Vengeful Desires

3-

The Wang family manor exuded an air of stifling discomfort, the expansive dining room feeling increasingly claustrophobic as the conversation took an acrimonious turn.

Madame Wang, resplendent in an impeccably tailored mourning hanbok, pursed her lips into a thin line as she surveyed the assembled members with a practiced, disapproving gaze.

"She couldn't be trusted from the start," the matriarch declared, her voice carrying the unmistakable timbre of authority. "The moment that upstart family's business began its downward slide, we should have severed ties and let that scheming girl crawl back to whatever hovel birthed her."

Across the lacquered table, adorned with the finest china and culinary offerings money could procure, Hyun-woo remained still as a statue. His expression betrayed little, though a muscle ticked almost imperceptibly along his jaw as he absorbed his mother's barbed rebuke in silence.

"It simply doesn't make sense," he stated at last, leaning back in his chair as one broad palm smoothed over the silk brocade of his fitted suit. "Amirah may have her...idiosyncrasies, but outright evil of this magnitude?" He shook his head slowly, raking his fingers through his meticulously groomed jet-black hair. "No, Mother. She wouldn't do that - not to me or the family." 

As if sensing the need to double down, he turned to seek validation from the weathered patriarch currently nursing a crystal tumbler of aged whiskey at the table's place of honor.

"You've known her nearly as long as I have, Abeoji," Hyun-woo ventured, his deep baritone acquiring an uncharacteristic edge of deference. "Surely you don't believe these...allegations have any credence?"

The elder Wang regarded his eldest son through heavy-lidded eyes for a long moment before inclining his head in a minute dip - neither an outright condemnation nor acquittal of the opinions voiced. His jaw worked slowly, almost mechanically, as if steeling himself to offer a judgment from on high.

But before he could respond, the Wang sisters' hushed exchange at the far end of the table escalated with an abrupt clatter of fine bonechina striking hardwood. Hyun-woo's younger sister, Mi-ok, flung her napkin down with a peevish toss of her expertly coiffed tresses.

"Of course you would accuse unnie at any cost. Ever sense you started sucking her family dry for income." She scoffed under her breath towards her mother.

She folded her arms–rounding on her brother with undisguised ire blazing in her eyes. "I won't have you all sit here and continue denying culpability for this while blaming Unnie for it!"

Pivoting sharply, Mi-ok gestured an finger towards the willowy beauty perched beside Hyun-woo - Soo-jin, his official mistress and constant, silent presence within the family's inner sanctum. "And YOU...why must you insist on slinking around like a stray cur whenever Amirah Unnie isn't present to defend her position? Aren't you married?"

Soo-jin arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow but remained impassively composed in the face of the woman's tirade. With studied nonchalance, she delicately plucked her cloth napkin from her lap and dabbed at the corners of her impeccably painted lips.

"Because, dear," she demurred in a lilting soprano that somehow managed to sound both honeyed and utterly devoid of any true warmth. "Unlike certain others in this esteemed household, I've made it my place to stand by your brother's side through any hardship that may befall him."

Her gaze slid towards Hyun-woo, holding his own shuttered stare for the span of a few electrically-charged pulses. "Even when said hardships stem from outside forces seeking to sow chaos within our cultivated unity."

Mi-ok's eyes narrowed as she set her wine glass down with a dull thud, the corners of her mouth twitching with barely contained disdain. Her pointer finger glided along the rim, tapping at it slowly before she looked up, fixing Soo-jin with a pointed stare.