Chapter 3: Rewriting the Script

I almost blurted out, ‘I’m not a kid, why would you come back tomorrow? I’ll figure it out myself…’
But I shut my mouth.
I realized I didn’t know a single thing.
Not even my home address.
It’s probably better to let Seung Hee drive me now.
Accepting the situation, I nod quietly.
But then, something from our earlier conversation nags at me, sending a chill down my spine.

‘Just started her job?’

In the novel, she’s an executive director at Haewon Trading.
She’s the cruel sister-in-law who torments the heroine, but the young woman in front of me looks far too young for such a lofty role.
A shiver crawls up my back.
I swallow hard and ask.

“Sis, what’s your job title again?”

“Assistant manager.”

My heart sinks.

The protagonist, Choi Do Yoon, was a department head when he met the heroine.
But Seung Hee, who’s supposed to be an executive director, is just an assistant manager?
My voice trembles as I ask again.

“How old is Choi Do Yoon?”

“…Are you seriously dealing with memory loss?”

“The doctors said so, didn’t they? And it’s not like I need to keep track of that guy’s life.”

I throw in a hint of irritation, mimicking the original Seung Hyun.
It seems to work—she buys it, probably because it sounds like something he’d say.
After a brief pause, she answers.

“He started high school last year, so… eighteen now.”

“What?!”

“Why are you so shocked? He’s seven years younger than you. Nine years younger than me.”

My eyes widen.

Choi Do Yoon is a high school sophomore?
When does he become a department head?
How far back in the timeline am I?

“Young master, please let us know if you need anything.”

“Thank you.”

The staff flash awkward smiles before slipping away.
No one wants to linger around a guy who does drugs and ends up hospitalized with a cracked skull.
I can’t blame them—I’d avoid me too.

Seung Hee dropped me off at home and went straight back to work.
The house, with only a few staff quietly moving about, is deathly silent.
I didn’t need to stay in the hospital to be alone.
This place is already oppressively quiet.

Even now, it’s surreal that this palatial Hannam-dong mansion isn’t a drama set but my reality.
I sink into the plush bed, trying to organize my thoughts.

To put it simply, being thrown this far back in the novel’s timeline isn’t bad at all.
Even for a chaebol heir like Seung Hee, climbing to executive director takes at least a decade.
That means it’ll be about that long before Do Yoon becomes the department head from the original story.
And that gives me plenty of time before Seung Hyun’s Kangwon Land downfall.
In the novel, Do Yoon was in his early thirties at the main events, so I’ve got roughly fifteen years.
Plenty of time.

With that kind of buffer, I could at least aim for a neutral relationship with Do Yoon—not best buddies, but maybe like strangers who pass without a fight.
That should keep me safe from asset seizure, mental hospital confinement, or being declared incompetent.
Being close brothers would be ideal, but the chances of Do Yoon forgiving Seung Hyun after he insulted his late mother are slim to none.

‘Don’t think you’re my equal just because you’re in this house. You’re nothing but a mistress’s kid.’

Thinking back, it’s hard to believe a twenty-three-year-old would say something so childish and cruel to a sixteen-year-old who just lost his mom.
Thankfully, Seung Hyun was off at college in the States, so he wasn’t around much.
Otherwise, things could’ve been worse.

The current situation—Seung Hyun graduating college last summer and returning to Korea earlier this year—is pretty good.
He might’ve done some damage in that time, but going forward, I’ll make sure to avoid piling on more bad karma.

In the novel, Seung Hyun relentlessly insulted Do Yoon, calling him a mistress’s bastard, illegitimate, filthy blood, trash.
If he wanted to lash out, he should’ve targeted Do Yoon’s father, but his inferiority complex always aimed at the weaker target.
Classic bully behavior—strong against the weak, weak against the strong.
The problem was, neither his mother nor sister stopped him.
To them, Do Yoon, born to another woman, was never going to be family.

Yet, despite the toxic household, Do Yoon excelled academically and clawed his way into S University.
The day his acceptance was announced, Haewon’s chairman, Choi Man Sik, called him in privately and asked what he wanted.
Do Yoon thought for a moment before replying.

‘Please get me a studio apartment near campus.’

In other words, he wanted to live away from this house for four years.
Man Sik was ready to grant any request, but feeling petty, he prodded.

‘For free?’

Despite being the third child of a chaebol family, Do Yoon had been given nothing beyond food and shelter.
The environment, with its hostile atmosphere, was barely better than an orphanage.
But Do Yoon answered without hesitation.

‘I’ll pay back the initial investment.’

‘How?’

‘With a full scholarship.’

At the time, Seung Hyun had barely scraped through a mid-tier U.S. college with heavy donations, a Ferrari as a reward, and a B average after a year’s probation.
Man Sik was quietly impressed by Do Yoon’s response and began to take notice of him.

These days, most chaebol kids are sent to study abroad in high school or college, but Do Yoon, who joined the family later, was excluded from their elite circle.
Ironically, that worked in his favor.
By attending the country’s top university, he built connections in business, politics, and media—connections that proved invaluable when he later took down Seung Hyun.

After Seung Hyun kidnapped the heroine, Do Yoon methodically dismantled him.
He swayed Haewon Hotel’s board to oust Seung Hyun from his executive position, seized his stocks and assets, had him confined to a mental hospital, orchestrated his escape, and lured him into gambling.
Just as Seung Hyun glimpsed a sliver of hope, Do Yoon crushed him with ruthless precision.

In the end, Seung Hyun, drowning in debt from loan sharks, became an alcoholic living in a dingy room.
Do Yoon visited him at the flophouse, his face calm and mocking.

‘Hyung, is there still a reason to live like this trash?’

‘You devil! You thief!’

Seung Hyun screamed, eyes bloodshot, but Do Yoon easily overpowered him.
Leaning close, he whispered words designed to break him, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

‘Grandfather said to stop looking for you.’

The next day, Seung Hyun took his own life.
Hearing the news, Do Yoon remarked, ‘He lasted longer than I thought,’ before focusing on his wedding plans with the heroine.

I shudder.
What makes Do Yoon terrifying is how he handles his enemies—always ‘legally’ and ‘cleanly.’
With his power and wealth, he could’ve hired thugs to beat Seung Hyun to death, but instead, he toyed with him, dangling hope and despair until he drove him to suicide.

Even Seung Hee wasn’t spared.
When she harassed the pregnant heroine after their marriage, Do Yoon used stocks, media, and rumors to tank Haewon Trading’s shares, then bought them up cheap.
In the power struggle, Seung Hee broke first, kneeling to apologize to the heroine.

As a reader, I thought it was a bit much, but as the vicious sister-in-law, she needed a satisfying punishment for the story.
Still, what felt like thrilling plot devices as a reader now feels terrifying as the person living it.
The protagonist is one ruthless bastard.

‘I need to keep my head down.’

The male lead in a romance novel is practically invincible.
If the heroine craves an in-flight meal from an economy flight to San Francisco three years ago, he’d make it happen.
That’s the kind of creature a romance novel’s male lead is.

I have no delusions of beating Choi Do Yoon.
My only goal is to avoid fighting him at all.
That alone would be a solid win.

‘Was Choi Do Yoon always this robotic, even in high school?’

For now, I’ll have to quietly wait for the ‘Grandfather’s birthday’ event.