The Weight of Lies
“Team Leader Sun and Manager Seok’s conversation, and that deal—Yeoreum knew everything about it.”
Her words left me speechless. The first thought that surfaced from the shocking revelation was denial. Or perhaps feigning ignorance. I don’t know anything about that. No such thing ever happened. I had been planning to scout her. That was what I needed to say. The ugly lie that had continued ever since I decided to deceive Jin Yeoreum.
“…”
Yoon Haneul regarded me with a calm, unwavering gaze. In that look, I realized her words were far from a mere probe. It seemed Jin Yeoreum truly had known I was lying to her, just as Yoon Haneul said. I accepted defeat. All that remained was pure curiosity.
“…How did she find out?”
Yoon Haneul placed her hands behind her back, leaned against the wall, and spoke. “Didn’t it strike you as odd that only Manager Seok was by Yeoreum’s side? She’s the precious granddaughter of the Jin Kang Group, after all.”
I understood the reason immediately. “So you knew from the beginning that Manager Seok approached me with a deal.”
“That’s right. There’s always someone tailing Manager Seok to keep an eye on him. …Though their main job isn’t watching him, but watching Yeoreum. Still, they report special incidents like this to her as well.”
“Both Manager Seok and I overlooked the fact that Yeoreum had people like that.”
After all, it had felt a little strange that Jin Baek-ho, who seemed to cherish his daughter so much, only kept one manager by her side. But the realization came far too late.
Yoon Haneul shook her head at me and said, “Those people aren’t following him out of some noble desire to protect Yeoreum from being deceived. They saw Manager Seok as a dog trying to betray his master. You could call them loyal, but it’s loyalty to Chairman Jin Baek-ho, not to Yeoreum.”
I felt I had jumped into a complicated game far too lightly. Even now, I needed to assess the situation and prepare. For the blade Jin Yeoreum might wield against me for deceiving her.
“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Then why leave me alone after I deceived Yeoreum? And why did it end with her leaving the orphanage?”
The only variable had been me. Yet I couldn’t understand why my involvement had led to Yeoreum leaving the orphanage and going abroad to study.
“If someone tried to deceive her with a fake scouting offer, shouldn’t they be punished? Instead of just a letter about studying abroad.”
Midway through speaking, another thought occurred to me. Perhaps the reason Yoon Haneul was telling me this now was to announce that very “punishment.”
“…Or are you about to tell me about that punishment right now?”
Yoon Haneul tilted her head at my words, then burst into her signature bright laugh. “Hehe, Team Leader Sun. Why do you always jump to such scary conclusions? Yeoreum would never do that. …How could someone so fragile and kind, yet burdened with such a strong sense of self and guilt that she tries to carry everything alone, ever do something like that?”
Over the past while, I had come to realize the same thing while watching Jin Yeoreum. She was nothing like the arrogant third-generation chaebol I had vaguely imagined in my previous life—one who would commit corruption and try to evade responsibility.
“Still, she could get angry. She’s human too. But that assumption is based on the wrong premise. That would only apply if Team Leader Sun and Manager Seok’s lies had actually upset Yeoreum.”
“They didn’t upset her?”
Yoon Haneul held up a V sign with her fingers, then folded one down. “First of all, Manager Seok’s lie was for Yeoreum’s sake. Who would feel bad about someone spending their own money to cheer her up?”
“Some people despise that kind of unilateral action on principle.”
From a master’s perspective, a tool developing its own will was never a good thing—even if it was well-intentioned.
“There might be people like that somewhere, but Yeoreum isn’t that twisted. Plus, there’s that embarrassing confession about seeing her like a daughter. How could anyone hate someone like that?”
“Then what about me?”
Yoon Haneul folded her remaining index finger and said, “That’s where everything started. Yeoreum received the scouting offer because of Team Leader Sun. And also because of Yeoreum’s own playful nature.”
“Playful nature? She didn’t seem like the type. If anything, she came across as rather serious.”
“In certain situations, Yeoreum does act that way.”
“What kind of situations?”
“When she feels like she’s being swept along.”
Yoon Haneul stepped away from the wall and looked me straight in the eye. “She understood Manager Seok’s feelings and knew Team Leader Sun was doing this for Winter and Autumn, but from Yeoreum’s perspective, she wanted to tease you a little. Yeoreum doesn’t like being pushed around by circumstances. So even though she had no intention of becoming an idol, she accepted the offer.”
Listening to her story, it seemed I had been dancing in Jin Yeoreum’s palm from the very beginning. Nothing more than a momentary amusement.
“The real story started there. Because Team Leader Sun genuinely intended to make Yeoreum an idol.”
“…What do you mean by that?”
“I told you we received reports on what Manager Seok went through, right? We heard that story too. That Team Leader Sun had truly made up his mind to turn Yeoreum into an idol.”
“…”
It had been a misunderstanding. Those words had only been a temporary measure to deceive Seok Hyeonwu. There had been no sincerity behind them. I had merely attached a convenient excuse to take Jin Yeoreum’s photo. Yet it seemed Jin Yeoreum had taken it differently.
“Yeoreum was quite flustered. She thought that after a day or two—or even right then and there—you would apologize for the rude remark and say it was all a joke. But then Team Leader Sun actually decided to recruit her, and everything got twisted.”
I had tried to deceive Jin Yeoreum. Jin Yeoreum had also tried to deceive me. As a result, we had both been lying to each other. Lies piled upon lies, until we had twisted each other’s hearts into knots trying to understand one another.
“The reason I told Team Leader Sun I wanted to date you also stems from this. After hearing everything, I volunteered to find out whether your intentions were genuine. …Honestly, it looked fun too. Hehe.”
As expected, it hadn’t been a pure confession. Now I finally understood Yoon Haneul.
“…And even though we didn’t end up dating, I judged that Team Leader Sun was genuinely going to recruit Yeoreum. I thought the Team Leader Sun I saw wasn’t the type to make empty promises like that.”
“That’s an overgenerous assessment.”
It truly was. After all, I had only repeated lies in order to use them.
At my honest admission, Yoon Haneul shook her head. “That wasn’t just my judgment. While talking with Team Leader Sun, Yeoreum also started to believe the scouting offer was sincere. And lately, she seemed to have been seriously considering it. The future as an idol, that is.”
The outcome of that consideration was obvious. Her becoming an idol was a gamble. One with extremely low odds. Though I still didn’t fully understand the basis of her judgment or the gaps in it, given the current situation, it seemed the result had led to her studying abroad. She had given up on being an idol.
“After sorting out her thoughts, Yeoreum told me she didn’t want to be an idol. Even if she debuted, she said she would only receive cold stares and slander. Calling herself the nation’s least favorite person.”
It was the right decision. Even if success was possible, she would have had to endure gazes like those from purgatory. There was no reason to bear that kind of pain. Jin Yeoreum had given up on being an idol. Even though I had deceived her, it seemed I hadn’t earned her resentment, nor had I been forced into the misfortune of recruiting her. Since I had already taken the photo, I could create some controversy when the gate opened later. Of course, I would need to manipulate things so it didn’t look like I was the one who leaked the photo for controversy…
Anyway, it wasn’t perfect, but considering how many variables had kept popping up, the result wasn’t bad. Yes, this was a good outcome for me. There was no longer any need to pay attention to Jin Yeoreum. As I was steeling my resolve, Yoon Haneul spoke with her usual brightness, yet with a fragile, wistful tone.
“But I don’t think that way. Because Yeoreum and Team Leader Sun…”
Yoon Haneul’s lips parted, and a single word cut through the space between us. The short distance of less than a meter felt impossibly vast. And Yoon Haneul’s words that crossed that distance also felt distant. With those words, as if she had finished speaking, Yoon Haneul disappeared. Yet I couldn’t leave that spot. Her final words lingered like an echo.
I opened the quest reward window. The “Receive Messages from Anywhere” I had obtained two days ago was indicating it was ready for use.
“Use.”
I activated it, hoping it wasn’t too late.