Vengeful Desires

11-

Mi-ok set her glass down with a soft clink, eyeing her brother over the rim. "Instead of staring daggers at me or demanding I fill you in, why don't you just go see Unnie yourself if you're so concerned?"

Hyun-woo's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He reached for the decanter, splashing a small amount of liquor into his tumbler.

"Amirah isn't the same woman you once knew as your sister-in-law," he said flatly after taking a sip. "She's...different now. Removed from the person I married."

" And you think you haven't changed?"

" I'm being serious."

Mi-ok arched her shaped eyebrow as usual, neither mused by her brother or comfortable for the conversation that was arriving. "I don't believe that, Oppa. Just because you've chosen to give up on her doesn't mean I will too."

Her brother scoffed, swirling the amber liquid idly. "Then you're being willfully blind."

"You're the one who's being willfully blind," Mi-ok countered evenly. "Your loyalty to Soo-jin has clearly blinded you to everything else."

Hyun-woo's nostrils flared at the mention of his alleged mistress's name. "She cheated on me," he bit out harshly. "There's proof Amirah was unfaithful."

Mi-ok fell silent for a moment, cracking her knuckles as she stared out at the city skyline - ignoring her brother as if he were a petulant child whining over a minor slight.

"I don't know how she did it," she finally stated, refocusing on Hyun-woo with an inscrutable look. "Deal with falling for a man who was so quick to question her sanity over listening, that is."

Hyun-woo recoiled slightly at her words, something akin to pain flickering across his features before the stony mask resettled.

"Ever since Dami was born, Amirah...she hasn't been herself," he maintained gruffly. "And I don't just mean the usual postpartum changes or moods. The cheating, I was even willing to look past that initially..."

He broke off, clenching his jaw as he seemed to wrestle with some internal turmoil. When he continued, his voice had taken on a dull, hollow edge.

"I asked her about it. She told me she must have, since she was the one in those pictures - the ones of her walking into that hotel room. The videos of her in bed with that...that man." Hyun-woo swallowed hard, involuntarily shuddering. "You remember that evidence as well as I do, Mi-ok. It was undeniable what it implied about her infidelity. She didn't even deny it."

Mi-ok held her brother's haunted stare, expression softening almost imperceptibly at the naked anguish she glimpsed roiling just beneath the surface of his meticulously cultivated facade.

"I remember those pictures and videos seeming pretty damning, yes," she allowed, keeping her tone carefully neutral. "But that's precisely why I can't simply accept them at face value anymore, Oppa."

Leaning forward, Mi-ok braced her elbows on her knees - unconsciously mirroring Hyun-woo's taut, confrontational body language as she pressed her point home with quiet intensity.

"Stuff like that - incriminating 'proof' captured at just the right compromising angles to corroborate whatever narrative is being peddled?" She shook her head slowly, dark eyes glinting. "That's exactly the kind of carefully constructed fiction our family's private affairs office specializes in manufacturing out of thin air."