Chapter 42.1

Chapter 42.1

“……”

“It’s a ring.”

Yeongshin held out the ring resting on his palm to Heeju.

“Looks like a couple ring.”

“A couple ring?”

“This brand’s known for them.”

“I know that, but…”

“Usually it’s sold as a wedding band too, so the price is up there. And it’s got diamonds, so at least… hmm.”

Yeongshin pulled out his phone, searched the same brand online, and showed Heeju the screen. Still unconvinced, she said,

“There’s a chance she just bought it to wear alone…”

“With Heejin noona’s personality? Doubt it.”

Heeju thought the same. It didn’t seem likely Heejin would suddenly splurge on a ring worth millions of won just for fun. And if she had, she wouldn’t have kept it from her. Besides, she’d never seen Heejin wear a ring before.

“If it’s a couple ring, then it wasn’t some casual relationship. You don’t buy matching rings after a month or two, especially not at this price.”

“She must’ve had… a boyfriend.”

Heeju studied the ring closely. There was an engraving on the inside, but it was only a serial number, nothing personal.

“You really didn’t hear anything? No word later, even after the funeral?”

Shaking her head, Heeju slipped the ring onto her finger. Since she and Heejin were similar in height and build, their fingers were close in size as well.

“Why didn’t she ever tell me?”

Too small for her index and middle fingers, the ring slid perfectly onto her left ring finger. Heeju stared at it blankly, murmuring,

“You had a boyfriend…”

***

Here’s the translation again, this time preserving the raw punctuation exactly as written:

「It takes about twenty minutes to get there, so be ready on time. I’ll park in the lab lot and wait.」

After reading the text message from Sungang, Heeju set her phone down. She went through the rest of the items in the box, but aside from finding the ring, there was nothing else of note.

Or maybe just that was already a major discovery. That her sister had a boyfriend she hadn’t known about—it still didn’t feel real.

Why had her sister hidden the relationship even from her? If it had been something casual, maybe that made sense, but as Yeongshin had pointed out, the ring was far too expensive for that.

Because there was something about him that made her hesitate to introduce him to her younger sister?

That seemed the likeliest reason. There must have been something embarrassing, something troubling about him that kept her from presenting him as her boyfriend.

But if he was that kind of man, why date him at all?

The thought rose up suddenly, and Heeju forced it back down. That must have been why her sister had hidden the whole relationship so tightly.

“Anyone come to mind?”

Sitting at his desk, Yeongshin tapped away at the keyboard. Black letters filled the autopsy report line by line.

“Mm, I’m not sure…”

Heeju leaned the back of her head against the sofa and looked up at the ceiling.

“If I absolutely had to say, even if it’s a long shot—maybe two people?”

“Two?”

Yeongshin spun around in his chair, startled.

“Two’s a lot. Who?”

“Mm, just… thinking.”

Heeju mumbled vaguely, eyes drifting to the white ceiling as she pictured the faces of two men she suspected.

Lee Chulhyun.

And Kang Sungang.

Both had been her sister’s regular patients, and there were suspicious gaps in their medical records. The logs showed visits, but at some point the treatment notes stopped.

If they’d used treatment as a pretext to meet, but there had been no actual treatment, then the discrepancy between the logs and records made sense.

If her suspicion was right, then which one of them had been her sister’s boyfriend?

Lee Chulhyun and Kang Sungang.
Kang Sungang and Lee Chulhyun.

No matter how she compared the two, her heart didn’t lean toward either. Simply put, neither of them seemed like the kind of man Ko Heejin would fall for.

Her sister’s past boyfriends, the ones she had introduced, had all been quiet, composed, scholarly types—bookish, almost meek.

But thinking of Chulhyun and Sungang, she could somewhat understand why her sister had kept the relationship secret.