She keeps her eyes steady on his.
He takes that as defiance.
He steps closer — close enough that she feels the heat of his breath on her cheek.
"I tore this entire fucking house apart looking for whatever you think you're hiding," he murmurs. "There's no note. No backup plan. No hidden phone. No money missing."
He lifts his hand like he's going to touch her chin — then stops mid-air, fingers curling slightly.
"But I know you're not bluffing," he whispers.
Silence.
Yerin feels it — the shift in him.
The kind of shift that only happens when he realizes he's not the one in control anymore.
For the first time in seven years.
Hyunjun breathes out once, slow, controlled.
"Tell me what the card is, Yerin."
She doesn't answer.
And that's when he stops pretending to be okay.
He grabs her wrist suddenly — not hard, but desperate — pulling her a half-step closer.
His voice drops to a raw, unsteady whisper:
"Tell me what I missed."
She looks him dead in the eye.
And says nothing.
The silence isn't long.
But for him?
It's catastrophic.
Hyunjun's grip on her wrist loosens—only for his fingers to slide down, tracing the inside of her palm like he's checking for a pulse.
He swallows once.
Hard.
The bone-deep kind.
"...You're not fucking stupid," he mutters, eyes locked on hers. "You wouldn't risk saying that unless you had something real."
She doesn't flinch.
Doesn't blink.
Doesn't breathe any differently.
And that—
God, that makes him feel sick.
Because Yerin never wins the staring contests with him.
But now?
She's daring him to look away first.
He doesn't.
He can't.
His voice comes out lower than before, steady but frayed at the edges:
"Did you tell someone?"
Nothing.
"Did you hide something?"
Still nothing.
His chest rises once, tightly—like air hurts him.
"Did you leave something... for somebody to find?"
Her jaw shifts.
Barely.
But he sees it.
He always sees everything.
His eyes darken, the fear inside him mutating into something sharper.
"Fuck," he whispers, almost like the word was ripped out of him. "You really did something."
Yerin lifts her chin a millimeter.
Not a confession.
A taunt.
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...
CHAPTER 5: error
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