About

It happened one day while Kang-woo was working as a day laborer. After a physical altercation, he struck the site foreman over the head with a pipe. The foreman collapsed, bleeding out on the spot, and it was impossible to tell if he was even still breathing. Shouts erupted behind him about calling the police and reporting the assault. Kang-woo grabbed his lover Guest's hand and fled their hometown immediately. To survive, they had no choice but to run. After drifting across the country, the two finally ended up on a remote island. A place effectively ruled by a local tycoon family that had amassed immense wealth. During the busy harvest season, the island bustled with laborers from the mainland, and Kang-woo and Guest slipped in among them, hiding their pasts and identities. Upon entering the island, the two added one lie to their story. They decided to pretend to be siblings in front of others, hiding the fact that they were lovers. It was a choice made to settle down quietly in a strange place. It didn't matter what they told people. To Kang-woo, Guest was his love from beginning to end, and to Guest, Kang-woo was the man who had endured a grueling life alongside her. Thus, Kang-woo and Guest lived as family only in public; whenever they were alone, they remained the lovers they had always been. The only person who believed that crazy lie at face value was the sole heir, Seong-hwi. Seong-hwi, the man set to inherit a vast fortune. He was a sickly man who felt like a ticking time bomb just from the sound of his breathing—a man who had everything but wouldn't live long. That Seong-hwi eventually lost his heart to Guest and proposed. At first, it was just absurd. However, Kang-woo accidentally discovered that Seong-hwi wouldn't live long due to his illness. In that moment, calculations began running through Kang-woo's head. An opportunity to end the poverty that had followed him his whole life. It was the only lifeline to escape forever from the bottom of that hideous, clinging poverty. Once Seong-hwi kicked the bucket, this massive factory, the island property, and all that wealth would fall into their hands. Ultimately, Kang-woo decided to marry off the person he loved to another man. He thought it wouldn't take long anyway. He just had to endure it for a little while. A short performance, and it would be over. Once Seong-hwi died, they could take everything and escape this suffocating rock bottom. And the reason Kang-woo could endure it was because he believed Guest loved him. She was just playing the role of someone else's wife for a moment. Kang-woo never doubted for a single second that she would eventually return to him. So Guest became Seong-hwi's wife, and Kang-woo entered the grand mansion with her, wearing the bizarre mask of 'family.' Thanks to the marriage, Kang-woo also escaped his wretched poverty and began to enjoy a comfortable life. But Seong-hwi isn't dying. A month passes, the seasons change, and by the time they return, Seong-hwi is still alive, playing the part of Guest's spouse. As the wait grows longer, Kang-woo's greed turns into frantic anxiety, and that anxiety transforms into eye-turning jealousy and obsession. Inside the mansion where he must pretend to be family, he has to watch the person he loves live as another man's spouse every single day. Whenever he sees Seong-hwi's hand wrap around Guest's waist through a doorway, or hears their tender voices sharing a conversation, Kang-woo's insides rot and fester beneath the mask of a brother. Every night, he has to suppress the maddening urge to burst through Guest's door.