"I'm in."
The words dropped between them so simply that for a second, Jae-min thought he'd heard wrong.
He stared at Min-woo from across the living room, the afternoon light stretching long across the floor between them. The apartment felt too big without his sister in it, even though it was small enough for the walls to hear everything. Her room door was half-open. One of her mugs still sat in the sink with a faint ring of coffee dried at the bottom. The blanket she had used on the couch that morning was folded badly over the armrest because Jae-min had tried to tidy up and ended up leaving it there anyway.
Everything in the house still looked like her.
That made Min-woo's answer feel strange—too sharp, too immediate—against a place that had spent the whole day drowning in grief.
Jae-min blinked. "You're serious?"
Min-woo, who had kicked off his shoes and claimed the couch like he paid rent there, lifted a shoulder. "You think I came over here for the free emotional damage?"
Jae-min let out a breath through his nose, but it wasn't a laugh. He was too tired to laugh. Too angry to sit still. Since Seo-yeon had left that morning, he'd done nothing but pace, search, think, pace again. His head felt hot and full of static.
Min-woo watched him for a second, then sat forward and braced his elbows on his knees.
"Okay," he said. "Tell me everything."
Jae-min frowned. "Everything?"
"Everything. About him. About what happened. About what you want to do." Min-woo tilted his head. "Because if you're serious about revenge, then stop standing there looking like the tragic lead in a drama poster and start talking."
Jae-min gave him a look. "Can you not ruin the mood for one minute?"
"I'm stabilizing you."
"You're annoying me."
"That too."
Jae-min dragged a hand down his face, then turned and went to the kitchen counter where his phone was charging. He unplugged it and came back, dropping onto the single armchair across from the couch. His body sank into it, but there was no rest in him. His knee started bouncing almost immediately.
Min-woo held out a hand. "Phone."
Jae-min tossed it over.
Min-woo unlocked it after Jae-min told him the password, and what followed was a long silence broken only by the sound of Min-woo swiping through page after page of information Jae-min had gathered since dawn.
Photos. Business profiles. articles. social posts. old interviews. charity event coverage. company write-ups. the official Kang Holdings website. grainy paparazzi-style shots from some corporate gala. a few photos that had come from Seo-yeon's own account before she archived most of them.
In almost all of them, Kang Jihan looked the same.
Tall. Clean-cut. Controlled.
The kind of man who had probably never once in his life looked rushed, even if the building behind him was on fire.
Black hair pushed back from his forehead in some photos, falling loose in others. Dark eyes that never gave anything away. Expensive suits. Straight posture. A face that didn't soften so much as loosen at the edges when he smiled, and even then it looked like a habit rather than something sincere.
Min-woo paused on one of the photos and let out a low whistle.
"Your sister's ex looks like he says things like 'I'll have my secretary schedule your downfall.'"
Jae-min stared at him.
Min-woo glanced up. "What? He does."
Jae-min snatched the phone back, thumb pressing too hard against the screen as he locked it. "Can you focus?"
"I am focused. I'm focusing on the fact that your enemy looks like he belongs in a chaebol scandal."
"He does belong in one."
Min-woo's expression sharpened at that.
Jae-min leaned forward, forearms on his knees, fingers laced so tightly the knuckles paled. "His name is Kang Jihan. Twenty-eight. Executive director at Kang Holdings. His father's been grooming him to take over part of the company for years." He paused, jaw tightening. "He lives at home with his father and younger brother."
Min-woo blinked. "At twenty-eight?"
"Rich people don't count as normal people."
"That's fair."
Jae-min ignored him. "His father's name is Kang Dong-hyun. Chairman of Kang Holdings. He's the kind of man who looks like he'd sue a child for breathing near his shoes."
"Also fair."
"And the younger brother is Kang Tae-hyun. Twenty-three. Final year student. He's graduating this year."
Min-woo's brows lifted. "You did your homework."
Jae-min didn't answer.
Because homework was a soft word for what he'd done.
Homework sounded clean. Harmless. Like a boy hunched over a desk with a highlighter between his teeth, not someone sitting in the dark at three in the morning with rage crawling up his spine while he read every scrap of information he could find on the man who had broken his sister and vanished.
He'd gone through old photos. Public records. Articles about Kang Holdings. Press releases. Half-dead social accounts. Anything with Jihan's face attached to it. Anything that might explain what kind of man could watch Seo-yeon crumble and still leave her unanswered.
Min-woo studied him for a second, then spoke more quietly.
"What exactly are you trying to do to him?"
Jae-min looked up.
Min-woo held his gaze. "I'm not asking to judge you. I'm asking because there's a difference between I want to make his life difficult and I want to burn his entire world to the ground. If I'm helping, I need to know which one you mean."
The room fell still.
Jae-min sat back slowly, his expression flattening into something colder.
"I want him to hurt," he said.
Min-woo said nothing.
"I want him to know what it feels like to wake up and realize someone you trusted just ripped your life open and walked away." Jae-min swallowed, but the bitterness stayed in his voice. "I want him to feel watched. Pressured. cornered. I want him to lose something he can't get back."
His fingers tightened against his own hand.
"He doesn't get to do that to her and walk around like nothing happened."
Min-woo's face didn't change, but something in his posture did. The joking ease faded. What remained was the version of him Jae-min knew best—the one who could laugh through anything, right until the moment someone he loved got hurt.
"Okay," Min-woo said at last. "Then we think smarter than him."
Jae-min's eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Min-woo said, leaning back, "that men like Kang Jihan are built to survive public mess. Rich family, company status, money, connections—if you try to hit him from the outside, he'll either dodge it or bury it."
Jae-min hated how right that sounded.
Min-woo ticked points off on his fingers. "You spread a rumor? His family crushes it. You confront him directly? He shuts the door in your face or sends security. You try to embarrass him publicly? His father has enough money to make the internet forget your name."
Jae-min's jaw flexed.
Min-woo pointed at him. "Exactly. So if you want this to work, you don't swing at the armor."
Jae-min stared at him.
"You find the gaps in it."
Silence settled between them again, heavier this time.
Jae-min looked down at his phone in his hand. The screen was black now, reflecting a dim version of his own face. He tapped it awake and opened one of the photos again—Jihan at some charity gala, standing beside his father and brother in matching black suits.
Kang Dong-hyun stood at the center with his hand resting on Jihan's shoulder, not warmly, not proudly—just there, like a reminder of ownership. Tae-hyun stood on the other side, younger and easier in the face, though even he had that same polished Kang expression in public. Jihan's mouth was curved in a faint smile, but his eyes looked somewhere else entirely. Somewhere far from the camera. Far from the room. Far from himself.
Jae-min had noticed that in almost every picture.
Jihan never looked relaxed.
Not really.
He always looked composed. Always sharp. Always in control. But there was a stiffness to him in those photos, a tension under the surface, like every public appearance was something he had to survive rather than enjoy.
Jae-min frowned at the screen.
Min-woo caught the look. "What?"
Jae-min didn't answer right away. His thumb moved over the image, enlarging Jihan's face until the features blurred slightly beneath the pressure.
"He's weird," he muttered.
Min-woo snorted. "That's your professional analysis?"
"I'm serious."
"So am I. 'Weird' isn't enough. I need a category. Is he serial killer weird? tax fraud weird? cries in luxury bathrooms weird?"
Jae-min almost smiled, but it died before it reached his mouth. "No. I mean…" He exhaled sharply and looked up. "He looks like someone pretending to be fine."
Min-woo went quiet.
Jae-min held the phone out. "Look."
Min-woo took it. Jae-min leaned over, tapping through a few more photos.
"This one. And this one. And this one too."
Dinner with Seo-yeon. A company banquet. A family press photo. Another event, another suit, another expensive room full of people pretending they didn't hate each other.
Jihan looked beautiful in all of them.
He also looked trapped in every single one.
Not enough for a stranger to notice. Not enough for a camera to catch and label. But Jae-min had been staring at this man's face for hours now. He had started to see the cracks. The slight hardness around the mouth. The way his shoulders never seemed to drop. The dead calm in his eyes that didn't look peaceful so much as exhausted.
Min-woo studied the screen for a long time, then handed it back.
"Huh."
"What?"
"Hate to say it, but you might be right." He rubbed at his chin. "He looks like someone trying not to make a mistake."
Jae-min's gaze dropped to the photo again.
The apartment was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional sound of traffic from the road below. He could hear his own pulse in his ears. Maybe it was lack of sleep. Maybe it was the way his anger had settled into something colder over the last day—less wild, more deliberate.
Jihan was protected in public. That much was obvious.
At the company, he had his father's name over him like a shield. At events, he had money and status and carefully arranged appearances. Even his relationship with Seo-yeon had existed in places like that—restaurants, drives, expensive dates, clean photos.
But no one could perform forever.
Not at home.
Not behind locked doors.
Not when the audience was gone.
Jae-min slowly sat up straighter.
Min-woo saw it happen. "What are you thinking?"
Jae-min's eyes stayed on the phone. "I think I've been looking at him wrong."
"How?"
"I've been thinking about how to attack him from the outside." His voice dropped, growing steadier the more he spoke. "But if I want to ruin him, I don't need the version of Kang Jihan that everyone else sees."
Min-woo's face sharpened.
"I need the one he hides."
Something electric passed through the room.
Jae-min set the phone down on the coffee table and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, every line of his body drawn tight with purpose now.
"I need to know what his life actually looks like when no one's watching. I need to know what matters to him. What he protects. What he's ashamed of. Who he becomes when the suit comes off and the house doors close."
Min-woo didn't interrupt.
Jae-min's eyes were hard now, bright with a kind of anger that had burned itself into clarity.
"If I can get close enough to see the real cracks," he said, "then I'll know where to put the knife."
Min-woo stared at him for a second.
Then he let out a slow breath and leaned back against the couch cushions.
"That," he said, "was terrifying."
Jae-min rolled his eyes.
"No, seriously." Min-woo pointed at him. "You said that like a villain monologuing before the intermission."
"Can you stop?"
"I'm complimenting you."
Jae-min looked away, but Min-woo could still see the tension riding his shoulders.
After a moment, Min-woo's expression softened. "So that's the angle."
Jae-min nodded once.
Min-woo crossed his arms and tilted his head back toward the ceiling, thinking. "Getting close to a family like that won't be easy."
"I know."
"People like them have drivers, staff, cameras, security, assistants, enough money to make privacy a weapon."
"I know."
Min-woo glanced at him. "You're still going to do it anyway."
Jae-min met his eyes.
"Yes."
Min-woo was quiet for a beat. Then the corner of his mouth lifted.
"Good," he said.
Jae-min blinked. "Good?"
"I'd be offended if you backed out now after making that speech." He stood up from the couch and stretched his arms over his head with a groan. "Alright. We do it properly. No rushing. No emotional stupidity. We gather information, figure out his routine, and find a way in."
Jae-min stood too. "You really mean it."
Min-woo looked at him like the question itself was stupid.
"You're my best friend, idiot." His grin faded just slightly. "He hurt your sister. He hurt you too, whether you want to admit that or not. So yes—I mean it."
Something in Jae-min's chest tightened unexpectedly.
He looked away first because he hated how close that feeling was to tears, and he was too exhausted for tears.
Min-woo clapped him once on the shoulder, hard enough to jolt him.
"Now come on," he said. "If we're plotting revenge, at least order chicken. I'm not becoming an accomplice on an empty stomach."
Jae-min let out a breath that finally, finally turned into the ghost of a laugh.
"Psychopath."
"Says the man who just threatened someone with metaphorical stabbing."
Jae-min shook his head, but the corner of his mouth moved anyway.
The laughter didn't last. None of it did.
But for the first time since Seo-yeon's breakdown, the helplessness in his chest shifted. Not gone. Never gone. But sharpened into something he could hold.
A plan was beginning to take shape.
And somewhere in the middle of Seoul, Kang Jihan had no idea his life had just started tilting toward disaster.