The sickly flicker of the neon light buzzed above her head, an electric, icy hum that seeped into her temples, pounding against her skull like a slow, steady drum.
The small interrogation room reeked of stale coffee, harsh disinfectant, and the metallic scent of sleepless nights.
Nari sat on a hard plastic chair, fingers clenched around her own hands, squeezing so tight her knuckles turned white, so still she looked like she was trying to disappear into herself, to dissolve into the grey of the wall behind her.
Across from her, a police officer was typing something on his keyboard, the sound of the keys echoing in the empty room. Each click was a slap, a reminder of what had just happened: the screams, the blows, Sion, her boyfriend on the ground, the blood on the bridge, the sirens, the chaos.
And her, frozen in the middle of it all, shaking, legs weak, breath short.
— Miss… the officer finally said, his voice heavy with professional calm. You were present during the assault. We need your version of what happened.
Her mouth opened. No sound came out.
The officer watched her for a moment, leaning in slightly, like someone examining a pane of glass to see if it's about to crack or shatter.
— The suspect… he went on, glancing at his screen… One witness claims to have recognized a certain Jeon Sion, twenty-eight years old. Do you know him personally?
She blinked.
Twice.
Slowly.
Then lowered her head.
The officer pressed on, pen poised to scratch the page.
— Miss? Can you confirm that the man who attacked your fiancé is Jeon Sion?
Nari felt her heart skip a beat, then two, then everything blurred together.
She could still feel, on her skin, the heat of Sion's kiss, the weight of his collapse, the desperate strength with laquelle he had wrapped his arms around her.
That acidic lump was climbing back up her throat — burning, sharp, threatening to explode at any second.
It felt like her whole body was vibrating under an invisible shock, like she was walking along the edge of a cliff where the slightest word would send her over.
— I… I don't…
She closed her eyes.
She saw her boyfriend lying on the ground again.
She saw Sion shaking with rage.
She saw the blood.
She saw Sion's tears — the first she had ever seen.
Her fault.
It was all her fault.
— Miss, the officer repeated, tapping the table with the end of his pen. Is it indeed Jeon Sion?
A silence so heavy fell it could have been cut with a knife.
She inhaled, deeply, painfully.
She lifted her head.
Still.
Ice-cold.
Her gaze shattered, but resolute.
— I don't know.
The officer blinked, surprised.
— What do you mean, you don't know? According to the report, you were less than a meter away from the assailant.
— Yes… but I was… shaken… it all happened so fast… I can't confirm, she said in a dead voice, emptied of outrage, emptied of emotion, as if she were speaking from behind glass.
The officer jotted something down, more perplexed than convinced.
— You do understand that by refusing to identify him, you're obstructing our investigation?
Her shoulders lifted almost imperceptibly.
A tiny gesture, but heavy with an enormous truth.
— I can't identify someone I didn't see clearly, she murmured calmly, eyes fixed on the table.
Lie.
A burning lie.
A lie ripping her apart from the inside.
A lie she accepted in silence, breathless.
Because Sion would lose everything.
Because he'd been broken, lost, and he had come to her.
Because despite the violence, despite the horror, despite the darkness — she loved him.
The officer studied her frozen face, her still-trembling hands, then sighed, aware that pushing harder would only make her shut down completely.
— Very well… we'll note that you're not able to recognize the assailant.
A knot loosened in her chest.
Just one.
Tiny.
But real.
She had just protected him.
She had just condemned herself instead.
She had just signed a silent pact with pain.
They let her go shortly after.
Her whole body was shaking as she stepped out of the station, the cool night air slapping her face as if to wake her from a nightmare.
But she knew the real storm was waiting at home.
In two days, she was supposed to get married.
And him…
He would come back.
Inevitably.
Always.
The night air brushed over her face like an icy caress as she left the station, the world around her feeling too calm, too quiet, as if the city itself were holding its breath after the storm she'd just gone through, as if Seoul were watching from a distance this broken woman walking without really walking, her steps heavy, mechanical, like those of a ghost drifting through streets lit by neon.
At the hospital, behind the glass doors that had just closed, her fiancé was lying on a bed, his face warped by bruises — jaw dislocated, missing teeth leaving dark, bloody gaps, his skin marbled with purple bruises that pulsed with every breath. And yet, despite all that violence, all that madness, all that fear, it wasn't his image that looped endlessly in Nari's head.
It was Sion's.
Sion disappearing into the crowd.
Sion's ragged breathing still trembling on her lips after their torn-apart kiss.
Sion shaking with rage and pain, his gaze wild but cracked.
Sion letting a tear fall — the first, the only one, the one that had destroyed her more surely than all the blows.
And she…
She had just laid a lie down in front of the police.
She had just protected him.
She had just sealed something irreversible.
Reality hit then — brutal, relentless, like a fist to her chest.
Everything was her fault.
Not Sion's.
Not the man she was supposed to marry.
Hers.
Because she had given in.
Because she had loved elsewhere, loved harder, loved more truly, loved until she lost her mind, lost her morals, lost her loyalty, lost her limits.
Because in Sion's arms, she had felt a truth she was never meant to know — a burning lack, a devastating pull, a desire that made her both alive and dangerous.
She felt dirty.
Dirty for loving the man who had nearly killed the one who had given her everything.
Dirty for learning that tenderness could be violent, that passion could be destructive, that life could tilt in a single golden glance.
Since the day he walked into her life, everything had collapsed.
She had laughed less, cried more, screamed in silence, hoped for the impossible.
Her naïve softness from before had vanished, replaced by a hungry void that never filled, except when he was there, when he breathed against her, when his dark gaze sank into hers like a promise of the end of the world.
Her fiancé's laughter, his tenderness, his simple love — it was all becoming foreign, dull, lukewarm to her.
Like pale shadows in a world that had become too scorching, too alive.
And she understood a terrible truth.
They say that when pain becomes too strong, it's a sign that change is coming, and that without pain, change doesn't exist — a rebirth in the flames that leaves scars forever.
She went back home with her body emptied out, her mind in ruins, each step heavier than the last.
Two days before the wedding.
Two days before binding herself to a man she could no longer look at without feeling the bite of guilt, without hearing Sion's echoes in her head, his deep voice murmuring I want you, I hate you.
Her fiancé, despite his battered face, had refused to postpone the date, whispering that he wanted her to become his wife as soon as possible, as if he could sense he would lose her for good if he let go of her hand for even a second.
He behaved as if nothing had happened, deliberately ignoring the horror, the betrayal, the fractures — as if he preferred illusion over reality.
Nari, meanwhile, walked like someone heading toward a sentence.
In her silent apartment, she folded her wedding dress, fingers trembling over the immaculate fabric, her heart squeezed by a pain she no longer had the strength to deny.
And it was exactly then, in that moment, that everything shifted.
A sharp knock against the door.
A knock that rang all the way down her spine.
A knock that made her hands shake and sent the dress tumbling to the floor.
She knew immediately.
Even before looking through the peephole.
Even before hearing his breath.
Sion.
And she… she was two days away from getting married.
Nari stayed frozen against the door for a moment, her breath suspended, her heart pounding so hard against her ribs she thought it might shatter them from the inside.
Her trembling fingers rested on the cold wood, feeling every vibration, every muffled sound, every breath of the man standing on the other side.
One single second was enough to remind her that nothing, absolutely nothing, was over.
— Nari… open the door, please.
His voice was hoarse, strangled, fractured, as if each word cost him something he had never given anyone before.
She closed her eyes.
Her forehead slid against the wood.
The world shrank down to that fragile line between them — that door she had closed, but that her heart wanted to open.
— No. Go away, she spat, her tone shaking with a rage that was only a mask over a dangerous kind of pain.
How dare you show up here… after everything you've done?
— Nari…
A fist hit the door.
Not violently.
Just hard enough to say: I'm here, I can break it down if I want, I'm holding everything back, but don't push me.
— If you don't open… I'll kick this door in. I swear I will.
Her heart flipped in her chest.
She unlocked the door in a sudden, almost animal gesture, as if her body had decided before her.
The door flew open.
And Sion stepped into her field of vision.
What she saw destroyed her.
His face was hollowed out, exhausted, ravaged.
His eyes — those golden eyes so used to coldness, arrogance, raw strength — were red-rimmed, swollen from lack of sleep, threaded with fine veins.
His suit was wrinkled, like he'd slept in it for several nights in a row.
His scent — a mix of alcohol, sweat, and that woody perfume that burned her skin like a memory — rushed straight to her head.
He looked… broken.
— Sion, for fuck's sake… she breathed despite herself, her heart tightening so hard it cut her breath.
He didn't wait.
He didn't hesitate.
He took one step, then another, and pulled her into his arms, dragging her against him in an embrace so fierce she felt like her skeleton was dissolving into his.
— Nari… don't marry him.
It was barely more than a murmur.
Just a breath.
But a breath that tore her apart from the inside like a slow blade.
She fought him off, violently, furiously, her hands slapping at his chest, his arms, his heart.
— Let go of me! You're insane! Why do you even care?! LEAVE ME ALONE!
He released her — but stayed right in front of her, shaking, unable to hide the fracture in his gaze.
— Don't marry him, he repeated, but this time his voice was broken, almost pleading.
She let out a nervous laugh, hysterical, a laugh that wasn't really a laugh at all, a sound hiding tears that were about to burst.
— Give me one good reason. ONE. JUST ONE.
Her tone snapped like a whip.
He looked away.
His jaw clenched.
His throat swallowed down a sob he refused to let out.
— Because… you can't do it.
She started laughing again, but this time there was despair in it, emptiness, rage.
— That's not enough.
Get out, Sion.
I'm not changing my mind.
I love him.
And that's when the ground vanished beneath their feet.
Sion pinned her against the wall — not violently, but with the desperate urgency of someone who has nothing left to lose, his hands flat on either side of her face, their breaths mingling, their gazes crashing into each other like two storms about to explode.
— Say it again.
Say again that you love him.
And look me in the eyes when you say it.
His voice was shaking.
Not with anger.
With terror.
The terror of losing her.
Nari's eyes were blazing with tears.
Her breath kept snagging in her throat.
Her heart was beating so fast it hurt.
— Let me go, Sion! Let me go, I said!
I don't want to see you anymore!
I hate you!
YOU TOLD ME I WAS JUST A TOY!
THAT I WAS TOO EASY AND BORING!
YOU DISAPPEARED LIKE A BASTARD AND NOW YOU COME BACK HERE?!
YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!
NONE!
He took it.
Every word was a hammer blow.
Every scream a shard of glass lodging deeper into his chest.
Then everything came out.
Everything.
Like a confession he'd been holding back for far too long.
— I love you, Nari.
Fuck, I love you.
Don't you get it?
You drive me insane.
You live in my head.
I don't sleep.
I don't eat.
I don't breathe.
Each word was a scream.
A scream that had been building for months.
A scream he had no control over anymore.
And then — in a breath so low, so fragile, so full of pain he could have fallen to his knees — she answered:
— You're the one who abandoned me first, Sion…
Nari's words hung in the air like a blade still vibrating.
"You're the one who abandoned me first, Sion…"
He froze.
As if his heart had just missed a beat.
As if that simple murmur had been enough to derail everything he'd been trying to hold together.
His golden eyes, already red from exhaustion and hurt, widened just a little.
A tic jerked across his jaw, his throat swallowing down a sob he still refused to let out.
His hands, still braced against the wall on either side of Nari's face, began to tremble.
— Nari…
His voice broke.
For the first time.
Truly.
Nari lifted her eyes, tears swelling under her lashes, her breath short, her heart pounding against her ribs like it was trying to escape.
— You left me, Sion…
You didn't explain anything.
You left me like I was… nothing.
Nothing at all.
Her breath wavered, a strangled little sob slipping past her lips.
Sion closed his eyes for a second.
Just one second.
But that second was heavy, loaded with memories he'd buried, with pain he'd muzzled for far too long.
When he opened them again, his gaze wasn't the same.
A deep crack had opened there.
He drew in a shaky breath.
— I didn't understand anything anymore.
I was scared…
Scared of myself.
Of you.
Of what you were waking up in me.
I didn't want to hurt you, you understand?
I wanted to spare you…
That last sentence fell between them like a stone, a truth he'd never dared to say out loud.
Nari shook her head, tears spilling faster now.
— You could've talked to me…
You could've explained…
I would've understood.
I needed you to stay, Sion.
Just… stay.
A thick silence settled.
Oppressive.
Tense.
Wounded.
Sion dropped his gaze.
His hands slowly slid down from the wall… swollen with a tremor he wasn't even trying to hide anymore.
Then, in a slow, almost painful murmur, he said:
— My mother is sick, Nari.
Severe schizophrenia.
For years.
Since… always, actually.
Nari's head snapped up, eyes wide.
— What…?
Why didn't you… why didn't you tell me?
Sion's voice cracked again.
— The day you saw me…
You remember… that day…
My mother had just tried to kill herself.
A breath of horror slipped from Nari's lips.
— But… why did you hide that from me?!
WHY?!
The tears were flowing freely now, her hands shaking with a mix of rage and hurt.
Sion shook his head, throat tight.
— Because I knew that one day… you'd leave me.
You were already so messed up.
And you loved him…
Nari stepped closer, her face wrecked with sadness.
— If I had known…
IF I HAD KNOWN…
Things would've been different, Sion!
— And what would you have done?!
HUH, TELL ME!
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?!
His voice exploded, hoarse, almost torn.
His eyes shone, not with anger—but with a raw, primal fear he'd never confessed to anyone.
Nari dropped her gaze, unable to answer, tears streaming down her cheeks without end.
— Since that day, Sion went on, his voice trembling, I live at the clinic.
I sleep there.
I eat there.
I… I hold her, I calm her, I drag her back to reality when she screams.
When you saw me with him…
I was coming out of an entire night holding her while she smashed everything, while she thought I was dead…
I was… done.
He lifted his eyes.
And Nari suddenly saw a lost child behind this man who always seemed indestructible.
— I'm sorry, Nari.
I'm sorry… for hurting you.
That was never… never what I wanted.
He took a step back, slowly, like each movement was costing him a piece of his soul.
He looked away.
— I just wanted… to apologize.
That's all.
I hope you'll be happy…
With the man you love.
Then, without another word, he turned around.
His back seemed more hunched than ever.
Each step echoed like a sentence.
He was going to leave.
He was going to disappear.
And Nari felt a raw, animal panic surge up from her gut.
— Wait.
Wait…
She grabbed his arm.
Her fingers closed around him like she was trying to hold on to her own life as it slipped away.
He turned back.
Their eyes met.
And that's when everything tipped.
Nari, shattered, shaking, on the verge of exploding, threw herself against him and kissed him.
A kiss that wasn't tender, wasn't light.
A violent, desperate, wrecked kiss.
A kiss that screamed don't go.
A kiss carrying all the longing, the pain, the guilt, the buried love she'd been holding back for far too long.
Their mouths crashed together, their burning breaths mingled, their hands clutched at each other with a strength that went beyond words.
When they finally pulled back just a fraction, their foreheads pressed together, Sion whispered, voice trembling:
— Stop…
Don't do something you'll regret.
Nari rested her forehead against his, their tears mingling on their cheeks.
Her voice was nothing more than a breath.
— Make love to me… with everything you've got.
The world seemed to freeze.
No more noise.
No more air.
Nothing.
Just their intertwined breaths, their mixed tears, their bodies pressed together like two magnets that had been reaching for each other for months, never daring to admit they were made for one another, even if it meant their destruction.
Sion stayed motionless for a few seconds.
His hands suspended in mid-air.
His eyes wide.
His heart pounding so hard Nari could feel his ribcage trembling beneath her palm.
— Nari…
His voice was nothing but a broken whisper.
The sound of someone still trying to fight himself.
— Stop… I don't want you to regret this…
I don't want to be that guy…
The one who takes you while you're crying over someone else…
The one who steals you away from another man…
She cut him off.
With a single sentence.
With a single look.
— Sion. Look at me.
He looked at her.
Really looked.
Like he was seeing her properly for the first time.
Like the light in the room had just changed around her.
Her eyes were full of tears…
But also of a raw, naked truth he couldn't ignore.
— I looked for you, even in my nightmares.
I waited for you, even when I thought you were gone for good.
I hurt for you.
I burned for you.
I suffered for you.
And you know what?
I'm still suffering.
She lifted a trembling hand to his cheek.
Sion closed his eyes, devoured.
— So please, she whispered, voice torn…
Don't leave me alone again.
Not tonight.
Not now.
Not after everything we've done to each other.
Make love to me.
Not to keep me.
Not to steal me.
But because it's killing us both.
Sion's breath spilled against her mouth.
A shaky, hungry, almost dangerous breath.
Then…
He snapped.
All at once.
He grabbed her by the waist, lifted her as if she weighed nothing, as if she were made of paper, and crushed her against him in a devastating kiss that knocked the ground, the air, and reason out from under her.
This kiss wasn't an ending anymore.
Wasn't a plea.
Wasn't a moment of weakness.
It was a man's kiss.
A kiss of longing.
A kiss of possession.
A kiss made of pain and devotion.
Their lips clashed, found each other, devoured each other, tears and saliva mixed, their hands desperately searching for every inch of skin, every forbidden place, every fragment of body that could still be touched, loved, marked.
Sion carried her to the bed where the wedding dress still lay, bright symbol of the future she had just thrown away for him.
He laid her down on it.
Gently.
With a slowness that felt almost sacred.
As if this dress was no longer a promise of union… but an offering.
He hovered over her for a few seconds.
Breath short, eyes blazing, hair tousled.
Like he wanted to etch every detail of this moment into his memory.
Like he knew there was no turning back after this.
— Tell me to stop, he murmured.
Now.
Because after this… I swear I'll never be able to let you go again.
Nari wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and locked her gaze to his.
— I want you to never let me go again.
Sion straightened slowly.
His fingers moved to the buttons of his shirt.
He undid them one by one.
One by one.
So slowly Nari felt like she could hear every tremor in the air.
The fabric slipped from his shoulders, revealing his tense, scarred torso — the memories of a life too hard, too heavy for one man to carry.
She lifted her hand and brushed one of the scars.
He shivered.
A long, deep shiver that rippled through his whole body.
— Nari…
She pushed herself up a little, her lips finding the mark.
She kissed it.
Then another.
And another.
As if she were piecing him back together, one broken part at a time.
Then Sion knelt between her legs.
His hands slid along her thighs, moving up slowly, slowly, with a kind of absolute devotion he'd never given to anyone before.
Every touch was a prayer.
Every gesture was a forgiveness.
Every kiss was a silent confession of a love he had never learned how to say.
His forehead rested against her stomach.
He closed his eyes.
Breathed.
As if it was the only thing keeping him alive.
— I love you, he whispered, barely audible.
I love you like a madman.
She slid her fingers through his hair, gently lifting him up.
Their lips met again in a slow, deep, incandescent kiss.
Then he pushed her back onto the white dress.
His body pressed against hers.
His breath mingled with her own.
And their world collapsed.
In silence.
In tears.
In love.
In total surrender.
Their lips met in a desperate collision, the kiss growing feverish, hungrier, their bodies searching for each other as if they had been made to fit and the entire world had tried to keep them apart.
Sion sat up just enough to remove the rest of his clothes, his movements trembling with emotion, his fingers unable to stay steady from how afraid he was.
Afraid of losing her.
Afraid of breaking her.
She placed her palm on his chest to calm him.
The single touch sent a shiver down his entire spine.
She traced the lines of his muscles, the scars, the heat of his skin, each caress a silent word she couldn't speak out loud.
— Sion…, she murmured, her voice shaking, almost inaudible.
— Don't say my name like that…, he answered, voice broken, his lips resting just above her heart.
— I'm going to lose my mind.
He slid his hands along her hips, touched her as if she were made of glass, then fire, then light—every gesture slower, more precise, more devoted.
He kissed the hollow of her stomach, her ribs, the inside of her thighs, her skin burning under his lips.
Nari drew in a deep breath, her back arching under the slow devotion of his attention.
She placed her hand on his cheek, gently lifting him.
He rose.
Slowly.
Centimeter by centimeter.
Until he reached her mouth again.
This time, he entered her with a slowness that was almost painful, a slowness that made both of them close their eyes, a shared moan slipping into the air, their breaths entwined in a sigh that vibrated like a tight string ready to snap.
He looked at her.
There.
From so close.
His dark eyes trembled, full of tears he couldn't control.
— Nari…, he breathed.
— You… you're destroying me…
She placed both hands on his face, forcing him to look at her.
— Then destroy me with you.
Those words were enough.
They triggered something inside him.
Something dark, tender, burning, devastating.
Sion began to move.
Slowly at first.
Very slowly.
Every movement deep, precise, controlled, as if he wanted to imprint his entire existence inside her, as if every second was a promise he had never known how to make except with his body.
Their moans blended, their breaths lost in each other, their fingers intertwined, their gazes locked and unbroken.
It was a dance.
A confession.
A goodbye.
A vow.
A rebirth.
A free fall.
Nari clung to his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer, deeper, as if she wanted to anchor him inside her, stop him from ever disappearing again.
— Sion…
Her voice cracked as a wave of pleasure tore through her, rising up her stomach and into her throat.
— Look at me, he murmured, breathless.
— Please… look at me…
She looked at him.
And her world exploded.
Her body arched, her muscles tightened around him, her head fell back, a muffled cry slipping past her trembling lips.
He followed a second later, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath broken, his fingers digging into her hips, a rough moan escaping his throat.
They stayed there, pressed together, shaking, their hearts beating like two hunted animals.
He rested his head against her neck, his warm breath brushing her skin.
— Nari…, he whispered, in a breath barely human.
— Don't marry him.
She closed her eyes.
A tear fell.
And despite everything…
She held him even tighter.
They stayed like that for a long time, breathless, their bodies still tangled, their tears falling onto each other's skin.
And in that burning silence, a certainty was born—
Lucid.
Brutal.
Irreversible.
They had crossed a line that no return could ever erase.