He lifts his gaze to shoot Si-yeon an incredulous glare.

Si-yeon meets Tae-gun's gaze and folds his arms.

It's very stark, how she totally could save him from this social situation, especially after she so easily rescued Chun-hee, and noticeably isn't. She's ever so busy slowly sipping her tea. Tea is so useful, that way, she was so clever to order some in advance.

Tae-gun is, predictably, the one who loses that particular game of chicken and lowers his eyes to his lap again. Okay, so, he can just... go through the things he regrets. Even though there's a mountain of them. "I'm sorry I pushed you away. I'm sorry I stopped responding. I'm sorry I—believed those awful things of you—"

Wait huh? What awful things?

Uh. Yeah?

He's not looking at them so he's not seeing their confusion. He just continues. "I'm sorry I never talked to you guys again, even after—him. I'm sorry I ignored you every time I saw you. I'm sorry I let my—embarrassment—get in my way. I'm sorry I didn't have enough of a spine to—own up to my mistakes. I'm sorry for being a coward, and self-centered, and immature, and pathetic—"

"Okay hol' up. Tae-gun, the fuck?"

He looks up again. "What?"

"I was following you, sort of, but 'pathetic' is a bit much, don'tcha think?"

Here's the sad smile of a woman who is used to him using that kind of language when describing himself.

No, you know what, he’s barreling headfirst into a communication issue that has an obvious end point and drawing it out if just going to make it worse for everyone.

"Relevant information to this reunion is that Kang Jaeha was an abusive and controlling piece of shit who is still kind of obsessed with and stalking his former partner, and did a whole lot of systematic lying to cut him off from his support network and have him entirely to himself," she says, almost clinically. Tea sip.

"Hye-jin!"

"...wait, what?"

"Yeah, 'wait what' is right, maybe with another 'the fuck' for good measure!"

"Kang Jaeha," she says, very clearly and with an obvious grudge, "was an abusive and controlling piece of shit, and I am not going to sit here and not mention it while you try to reduce all circumstances to 'it was my fault, and I am terrible, throw stones accordingly.'" This is directed at Tae-gun. Then back to everyone else:

"I am not going to go into specifics on what happened between them, because it's not mine to say, but on my own account, Kang Jaeha has creepily stalked me to my damn house, and we've already had two very exciting and charming chats." That she remembers. There might be more. (She doesn't think so, but the chance is there and she acknowledges it.)

...well the problem is that now he can't even argue because that man did, in fact, also fuck with her. She's... It's her right to share that. But.

But.

...but now they're going to pity him.

They're going to pity him, they're going to feel bad for him, when he was the one who hurt them. They're going to know that he's—a broken thing, now, that he's not the Lee Tae-gun they used to know, that he's this, this hollow thing who let some guy mess him up so badly six years ago he's still fucked up about it. He's not going to be able to look—good to them, like someone they could respect and be friends with on an equal footing. He knows, he knows that he's a broken thing, but—but other people don't need to.

He's.

He's actually kind of mad at Hye-jin, right now.

"...but—"

"Juheon so help me God if you finish that sentence I am going to figure out a way to kill you with a teacup."

Ha. This earns a tiny smile from Hye-jin, who then -

- looks at Tae-gun and winces.

".... Sorry," she says, looking away. She... did not quite mean to go into a whole tirade about his ex, but he was just going to sit there beating himself up and she hates watching him do that to himself.

"Okay so is this a war room, are we gonna start brainstorming ways to kill him without leaving evidence—"