Chapter 28

A cool voice sounded from behind. “Where are you off to?”

It happened just as he slipped on his shoes and straightened his back. At the deep voice resonating from behind, Se-woong gave an involuntary shudder. Without him noticing when he had approached, Shin was standing right beside him.

“Ah. Well, my second brother says he’s waiting outside the main gate, sir,” Se-woong stammered, whirling around.

Shin arched a brow in surprise. “Right now? At this hour?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be back in just a short moment.”

“…Let’s go together,” Shin offered evenly. “My brother-in-law is here, so I should pay my respects as well.”

Acting as though he had not heard Se-woong’s bewildered ‘Pardon?’, Shin took the lead toward the exit. Having evidently just returned from outside, a distinct chill radiated from his broad back.

Unlike the daylight temperature, the nocturnal air was biting. The night breeze had been pleasantly mild lately, but tonight it blew with unsparing malice.

Nursing his cold nose tip, Se-woong hunched his shoulders against the wind. He should have brought an overcoat, but Shin’s sudden announcement that he would accompany him had rattled his composure. He could hardly step forward and forbid him from greeting his own brother-in-law. Was he truly the only one between the three of them who felt excruciatingly uncomfortable? Walking beside him, Shin’s profile looked as calm and unbothered as ever.

Then again, hadn’t he been at his workstation until evening? Somewhere during that brief window, Shin had changed into civilian attire, wearing a substantial, finely tailored wool overcoat.

During their academy days, cadets often joked that military men radiated an indelible martial air no matter what they did, occasionally placing pointless bets on who could pass best as a civilian. Yet rendering all comparisons meaningless, Shin lost every trace of soldierly rigidity the instant he donned civilian clothes. When he wore dress uniform, conversely, crisp lines accentuated his stature as though he were a born soldier. He possessed a conspicuously commanding aura in every respect.

“Did you… step out somewhere, sir?” Se-woong asked.

Gazing strictly ahead, Shin turned his head at Se-woong’s voice. Showing no inclination to answer the inquiry, his eyes simply swept over Se-woong dressed in nothing more than thin service fatigues. Striding toward the main gate, Shin unbuttoned his coat one fastener at a time.

Shin turned his gaze away, muttering, “What is so wonderful about your brother visiting that you ran out without even putting on warm clothes?”

Knowing full well that handing over the coat would only invite refusal, Shin moved to drape it over Se-woong’s shoulders without bothering to ask.

“Woong-ah.”

A low voice called out to him from beyond the gate.

“Hyung!” Se-woong called out, waving.

As Se-woong instinctively lunged forward upon hearing his brother, Shin caught him by the arm and simply thrust the coat into his grasp instead. The single shirt Se-woong wore was so thin that the warmth of his shoulder seeped straight through the fabric into Shin’s grip.

Clutching the coat in awkward fluster, Se-woong approached Se-gyeom alongside an impassive Shin. Spotting the two men emerging side by side, Se-gyeom’s eyes widened in mild surprise. His gaze darted between the coat bundled in Se-woong’s arms and Shin, brimming with curiosity.

“Ah. I didn’t expect you two to be together,” Se-gyeom remarked. “Fancy running into my brother-in-law here.”

With an easy, affable grin, Shin replied, “I heard my brother-in-law had arrived, so naturally I had to come out. It’s hard to catch you on ordinary days. Have you been well?”

As Shin smoothly addressed him with familial ease, Se-gyeom tilted his lips into a polite smile. While they were nominally family by law, this was merely their fourth meeting across the initial formal gathering, the wedding, and its aftermath. Family in name only—a junior relation with whom dropping formalities felt awkward, and someone you might easily pass on the street without recognizing.

“Much the same as always,” Se-gyeom said. “I heard from my father-in-law that you’ve been slammed with emergency operations. How are things holding up?”

Shin gave a dry shrug. “Emergencies seem to sprout whenever they please.”

Turning toward his younger brother, Se-gyeom asked, “What about you, Se-woong? Are you eating dinner properly? You look like you’ve shed some weight.”

Shifting his gaze from Shin toward his younger sibling, Se-gyeom’s features softened noticeably. It was a warmth entirely divergent from the polite detachment he displayed toward his brother-in-law. Then again, an in-law once removed could never compare to one’s own flesh and blood.

“Did I? I don’t think so—it’s probably the same,” Se-woong mumbled. “More importantly, why are you here at this hour, hyung?”

Se-gyeom chuckled fondly. “I just missed you, that’s why, you punk. It’s been way too long since I last saw your face.”

“Don’t get all sappy on me,” Se-woong muttered with a faint grin. “Let’s head inside somewhere first. Did you eat dinner, hyung? If not, want to grab something warm? There’s a noodle joint nearby, or hot soup—”

Se-gyeom held up a staying hand. “Coffee will do.”

Fortunately, a late-night franchise cafe stood right across the way. Seen from a distance, the brightly lit interior had plenty of vacant seats. Thus, the three men commenced an awkward promenade into the cafe.

It was a gathering where not a single person felt entirely at ease. Neither Se-gyeom accompanied by his stiff brother-in-law, nor Shin facing his brother-in-law who was essentially a stranger, nor Se-woong who still could not wrap his head around the fact that these two had become legal family.

“Hyung, try this one,” Se-woong suggested. “They said it has condensed milk, so it’s supposed to be delicious. Major, you wanted a hot Americano, correct?”

Yet the most distressed individual among them was undoubtedly Se-woong. On one hand, he fretted over whether Shin—already running on empty—should be consuming caffeine at this hour; on the other, his heart ached seeing his newlywed older brother travel all the way here simply because he missed his younger sibling.

Watching these two sitting in the same space made him desperately crave a cigarette, despite never having smoked in his life. Yet he could hardly send either of them packing at this point.

Leaving Se-woong behind to wait for the beverage tray, the two men ascended to the second floor and settled at a table overlooking the street. Viewed from this modest elevation, the canopy of roadside trees encircling the Joint Chiefs looked surprisingly picturesque.

“Isn’t working alongside Se-woong uncomfortable for you?” Se-gyeom asked.

He inquired while looking down at the coat draped over the chair across from him. It was the very garment Shin had offered Se-woong before reaching the gate, and the one Shin had retrieved from Se-woong’s arms before the counter.

The impeccably tailored, high-grade overcoat clearly belonged to Shin. Slowly lifting his eyes from the fabric, Se-gyeom locked gaze with his brother-in-law.

“I was concerned that being academy classmates and in-laws might make him treat his superior officer with too much informality,” Se-gyeom explained. “He may seem mature, but being the youngest, he has a habit of acting spoiled.”

“Is noona doing well?” Shin inquired abruptly.

Caught off balance by the counter-inquiry, Se-gyeom looked at his brother-in-law with a flicker of surprise. The question was utterly unrelated to the topic at hand.

“Well, yes,” Se-gyeom replied slowly. “Had I known I’d run into you, I would have brought her along. Lee Young would have been glad to see you too.”

Shin nodded naturally, almost as if he had anticipated that very response. While it was a conventional pleasantry, the distinct undertone of ‘As if’ coloring his reaction was slightly unsettling.

With a subtle tilt of his head, Shin drawled, “Even had you known, well. Didn’t she leave for Paris yesterday?”

“Ah.”

“Not that I keep in direct touch with her,” Shin added smoothly. “It just came up. Some things find their way to your ears even when you’d rather not know.”

Se-gyeom let out a wry chuckle as realization dawned. It appeared his brother-in-law was well aware that his sister’s marriage was far from conventional.

Even so, was there any inherent problem with that? While plenty of couples lived happily through arranged matches, couples like them were by no means rare. If anything, he genuinely believed this arrangement was a remarkably sound choice for both her and him. Which was precisely why, from Se-gyeom’s vantage point, he could not comprehend why a sharp brother-in-law who knew the score was radiating such unmistakable hostility.

“I didn’t expect to hear news about my own wife here,” Se-gyeom remarked.

Yet setting aside the bewilderment, realizing Shin already knew lifted a weight from his mind, making his expression considerably more relaxed.

“I hear you promised to look into options for her,” Shin stated evenly. “As you know, my sister takes things at face value when someone gives their word. She’s probably touring Parisian apartments with utter delight right about now.”

“You two are closer than I thought,” Se-gyeom observed.

Shin set down his cup. “How long do you intend to keep this up?”

His cadence carried absolute conviction that the union would not endure.

“While we’re at it, I’d appreciate hearing why you entered this marriage in the first place,” Shin continued. “Though the timing is perhaps a bit inconvenient, wouldn’t you say?”

With unruffled composure, Se-gyeom countered, “Do you cherish your sister that deeply, or is there another reason? Hearing my only brother-in-law ask when I plan to get a divorce is rather startling, I must admit.”

Though he had no intimate knowledge of his work, Shin surmised that Cha Se-gyeom was an exceptionally competent prosecutor. That was likely why his name had reached his father’s ears in the first place.

Cha Se-gyeom excelled at maintaining an impenetrable countenance. Rather than resorting to a rigid poker face to mask his emotions, he knew how to project an understated, completely unassailable expression.

This skill must have proven invaluable for lulling adversaries into lowering their guard. His fundamentally taciturn yet diligent and sincere aura generated profound trust. If a prosecutor of his caliber performed poorly at his craft, that would have been far less plausible.

Even now, he acted as though he were politely listening, yet he would hardly bare his inner thoughts so easily. Still, it was not a bad outcome. Having planted this seed, Shin resolved to arrange another meeting before long.

Just then, approaching footsteps sounded from the staircase. Even without straining his ears, Shin recognized immediately that the cadence belonged to Se-woong.

“Hyung, this drink is far better iced, so I ordered it cold,” Se-woong announced, setting the tray down. “That’s fine, right?”

Se-woong naturally lifted the overcoat resting beside Shin. Shin pulled the adjacent chair out further to help him sit comfortably, taking the coat Se-woong hesitated over and draping it across the back of another table’s chair.

Taking a sip of his iced beverage, Se-gyeom observed the fluid familiarity unfolding between his younger brother and brother-in-law.

Se-woong gestured toward the menu. “Come during daylight next time. There are plenty of great lunch specials around here. There’s an amazing rib soup place right across the street.”

“Crossing the river isn’t exactly a walk in the park,” Se-gyeom chided gently. “You should come over instead, you punk. Since you’re a bachelor, your hyung will buy you something delicious.”

Se-woong laughed, leaning forward. “Well, that’s… Ah, hyung, you really should visit Yukwoo-jeong. Go there for team dinners. The beef intestines are incredible.”

Turning toward Shin, Se-gyeom replied, “I know it’s good. It’s just expensive. Come by sometime—I’ll treat you. You should bring your subordinate officers too.”