting for."
The game had changed. We were no longer running. We were attacking. But I knew Taehoon wouldn't play fair. If Nabi was the pen, I would have to be the sword. And that night, Seoul would burn with the truth my wife had kept under her skin for too long.