Bonny hurried out after him. I calmly finished the food on my plate.

My memory, however, flashed back to three years ago.

A video of him passionately kissing a young model had gone viral. I'd had an emotional breakdown, crying, refusing to break up, even attempting suicide several times.

After I slit my wrists for the third time, he appeared at my door with men from the facility, his face a mask of cold impatience.

Holding my psychiatric evaluation in his hand, he ordered them to put me in a straitjacket.

He said, his voice clipped and cold.

"Crystal, you need help. You need professional treatment."

"It's impossible between us. I'll always be your brother!"

Eason and I were, indeed, brother and sister in name.

But eighteen years ago, his name was still Eason Shaw.

That year, my father’s company had driven his to bankruptcy. After the failed investment, his father took his own life.

He was left alone in the house for a month. When the police found him, he was on the verge of death.

My father took me to see him in the hospital several times.

Each time, he would just stare blankly at the ceiling.

Until, on one visit, I pressed a piece of candy from my palm into his mouth. That was the first time he reacted.

He grabbed my hand, tears streaming down his face as he whispered.

"Crystal, I don't have a home anymore. Can you give me one?"

When I got home, I cried and begged my father for an older brother.

I refused to eat or drink for three days until he finally agreed to adopt him.

The day we brought Eason home, my father spoke to him with a seriousness I had never seen before.

"From now on, you are Eason Reed. You must protect Crystal and never let her get hurt."

Eason nodded in agreement.

For the next fifteen years, he granted every single one of my wishes.

Until the day he sent me away. I knelt on the floor and begged him, again and again.

I'd bloodied my own forehead against the floorboards.

I screamed that I didn't love him anymore, pleaded with him to just tell me why.

But his expression remained cold, impassive.

During my first month in the hospital, I got my hands on a phone. I called my father, only to learn he was dead.

Eason's voice was frigid on the other end of the line.

"Crystal, your father is dead."

"He had a heart attack. The shock of finding out we'd been secretly sleeping together for years... that you'd been sent to a psychiatric facility... it killed him."

"Back then, your father used dirty tricks to crush my father's company. He destroyed my family. I was just getting my revenge."

Eason’s words were a volley of poison-tipped needles, each one piercing my heart.

For three years, the poison seeped in, causing unbearable pain.

Until, eventually, my heart went numb.

After finishing the last bite on my plate, I sat quietly on the sofa, watching the football game on TV.

Soon, raised voices erupted from the terrace.

"Eason Reed, what the hell was that?!"

"What do you mean I'm overstepping?"

"You proposed to me! What's wrong with me saying something?!"

"That Crystal Davis *is* a psycho! Am I wrong?!"

Bonny shrieked before throwing the door open and storming out.

The room fell silent. I stared blankly at the television.

Until Eason sat down beside me.

"Crystal, do you hate me?"

"These past three years… have you hated me?"

I still just shook my head.

Eason's voice suddenly rose, cracking.

He gripped my shoulders, the corners of his eyes turning red.

"Crystal, you *should* hate me!"

"What right do you have not to hate me?!"

His grip was painful. I turned my head to look at him.

"Eason, do you remember the day I called you?"

"The orderlies found out. They called for your permission to give me ECT."

"You agreed."