He leaned back slowly against the desk, his fingers pressing into the wood behind him.
And then...
Another memory flickered.
Faint.
But… undeniable.
A Fragment
A much younger Ji Eun.
Crying.
Rare.
Unusual.
He remembered it vaguely.
A time something had frightened her.
Deeply.
And someone…
Had been there.
Not him.
He blinked.
Brows tightening further.
Because the more he tried to recall...
The less clear it became.
As if the memory itself…
Didn't want to settle.
"…Who…" he murmured under his breath.
His hand curled slowly into a fist.
All this time, he thought he had been the one.
The one she relied on.
The one who arrived.
But now...
That certainty cracked.
Because pattern after pattern...
Moment after moment...
Pointed to the same unsettling possibility.
There was always someone else.
Someone who intervened…
Before him.
Someone whose presence…
Left no trace.
Someone...
Who didn't just protect her.
But watched over her.
Mo Han's breathing hitched
But not in calm.
In realization.
And for the first time...
Park Hyun Woo's face came to mind.
Calm.
Certain.
Too certain.
"I protect what belongs to me."
The words echoed louder now.
Different.
Mo Han's eyes darkened.
"No…" he muttered.
A denial.
Weak.
Uncertain.
Because if that were true, then what he believed all these years… What he told himself…
That he was the one by Ji Eun's side...
Might have never been true.
He laughed softly.
But there was no humor in it.
Only tension.
Only something unraveling.
"…Was I really protecting her?" he whispered.
Or
Had he simply been standing in a place, that was never fully his?
Silence answered him.
And outside...
The world kept moving.
Deals.
Power.
Reputation.
War.
But inside Mo Han's mind...
A far more dangerous question had begun to take root.
If Park Hyun Woo had always been there…
Then when did this start?
And more importantly...
What does that make me?