The night had that particular scent—dense, almost metallic—
a scent of after-storm mixed with the heavy warmth of two bodies
who had just loved each other until breath and reason were gone.
Nari opened her eyes abruptly,
as if something had just ripped her out of sleep—
a jolt born not from fear,
but from that strange state where the soul wakes before the body,
still crushed under the weight of sensation.
The bedroom was bathed in darkness—
a living darkness, thick, almost warm,
one that still seemed to breathe with the echo of their moans,
their broken words,
their kisses that were too long, too deep, too real.
The vibrating silence around her wasn't real silence:
it was the heavy kind that settles after a night where everything has changed.
She turned her head.
Sion was sleeping.
A scene in itself.
A painting.
An almost unreal vision.
His face—always so hard, so closed, so finely carved in daylight—
now seemed human again.
His features relaxed.
His mouth slightly open.
A long, regular, deep breath.
A dark strand stuck to his forehead,
a trace of dried sweat at the roots of his hair.
He looked fragile.
Almost gentle—
but only because he slept close to her,
in this bed where he had collapsed after loving her
as if tomorrow did not exist.
She watched the slow rise of his chest,
then its fall,
the way his arm fell limply onto the sheet
as if even in sleep he refused to stray too far from her.
A smile.
A real one.
A soft smile, almost childlike, brushed her lips.
She didn't even remember the last time she had smiled like that.
She stayed like that for a few seconds—
or minutes, she couldn't tell—
drinking in the image with a new kind of thirst.
It wasn't the first time she'd seen this Sion.
Not the predator.
Not the monster.
Not the cold manipulator.
But the man.
The one who, in the shadows, slept as if his body had finally laid down
the weapons he had carried for too many years.
Every time she saw this Sion,
a storm of emotions overwhelmed her:
the fear that he would close off again,
and a love so overflowing it almost hurt.
She inhaled deeply,
and the warm air of the room brushed her bare skin,
a heat mixed with his scent—
his perfume, his breath, his sweat—
a scent that wrapped her like a caress,
clinging to her hair, her throat, her stomach.
She couldn't stay lying down.
She couldn't bear the sensation of being still too close,
too deeply tangled with him,
as if one more shared breath might pull her back under completely.
So slowly, without a sound, she sat up.
Her legs trembled slightly when they touched the floor—
a physical memory of Sion's body against hers—
but she forced herself to stand.
Her fingers moved automatically toward the nightstand,
where Sion's pack of cigarettes rested.
She took one.
Lit it.
The flame illuminated her face for a second,
highlighting her flushed cheekbones,
her swollen lips,
her eyes red from lack of sleep and tears she hadn't even realized she cried
while making love.
Then the light disappeared.
And the room fell back into its warm, humid darkness.
She put on his shirt.
Her shirt now.
Too big.
Too wide.
Too full of him.
The sleeves slipped, revealing her shoulders.
The fabric fell over her bare thighs.
She opened the glass door.
A blast of icy wind rushed inside,
biting into her still-burning skin.
She stepped onto the balcony.
Barefoot.
Her nails still painted with chipped red polish.
The cold concrete under her toes.
And there—
in the black, oppressive, silent depth of the Seoul night—
she took a long drag.
The smoke entered her lungs, hot and heavy,
like an embrace.
Then she exhaled slowly,
a white breath dissolving into the darkness.
Nari stared at the sky.
No stars.
No horizon.
Just thick, heavy, threatening clouds,
a lid pressed down over the city.
The city flickered below,
car headlights drawing pale golden lines across the roads,
but nothing disturbed the silence of her balcony.
And in the middle of that dark night, something inside her became clear.
Sharp.
Obvious.
Undeniable.
She wasn't made for normality.
She wasn't made for softness.
She wasn't made for a stable, clean, quiet life
where love comes in tidy boxes,
without overflow, without violence, without fire.
She loved the shadow.
She loved the crack.
She loved the chaos.
She loved Sion.
Not the version you can introduce to your parents.
Not the one you show on social media.
Not the one society accepts.
She loved the dangerous man.
The broken man.
The man who drove her insane,
who made her tremble,
who made her want to scream, cry, burn.
She loved the kind of love that devoured.
She loved what she became with him:
a woman alive.
Truly alive.
She crushed the cigarette against the railing,
ashes falling like gray rain onto the street,
and she stayed there a moment,
heart pounding,
breath heavy.
Then she walked back inside.
Sion moved slightly in the bed,
a faint murmur on his lips,
as if he felt her absence even in sleep.
She smiled.
A dark smile.
A loving smile.
A guilty smile.
She gathered her things,
his car keys from the nightstand,
and slipped out.
Morning hadn't really started yet.
Or maybe it had—
but for Nari, it was still night.
A night stretching into the gray-white light of Seoul,
the cold light that warms nothing, forgives nothing,
and certainly not the sins one leaves behind
in a messy bed.
She left Sion's apartment silently,
closing the door behind her.
Her heart was still pounding too fast,
as if her body hadn't realized she'd left the room.
Her thighs still trembled.
Her skin still burned.
Her lips still tingled from his kisses.
She descended the stairs slowly,
her fingers sliding along the cold railing.
At the parking lot, she walked toward Sion's car.
A dark, powerful, icy, polished car.
A mechanical beast in his image.
When she opened the door,
a rush of warm air soaked with leather and male perfume hit her.
It slammed straight into her stomach.
Her hands trembled slightly—barely—
when she inserted the key.
The engine roared, a deep growl, almost animal,
vibrating beneath her ribs.
She gave a slow smile.
Yes.
This was it.
This was her.
Not the good girl.
Not the perfect woman.
Not the obedient fiancée.
This woman—
the one driving a dangerous man's car
after spending the night dissolving into him—
was who she had always been.
The one she had suffocated for years.
She started the car.
The road unrolled beneath the wheels like a black ribbon,
the wet asphalt reflecting the faint red neon signs still lit,
the city breathing slowly around her like a sleeping creature.
Nari drove fast.
Too fast.
But she didn't care.
The wind rushed into the cabin,
pushing through her still-damp hair,
making his shirt—her shirt—
whip against her bare skin.
She could still feel his warmth in the fabric.
Each time she accelerated,
her stomach tightened,
a delicious surge of adrenaline—
almost orgasmic.
She felt free.
Freed from the role of perfect bride.
Freed from the "good girl" label.
Freed from the silent prison she had built around herself.
And yet…
Beneath the euphoria, something else was burning.
Deeper.
Darker.
A certainty.
She had just crossed a line.
Not a small moral line.
A border.
A limit.
A barrier separating the old world from the new.
And she had no intention of going back.
When she arrived in front of her workplace, the sky was beginning to lighten—
not a real morning, but a kind of dirty light slipping between the clouds,
giving everything a cold, metallic, washed-out look.
She parked.
Cut the engine.
And remained still for a moment, fingers tight around the steering wheel, breath heavy.
She could feel her heart beating in two distinct rhythms:
one calm, slow, soothed—left by Sion;
the other fast, violent, nervous—announcing the chaos to come.
She opened the door and stepped out.
Her heels clicked against the damp pavement.
Her silhouette moved with a new kind of confidence, almost dangerous,
as if the night had poured a dose of addictive poison into her blood.
Her still-wet hair slid over her shoulders.
Her shirt — Sion's shirt — stuck out from under her coat, wrinkled, slightly open, revealing a bit too much skin.
But she didn't fix anything.
She liked what it said.
She liked what it showed.
Her coworkers watched her walk into the open space as if a stranger had slipped into their office.
This woman with burning eyes.
With slow movements.
With a too-calm smile to be sane.
And then—
everything inside her collapsed.
All the humiliations.
All the mocking laughs.
All the venomous little remarks.
Everything she had swallowed in silence for months—out of kindness, out of politeness, out of weakness.
She didn't feel that weakness anymore.
Not today.
Today, she had Sion's taste in her mouth.
And that changed everything.
The two vipers were already snickering.
Of course.
As if they'd learned nothing.
As if the woman walking toward them still wore the skin of the old Nari.
But she wasn't her anymore.
She had become… something else.
A woman born from a night too intense, too burning, too real.
A woman who had plunged into darkness and emerged with new eyes.
When she reached the two girls, her heart grew calm.
A frightening calm.
A calm that scares.
A calm that precedes the storm.
She stared at them.
For a long time.
Without blinking.
And her smile — slow, cold, almost sensual — silenced every conversation around them.
Only then did she raise her hand.
Nari's hand moved before she even fully realized it.
A sharp, precise, pure, instinctive movement—
as if her body had decided before her mind.
SLAP.
The sound cut through the entire open space, slicing the air like a whip,
a crack so sharp that even the keyboards stopped clicking,
even the breaths paused,
even the lamps above seemed to flicker under the impact.
The colleague's cheek instantly flushed red,
a perfectly shaped handprint blooming on her skin,
her eyes wide,
her breath stolen.
Nari didn't move.
Didn't lower her hand.
Didn't step back.
She stared at her—pupils narrowed, lips parted, breathing slow, almost sensual.
The second colleague lifted a hand to her mouth, shocked.
But no sound dared leave her throat.
— Are you crazy??? the first one finally yelled, her voice cracking, swinging between surprise and fear.
Nari tilted her head slightly to the side,
a slow, soft, almost tender smile pulling at her lips—
but her eyes were frozen,
deadly,
merciless.
She stepped forward.
Slowly.
So slowly the girl's heart seemed to stop between each step.
Then she grabbed her coworker by the hair.
Not a fast gesture.
Not a violent one.
No.
A controlled gesture.
Measured.
Cold.
Slow.
Hypnotic.
Her hand slid through the strands, her fingers closing on the scalp,
pulling her head back until the girl was forced to lift her chin—
vulnerable, exposed, eyes wide with terror.
Their faces were only a few centimeters apart.
A single breath.
— What… you want more?
Nari's voice was low.
Soft.
Almost affectionate.
A poisonous caress.
The colleague blinked, tears already gathering.
— I… I'll tell the boss… she stammered, her voice trembling like a page about to tear.
Nari smiled.
A wide, slow, cruel, luminous smile—
a smile of a woman who finally removed her chains,
a smile that made you want to step back,
to run,
to never cross her gaze again.
— Go ahead.
Her voice vibrated in the air like an icy caress.
— Knock yourself out.
She released her hair.
All at once.
The girl staggered backward, one hand pressed to her aching scalp, the other trembling, breath short, unable to understand what had just happened, unable to move.
Nari didn't give her a single look.
Her heels tapped the floor with a tranquil slowness,
an almost insolent confidence,
completely devoid of guilt.
Every step was a verdict.
Every step was a deliberate abandonment of everything she had been.
She walked toward the boss's office, shoulders straight, head high,
a calm, terrifying smile on her lips.
She looked like a queen walking across a field of ruins she had set on fire herself.
In the open space…
No one dared look her in the eyes.
No one dared speak.
No one dared breathe too loudly.
The tension was so thick it could have been cut with a knife.
The slapped girl still trembled.
The other had backed against her desk, frozen, hands covering her mouth.
Nari placed her hand on the office door handle.
And inhaled once.
Deeply.
She felt fire under her skin.
Blood pulsing between her thighs.
Her fingers trembling with adrenaline.
Her heart pounding as if it wanted to rip out of her chest.
But she felt alive.
For the first time in years.
She opened the door.
And stepped into the monster's lair.
The office door slammed behind her—
a dull, heavy slam.
The air here was nothing like the open space.
It was heavy, humid, saturated with the smell of cold coffee, rancid sweat,
and an overly sweet cheap perfume.
It felt like a den.
A cage.
A trap.
The boss immediately looked up, cutting the sentence he was dictating to his computer.
His pupils shrank.
A smile slid across his greasy face.
A smile she had seen before—
in hallways, in reflections, in shadows—
a predator's smile.
— Nari?
His thick voice vibrated like a growl.
She placed an envelope on his desk. Slowly.
Made it slide with the tip of her fingers as if she were setting down a bomb.
— I'm resigning.
Not a tremor in her voice.
Just a cold certainty.
He stood up.
Very slowly.
Like a beast stretching before it attacks.
He walked around his desk.
His massive frame cast a shadow over her.
A shadow that smelled of danger.
A shadow that smelled of death.
— Where do you think you are? he murmured, his voice almost gentle, strangely calm.
— You don't walk out of here just like that. You know that very well.
He leaned toward her, his hot, foul breath brushing her face.
A bead of sweat slid down his temple.
His fingers tangled brutally in Nari's hair, yanking her head back, exposing her throat, her chest.
— You wanna die?
His voice was a sick growl, a wounded animal still dangerous enough to bite.
Nari didn't move.
Didn't tremble.
Her eyes lifted toward him, slowly, and a smile—
a hysterical, bright, terrifying smile—
broke across her lips.
— Go on then. Try it.
Her voice vibrated, unstable, almost… excited.
It was like a spark hitting gasoline.
He slammed her against the wall.
Hard.
Very hard.
His ragged breathing mixed with hers.
One hand on her neck.
The other already sliding under her skirt, grabbing, groping, trying to tear the fabric away.
Nari felt panic rising—an old panic, childlike, womanlike, victimlike—
but above it, she felt something else.
A fire.
A black fire.
A devouring fire.
One part of her screamed.
The other laughed.
She searched for something.
Anything.
A weapon.
An exit.
A way out.
Her eyes landed on the desk.
On a pair of scissors.
A shiny blade.
Cold.
A promise of justice.
A promise of blood.
The boss murmured against her ear:
— Since you're quitting… I might as well enjoy you first.
The sentence snapped in the air.
Something snapped inside her.
For one second—just one—the world seemed to freeze in front of her.
And in that brutal halt, something rose.
Old.
Ancient.
Buried for years.
A memory she had always refused to look at.
A man's hand — not this boss, another, long ago — resting on her thigh when she was only ten.
The fear in her throat.
The silence forced upon her.
The shame she'd swallowed.
The stifled laugh of that man whispering: "Don't act so fragile."
And she, motionless.
Frozen.
Mute.
She had let it happen, out of survival.
Out of helplessness.
Out of fear.
And that day, something had died inside her.
She had buried it.
Deep.
Very deep.
Under years, under habits, under the "good girl" mask she had been forced to wear.
But tonight…
That old version of herself rose like a ghost, like a beast awakened.
And she understood — in her chest, in her bones, in her blood — that this rage wasn't new.
It had never disappeared.
It had simply waited.
Waited for a breath.
Waited for a spark.
Waited for him.
Sion had struck the match.
The boss had poured the gasoline.
The flame had been burning all along.
With a feline, instinctive, animal movement—
Nari reached out.
Grabbed the scissors.
Felt the metal in her sweat-slicked palm.
And without thinking,
without hesitating,
without breathing—
she drove the scissors into the boss's thigh.
The blade sank in.
Easily.
As if his flesh were nothing but warm butter.
The scream that tore from his throat ripped through the room, a primal, animal, deranged scream,
the kind you only hear in the woods, at night, when a beast is being slaughtered.
Blood gushed out.
Hot.
Thick.
Bright red.
It splattered the floor.
The walls.
Nari's hands.
She watched him stumble back, fold over, eyes bulging in shock—
and she…
she smiled.
A wide smile.
Wild.
Shining.
Almost innocent, almost childlike…
but completely insane.
She stepped forward, eyes locked on him.
— You filthy disgusting old pig.
A whisper.
Sweet venom.
Then, in a slow, precise, almost sensual gesture—
she pulled the scissors out.
A spray of blood erupted.
The boss screamed again, high-pitched, broken, pathetic.
— STOP HER! he bellowed, collapsing to his knees, trembling hands pressed to his thigh.
Nari stepped back.
One step.
Then two.
The scissors dripping blood in her hand.
She inhaled deeply.
A breath.
A breath of freedom.
A shiver ran through her.
The kind of shiver that slides up the spine when life tears your skin open to make you reborn.
She looked down at him — pathetic, gasping, pleading.
— You'll hear from me, Nari! he whimpered.
She burst out laughing.
A real laugh.
Clear.
Crystalline.
Mad.
Without another word, she opened the door and walked out of the office,
the scissors still dripping blood in her hand,
a trail of red droplets falling behind her like scattered petals.
And no one dared stop her.
No one.
The elevator rose slowly, each jolt making the scissors tap against Nari's thigh,
a little metallic cling echoing in the shaft like the sound of her own frantic heart.
Her reflection in the steel panel…
It was her.
But not her anymore.
The dried blood on her torn shirt,
the strands of hair stuck to her temples,
the red smear at the corner of her mouth,
her fever-bright eyes—
she looked like a woman torn from a forbidden film,
a woman you only meet at the edge of an abyss,
a woman just born through violence.
And the truth hit her, overwhelming:
She felt alive.
More alive than ever.
When the doors opened, she walked down the hallway like an apparition.
Her steps left behind a red trail, almost artistic, almost beautiful.
Sion's apartment door was ajar.
A cold, white light carved a rectangle across the floorboards.
She walked in.
There, in the living room, Sion was standing with a file in one hand and a coffee in the other, Daewon in front of him, clearly in the middle of a discussion.
Both men turned at the same time.
And the air tore open.
No words.
No movement.
Just their eyes.
Daewon, first, went pale.
A mask of shock.
His lips parted, unable to produce a single sound.
Sion, meanwhile…
Sion didn't move.
His pupils narrowed.
His breath cut short.
His coffee slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor, brown splashing across the white tiles.
What he saw in front of him…
Nari.
But not the docile Nari, not the lost, fragile, hesitant Nari.
No.
A woman with a torn blouse hanging on by a single thread, revealing too much skin, too much truth.
A woman with tangled hair, stuck with sweat and blood.
A woman whose hands were still dripping red, the blade of the scissors sticking out of her pocket like a warning, a signature.
A woman who had just killed a part of herself to be reborn.
Sion stepped forward.
Then another step.
Then he started running.
— Nari…?
His voice cracked.
He grabbed her by the arms, turned her around, searched for a wound, a cut, a blow, anything—
his fingers trembled.
Trembled.
Daewon stayed frozen, as if looking at a creature straight out of an urban legend.
— Who hurt you? Hm? Who?!
Sion's voice rose, rough, almost animal.
His hands ran over Nari's shoulders, her face, her ribs, checking again and again if she was whole, alive, real.
But she…
She looked at him.
And she smiled.
A huge smile.
A bright smile.
A delirious smile.
A smile that had nothing to do with pain anymore.
— It feels good, she suddenly shouted, her voice sharp, dazzling, a laugh bursting from her lips.
And that laugh…
It was terribly pure.
Dangerously free.
Too bright for this world.
A laugh of rebirth.
Sion stared at her.
For a long time.
His golden eyes burned with an almost violent intensity.
His breath stopped.
A shiver ran down his shoulders, something between fear and ecstasy.
Daewon looked away, uncomfortable, as if witnessing something intimate, forbidden.
Sion stepped closer.
Very slowly.
Then he murmured, in a low, deep, vibrating voice:
— This new Nari… she turns me on so much.
His fingers slid along her jaw, caressed the line of her neck, and stopped on a fresh bloodstain.
He smiled.
A slow smile.
Cold.
Fascinated.
— You're beautiful.
Not a compliment.
A statement.
A worship.
The tension exploded between them, brutal, carnal, electric.
Nari stepped forward.
Just one step.
And the whole room twisted around them.
The world became silence.
The world became breath.
The world became the two of them.
— Sion… she murmured, her voice hoarse, worn, still vibrating with adrenaline.
— Look at me.
He looked at her.
Like a man stares at a fire he wants to kiss even if it means burning alive.
He reached out a hand, placed his thumb on her lower lip, wiping away a smear of blood.
His thumb stayed there, trembling slightly.
— You're mine, he whispered.
— Since always, she answered.
And there, in that living room smelling of cold cigarettes, spilled coffee, and fresh blood…
Two monsters recognized each other.
Two souls bound themselves together.
Two fires ignited.