Yerin gets ready for school slowly.
Too slowly.
She stands in front of the mirror, brushing her hair even though it's already straight, staring at her own reflection like she's memorizing it.
Her days are numbered — and she knows it.
Not because she's scared of him.
Because she's planning.
And planning always means counting down.
She ties her shoes, pulls on her bag, and walks out without saying anything to him.
Hyunjun watches her leave from the top of the stairs.
Not a word.
Not a breath.
Just that heavy, unreadable stare following her until the door shuts.
The moment she's gone?
The house erupts.
He tears through drawers.
Cabinets.
Her nightstand.
Her closet.
The laundry room.
Behind the mirrors.
Inside vents.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Fucking nothing.
He rips a vase off the table and throws it hard — it shatters across the marble floor, shards everywhere.
He steps over it barefoot like he doesn't even feel it.
Seven years of knowing everything about her.
Tracking every micro-habit.
Every shift.
Every twitch.
Every breath.
And suddenly she has a card?
His wife?
His.
The one person he never misreads?
His jaw ticks.
His chest feels tight — not like fear.
Like rage wearing fear's skin.
Hours pass but he doesn't calm down.
He doesn't sit.
He doesn't drink water.
He doesn't eat.
He just stands in the destroyed living room, staring at the floor like the answer is hiding under the shards.
After school
Yerin pushes the door open slowly.
The house feels colder.
Still.
Heavily silent.
Her shoes crunch slightly on the remains of the broken vase.
She stops.
He's standing across the room.
Not moving.
Not blinking.
Just staring at her with an expression she hasn't seen on him before — something too empty to be anger, too sharp to be calm.
She doesn't drop her bag.
Doesn't step further in.
"...The hell happened here?" she says, voice flat.
He doesn't answer.
He just studies her — every line of her face, the slight redness in her eyes, the way she's breathing, the faint stiffness in her shoulders.
Like he's searching for the lie she told earlier.
Like he's dissecting her with his gaze alone.
Finally, his voice comes, low and rough:
"Tell me what the fuck you meant last night."
She doesn't blink.
"Which part?"
YOU ARE READING
No Strings Attached
Mystery / Thriller© all credits go to esmeulor BAEK YERIN (played by liu haocun) RYU HYUNJUN (played by hong jonghyun/moon dohyuk) HAN TAEKYUNG (played by hong mingi) Baek Yerin looks perfect. She's rich, brilliant, polite- Korea's favorite daughter. But she isn't re...
