AVA
The basement is dank, lit only by the blue LEDs of my father's system.
Roori is nearby, deciphering the latest files on the terminal, leaving Min-Jun and I in a leaden silence.
"You could have told me," I begin without turning around.
My voice is sharp, cold. "You could have told me you'd return to Korea to please your father."
Min-Jun takes a step toward me.
I smell his scent—wood and rain—a smell I've tried to forget for ten years.
"There was nothing to say, Ava. If I'd stayed, I'd have become like him. I thought walking away was the only way to protect you from my family's poison."
I whirl around, my eyes burning with rage.
"Protect me? You left me alone at the worst moment of my life! I had to rebuild everything on my own, while you learned to wear the mask of the perfect Kim heir."
"It wasn't a vacation!" he blurts out, his voice cracking. "Every day in Korea was an attempt to figure out what they did to your father. I spent ten years rummaging through my uncle's and grandfather's garbage to find the evidence Roori just recovered in five minutes. I didn't leave out of cowardice, I left to be your mole from the inside."
I freeze.
His words hit me harder than a slap.
I look at him closely: I see the dark circles under his eyes, the constant tension in his shoulders.
He's no longer the carefree boy who laughed with us in front of that rainbow painted on the wall.
He's a man who's worn himself out from the inside.
"Why didn't you look for me?" I ask, a small voice I didn't want to let out.
"Because if they'd known I was still in contact with you, they would have killed you. Like they did your father."
Silence reigns again, thicker than before.
I feel the weight of the truth.
Is it a justification?
Maybe not.
But it's a reality that changes everything.
Roori, from the terminal, watches us.
Her eyes flick from me to Min-Jun, and I understand that she knew, or perhaps she sensed.
"Ava," she says softly, "he never stopped looking for a way out. For us."
I look at Min-Jun.
His hand is outstretched toward me, but he doesn't touch her.
He waits for my permission.
This is where Lawyer Jung enters my mind.
Jung is rationality, the cold power I could use.
Min-Jun... he is the open wound.
"Don't think it's all forgotten," I say, walking away toward the basement exit. "We have a revolution to manage. If we survive midnight, we can talk about the rest."
He lowers his hand, but a small, imperceptible smile of relief lights up his face.
He knows I don't hate him anymore, or at least not like I used to.
"Midnight," he repeats. "Grandpa's got his grand finale planned."