Chapter 2: The First Act of Vengeance.

Sayoung parked his car a little distance away and watched Yoojun enter the café. He took a deep breath, his expression tense.

Today—right now—Yoojun was supposed to get hit by a motorcycle that swerved onto the sidewalk due to an inexperienced driver as he left the café with his coffee, injuring his leg.
It wasn’t a severe injury, but the problem was that he was in the middle of filming a movie with many action scenes.

Sayoung clearly remembered how the shoot, which had been nearing its end, was inevitably delayed until Yoojun’s injury healed, and how all kinds of media outlets had made a fuss about it.

Kim Yoojun was the most important person in Sayoung’s second life.

He was the very person who had acted as the catalyst that made Sayoung’s ex-husband, Han Jaewoo, fall so helplessly for him and ultimately abandon Sayoung so cruelly—the actor Kim Yoojun, currently considered the top star in South Korea.

Sayoung, who had arrived nearby earlier and had been waiting for him, gripped the steering wheel, his expression tight with nerves.

This was a crossroads.
It was clear that once he took this step, finding his way back would become incredibly difficult.

Sayoung bit his lip, staring straight into his own eyes reflected in the rearview mirror.

He could turn back now, pretending not to know anything.
He could dismiss it all as a terrible nightmare—close his eyes once, open them again, and live a new life, relaxed and joyful, unlike before.

The path of a wise choice lay right in front of him.

‘Please… Jaewoo, please don’t do this to me… I’ll do… whatever you say. I can do anything well…! So… so please don’t leave me, Jaewoo…’

But could those miserable tears—the desperate heart that had clung to love even through begging—truly become something that had never existed?

If he closed his eyes and pretended not to know, could he really forget it as nothing more than a nightmare from a single night?

‘Oh? You can do anything you want? Then let’s get a divorce. That’s the only thing I want from you.’

That voice—so cruel, and cruel only to him, until the very end.
The countless insults and contempt he had endured alone throughout their marriage.

Could he really forget all of it and be fine?

Sayoung slowly opened the car door and stepped out.
The cold early-winter wind cut sharply against his cheek. Only then did the haze clouding his mind begin to clear.

His steps moved toward the café Yoojun had just entered.

Even if he could forget, it didn’t matter anymore.
Even if turning back now meant he could live the rest of his life in genuine happiness—that wasn’t what Sayoung wanted.

What Sayoung desired was a petty revenge that offered no comfort at all.
He wanted Jaewoo to know, at least once, the kind of pain he had suffered.

Just as he had begged.

Just as he had knelt and pleaded for love—offering up a sliver of a heart that might have meant nothing to someone else.

He wanted Han Jaewoo to kneel before him and beg with that same desperate heart.

For that moment, Sayoung could sell his soul to the devil—or throw himself into the fires of hell.

Perhaps he had already sold his soul without remembering.
Who knew—maybe he was still alive because of a pact he had made with the devil at the moment of his death, all for the sake of revenge.

With such ridiculous thoughts racing through his mind, Sayoung approached Yoojun as he exited the café.

At that moment, he saw it—a large motorcycle roaring loudly as it sped toward Yoojun from behind. Without the slightest hesitation, Sayoung threw himself toward Yoojun.

It was the first step toward his revenge.

****

“Is that person awake?”

Arriving in front of the hospital room, Yoojun met his manager, Jeongmin, in the hallway, whom he had sent ahead to monitor the situation.
Jeongmin answered his question.

“Yes. A fracture in the right ankle, a small cut on the forehead from the fall, and minor bruises otherwise. Four weeks for a full recovery. Fortunately, they said no surgery is needed.”

Like the quick-witted manager he was, Jeongmin answered everything, even what Yoojun hadn’t asked.
Listening quietly, Yoojun let out a deep sigh and ran a hand through his hair.

He couldn’t even properly remember how he had finished filming today.
All he needed was a cup of coffee to wake up, but when he came to his senses, a man who had been hit by a motorcycle in his place was lying on the ground.

The coffee he had dropped when the man pushed him had stained the ground, and it all looked like blood; he truly thought his heart was going to stop.

Moreover, the person lying on the ground was someone Yoojun already knew by face.

“Are you okay, hyung? Now that some time has passed, are you sure you don’t feel any pain?”

“Pain? What pain? I wasn’t even hit.”

“Still, you were startled, so you never know.”

Yoojun pushed away Jeongmin, who was clinging to him and patting his shoulders and back here and there in annoyance, and turned his head.
The door to the hospital room where the woman was lying was visible.

Outside, the world was already abuzz with the story of the nation’s top actor who had nearly been in a major accident and the man who had saved him and gotten injured instead, but the VIP room, inaccessible to just anyone, was utterly silent.

“But hyung…”

Just then, Jeongmin lowered his voice and spoke seriously.
Yoojun just looked at Jeongmin without answering.
Jeongmin, too, didn’t wait for Yoojun’s reply and continued right away.

“Isn’t it a bit strange?”

“……”

“That this person, of all people, was there at that exact time, on that morning, and saved you…”

The reason Yoojun’s mind had been so cluttered throughout the filming was, in fact, for the same reason.

If it had been a simple case of a random passerby saving Yoojun, there would have been nothing strange about it.
In any case, it was a good thing that Yoojun wasn’t hurt, and it was a great relief that the other person didn’t sustain any life-threatening injuries.

Furthermore, if Yoojun were to show himself doing his best to help with the person’s treatment along with providing appropriate compensation, it could become an opportunity to create positive public opinion.
From any angle, it was a situation where Yoojun didn’t have much to lose.

If only the person injured in his stead hadn’t been Yoon Sayoung, Han Jaewoo’s spouse.

“You know that person divorced Han Jaewoo, right hyung?”

“…I do.”

“When you think about that, the timing is even stranger. Getting entangled with you like this right after divorcing Han Jaewoo…?”

Jeongmin scowled as if it was all very fishy and glared at the closed hospital room door.
It wasn’t something to say about the person who saved Yoojun, but no matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t shake off his suspicion.

The situation was even stranger when one recalled that Han Jaewoo had been quite openly making passes at Yoojun after divorcing that person.
Jeongmin simply couldn’t believe this situation had occurred coincidentally and naturally.

Yoojun, who had been lost in thought for a moment while listening to Jeongmin, opened his mouth.

“Let’s just wait and see for now. If there’s some kind of scheme, it’ll show. I’m just going to go in for a moment to say hello, so you go wait in the car.”

“Does hyung really need to greet him personally…?”

“In any case, it’s true I received a great deal of help, so of course I have to greet him. And if there was some other intention, all the more reason not to give them any unnecessary grounds for complaint.”

“Hmm…”

“I’m not a kid, so don’t worry.”

At Yoojun’s repeated persuasion, Jeongmin finally nodded with a face full of dissatisfaction.

Everything was suspicious, but there was nothing more Jeongmin could do right now, and as he had said, Yoojun was by no means an easy or soft person.

“Then just go say a quick hello and come down. Call me right away if anything seems weird.”

“I got it, so hurry up and go.”

Yoojun waved his hand dismissively to send Jeongmin off and stood once more before the closed hospital room door.

Yoon Sayoung.

He suddenly recalled a memory of exchanging a brief greeting at an after-party for some awards ceremony.
The face, which looked unsettlingly pale even while receiving the affectionate escort of a spouse who was on a fearsome upward trajectory, had been memorable for its striking impression.

It was quite a long time ago, and they hadn’t run into each other since that brief greeting, but the reason he still remembered that day was that every time Han Jaewoo had acted uncomfortably towards him since then, that face kept coming to mind.

On that day, had he been curious about the identity of the strange solitude that cast a shadow over Sayoung, or had he not?

“……”

Yoojun let out a long breath.
He composed his expression so as not to give the person any leverage against him.

Shaking off the unnecessary thoughts, he habitually checked his clothes, then slowly opened the door and entered the hospital room.

On a large bed by the distant window, that person sat, their face pale and bloodless.
He looked faint, as if he didn’t belong to this world.

Yoojun, without realizing it, stopped in his tracks for a moment and just stood there looking at him.

“Hello, Mr. Kim Yoojun.”

Until he spoke first, with an inscrutable smile.