The phone rang at 6:47 a.m.
A shrill ringtone that tore through the silence of the apartment still plunged in darkness, that made Nari jolt awake, that twisted her stomach before she even answered.
She picked up without thinking.
— Hello… this is Seoul Hospital. Are you the daughter of Mrs. Han?
A deep voice, too calm, too composed to be reassuring, a doctor's voice that has been announcing catastrophes for thirty years and already knows what is going to happen in the next seconds.
— Yes. I… I'm her.
The silence that followed was short, but enough to freeze all the blood in her body.
— Your mother was admitted last night. You should come as soon as possible.
At that exact moment, something tightened inside her stomach, an invisible, ancient muscle that only existed for this: sensing tragedy before it takes shape.
She didn't answer anymore.
She had no breath left.
In a few seconds, she pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt, grabbed her bag, her keys, slammed the door. The hallway air was cold, damp, and the trembling neon light gave the walls the look of a morgue, as if everything was already written, already sealed, already dead.
Outside, the rain fell in thin needles, a grey curtain that swallowed the entire city.
She ran.
She couldn't feel her legs anymore.
At the hospital, the white hallways swallowed her immediately — a frozen tunnel filled with the smell of disinfectant, of blood washed too quickly, and of lives hanging on machines. Nari's footsteps echoed, too fast, too frantic, as if she was trying to reach something that moved farther away every second.
A nurse approached, file pressed against her chest.
— Are you really Mrs. Han's daughter?
Nari nodded, her lips already trembling.
— Yes… what happened? Is she… is she okay?
The nurse inhaled slowly, as if she wanted to take a piece of the world's weight onto her own shoulders.
— Your mother was hit by a car last night. She was on the road, drunk. Witnesses say she was shouting: "I want to leave this shitty life… Lord, take me out of here."
Every word hit Nari like a fist in the ribcage, breaking something vital, fragile, too human inside her.
Then softly, almost in a whisper:
— We did everything we could. She didn't survive.
The world collapsed in a dull crash.
There was no scream.
Not right away.
Just a breath stopped short, a respiration refusing to continue, a heart skipping one beat, two, three, as if it hesitated to keep performing its function.
Nari swayed.
The room shifted around her — the blurred silhouettes of doctors, the white lines on the floor, the harsh light — everything dissolved in an opaque fog.
She didn't cry.
Not yet.
Her body was too frozen to feel anything besides the explosion.
— I want to see her, she whispered, her voice broken, torn.
The steps to the mortuary felt like kilometers.
Each second lengthened the pain.
When the door opened, an icy cold slapped her.
And under the white sheet, she saw a face she had always known but no longer recognized.
Her mother.
Pale skin.
Frozen features.
Eyes closed forever.
A strand of brown hair slipped out from the sheet, still damp, as if she had just come out of the rain.
That small detail shattered Nari.
She stepped forward slowly.
Her fingers trembled so much they vibrated.
She touched the sheet.
Then the cold hand.
Frozen.
Dead.
— Mom… I'm sorry…
The sentence died in a broken sob.
A sob that did not belong to an adult.
But to a child abandoned too soon.
The memory of their last conversation hit her brutally, violently:
the insults, the threats, the blackmail, the anger, and that final click — that fucking click — when she hung up.
And now, this silence — the silence of a body without breath, without voice, without hate, without love.
The cruelest silence of all.
Her boyfriend arrived running, caught her as if she might collapse, as if her body stood upright only because someone else held it up.
— Cry, sweetheart… I'm here… he whispered.
I'm here…
But Nari stayed straight, rigid, her arms hanging.
Her eyes were dry.
Too dry.
As if her tears had decided they would never be used again.
— Thank you… but I need to be alone.
He nodded, helpless.
She walked out.
Moved forward.
Aimlessly.
Under the rain beating against her coat down to the bone.
The city blurred in front of her eyes.
Sidewalks, cars, passersby — everything became a long grey tunnel echoing distorted memories:
Each memory surged up, one by one, like shards of glass cutting through her heart.
Her mother, drunk, hair in her face, screaming at three in the morning:
"I want to die, Nari! I want to fucking die! You hear me?!"
Her small child's hand gripping hers, begging:
"Mom stop… stay with me…"
The men laughing in the living room.
Hands touching where they should never touch.
Her mother closing her eyes.
Pretending not to see.
Choosing banknotes over her daughter.
The rare times she whispered "you're my little star", before falling back into alcohol.
And despite everything… despite everything…
she loved her.
She loved her with a force beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond pain.
She loved her even when it hurt.
Even when it destroyed.
Even when it bled.
Loving a broken mother was this:
waiting.
Saving.
Losing.
Again and again.
But this time…
There would be no return.
No more screaming.
No more forgiveness.
No more "I'll try, my daughter."
Just a void.
A silence.
An end.
An end she wasn't ready to accept.
The rain kept falling as Nari stepped out of the hospital, but this time it wasn't just water coming from the sky — it was as if the entire city cried for her, as if Seoul had decided to spill the tears she couldn't shed, the tears stuck somewhere between her chest and her throat, burning, suffocating, tearing without managing to fall.
She walked without feeling her legs, without feeling the cold, without feeling the rain sticking her hair to her neck; she felt nothing anymore, as if her body had been left there, empty, open, unable to produce the slightest reaction.
Mom threw herself under a car to escape this life.
Mom died alone.
Mom screamed that she wanted it to end.
The neon signs passed by as blurred stains, cars honked into nothing, passersby avoided her without even turning their heads, and she kept moving like that, like a fragile shadow in a world that kept going, indifferent, obscene.
Each step seemed to pass through her.
As if walking hurt.
As if breathing hurt.
As if existing, simply existing, hurt.
Her phone vibrated.
Once.
Twice.
She didn't even look.
She already knew it was her boyfriend, wanting to know if she was okay — but how can someone be "okay" when they've just left their mother's body on a cold table, when the last memory they have of her is a scream, an insult, blackmail, a lie, an accusation that will never disappear?
She sped up, almost running, as if fleeing could keep the pain from catching up to her, as if the rain could wash away what was printed too deeply inside her heart.
But the truth stood there, brutal:
there was nothing to wash away.
Nothing to save.
Nothing to repair.
Her mother died with all the words they never said, all the forgiveness they never gave, all the hugs they never shared.
And the guilt…
The guilt was a blade in her stomach.
The memory of last night hit her full force:
— "Send me 5000 euros or I'll throw myself off a bridge."
That sentence spun in her head like a toxic spiral, squeezing her throat, crushing her breath, suffocating her soul.
She remembered the harsh CLICK when she hung up.
The anger.
The habit.
And now…
There would never be a second chance.
So she walked.
Walked again.
Without end.
Her fingers trembled.
Her stomach tightened as if something wanted to come out — a pain, a scream, a sob, anything —
but nothing came out.
Nothing escaped.
Nothing freed itself.
The neon lights of Gangnam reflected in the puddles, blurring the colors, turning reality into something too bright, too painful, too alive for a girl dead on the inside.
Then suddenly, something, someone, a presence, a hand grabbed her wrist with controlled strength, almost authoritarian.
She didn't even look up at first.
She didn't have the strength.
But the voice…
That voice.
Deep.
Slow.
Irreversible.
— Get in.
An order.
Not a request.
Not a question.
An order that pierced through the fog she was dissolving into.
She finally raised her head.
And her eyes met his.
Jeon Sion.
Soaked as well, jaw clenched, golden eyes shining with a tension she had never seen before.
No smile.
No provocation.
No mockery.
Just…
A dark look.
Deep.
Something unsettling, inexplicable, unusual in him.
She didn't even understand why she obeyed.
Why her legs carried her to the car.
Why she got in without a word.
The ride was long.
Silent.
Suffocating.
The sound of the rain against the windows echoed like a heartbeat too loud, too heavy, too violent.
Nari stared straight ahead.
Her hands clenched on her knees.
Her lips trembling.
Her eyes empty.
Sion, meanwhile, kept throwing quick glances at her, looks he would never admit, looks that had nothing sexual, nothing dominant about them.
It was something else.
A mix of frustration, fear, curiosity, rage at something he didn't yet understand.
— You're in a pathetic state, he muttered, but his voice lacked its usual cruelty.
As if he didn't believe his own words.
She didn't answer.
She seemed…
Absent.
Defenseless.
As if the slightest breath could shatter her into pieces.
When they arrived in front of her building, he got out first, walked around the car, opened the door and grabbed her arm again — more gently this time, almost with a care she would never have imagined in him.
He brought her inside.
Closed the door behind her.
And the silence…
The silence in the apartment was so heavy you could have touched it.
He stood in front of her.
Without speaking.
Without moving.
Then, in a voice lower than he had intended:
— You planning on staying mute much longer?
She still didn't answer.
Her fingers were trembling.
He inhaled sharply, jaw clenched.
His voice cracked like a whip, harsh, brutal, instinctive:
— She never loved you, your mother.
Nari slowly raised her eyes, as if the sentence had slapped her.
— How… do you know that…?
He didn't lower his gaze.
He didn't look away.
He didn't step back.
— I know everything.
Your mother was a junkie. She let her guys touch you for money. She died without having looked at you once.
Then, in an even harder tone, too honest, too cruel not to be true:
— By dying, she set you free.
A scream ripped open her chest.
A wounded animal's scream.
A scream from a child who was never comforted.
— YOU KNOW NOTHING!
— YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO…
— YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TALK ABOUT HER!
— SHE DID WHAT SHE COULD!
— SHE WAS ALONE!
— SHE WAS MISERABLE!
— SHE LOST EVERYTHING!
The words poured out, soaked in rage, shame, pain, guilt.
Each syllable an open wound.
She hit his chest.
Again.
Again.
Again.
As if she wanted to destroy the entire universe through him.
Her fists crashed against his chest, his arms, his shoulders.
She cried.
She screamed.
She was suffocating.
— I LOVED HER!
— SHE WAS MY MOTHER!
— MY MOTHER, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!
She collapsed to her knees.
As if her legs had finally given in under the weight of all the years she had carried alone.
She sobbed.
Not small tears.
No.
Sobs that shook her whole body, violent, uncontrollable.
Sobs that came from far — too far — from the child she had been, from the broken teenager, from the woman who had never been allowed to fall apart.
And Sion…
Sion stood in front of her, motionless.
He felt something in his own chest — a pressure, a fire, a fear he didn't recognize.
Then, slowly…
Very slowly…
He moved closer.
Knelt down.
And wrapped his arms around her.
Not like a lover.
Not like a predator.
Not like a man who wanted to possess.
But like someone who, for the first time in his life, was facing a pain he didn't know how to put out.
She kept hitting his chest.
Again.
Again.
Her weak fists against his massive body.
— I hate you… I hate you… I hate you…
He didn't move.
Didn't answer.
He just held her tighter.
And the rain, behind them, kept hitting the windows, covering their breathing, their sobs, their demons.
He laid a blanket over her.
Time dissolved around them.
Nari stayed against him, her face buried in his chest, her sobs turning into jerks, then shivers, then tiny tremors — as if her whole body was trying to disappear into his, to hide inside him, to dissolve there.
The rain kept beating the windows like a heartbeat too regular, almost cruel in its normalcy.
Sion hadn't moved.
Not a muscle.
He just held her, awkwardly, intensely, his chin resting in her tear-wet hair.
He should have pushed her away.
Thrown a cutting remark.
Become the monster he knew how to be.
Torn himself away from her before losing control even more.
But he couldn't anymore.
Something in him — something he believed dead — was stirring.
An unease, a warmth, a rage with no target, a feeling too close to guilt.
He hated it.
So he tightened his arms around her.
Harder.
As if holding her closer could make what he felt disappear.
When finally the sobs stopped, she stayed still against him, breath short, eyes swollen, cheeks burning.
She didn't speak anymore, but her silence was worse than her screams.
An exhausted silence, emptied, broken.
— You need to sleep, he murmured.
She didn't answer.
Her gaze was lost, floating somewhere far behind him, far from everything.
So he lifted her.
As if she weighed nothing.
Like a child carried out of a fire.
He carried her to his bedroom — too big, too cold, too immaculate — and laid her trembling body on the sheets.
She curled up without thinking, as if the bed might devour her.
She whispered something.
Barely audible.
A breath.
— I… I hurt everywhere.
He bent down.
Slipped a hand under her shoulders, helped her undress, with a gentleness that had never belonged to Jeon Sion.
When he pulled the blanket over her, Nari lifted her eyes just a little — two red eyes, tired, still streaked with tears.
— Why are you doing this? she breathed.
— Because I want to, he answered simply.
She looked away, a tear tracing a salty line down her temple.
He placed his hand against her cheek.
His thumb wiped away a tear from her cold skin.
She closed her eyes — just for a second — as if that simple touch broke her even more.
Then she whispered, almost inaudible:
— Are you… going to leave?
He froze.
The question had nothing innocent about it.
It was a prayer.
A child's fear.
A plea she had never been able to say to anyone.
He should have said yes.
He should have left, slammed the door, protected himself.
It wasn't his role.
It wasn't his place.
But his voice came out before he could think.
— No.
She inhaled sharply — a tiny breath, a fragile hiccup, as if that word pierced her heart.
Her face tensed.
Her lips trembled.
— Okay… stay… just a little.
Just a little.
Nari never asked for more than that.
She had never asked anything of anyone, actually.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
His hand remained against her cheek.
She held onto it weakly with the tips of her fingers — an involuntary gesture, almost childlike, that made something tremble in his stomach.
The silence stretched.
Not heavy.
Not violent.
A rare, fragile silence, where nothing mattered except the trembling breathing of a woman who had just lost her last link to the world.
After long minutes, she murmured:
— Sion…
— Hm?
— Why did you… come get me?
He lowered his eyes, letting a raindrop still clinging to his lashes tremble there.
He didn't answer.
She looked at him as if he were a riddle.
She weakly grabbed his sleeve.
— Stay, she repeated, in an even softer voice, as if the world might tear Sion away from her while she slept.
He held his breath.
He would never have imagined that a single sentence…
A single word whispered by a broken girl…
Could crack through the tide of darkness he carried in his chest.
He swallowed.
— I'll stay, he replied.
He leaned in.
Placed his lips on her forehead — a kiss almost unnoticeable, almost accidental.
She breathed more calmly.
Her shoulders eased.
She fell asleep, finally, exhausted, emptied, burned from the inside.
Sion remained sitting beside her.
Without moving.
Without blinking.
He watched her sleep the way one watches the only fragile thing they never knew how to handle.
And in the darkness of the room, in the steady sound of rain against the windows, a terrible truth rooted itself in his veins:
He was screwed.
Because he had just grown attached to the one person he had no right to love.