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.
The room wasn't empty.
It was silent — which isn't the same thing.
A thick silence.
A heavy silence.
A silence that watched.
Her voice came out in a breath, fragile:
— … Minjun?
No answer.
Just that dense, heavy, suffocating silence, vibrating faintly like a low hum in her ears.
She stepped forward a few paces.
The floorboards creaked under her soles.
Seoul's grey light slipped through the half-open curtains, a dead, cold light that made everything look frozen.
The bed, unmade but not really used.
The suitcase, open but not overturned, not searched — just… waiting.
But that wasn't what knocked the air out of her.
It was the smell.
An almost invisible smell, but one that hit her nose like a ghost trace.
The smell of a man's cologne mixed with bitter coffee.
The smell of a sleepless night.
A smell that said: "he was here less than an hour ago."
A cup still warm on the desk.
A faint coffee stain on the rim.
A barely visible wisp of steam still rising, as if someone had left it there less than an hour ago.
Her phone vibrated.
One name:
"Mom".
Again.
Again.
Again.
The vibrations made the nightstand shake, a dry, nervous trembling, like a cry for help that no longer managed to get through.
Nari felt her heart tighten, literally, like an icy hand wrapping around her ribs.
— Minjun… where are you…
She opened the bathroom: empty.
She pulled back the curtains: nothing.
She checked under the bed like a panicked child looking for a monster: nothing.
A silence…
A void…
But above all, a deliberate absence.
An absence that didn't look like a panicked escape, nor an accident.
An absence that felt planned, placed, prepared.
Nari felt her fingers clench on her dress.
Then she saw the photo.
Laid out on the pillow.
Not carelessly.
Placed as if someone wanted her to see it.
A photo of the two of them.
Perfect smiles, artificial happiness, summer light.
A banal but precious shot.
Torn.
Cleanly.
With precision.
And it was her face that was missing.
As if someone had wanted to cut her out of her own life.
A shiver ran down her spine so violently she had to lean against the wall.
Her legs wouldn't respond anymore.
She walked to the bed, sat down mechanically, the mattress sinking under her trembling weight.
Her gaze then fell on the nightstand.
The ring.
Placed there.
Straight.
Aligned.
Like an object being returned.
And there — everything stopped.
Her breath.
The noise of the street.
Her thoughts.
She closed her fingers around the ring, the cold metal biting into her skin.
She stood up slowly and looked at herself in the mirror hanging across from the bed.
Her reflection stared back at her, impassive, almost cold — a reflection that looked like a version of herself she no longer recognized, a version sculpted by pain, longing, fear.
She wiped her tears away with her fingertips.
And she left.
Without looking back.
Without looking at the ring.
Without touching the photo.
Without closing the door.
She pressed one hand against the icy wall, her palm still trembling from the scene she had just lived, from the emptiness of the room, from the torn photo, from the abandoned ring like a last breath, from that absence.
The air had a metallic taste.
Heavy.
Acrid.
Almost electric.
She had the feeling that even the hallway neon lights were vibrating louder, as if reality itself were stretching around her, contracting, breathing too fast.
Her thoughts were a torrent, a mess of fear and certainty, of brutal lucidity.
She inhaled.
The breath slid into her lungs like a cold blade.
Then she walked.
Not fast.
No.
Not yet.
Her body moved at the pace of someone walking toward a truth they fear, a truth that burns them but can no longer be avoided.
A fine rain had started to fall when she stepped out of the hotel, an almost invisible but icy drizzle that settled on her skin like a dust of glass.
Seoul, in that grey-blue dawn light, seemed to be breathing her anxiety.
Cars drove past, distant honks forming a pulse similar to her too-fast heart, the sidewalk exhaling the smell of cold wet stone.
The LED signs, even in daylight, flickered weakly in washed-out colors, drowned by the low, heavy cloud of rain pressing down on the city.
And everything inside her was screaming the same name.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Sion.
Her steps quickened.
Not because she wanted to.
Because her body did.
Because that thing inside her — that torn, badly stitched, still living bond — was pulling her toward him with the force of a broken magnet.
So she walked faster.
Her breath grew short.
Her throat burned.
Her chest tightened like a vice.
She crossed a street without looking, nearly got clipped by a car, the driver swearing through his half-open window — she didn't even hear him.
Her brain heard nothing anymore.
Just him.
The closer she got to Sion's place, the tighter her stomach clenched,
the sweatier her hands became,
the stronger that strange feeling grew — the feeling of someone who had held back too much, for too long, and was about to explode.
Nari slowed when she reached the base of the glass tower where Sion lived.
A tall, sharp, cold tower.
A monument to loneliness.
The bright lobby almost mocked her, lit by a light too white, too clean for the storm she felt about to burst.
She went in.
Her heels thudded dully against the polished marble, each step echoing like one second less before the catastrophe.
The place smelled of black coffee, varnished wood and money — the scent of a powerful, wealthy, solitary man, Sion's presence etched into the walls.
The higher she went, the more her breathing stuttered.
It wasn't fear.
It was truth.
A truth about to blow up in their faces.
She reached the door.
The front door was ajar.
A rough breath escaped her lips.
She stood still for a few seconds, as if to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.
But no.
The door was really open.
Just enough to let in a thin draft of cold air, a current carrying the smell of black coffee and a freshly crushed cigarette.
She felt her heart tighten.
She pushed the door gently with her trembling fingers.
A slow, sinister creak echoed into the silent apartment.
Inside, the light was dim, warm, clashing with the cold outside.
A faint steam still floated in the air, as if someone had just drunk a scalding coffee seconds earlier.
She moved forward.
Her eyes took a second to adjust.
Then she saw him.
Sion.
Standing.
Still.
Perfect.
Magnificent.
Terrifying.
A black suit, cut with almost military precision.
A dark shirt slightly unbuttoned, revealing a glimpse of skin.
His hair styled carefully.
His jaw clenched.
He was… so beautiful it hurt.
But it wasn't his beauty that struck her.
It was his aura.
A cold aura.
Smooth.
Implacable.
The aura of a man ready to burn the world down if he had to.
He held a tablet in one hand, a folder in the other, talking to his assistant as if everything were normal — but his eyes… his eyes when he turned his head toward her…
That look wasn't human.
Not controlled.
Not rehearsed.
There was a tiny movement, an almost imperceptible flinch in his pupils, a slight twitch of his lip, a tension running through his shoulders.
He stiffened.
For real.
As if his spine had just been caught in a steel vice.
As if his heart had just skipped a beat.
As if his soul had just violently cracked.
Nari's jaw tensed.
She felt her knees loosen, nearly give out, her body reacting to his body all on its own.
Daewon, the assistant, turned, politely broke off the conversation and bowed to her, speaking.
Nari didn't really hear a word.
She was… absorbed.
Absorbed by the man staring at her as if his insides had just been ripped out.
Daewon left.
Sion closed the door behind him.
The click of the lock was so sharp, so precise, so cold that it sent a shiver through her.
Like a sentence.
Like a beginning.
They were alone, facing each other.
The air grew heavy.
So heavy she had to inhale twice before she could get any oxygen in.
He didn't say anything.
He looked at her.
For one second,
one second only,
the silence became a living thing in the room —
thick, sticky, almost burning —
a silence vibrating between them like a wire stretched to the breaking point.
Sion didn't move.
Nari either.
He had looked at her before.
He had owned her with his eyes, desired her with his eyes, burned her with his eyes.
But never…
never like this.
His gaze devoured her with such intensity she felt her stomach knot, a heavy heat climb along her spine, a dizzy spell knock her knees loose.
He didn't even blink.
— Aren't you supposed to be at your wedding, Nari? he repeated, his voice even lower now, almost a rumble, a mix of mockery and… something else, something more fragile, more dangerous.
She clenched her teeth, arms crossed over her chest to hide the way her hands were shaking.
— And you… are you getting ready to attend it? she shot back, a nervous smile tugging at the corner of her lips, even though her heart was pounding so hard she was afraid he could see it through her ribs.
Sion's lips curved very slightly, a smile that wasn't really a smile.
A smile that said "I'm in pain", "I'm holding back", "I want to scream at you", "I want to kiss you", "I want to destroy everything."
But his mouth stayed shut.
The tension between them was so dense Nari had to inhale.
She took one step toward him.
Just one.
But that step made the whole room tremble.
— Sion… I came to talk to you, she said, her voice shaking despite her efforts to steady it.
He listened, head slightly tilted, like a predator watching the slightest movement.
— Then talk, he answered.
That voice.
That deep, low, rough voice, loaded with restrained tension…
She felt her stomach flip, a dull heat rising into her throat.
She inhaled.
Her hands turned clammy.
— I… I'm not going to get married.
Sion's breath stopped dead.
Literally.
He stopped breathing for a moment, as if his body no longer remembered how to function.
His eyes widened slightly.
Not much.
Just enough for her to see the crack.
The breach.
Hope.
Despair.
Love.
All at once.
He took half a step toward her.
As if he were being pulled.
As if something inside him had just woken up.
As if he were fighting not to touch her.
— I want you… Nari whispered.
Her voice wasn't a voice anymore.
It was a torn-out breath, a strangled confession, an admission vibrating in the air like a wire about to snap.
Sion closed his eyes for half a second.
Half a second where he seemed to waver.
A violent shiver ran down his back, climbing all the way up to his neck.
When he opened his eyes again, they were darker, warmer, hungrier.
He moved closer.
Very slowly.
She felt his heat before he even touched her.
She felt his breath brush her cheek, a warm breath that made her dizzy,
and when his mouth neared her ear,
she almost collapsed.
— Say it again… he growled, his voice hoarse, shaking, almost pleading.
I… didn't hear you right.
His hand brushed her waist — not quite a touch, just the promise of one — but that almost-caress burned her skin.
Nari lifted her eyes to his.
And everything exploded.
Tears spilled instantly.
Her heart burst in her chest.
She felt everything rise all at once:
the guilt,
the pain,
the longing,
the fear,
the desire,
the nights without him,
the agony in the hotel,
the abandoned ring,
the torn photo.
Everything.
She screamed.
— I WANT TO BE WITH YOU!!!
The scream ripped out of her before she could stop it, an animal cry, visceral, full of tears, truth, and accumulated pain, a cry that seemed to shatter the air itself, a cry that pushed the rest of the world back behind them.
And Sion…
Sion caught her before her voice had even faded.
He grabbed her.
Pulled her against him.
Kissed her with a tender violence that knocked the breath out of her.
His mouth crashed against hers,
his hands slid along her waist,
his chest pressed to hers,
his warmth wrapped around her,
his scent of alcohol, black coffee, sadness, a man ready to die for her…
She moaned into his mouth.
He growled into hers.
The kiss was brutal, urgent, desperate.
It wasn't a lover's kiss.
Nor a kiss of forgiveness.
It was a kiss of survival.
They fell onto the couch, but not in a clumsy way —
no, with the kind of movement that said "I want you"
"I'm taking you"
"I'm getting you back"
"you're mine"
"you came back."
His hands slid under her clothes.
Her skin turned blazing hot.
Her breath hitched.
She moaned again.
He bit her lightly.
She clung to his shoulders.
Their breathing tangled together, quick, shaky, starving.
And the world vanished around them.
The couch creaked under their tangled bodies, their ragged breaths filling the room like a fever, a panting rhythm beating against the walls, against their skin, against the night outside.
Their lips kept searching for each other without really parting, their hands trembling as they found each other again, as if a month of absence had carved invisible scars into their palms.
Sion kissed her like a man who had thought he'd lost her, like a man who had cried too much in silence, like a man who had suffocated under the ache until he went mad.
His mouth slid along her jaw, down to her neck, to that exact spot that always made her shiver — and she moaned, a soft, broken sound, one she had never dared let escape in front of any other man.
His fingers moved slowly beneath her top, his broad palms gliding over her skin as if relearning her, as if making sure she was real, here, alive, warm, his.
When his hands reached her ribs, she arched her back slightly, a violent shiver shooting up to her neck.
— You… are… here… he murmured against her throat, each word torn from his chest like a prayer.
She placed her hands on his face, forcing him to look at her.
Their eyes collided, and something in both of them broke.
Not from fear.
Not from pain.
From surrender.
Nari struggled to breathe, her heart pounding against her ribs.
— I'm here, she repeated, her voice rough, her lips shaking.
— I'm here, Sion…
— I'm yours.
He closed his eyes.
Just for a second.
A second where he seemed to hurt, truly hurt, with a pain that came from far away.
An old pain.
Then he dived back to her lips, kissing her more slowly this time, a deeper, more intimate kiss, heavy with everything he had never known how to say out loud.
She slipped her hands into his hair, pulling him closer still, their bodies fitting together without hesitation, without space.
Her fingers gripped the back of his neck to bring him down to her, and he let out an uncontrolled, rough, animal sound, almost painful.
He broke the kiss suddenly, breathing hard against her mouth, their noses brushing, their breaths mingling.
— Nari… he murmured, his voice trembling, pupils blown wide.
— You don't realize what you just did…
— You have no idea what you're walking into…
She stroked his cheek, her fingers sliding along the hard line of his jaw.
— Yes…
Her voice cracked.
— I do.
She took a long breath, her eyes shining with a truth she had never spoken before.
— I'm not afraid anymore, Sion.
He swallowed, his chest heaving violently as if she'd just reached into his ribcage.
— You're going to destroy me…, he whispered, almost under his breath.
— And I'm going to destroy you with me.
She smiled faintly, a sad but real smile.
— Then destroy me.
He froze.
His hands tightened on her waist, his fingers pressing into her skin as if they were afraid to let go, a fear he didn't want to show but that she felt in every micro-movement, every breath, every tension in his arms.
He rested his forehead against hers, their lips a millimeter apart without touching, their breaths crashing into each other.
— Nari…, he breathed.
— I tried to live without you…
— I tried, fuck…
She grabbed him by the back of the neck, dragging him back to her.
— Stop trying.
— I'm here.
Silence fell.
A heavy silence.
Heavy like a secret.
Heavy like a promise.
Heavy like a fate you can no longer escape.
Sion closed his eyes, clinging to her like someone grabs a life buoy in the middle of a black ocean.
— You're mine…, he murmured, his voice hoarse, almost broken.
— Since the first day.
— And until the last.
She trembled.
Her breathing caught.
Her stomach clenched.
A tear slid down her cheek before she could stop it.
— Yes…, she breathed.
— Yours.
Then he kissed her again.
Harder.
Slower.
Deeper.
A kiss that didn't promise anything beautiful.
A kiss that promised everything real.
Everything dangerous.
Everything fatal.
The kind of kiss that changes a life.
The kind you should never give.
And that you give anyway.
His hands slowly slid down to her hips, climbed back up along her spine, tracing burning paths that made her skin shiver.
Their bodies pressed even closer, their breaths tangling, their hearts beating in unison until the entire world disappeared behind them.
Sion held her against him as if he were afraid she might evaporate, his fingers sliding down her back, over her ribs, to her neck.
She buried her face in his neck, inhaling his scent — that mix of alcohol, cigarettes, sleepless nights and pain — that scent she couldn't forget even when she tried.
And then,
in that blazing silence,
in that kiss that wouldn't end,
in that suspended moment where two souls clung to each other as if they were about to sink…
Sion whispered, his voice so low she almost didn't hear it:
— We're gonna show up and burn everything down.
She lifted her head, lips red, cheeks wet with tears, her gaze shaking with love and fear all at once.
— Yes.
She smiled.
A sad smile.
A beautiful smile.
A fatal smile.
He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.
As if he loved her for the last.
He cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing the wet trace of a tear.
— Nari…, he whispered softly.
She caught his hand and pressed it to her skin.
— Don't ever leave me again.
They stayed there, wrapped around each other, breathless, shaking, two hearts caught in the same storm.
And in Seoul's quiet air, something shifted.
That day —
without them understanding it yet —
their love sealed their downfall.
The cinders of desire
had just been set alight.