Chapter 100: The Lie About the Broken Vase

There was a tall side table in the corner of the living room, and a flower vase sat on top of it. At a glance, it was high enough that Si-yeol, who couldn’t even walk yet, would never be able to reach it.

Following Ha-jin’s gaze, Tae Seol spoke.

“They’re artificial flowers. Just in case Si-yeol gets hurt, even the vase is plastic.”

Looking more closely, there wasn’t even any water inside the transparent vase. Tae Seol was right. With a baby in the house, they probably wouldn’t keep fresh flowers in a glass vase. The living room floor was almost completely covered with play mats for Si-yeol.

The sharp corners of the furniture had all been padded with foam to make sure the child wouldn’t get hurt.

“…You’ll understand someday too, Ha-jin. A house with a baby can’t really help it.”

Tae Seol added the explanation almost defensively. He seemed to have misunderstood Ha-jin’s wandering gaze, thinking he was judging the mismatched interior and the fake flowers.

“Ah… of course. I guess that makes sense.”

But Ha-jin barely heard him.

None of that mattered right now.

A father who cared this much about his child would never leave a dangerous glass vase where Si-yeol could reach it.

So what had shattered last night?

And why had Jun-seok lied?

Thinking back, another thing felt strange.

Could the sound of a single vase breaking really have carried all the way outside?

Yesterday, Jun-seok’s sudden appearance had startled him too much to think about it. Only now did it begin to bother him.

“But what did you mean when you asked if Si-yeol broke a vase?”

“Ah, that…”

Ha-jin hesitated.

Should he ask directly?

Or should he brush it off as a misunderstanding?

The answer came quickly.

Jun-seok had seemed suspicious in too many ways.

He had likely lied.

Ha-jin needed either an explanation or something more concrete.

So he told Tae Seol what had happened the previous night.

“…Ah.”

Tae Seol’s expression became oddly complicated.

He took a sip of the now-cold coffee and remained silent for a long moment.

Ha-jin didn’t rush him.

He had wanted to see Tae Seol’s reaction when Jun-seok came up.

The confusion and hesitation gradually faded from Tae Seol’s face before he finally spoke.

“That’s right. Si-yeol did break a vase yesterday. There was one in the bedroom that I forgot to put away…”

Tae Seol had a strange talent.

Sometimes he seemed so soft that he looked almost foolish.

Other times, he hid his emotions so well that they became impossible to read.

Right now, it was the latter.

Based on everything they had discussed, Ha-jin knew that answer was a lie.

But if he looked only at Tae Seol’s face, it sounded completely believable.

“I see. Well… it’s fine as long as he wasn’t hurt.”

Ha-jin decided he wouldn’t get the truth from Tae Seol.

And he couldn’t exactly interrogate him in this situation.

The best he could do was accept that Jun-seok had lied for some reason, and that Tae Seol was helping him maintain that lie.

Ha-jin took a bitter sip of the cold coffee.

‘They’re hiding something.’

He didn’t know what it was yet.

But realizing that a secret existed at all was already something.

“We should do this more often, Ha-jin. Have coffee together.”

“I’d like that. And I get to see Si-yeol too.”

The smiles the two of them exchanged seemed equally insincere.

****

“Haa…”

Even after arriving home long ago, Chae Woo-seok still hadn’t gotten out of the car.

It had been a long time since he had dreaded going inside this much.

Before the marriage, he had felt like this almost every day.

There hadn’t been a single reason to want to enter that house.

But recently, things had changed.

He had wanted to leave work early.

More accurately, he had wanted to come home.

Unless it was an unavoidable appointment, he rarely wandered around outside anymore.

He had even grown lazy about maintaining his carefully cultivated trashy reputation.

That was how much he had come to enjoy coming home.

But not today.

Even while looking at the warm lights glowing through the living room window, he remained in the car, letting out heavy sighs.

“Why the hell did I buy this…”

The bouquet on the passenger seat looked pitiful despite its size and vivid colors.

Roses, Aranda orchids, calla lilies, dahlias, skimmia.

It contained every beautiful flower he could think of.

And yet it still didn’t feel enough.

Worse, he had chosen a deep red color palette, making it look less like a gift and more like the beginning of a bloodbath.

Buying flowers had felt inevitable.

He knew Ha-jin would be upset today.

He knew he was the reason.

And he remembered how Ha-jin’s lips had curled upward when he gave him peonies after their last fight.

That memory had led him here.

Not that it had given him any confidence.

Knock, knock.

After spending what felt like forever with his forehead resting against the steering wheel, he looked up at the sound of someone tapping on the window.

He lowered it slightly.

The person standing there was the one he least wanted to face right now.

“You’ve been sitting here for a while. Why aren’t you coming in?”

“Ah… I was just making a phone call.”

“Come inside. I need to talk to you.”

Ha-jin looked perfectly normal.

His voice was calm.

Natural.

There wasn’t even a hint of awkwardness.

Hearing him speak so casually made Woo-seok wonder if he had been worrying for nothing.

Then again, Ha-jin wasn’t the type to stay angry for long.

Maybe this was his way of trying to make peace.

Of course, he was probably still upset underneath that calm exterior.

“Come with me.”

Woo-seok grabbed the bouquet from the passenger seat and followed him.

Watching Ha-jin trot ahead of him, he found the sight strangely adorable.

Like a squirrel hurrying back to its nest.

The moment they entered the house, Woo-seok wrapped his arms around Ha-jin from behind and held the bouquet out in front of him.

“…What are you doing?”

“A gift.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

The reaction was wrong.

Not angry.

But not the reaction he had expected either.

Ha-jin should have said something like, You didn’t have to buy flowers.

Or, I didn’t ask for flowers… though they’re pretty.

Instead, he accepted the bouquet with almost no emotion at all.

“Don’t you have anything else to say?”

Sensing something was off, Woo-seok released him and turned him around to face him.

“I do. Come with me.”

Right.

Of course there was something.

There was no way they were just going to ignore what had happened.

Ha-jin carried the large bouquet into the bedroom.

Woo-seok followed behind him, secretly trying to hide the smile that threatened to appear.

Maybe he was embarrassed.

Maybe he wanted to apologize too.

“Sit down.”

But the moment they entered the room, Ha-jin’s demeanor shattered all of those hopeful fantasies.

He looked completely serious.

Woo-seok sat down across from him.

“What’s with the atmosphere?”

“It’s important.”

How important could it be?

Ha-jin wasn’t someone who joked about serious things.

So Woo-seok decided to listen.

Even if he didn’t like that they were skipping over the flowers and the argument from last night.

“It’s about the omega serial killer.”

“Haa…”

The moment he heard the topic, Woo-seok sighed.

It wasn’t that the omega serial killer wasn’t important.

He absolutely was.

The man’s motives were still unknown.

He had tried to kill Ha-jin.

He was the greatest threat still hanging over them.

But Woo-seok didn’t want every conversation and every day of their lives to revolve around that monster.

No matter how dangerous things were, couldn’t they have one conversation that was just about the two of them?

It was irrational, but right now the serial killer mattered less to him than the fight they had had the night before.

And Ha-jin was acting as though that fight meant nothing.

“How?”

The irritation in Woo-seok’s voice slipped out before he could stop it.

The bouquet suddenly felt incredibly pathetic.

Why the hell did I buy that stupid thing?

“I think the omega serial killer…”

Ha-jin hesitated.

“…is someone in your family.”

“What?”

His irritation disappeared instantly.

His entire attention focused on Ha-jin.

“I think your brother is suspicious.”

The surprise lasted only a moment.

Then it turned into anger.

He hadn’t wanted to have this conversation in the first place.

And now Ha-jin was accusing his brother of being the omega serial killer.

Was this revenge for their argument?

Was he just trying to upset him?

If so, it was working perfectly.

Woo-seok couldn’t accept what he was hearing at face value.

“So now you’re trying to drive a wedge between me and my brother?”

His voice came out sharp enough to rival the thorns on the roses lying forgotten beside them.

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