A few days passed, but Jun’s thoughts only grew heavier.

No matter how many times he replayed everything in his head—the words Nayeon said, the fragments of memory, the gaps that refused to close—the dots simply would not connect. Every time he thought he was close to understanding, something slipped away, leaving behind a hollow sense of unease.

It was exhausting.

In the end, Jun forced himself to stop.

The past is the past, he told himself. I can’t keep digging into something I don’t even remember.

Life continued as usual—if “usual” could describe the constant tension pressing down on him.

At college, Yohan acted as if Jun didn’t exist. No greeting. No acknowledgment. Not even the courtesy of open hostility. But Jun felt it anyway—the weight of Yohan’s attention pressing into his back when he wasn’t looking, sharp enough to make his shoulders tense.

At dinner, the silence turned suffocating.

Yohan never addressed Jun directly. He spoke over him, around him, through others—as if Jun were an inconvenience cluttering the table. Once, when Jun reached for a dish, Yohan moved it out of reach without looking at him.

No apology.
No explanation.

Jun withdrew his hand.

Every meal ended with Jun feeling like he’d lost something, though he couldn’t name what.

More than anything, he missed home.

He missed the cramped apartment in Gwangju. The scratched coffee table. The evenings when Jihye complained while cooking, when silence didn’t feel like a threat. Here, surrounded by blood relatives and quiet luxury, Jun felt like an intruder in someone else’s life.

That night, when he returned to his room, he stopped just inside the doorway.

Something was wrong.

Nothing obvious had changed. The bed was untouched. The curtains hung exactly where he’d left them. The air smelled the same—wood polish and faint detergent.

And yet—

Jun’s eyes slid to the study table.

His laptop sat neatly on top.

He stared at it.

He never left it out.

Jun crossed the room slowly, every step measured. The chair was angled differently. One book lay half an inch out of alignment with the others.

Small things.

Intentional things.

His heartbeat quickened.

After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped back into the corridor.

“Yunseok,” Jun said when he found him nearby, keeping his voice light. “Did you come into my room earlier?”

Yunseok blinked. “No. I wasn’t instructed to.”

“Anyone else?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

Jun nodded and forced a smile.

When he returned to his room, the walls felt closer.

Someone had been here.

Someone careful.

That evening, Min-su summoned him.

“Come,” his grandfather said. “There’s something you should see.”

They walked into the older wing of the estate, where the air was cooler and heavier, as if the house itself remembered too much. Min-su stopped in front of a closed door.

“This was your parents’ room.”

Jun inhaled sharply.

Inside, time had been preserved. Photographs lined the shelves—his parents, young and smiling. His mother’s gentle eyes. His father’s steady gaze.

And then pictures of a baby.

Jun’s hands trembled as he lifted one. His own face stared back at him, small and unaware, fingers wrapped around his mother’s hand.

“I have a call to take,” Min-su said quietly. “Stay as long as you like.”

The door closed behind him.

Jun stood alone among ghosts.

After a long moment, he carefully placed the photos back inside the closet. As he did, his knuckles brushed against the back panel.

Thunk.

The sound was wrong.

Jun froze.

He knocked again. The surrounding wood was solid. Ordinary.

That spot wasn’t.

Carefully, he cleared the shelf, his pulse thudding in his ears. Dust filled the air as he pressed along the back panel, searching.

His fingers found an edge.

A panel shifted under his grip.

Jun swallowed and pulled.

The wood came loose, revealing a narrow space hidden inside the wall.

He hesitated—then reached in.

His fingers closed around something heavy.

A file.

Dust-coated. Old.

As he opened it, a folded note slipped free and landed at his feet.

Give it to father.

Jun’s breath caught.

The documents beneath were worse. Numbers. Names. Transfers that didn’t make sense. Companies he’d never heard of. Even without understanding the details, he knew one thing.

This wasn’t clean.

Footsteps sounded outside.

Jun snapped the file shut, his heart hammering, just as Yunseok appeared in the doorway.

“Dinner is ready,” Yunseok said.

Jun nodded, his expression carefully blank.

Once alone again, he restored everything—the panel, the files, the photographs—until the room looked untouched.

But he didn’t put the file back.

Later, in his own room, Jun locked the door and stared at it on his bed.

The note replayed in his mind.

Give it to father.

Which father?

And why hide it?

Jun exhaled slowly, dread settling deep in his chest.

This family wasn’t just keeping secrets.

They were protecting them.