Soo-jin’s story advanced, the pace of it mirroring the dizzying speed of the events themselves. She looked at Detective Jae-hyun, her expression one of shared disbelief, as if still unable to process the recklessness of it all.

"After only two months of dating," she stated, her voice flat, "Min-jun married Selena Bakker."

Jae-hyun, who had been a silent, absorbing presence, finally gave a slight, reactive frown. "Isn't that too early?"

Soo-jin let out a hollow laugh. "Yes. It's insane. We all thought so. My parents, me, even Hyun-woo tried to gently suggest he take more time. We all wanted him to at least know her properly before marrying her. But no. He had to. It was like he was under a spell, terrified that if he waited, she would vanish."

She recalled the arguments, the tense, hushed conversations in the family home. "Me and my mom warned him more often, begging him to just wait six months, a year. But he wouldn't listen. He said we were jealous, that we didn't understand the once-in-a-lifetime connection they had." The memory brought a fresh wave of bitterness. "He was right about one thing. We certainly didn't understand it."

The wedding itself was a spectacle, a performance tailored for Selena's burgeoning public image. "They married in the most luxurious way possible," Soo-jin recounted. "No expense was spared. And Selena... she had no family to speak of. She invited only a few friends, all of them from the film industry, all of them as superficial as she was. It felt less like a family wedding and more like a movie premiere."

She delivered the final, damning detail with a quiet sense of irony. "They did a destination wedding. Not on a quiet beach, but at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul. The most famous, most photographed hotel in the country. It was all for show. For her. From the very first day, their marriage was a stage, and my brother was just a prop in her production."

She fell silent, the image of her brother's blissful, unknowing smile on that grand stage a painful ghost in the quiet room. The gilded cage had been built, and he had happily walked inside, locking the door himself.