Shoot the Horse Before the General
‘The inside’s a total fucking mess.’
Unlike the prettily manicured garden, the house looks like three rabid dogs have been let loose inside—trashed beyond belief. Sure, I’m an uninvited guest showing up without warning, but the underwear strewn across the living room floor and the trash piled up by the entrance because someone was too lazy to throw it out? All of it jumps right out at me. It feels like a reflection of Jeong Chae-won’s own chaotic inner world.
“Sit wherever.”
Even with her dirty laundry out in the open, my aunt stays completely unfazed. Any sense of shame must have worn off ages ago. She tosses me a single cushion and sits across from me at the low table. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to acknowledge the nephew sitting right in front of her. She’s got the attitude of take the gift and get on with whatever you came to say so you can fuck off.
“So, what do you want?”
“Whoa, hold up—give me a sec to ease into it, Aunt.”
I’d love to just blurt it all out, but I stick to the plan. I have to lay out the story step by step, all the way back to some distant past she probably wants buried. Meanwhile, she scowls openly at her sweet-talking nephew, radiating pure discomfort.
“Don’t call me aunt. I hate hearing it from you.”
“Technically, you are my aunt. Sure, you’re on the young side, but you’re mid-thirties now.”
Mom and Aunt are sisters with over a ten-year age gap. Aunt was the pampered baby of the family, but time treats everyone equal.
She wrinkles her nose even more, face twisting tighter. “It’s not about my age. I just don’t want to hear ‘aunt’ from you!”
“Is it because of Mom?”
“...What the hell does that mean?”
“Come on, you two don’t exactly seem close.”
Hitting that nerve makes her face scream for a drink. Empty bottles are scattered everywhere, proof of her heavy habit, but even she holds back from cracking open a bottle of cheap soju right in my face. Instead, she rakes her fingers through her hair like she’s trying to tear it out.
“Fuck... I let you in after you begged, and now you’re spouting bullshit—”
“Oops, my bad. More precisely, it’s about our late dad, right?”
“...!”
Sisters with a big age gap. Mom doted on her much younger sister like a daughter, but something irreparably fractured their bond. Or at least, that’s my guess—there had to have been some incident.
“...Why the sudden mention of your dad?”
She puts on a front, but the undisguisable disgust and hatred flood her face the moment I bring up Cha Seong-taek, my dad—Cha Do-yeon’s dad. The atmosphere plunges straight to rock bottom.
I flash a grin. My neck stiffens with satisfaction as the puzzle pieces snap together. I casually scan the spacious, empty house, drifting a bit from the main topic.
“So, Aunt, what’ve you been up to these days?”
“...Huh?”
“You and Mom both went to top universities, and you’re smart and pretty. But I have no clue what you do now.”
“What’s it to you...?”
“You’re family. Looks like you’re holed up here all day... I’m worried, that’s all.”
“Mind your own fucking business! Quit beating around the bush and spit out what you came to say!”
If my immediate family is the Hwaryeong Group itself, Mom’s side is solidly upper-class. Grandma was a prestigious university professor, Grandpa a high-ranking civil servant who served the nation. While Dad’s side bred entrepreneurs, Mom’s produced mostly bureaucrats and educators. That line cleanly ended with Mom and Aunt’s generation, but it was still a respectable family. The key point? They weren’t business tycoons, so the money wasn’t obscenely abundant.
“You show up out of nowhere—what the fuck do you want? Stop dragging this shit out and state your position clearly! Or I’ll kick you out!”
I’ve poked around enough. She’s gearing up to boot me if I don’t answer, so time to swing back to the main point.
“!”
Instead of answering, I pull up the headline from an old internet article on my phone and shove it in her face. She bites her lip hard. It’s a short piece from way back.
No need to read the whole thing—it blasts the sordid secrets of some major corporation. Specifically, the scandalous private life of the late Cha Seong-taek of the Hwaryeong Group.
“It’s old news from before Dad even passed, but... did you happen to see this?”
“...You gonna delete that shitty tabloid crap or what?”
“Eh, for a rumor mill piece, it’s surprisingly detailed and juicy.”
She definitely saw it back then. Confirmation noted—on to the next step.
“You know, they got away with it because it didn’t name names, but the original articles and copies? All vanished without a trace.”
“...”
“Sure, no hard evidence, and it could tarnish the group’s image, so taking it down makes sense. But the crackdown was unprecedentedly suspicious. Dad wasn’t exactly a saint with women... yet he clamped down hard on this one. Wonder why?”
I circle closer to the uncomfortable core. Testing her reverse scale, her expression already spoils the truth. About the secret she can never let slip.
“But get this—these reporters are tenacious fucks. They still had photos of someone’s private affair tucked away.”
“! You don’t mean—”
“Yeah, that one.”
I greased some palms with cash to get it from a reporter. After chasing leads, I traded thousands for a single low-res photo on an old USB for security. Worth every penny now.
“This one.”
I send the photo data. It shows a man and woman stepping out of a black sedan, embracing at a house entrance. Taken at night without a flash, faces are blurry. But the streetlights reveal the car model and surroundings clearly.
“A photo of Dad with some woman... This house—doesn’t the entrance look familiar?”
A sprawling garden, red brick walls, orange-tiled gate. Details have changed over time, but it’s the entrance to this house, where we’re sitting right now. Same owner back then, too. No need to look far for Dad’s secret mistress.
“How’d it feel sneaking around with Dad, Aunt?”
Blood trickles... Cornered, she chews her lip until it splits. As I lean closer across the table, she ducks her head to avoid me.
That’s right. To Cha Seong-taek, his wife’s little sister Jeong Chae-won was his hidden lover. A few reporters and insiders might’ve heard whispers, but it could never go public—Korea’s biggest scandal.
Faced with the boomerang truth, her shoulders tremble. Then, head still bowed, she glares up with ghostly eyes.
“...So what?”
“Huh?”
“Now you drag up that old shit—what’s your angle?”
I shoved her past sins in her face, but she recovers fast. Hell, she’s even puffing up her chest like what now?
I smirk. Even this ballsy attitude confirms every guess was spot on.
“Not even rattled?”
“Why the fuck would I freak out here?”
“Fair point. It was a scandal Dad had to bury at all costs. But for you? Totally different story.”
“...! You little—”
Looks like the shock wasn’t enough—I happily deliver round two. I toy with her inner thoughts and secrets, then land the final blow.
“Funny, isn’t it? How Dad ultimately dumped the aunt he loved so much—the one he snuck around with—and chose Mom.”
She can’t even muster a venomous glare for that. It’s the fatal wedge that seals her lips, the dagger in her life’s story.
Cha Seong-taek was hailed as a business genius. Born with a silver spoon, he upgraded the inherited empire threefold. Rumors even said he alone kept Korea fed with record trade surpluses.
But his private life? A disaster. Countless women from sex scandals, even illegitimate child rumors. Among them, Jeong Chae-won and some foreign woman stood out. Especially with her—he plugged every leak in the press.
The reason? Obvious.
“Bangs his wife’s little sister, then sweeps it under the rug like it never happened... He must’ve been terrified of Mom finding out and dumping him after all that filth. Even as my dad, that’s pretty shitty.”
“...”
Mom’s got a soft heart. She could ignore his bar hookups as male instinct, but if word spread about her own sister? Straight to divorce.
When it nearly blew up, Dad shut down the media, cut contact with Aunt, and ghosted her. Bribed everyone to keep it from Mom’s ears.
Romantic spin: True love for his wife Jeong Su-ran won out.
Raw truth: Simple cost-benefit. He tossed aside his plaything, Jeong Chae-won.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!!”
BAM… BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!
He dumped it all on her and ran. Left her seething with rage and resentment, the coward.