Chapter Twenty-One: The Great Family Vacation Diversion
The morning after the midnight hallway trial, breakfast at the Kang estate felt less like a peaceful family meal and more like a high-stakes Cold War summit.
The dining hall was dead quiet. Sunlight flooded through the floor-to-ceiling French windows, illuminating an absurd array of breakfast spreads—freshly baked croissants, abalone porridge, grilled salmon, and four different brands of premium orange juice. Yet, nobody was eating.
Ji-won sat in his usual spot, holding a silver spoon with hands that shook so violently his porridge looked like it was experiencing a minor seismic event. He kept his eyes glued to his bowl, his high-collared knit sweater pulled up to his lower lip.
To his left, Min-jun sat like a stone monolith, pretending to review financial portfolios on his iPad while his razor-sharp eyes darted over the top of the screen every three seconds, tracking Ji-won’s every breath. To Ji-won's right, Ji-ho sat with a leather-bound French-to-Korean etymology dictionary propped up against the crystal jam jar, surreptitiously taking notes on a yellow legal pad whenever Ji-won cleared his throat.
Ji-won felt like a lab rat being observed by two very dedicated, hyper-intelligent scientists who were trying to decide whether to dissect him or send him to a laboratory in Geneva.
"The atmospheric pressure in this room is currently three standard deviations above a healthy residential baseline," Ji-ho noted calmly, turning a page of his dictionary with an audible snap. He looked over his wire-rimmed glasses at Ji-won. "Ji-won-ah, when you said 'L'étreinte du serpent' last night, did you pronounce the French 'r' with a uvular trill or a voiced fricative? It's crucial for my comparative phonetic analysis of your recent behavioral shift."
Min-jun set his iPad down on the table with a heavy, ominous clack. "Forget the phonetic analysis, Ji-ho. I want to know why his personal tablet accessed a European trade forum at 3:14 AM three weeks ago. My cyber-security detail flagged the IP routing."
Ji-won nearly choked on a piece of abalone. "I—I was just looking for economics study materials! I clicked a link!"
"A link that routed through a private server in Zurich?" Min-jun pressed, leaning forward, his dark eyes narrowing into terrifying slits of pure corporate suspicion. "Ji-won-ah, if someone is contacting you—"
"THAT IS ENOUGH!"
A hand slammed onto the polished oak table with the force of a thunderclap.
The silver coffee pot rattled violently. Ji-ho’s etymology dictionary slid two inches into the butter dish. Ji-won jumped three feet in his chair, clutching his heart as if he had just been shot.
Do-hyun stood at the foot of the table, his silk robe billowed out behind him like the cape of a deeply unhinged superhero. He was holding a pair of silver serving tongs in one hand and a giant, colorful travel brochure in the other, his face flushed with righteous, dramatic fury.
"I have had it!" Do-hyun roared, pointing the serving tongs aggressively at Min-jun, then at Ji-ho. "I have officially had it with the two of you! You are suffocating our sweet, innocent, perfect little angel with your paranoid corporate espionage and your obnoxious linguistic nonsense!"
Min-jun frowned, his posture stiffening. "Do-hyun, sit down. We are trying to resolve an active anomaly—"
"No! You sit down, Mr. Spreadsheet!" Do-hyun interrupted, dramatically slapping the giant travel brochure directly onto Min-jun's iPad screen. "Look at this! Look at it!"
Min-jun blinked, slowly looking down at the brochure. It featured a cartoon mascot of a smiling dolphin wearing a flower lei, surrounded by bold, glittering letters: HAWAIIAN TROPICAL PARADISE: 7-DAY ALL-INCLUSIVE LUXURY RESORT & DOLPHIN SWIMMING EXPERIENCE!
Ji-ho squinted through his glasses at the brochure. "Do-hyun, the semantic structure of this advertisement is blatantly predatory—"
"We are going to Hawaii!" Do-hyun declared loudly, spreading his arms wide as if announcing a national holiday. "All of us! This Thursday! I have already authorized the private jet, booked the entire top floor of the Grand Wailea, and hired a team of private chefs to make Ji-won coconut smoothies twenty-four hours a day!"
A heavy, utterly stunned silence descended upon the dining room.
Min-jun stared at the brochure, his brain visibly crashing as he tried to process the sudden jump from corporate security breach to swimming with cartoon dolphins. "Hawaii? Do-hyun, I have three board meetings and a multi-billion-dollar shipping acquisition review with the Lu Conglomerate this Friday—"
"Cancel them!" Do-hyun shouted, slamming his tongs on the table again. "Reschedule them! Sell the ships! I don't care! Our baby brother is turning pale, losing weight, and getting interrogated at breakfast because you two are acting like KGB agents! We are going on a family bonding trip, and if anyone mentions economics, French idioms, or perimeter security during those seven days, I will personally throw their phone into an active volcano!"
Ji-won sat entirely paralyzed in his chair, his eyes wide as saucers.
On one hand, the sheer, chaotic absurdity of Do-hyun threatening to throw Min-jun's phone into a volcano to save him was hilarious. On the other hand, a crushing, suffocating wave of guilt hit Ji-won right in the chest, so hard it almost took his breath away.
His brothers were fighting. They were derailing multi-billion-dollar corporate mergers, booking private jets, and tearing themselves apart—all because of him. Because he was too weak to tell them that he was being blackmailed by Lu Sheng. Do-hyun was stepping up to defend him with everything he had, completely oblivious to the fact that Ji-won was actually guilty of the exact secrets Min-jun suspected him of.
He was forcing his family to take sides in a war he had created through his own shame and cowardice.
Do-hyun rounded the table with long, triumphant strides, stepping directly between Min-jun and Ji-won. He leaned down, placing his large, warm hands firmly on Ji-won's shoulders, shielding him from the intense, analytical gazes of the other two brothers.
Do-hyun squeezed Ji-won's shoulder, his gaze a silent promise, "Don't worry, little brother. I've got your back."
Ji-won looked up into Do-hyun’s bright, fiercely protective eyes, his throat tightening until it hurt. "H-Hyung... you don't have to do all this... Hawaii is too much..."
"Nothing is too much for you, Ji-won-ah," Do-hyun said softly, his voice full of unconditional, blinding love, before turning around to glare at Min-jun again. "Pack your floral shirts, Min-jun. We leave at dawn on Thursday."
Min-jun let out a long, long sigh, rubbing his temples in utter defeat. "Fine. But I am bringing my encrypted satellite phone."
"I will throw it in the ocean!" Do-hyun yelled back.
As his brothers began squabbling over baggage limits and flight routes, Ji-won reached under the table, his trembling fingers slipping into his cardigan pocket to feel the cold, hard outline of the small silver key Lu Sheng had given him.
Thursday. They were leaving for Hawaii on Thursday.
Which meant Lu Sheng—who expected Ji-won to surrender to him tonight—was about to find out that his 'little angel' was being dragged across the Pacific Ocean by an overprotective brother with a pair of serving tongs.