#joon-woo

This life—it was dreadful, vexing, and violent. But there were things he wished were real. He wished he really could be the CEO of a company. He wished the company was run properly, that so many people didn’t have to die. Han-seo wished that his employees didn’t see him as the tyrant Joon-woo had puppeted him to become. He wished that his brother’s dark, twisted amity was real. He wished that his life of affluence was genuinely as comfortable as it ought to be.

He wished that he didn’t have to shudder while walking around his own home in daylight. 

Today was going to change a lot of things. Joon-woo was going to reveal himself to those two from Wusang. Their names were forgotten to Han-seo. He didn’t remember names consistently. He didn’t remember much, mind rotted away by a past with drugs, by trauma to the head from Han-seok’s violence, and from his self-distrust learned from Joon-woo’s friendly reminders. In a way, today meant that he wouldn’t have to pretend anymore that he was the mastermind behind the company. And in a way, that was a relief, because he hated what was happening to Babel.

But today was going to change Han-seo’s fear. It was going to increase it.

Knowing that Joon-woo was starting to reveal himself meant that he was coming out of the shadows. And with him came the demons that lived there, no longer restrained to threatening and abjecting Han-seo in privacy.

As Han-seo’s fear increased, so did his hope—irrational, desperate hope that someone would see the truth and save him from it.

It was pointless. He knew. He knew because nobody stood up to him. Despite his position, he still had a slight reputation for being incompetent, but still nobody stood up to the cruelty and manipulation Joon-woo had coaxed him into.

It was pointless, but Han-seo still hoped.

And this was why Jang Han-seo was a traitor.