The front door had been left slightly open.
Nari hadn't even noticed, too absorbed by the storm raging in her living room — the muffled cries, the shouted confessions, the tears, the blows, the love, the madness.
But him — her fiancé —
was there.
In the shadow of the stairwell.
Motionless.
Silent.
He had heard everything.
Seen everything.
Every word.
Every confession.
Every muffled moan.
Every kiss she gave to another man.
His face was frozen, white as marble, but his eyes…
His eyes didn't even blink.
Fixed on the scene in front of him, as if he were watching something inside himself die.
He didn't say a word.
Not a scream.
Not an insult.
The silence surrounding him was colder than any rage could ever be.
His fingers trembled slightly… but not from sadness.
From something else.
Something colder, deeper.
He stepped back.
Just once.
Just enough for the light to stop catching his gaze.
And in that shadow, his expression changed imperceptibly:
a smile.
Not a happy smile.
Not a sad one.
A smile that resembled nothing she had ever seen on him.
Something broken.
And dangerous.
Then he turned around.
Very slowly.
His footsteps on the stairs were silent, calculated, almost too calm for a man whose life had just fallen apart.
At the top floor, he stopped.
Pulled out his phone.
His fingers typed something.
A message.
A call.
No one knew.
But his face had hardened.
His eyes had turned into two black slits.
Empty.
Determined.
He lifted his gaze one last time toward the apartment door.
A long stare.
Long like a promise.
Then he vanished.
Without knocking.
Without shouting.
Without demanding an explanation.
Without looking back.
Like a ghost.
Like a shadow leaving a room…
And at that precise moment, in that suffocating silence, something was born inside him.
Not suffering.
Not jealousy.
Something else.
A thin black thread, stretching slowly…
just waiting to snap.
Something whispering:
This isn't over.
⸻
The wedding day rose like a sentence.
A grey, heavy sky ready to burst.
One of those skies that carry the end of something.
Or the beginning of a disaster.
Tradition dictated that fiancés not see each other for a few days before the ceremony, so her fiancé stayed at the hotel until the big day.
In her silent room, Nari stared at the ceiling for hours, her heart crushed under a weight she couldn't name.
Her body still carried the imprint of the night she had spent with Sion.
Every inch of skin he had kissed burned beneath her robe.
Every spot his hands had held still vibrated.
Her lips carried the memory of his taste — that mixture of pain, longing, and raw truth.
And in her stomach,
in her chest,
in her bones,
they remained.
Their mixed tears.
Their broken breaths.
Their way of reaching for each other like two souls who couldn't bear being separated anymore.
She closed her eyes — and saw everything again.
Sion's trembling whisper: "I love you, you drive me insane…"
And worst of all…
the way she had let herself fall completely into his arms,
his hands,
his broken voice against her ear,
their breaths tangled,
the salt of his tears on her tongue,
the unbearable slowness with which he had entered her,
the way he held her like she was the only thing keeping him from collapsing.
It was a night you don't survive.
A night that changes a life.
A night that forbids going back.
And yet…
Today,
she was supposed to get married.
She opened her eyes.
She approached the mirror.
What she saw tore her apart.
Her eyes were red, swollen.
Her hair messy.
Her breath short, her whole body trembling.
The woman staring back at her wasn't a bride-to-be.
She was a broken woman,
torn apart,
lost between duty and a love that still devoured her.
She placed a hand against the mirror,
as if she were trying to hold herself up.
She had to choose.
Sion or him.
Chaos or stability.
Truth or lies.
Fire or emptiness.
The dilemma clawed at her throat, violent, suffocating, leaving a metallic taste on her tongue.
Every thought of her fiancé triggered guilt.
Every memory of Sion triggered longing.
A longing that was animal, burning, obscene.
She remained in front of the mirror for a long time.
The white dress hung from its hanger, motionless, like a silent accusation.
The fabric seemed to breathe, watch her, judge her.
And beneath everything, like a heavy, pulsing heartbeat:
the memory of her name whispered by Sion, broken, torn, pleading.
Nari…
You can't run anymore.
She put on her coat.
Her fingers trembled.
Not from cold.
From truth.
She opened the apartment door.
The hallway echoed like a countdown.
Every step too heavy, too slow, too conscious.
Outside, the wind lifted her hair.
A burst of cold slapped her cheeks — but that wasn't the first thing she felt.
It was the echo of Sion's breath against her neck,
that breath that had made her lose her mind,
that breath that had ruined everything she believed she was.
The farther she walked, the more the street seemed blurry, grey, unreal.
Her heart pounded too fast.
Too hard.
And in that inner chaos, a truth emerged — brutal, oppressive, absolute:
She couldn't marry a man when another man's hands,
another man's body,
another man's breath
still lived inside her.
She kept walking.
Because the truth had to come out.
Because she couldn't run anymore.
Because she had to face what she had destroyed.
Or what she had chosen.
For today, in the middle of Seoul, in the cold, under this grey sky that looked like the end of something—
Nari had to decide who she wanted to burn,
and with whom she wanted to burn.
⸻
The hotel appeared at the corner of the street like a dark silhouette in the morning light, its windows reflecting the grey, almost black sky — that heavy light of days when something dies without noise.
Nari felt her legs freeze for a second.
Just one.
She stood still for a moment on the threshold, her hand still on the handle, her throat locked, her breath cut off.
She pushed the hotel door open, the warm air inside slapping her face like a shock after the cold outside.
Her breath condensed for a second, then disappeared, swallowed by the silence filling the lobby.
She caught her reflection in the elevator glass.
That slight tremble in her hands —
a tremble that wasn't fear anymore…
but anticipation.
Instinct.
The elevator rose slowly, too slowly, each floor ripping out a memory, a voice, a breath, a face.
The elevator stopped with a small mechanical click.
She inhaled.
For a long time.
Deeply.
But the air only filled half her lungs.
She walked down the hallway, each step echoing like a funeral bell.
The room number appeared.
1174.
She looked at it like someone looks at a tomb door.
Her hand trembled.
Not a discreet tremble.
A raw, uncontrollable one, gripping the handle as if her life depended on it.
She inhaled.
The air rushed into her lungs too fast, too violently — a breath that burned her throat like a warning.
Then, she opened the door.