The days passed.
Or rather: they slid, blurred, dissolved into each other until they became one single, murky mass—thick, suffocating—where love, obsession, and dependence seeped like a slow drug through the veins.
Nari no longer lived.
She breathed Sion.
She walked with his scent on her skin.
She thought with his breath lodged in her mind.
She slept with his shadow pressed against her.
And Sion… Sion never left her side again.
Every evening, even exhausted, even hollowed out, even with dark circles carved into his bones, he accompanied her to the threshold of the Black Orchid.
Even when she told him to rest.
Even when she told him she could go alone.
He didn't listen.
He was always there.
Leaning against his black car, engine running, headlights slicing the night like two white blades, cigarette caught between his fingers, golden eyes fixed directly on the bar's entrance—
the one door he wasn't allowed to cross.
They had set a single boundary together.
— You don't enter the bar where I work.
Sion had nodded.
A soft nod.
Docile.
Calm.
But in his eyes, the crack was already there.
Already widening.
Already lying.
So he waited outside.
He stood there, motionless, sculpted into the night like a silent threat.
And when she walked out—
the moment the door handle so much as trembled—
he crushed his cigarette under his shoe, crossed the street in three strides, and seized her by the waist as if her body were a territory he needed to reclaim every night.
He pinned her against him.
Sometimes against the car door.
Sometimes against the bar's outer windows.
Always under the harsh light of the headlights.
Under everyone's eyes.
He kissed her mouth hard—slow, dangerous—biting her lip, gripping her nape, breathing her name against her throat like a spell.
— Look at them, he whispered, his hot breath sliding over her lips without leaving them.
Look at how they stare…
You're mine.
And she closed her eyes.
She let him.
She let the way he held her—as if she might evaporate at any second—consume her.
She let Aera's shocked glances wash over her.
Ryo's worried ones.
And sometimes—just sometimes—
the shadow of Kai's gaze, distant and black and unreadable, lodged between her shoulder blades like an icy blade.
At night, they loved each other until they broke.
Until they disappeared.
Sion took her to restaurants with crystal chandeliers where the waiters politely looked away when he slid his hand under her dress, stroked the inside of her thigh, stopping just before she lost her breath.
Nari bit her lip, drowning under the heat, unable to push his hand away.
— Don't do that here…
— Shh… let me.
And she let him.
Always.
Every apartment they went to looked the same:
rumpled sheets, walls marked by their hands, fingerprints on the mirror, the vibrations of their bodies echoing against floor-to-ceiling windows, Seoul glittering around them.
He took her everywhere.
Against the entryway wall, where she clawed his shoulders while swallowing a burning moan.
On the kitchen counter, her legs around his hips, her breath cut by the violence of desire.
In the elevator, between two floors, when he pressed Stop, lifted her by the thighs, and kissed her like he wanted to devour her whole.
Every orgasm was a promise.
Every kiss, a vow.
Every "I love you" an invisible handcuff.
And Nari slipped it on.
One after another.
Willingly.
Blindly.
Because she, too, was losing herself in him.
A little more each night.
A little too much.
Sion forgot everything.
Everything that didn't bear Nari's name.
Meetings.
Files.
Dozens of notifications on his work phone, vibrating to the point of death while he didn't spare it a glance.
Persistent calls from his father—red on the screen, ignored, deleted instantly.
His father's voice, cold as a blade, left barely veiled threats on his voicemail.
— Call me back, Sion. Now.
— What are you doing with your life?
— Answer the damn phone.
But Sion played dead.
He dissolved.
Willingly.
Far from the world, far from responsibilities, far from anything that could pull him backward.
He lived only in two places:
The apartment where he trapped Nari in his arms…
…and the clinic, where he sat beside his mother's bed—silent, absent, eyes empty, heart elsewhere—entirely absorbed by Nari, even in the white, cold room where his mother slept.
He barely slept anymore.
His face hollowed out.
His dark circles shaded violet, carved like wounds.
But the moment Nari entered his line of sight, everything reactivated:
his breathing, his gaze, his desire, his world.
She was his drug.
His oxygen.
His downfall.
As for Nari—she began fading from the Black Orchid.
As if she were becoming a transparent shape, sliding between silhouettes, polished, distant, reduced to essentials: making cocktails, answering mechanically, smiling just enough that no one pushed.
She no longer laughed with Aera like before.
She no longer reacted to Ryo's jokes.
She no longer sought Kai's gaze.
She was there…
…but her mind, her heart, her skin, her breath…
were already running toward Sion.
At the end of every shift, she rushed—literally—outside, where Sion waited like an impatient creature, leaning on his car, his gaze already darkened by the need to touch her.
Sometimes Aera grabbed her arm:
— Hey, want to eat together tomorrow? I have a story that will AN-NI-HI-LATE you—
— Sorry, Sion's waiting.
Sometimes Ryo said softly:
— Are you okay, Nari? You don't seem…
— Yes yes, I'm fine.
She lied.
She didn't even notice their worry anymore.
Her life had shrunk until it fit entirely within the arms of one man.
As for Kai…
he appeared sometimes, tall and cold and indecipherable, moving like a shadow among the important clients.
He lifted his eyes.
Looked at Nari for one second.
One second too long.
One second that made the air hum with electricity.
Then he disappeared as if he had never existed.
Two weeks passed like this.
Two weeks of cannibalistic love.
Two weeks where their bodies blurred into one.
Two weeks where Sion took everything…
where Nari gave everything…
where they consumed each other—slowly, dangerously, inevitably.
Nari was draining and feeding from the same source.
In his arms.
In his mouth.
In his skin.
In the lack of air.
And the more days went by…
the more she felt something in her slowly crumbling.
As if she were becoming the woman he wanted.
The woman he had shaped.
The woman he held so tight she no longer knew if she wanted to run…
…or let herself be devoured whole.