My eyes snapped open before the alarm could even think about sounding.
The room was completely flooded with the pale, clean light of a Jeju Sunday morning.
Outside, the steady, rhythmic crash of the waves against the basalt rocks was the only sound cutting through the absolute silence of the cottage. Everyone else was still deeply asleep, buried under the heavy winter quilts after the seven-round soju marathon.
I lay there for a few minutes, staring at the wooden ceiling beams. My lower back was stiff from the previous day's cabbage hauling, and I honestly didn't want to get out of bed yet. I pulled out my phone and fired a quick KakaoTalk message to the adjacent room.
San[08:41 AM]: "Are you awake, Tokki? Or is the carrot hangover real?"
No answer. The unread sign remained stubbornly next to the text. The vice-president was definitively out of commission.
Suddenly, the faint, light patter of socks against the polished floorboards echoed down the hallway. The sliding door to my room opened with a soft creak. I looked up to see Ji-hoon standing in the doorway, already fully dressed in a sleek, dark grey athletic tracksuit.
Strangely... my foster brother looked remarkably refreshed. There wasn't a single trace of prosecutor fatigue or residual alcohol on his face; his eyes were sharp, and his posture was entirely awake.
"Oh, San-ah," Ji-hoon muttered, lowering his voice as he noticed my open eyes. "Did I wake you up? I'm sorry."
"No, Hyung," I grunted, propping myself up on my elbows. "My internal clock is broken anyway. Where are you going so early?"
Ji-hoon stretched his arms behind his back, a small, disciplined smile catching his lips.
"I'm driving into Jeju City to find a proper fitness center. I need to clear the static out of my head." He paused, looking at my broad shoulders, and tapped his chin. "Do you want to go with me?"
My face lit up instantly, the stubborn, bed-ridden laziness vanishing as if a switch had been flipped. A genuine training session with the big brother was the absolute best for a Sunday morning. I leaped straight out of the quilt.
"Give me five minutes! No, make it three!" I yelled-whispered, scrambling for my gear.
Ji-hoon let out a quiet chuckle, sliding the door half-shut. "Okay. I'll go get the car started. Don't forget your hoodie, the sea air is sharp today."
I rushed through the military-speed dressing sequence. I grabbed the dark jacket from the chair—it still smelled faintly of woodsmoke, charred garlic pork, and a tiny, haunting trace of Sora's vanilla perfume—and pulled on my comfortable jeans. I unzipped my beast-like backpack, aggressively dumping out all the unneeded clothes onto the floor, leaving only my tracksuit, a fresh pair of boxers, and thick athletic socks.
Within exactly three minutes, I was sliding into the passenger seat of the rental SUV, the engine already purring against the morning chill.
The coastal highway was completely empty, the black asphalt cutting through vast fields of wild green palms and tangerine orchards. Ji-hoon kept his eyes on the road, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel.
"Hey, San-ah," Ji-hoon started, his tone turning slightly sheepish as he glanced at me through his peripheral vision. "About last night at the beach pit... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have started talking about Sora-ssi in front of the grandparents. The soju made my legal filter slip a little."
I let out a loud laugh, waving my hand dismissively toward the dashboard.
"It's totally fine, Hyung. My administrative shield held the line. But..." I leaned back against the leather headrest, a sudden, mischievous smirk igniting on my face. "Wouldn't it be completely fair if you answered a baseline question for me now? Ji-hoon-ga... have you got a girlfriend?"
I tilted my head, looking at his perfect profile.
"Since I arrived in Seoul, absolutely no one in the house has ever told me a single detail about your romantic ledger. So, wouldn't a trade be fair?"
Ji-hoon let out a sharp scoff, though a subtle, amused smile broke through his severe prosecutor mask. "You really are a long-lost brother of mine, aren't you? Always looking for a cross-examination."
He paused, navigating a smooth turn onto the main city approach.
"No, I don't have a girlfriend. The corporate legal hours make a structured relationship almost impossible right now. But... I've been seeing someone recently. We've gone out for coffee a few times."
I instantly inhaled a deep breath, my mouth opening to bomb him with standard database questions—What's her name? Is she a lawyer? Where did you meet?—but Ji-hoon sharply interrupted me before a single syllable could clear my throat.
"And no," he smirked, raising a finger firmly. "I am absolutely not showing you her photo, Mountain. Don't even ask. But trust me... she is exceptionally beautiful."
I closed my mouth, looking out the window with a knowing grin. Man, my inner narrator analyzed, whenever a guy delivers a line with that exact specific nuance, it means one of two things: it is either the absolute, unvarnished truth, or it's a truly false protective script to keep the younger brother from roasting him.
We pulled into the parking structure of a massive, modern shopping mall in the center of Jeju City. I couldn't tell if we were technically in the official city center or a commercial district, but the corridors were surprisingly crowded and buzzing with activity for a Sunday morning.
On the first floor of the main glass atrium, we passed a sleek, high-end cafe ''Mise-en-scène' lined with glowing neon lights and rows of different cookies, croissants, pizza etc.
"Let's grab a baseline charge before we hit the weights," Ji-hoon said, pulling out his card as we approached the counter. "What do you want, San-ah?"
"I'll just go with the exact same one as you, Hyung," I said, trusting his lifestyle metrics. "Whatever the prosecutor drinks."
Ji-hoon nodded to the barista, ordering two specialized, healthy refreshing freshes—thick, vibrant green juices packed with celery, wheatgrass, and local Jeju citrus. While the blender was whirring, he nudged my shoulder. "While he's making the order, you should text Omma immediately. Tell her we went to the city together so she doesn't launch a nationwide missing-persons report when she finds our room empty."
"Ah, right." I quickly pulled out my phone and dropped a line into the family chat.
San[09:22 AM]: "Went to the Jeju City gym with Ji-hoon-hyung. Don't worry, the sloth is in safe hands."
Ji-hoon handed me my plastic cup, and we sat down at a high wooden table near the entrance. I took a cautious sip through the straw and instantly blinked. The fresh was... incredibly strange. The texture was slightly thick and slimy, carrying a heavy, raw vegetable punch, but the sharp undertone of the Jeju orange made it surprisingly refreshing. It wasn't exactly what I would call "tasty" in a traditional dessert sense, but my body instantly welcomed the vitamin rush after the soju.
Slurp.
"By the way how do you like Myung-dae's family cafes..?"
But before he could finish:
"Sorry."
Suddenly, Ji-hoon's phone let out a loud, corporate ringtone. He checked the screen, his expression instantly locking into that cold, sharp courtroom format. He slid the phone to his ear.
"Yeoboseyo... Yes, this is Lee Ji-hoon." He listened for three seconds, nodding a couple of times as his jaw visibly tightened. Suddenly, his eyes widened behind his frames. "Mwo?!"
The raw exclamation shattered his calm demeanor.
He instantly covered the microphone with his palm, looking at me with a tense, serious expression.
"San-ah, wait for me right here. Don't move."
Without waiting for agreement, he snatched his green fresh from the table, spun on his heel, and rushed through the glass exit doors to handle the call on the quiet sidewalk outside.
Left completely alone at the table with a cup of green sludge, a wave of mid-morning boredom hit my brain. I pulled out my phone and decided to do something highly unusual for my character baseline: I logged into the official Kirin's Secret app to check the community feeds.
The forum was alive with the usual high-school gossips.
There were a dozen angry, text-heavy threads compiled by the Applied Music seniors complaining about someone continuously leaving un-recycled rubbish and empty energy drink cans behind the third-floor acoustic rooms.
'Probably the sports wing rebels,' I chuckled internally.
But the real, heavy weight of the trending tab was dominated by a single name: Eun-ho.
Eun-ho was a third-year senior and a classmate of Lee Sora. According to the flashing digital banners, his official entertainment agency group had just officially dropped their highly anticipated winter mini-album at midnight. The feed was completely buried under fan-cam clips, lyric breakdowns, and frantic praise from the Kirin students.
I sipped my slimy juice, watching a clip of the senior executing a flawless, high-speed choreography sequence on a neon stage.
'The pace of life in this industry is terrifying,' I thought, a sudden weight settling behind my ribs. 'While I'm down here hauling cabbage on an island, the people around Sora are releasing records and commanding the charts.'
I was halfway finished with the cup when the glass doors slid open. Ji-hoon walked back in, his phone already slid into his pocket, his face still holding a fraction of that tense, legal gravity. He looked down at my cup.
"Oh," he noted, a faint smirk returning to his lips. "You're still not finished with the fresh?"
"Are we already going, Hyung?" I asked, gripping the plastic.
Ji-hoon nodded, letting out a short chuckle as I immediately tilted my head back, bracing my core, and finished the remaining half of the thick green liquid in one massive, single gulp. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, slammed the empty cup into the recycling bin, and hoisted my backpack.
"Lead the way, coach."
The gym was a modern, iron-dense paradise overlooking the city skyline. Ji-hoon put us through a brutal, high-intensity full-body training session. We crushed heavy deadlifts, high-volume shoulder presses, and weighted pull-ups until my tracking tracksuit was completely soaked through with sweat. The raw physical exhaustion completely cleared the lingering academic static from my brain.
After the final set, we hit the facility's traditional stone sauna. Sitting inside the dark, cedar-scented room, the intense, dry heat melted the deep muscular soreness straight out of my lower back, sweating out every single molecule of the beach toasts.
By the time we washed off and changed back into our casual clothes, my stomach was roaring for vengeance.
Ji-hoon led me through the upper levels of the same mall, guiding us straight into an incredibly sleek, softly lit steakhouse restaurant that he clearly knew very well from his previous trips to the island. He didn't even look at the menu, ordering two massive cuts of premium aged steak served on sizzling hot iron plates alongside roasted garlic and potatoes.
The first bite of the rich, juicy meat hit my system like an electric charge. After the intense workout and the sauna session, the delicious breakfast—well, given the clock was nearing noon, it could be considered a perfect lunch—made me feel like an absolute new coin. I was shiny, re-energized, and completely restored to full capacity.
The drive back to the eastern coast was quiet, the afternoon sun hitting the volcanic coast with a warm, golden glow. When the rental SUV finally crunched over the black gravel driveway of the grandparents' estate, the entire tourist complex was already buzzing with high-season activity.
Dozens of casual travelers and elderly tourists were wandering along the stone pathways, laughing and carrying walking sticks as they returned from their morning hikes up the surrounding cliffs.
But our cottage was a sanctuary of pure relaxation.
I slid the front door open, dropping my gym bag in the foyer. Inside the cozy, wood-scented living room, the family was fully operational in rest mode. Mr. Lee was happily lounging on a floor mat, watching a golf broadcast on the low television line, while Mrs. Lee was quietly reading a corporate document over a cup of tea. In the corner, Ha-neul was wrapped in a thick blanket, her glasses perfectly straight now as she methodically chewed on a bibimbap , her laptop open to a complex calculus module.
The atmosphere was warm, peaceful, and entirely grounded. I stepped into the room, my clean sneakers clicking softly against the dark wood, feeling a deep, unbothered comfort wash over my chest.
"We're back," I announced, offering a bright, lopsided grin to the room.
The sloth had officially returned to the haven.