A month had gone by.
Thirty days.
Thirty nights.
Thirty identical mornings, gray, suffocating, where every breath seemed to cost a little more, where every minute spent away from Nari became a new kind of torture, a slow burn that was consuming Sion from the inside, and he couldn't put it out.
Thirty days where he had held on—or rather… survived—sitting in that white clinic where his mother's madness took up all the space, where her fits came one after another like raging waves, screaming, bloody, where his own heart cracked a little more every time she screamed his name as if she were speaking to a ghost already dead.
The clinic's hallways swallowed him up a bit more every day:
the too-cold light,
the sweat-soaked sheets,
the screams,
the medication,
the antiseptic smell clinging to his skin,
until it almost erased the scent of Nari he had carried on him for weeks.
It had become his prison.
His hell.
His routine.
He woke up every morning with the same feeling:
as if the whole world was weighing on his chest,
as if each heartbeat was a cruel reminder of the emptiness she had left behind.
And that afternoon, he snapped.
He stepped out of the building with a sharp, almost violent stride, unable to breathe one more minute within those walls saturated with pain and memories, wanting just… air. Any kind. Even if it was cold, dirty, brutal—anything that wasn't the air of machines and screams.
Seoul stretched out before him: alive, loud, bright.
An entire city in motion.
And him, a dead man walking.
He walked for a long time, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black coat, shoulders heavy, head lowered as if under an invisible rain, moving without direction, without purpose, just to escape his own body, his own mind that refused to shut up.
He tried not to think of her.
But she came back.
Always.
Again.
With that cruel precision that twisted his gut:
her laugh,
her skin,
her trembling voice,
her scent on his sheets,
the warmth of her hands.
He felt as if someone had stolen something essential from him.
He wandered like that, a ghost among the living, until his steps led him onto a large bridge over the Han River—a place suspended between the city and the void, between noise and silence, between life and death.
He leaned his elbows on the railing and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand.
The smoke rose, white, light, mixing with the cold wind whipping his face.
Below, the river gleamed like a blade of steel.
The buildings glittered.
The city breathed.
And he wondered what it felt like to disappear entirely.
He closed his eyes for a second.
Just one.
Then—a feeling.
A presence.
A scent his heart recognized before his brain did.
He opened his eyes again. Slowly.
And his world stopped.
NARI.
She was standing in front of a café, just a few meters away, at the exact spot where chance seemed to take a twisted pleasure in tormenting him.
Her.
Alive.
Beautiful.
Fragile.
A little nervous.
Her hands gripped around her bag.
Her hair dancing in the winter breeze.
The neon light brushing her profile as if Seoul itself wanted to highlight her.
His heart exploded inside his chest.
He took a step.
Just one.
He was about to call out to her.
His throat vibrated.
His breath hitched.
But before a single sound could leave his mouth…
A man walked out of the café.
Her fiancé.
Sion froze.
As if an invisible wall had slammed into him.
As if someone had ripped his heart from his chest and crushed it at his feet.
As if the universe were openly laughing in his face.
Her fiancé walked up to Nari.
He took her hand.
Pulled her close.
Kissed her on the temple—light, soft, familiar.
And she smiled.
A real smile.
Light.
Simple.
A smile she had never given him, not like that.
Sion felt the ground give way beneath him, his stomach knotting with sharp pain.
A primitive pain.
Violent.
Burning.
A jealousy so vicious it knocked the air out of his lungs.
He stayed hidden, swallowed by the shadow of the bridge, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to look away.
His fist tightened around the cigarette, ash falling silently onto the railing.
— No… he muttered, his voice broken, lost in the wind.
The man slipped his arm around Nari's waist, his fingers sliding into hers—a tender, natural gesture that pierced Sion like an icy blade.
They walked together, laughing, carefree, like two lovers who had never known the storm.
Nari lifted her gaze to her fiancé with a softness she had never offered Sion.
A forbidden softness.
Intolerable.
They moved closer to the bridge, still without noticing the motionless silhouette of Sion, standing just meters away in the shadows.
Then suddenly, her fiancé stopped.
He threw his arms up to the sky, laughing like an overexcited kid, and shouted:
— In two weeks, I'm marrying the woman of my life!!!
The sentence rang out in the cold air.
Like a stab.
Like a sentence.
Nari blushed.
She laughed.
People around them applauded.
Cries of "Congratulations!" erupted.
A random couple smiled at them.
And then…
She kissed him.
A tender kiss, long, deliberate.
A public kiss, claimed, luminous.
Sion felt something tear violently inside his gut.
A dull panic, a black rage, an unbearable pain.
He stepped back, as if that single gesture had just ripped a piece of his heart away.
He set one hand on the railing, searching for air, for anything to hold on to reality.
But reality had just exploded in his face.
— She forgot him…
— She forgot me.
Those words carved themselves into his skull, fierce, devastating.
Her fiancé kissed her again.
And in that moment…
something inside Sion tipped over.
Not just jealousy.
Not just anger.
Something deeper.
Darker.
An instinct.
A pull.
A vertigo.
His vision narrowed.
His breathing turned ragged.
His heart was pounding so hard it made him nauseous.
Then… he started walking.
One step.
Then another.
Slow.
Determined.
Blinded.
And before he even realized it, he was right behind them.
His shadow stretched across the ground.
His breath burned in his throat.