The smell of bleach is supposed to be clean, but to me, it smells like a slow-motion nightmare.
I haven't moved from this plastic chair in seventy-two hours. My shoulder is a dull, throbbing reminder of the bullet that grazed me, but I refused the heavy painkillers. I need to be sharp. I need to be awake when he opens his eyes. My arm is in a white sling, a stark contrast against the dark, blood-stained jacket I refuse to take off.
"Hana, you need to eat. Just a bite."
I look up. Ji-hoon is standing there, holding a lukewarm cup of coffee and a wrapped sandwich. His face is etched with a weary kind of pity that makes me want to scream. He's Min-ho's rival in the courtroom, but here, in the dim light of the Intensive Care Unit, he's the only person who stayed.
"I'm not hungry, Ji-hoon." My voice sounds like it's been dragged over gravel.
"The doctors said the swelling is going down," he says, crouching so he's at eye level with me. "He's a fighter. You know that better than anyone. He wouldn't let a piece of iron pipe have the last word."
"He looked at me, Ji-hoon," I whisper, the memory of the pier flash-frying my brain. "Right before he hit the ground. His eyes... they were empty. Like he was already gone."
"That was the trauma. The brain shuts down to protect itself." Ji-hoon reaches out, hovering a hand over my good shoulder before pulling back. "Go wash your face. I'll watch the door. I promise, if his pinky so much as twitches, I'll yell loud enough to wake the morgue."
I hesitate, then nod. My skin feels tacky with dried rain and salt. I stand up, my legs feeling like lead, and shuffle toward the small bathroom at the end of the hall.
I splash cold water on my face. I look in the mirror and barely recognize the woman staring back. My hair is a matted mess, my eyes are bloodshot, and there's a smudge of Min-ho's blood on my jawline that I missed. I scrub at it until my skin is raw and red.
Be strong, Hana. He's going to wake up, and he's going to need you.
Suddenly, a muffled shout echoes from the hallway.
"Hana! Now!"
I don't even dry my face. I'm out the door and sprinting, my flats slapping against the linoleum. I burst into Room 402. Ji-hoon is standing by the bed, his hand on the call button.
The heart monitor is beeping faster. A rhythmic, frantic chirp-chirp-chirp that matches the sudden drumming in my chest.
And then, I see it.
Min-ho's long, elegant fingers—the fingers that hold fountain pens and trace the line of my collarbone—are curling into the white bedsheets. His chest heaves. A low, pained groan escapes his lips.
"Min-ho?" I rush to the side of the bed, falling to my knees so I can be close to his face. "Min-ho, can you hear me? It's Hana. I'm here. I'm right here."
His eyelids flutter. They're heavy, struggling against the weight of the sedation. Slowly, agonizingly, they crack open.
The monitors are flatlining in my head as I wait for him to find me. Look at me, Min-ho. See me.
His gaze is hazy at first, wandering across the acoustic ceiling tiles, the IV drip, the flickering fluorescent light. Then, his head turns. His eyes meet mine.
I let out a sob of pure, unadulterated relief. "Oh, thank God. You're back. You're finally back."
I reach out my good hand, my fingers trembling as I go to brush a stray hair from his bandaged forehead. I want to feel the warmth of his skin. I want to tell him about the anniversary gift, about the pier, about how I'll never let him go to a meeting alone again.
But as my fingers graze his skin, he flinches.
It isn't a small movement. He recoils as if I've branded him with a hot iron. He pulls his head back into the pillow, his breath hitching in a sharp, jagged gasp.
"Don't," he croaks. The word is sharp, jagged, and cold.
I freeze, my hand hovering in mid-air. "Min-ho? It's okay. You're in the hospital. You had an accident, but you're safe now. I'm right here."
He doesn't look relieved. He looks terrified. No, worse than terrified. He looks disgusted. He stares at me with a cold, piercing intensity that I've only seen him use on hardened criminals in the interrogation room.
"Who are you?" he asks.
The world tilts. The air in the room suddenly feels too thin to breathe. "What? Min-ho, it's me. It's Hana. Your wife."
He lets out a harsh, dry laugh that turns into a cough. He winces, clutching his head, but his eyes never leave mine. "Wife? Is this some kind of joke? Am I being punked?"
"Min-ho, stop it," I say, my voice rising in panic. I look back at Ji-hoon, who is standing frozen at the foot of the bed. "Ji-hoon, tell him. Tell him who I am."
Ji-hoon steps forward, his voice calm but laced with dread. "Min-ho, take it easy. You've had a severe concussion. This is Lee Hana. You've been married for three years. Don't you remember?"
Min-ho's gaze shifts to Ji-hoon, then back to me. The confusion in his eyes is being replaced by a sharp, calculating suspicion. He looks at my hand—the one without the wedding ring because I'd taken it off to fight at the pier—and then at my blood-stained clothes.
"Married?" Min-ho sneers, the familiar arrogance of the "Cold Blade" Prosecutor returning to his features like a mask. "I'm twenty-five years old. I'm a senior intern at the District Office. I'm not married to... to this woman."
"Twenty-five?" I whisper. My heart isn't just breaking; it's being pulverized. "Min-ho, you're thirty. Our anniversary was three days ago. We live in the Cheongdam penthouse. We have a dog. We have a life."
"Enough!" he snaps, the effort making his face go pale. He looks past me, his eyes searching the doorway. "Where is the doctor? I want a doctor. And why isn't she here?"
"Who, Min-ho?" I ask, though a sickening dread is already curling in my stomach. "Who isn't here?"
He looks at me then, and for a fleeting second, I see a spark of the man I love—but it's directed at a ghost.
"So-hee," he says, his voice softening into a tone of genuine longing that he hasn't used with me since the accident. "Park So-hee. My girlfriend. Why is this strange woman crying in my room instead of her? Where is So-hee?"
I feel like he's reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it stopped. Park So-hee. The woman he dated in his early twenties. The woman who broke his heart and moved to New York. The woman who, according to the Red File, is the key to the very conspiracy that tried to kill him.
"Min-ho..." I try to speak, but the words die in my throat.
He turns his head away from me, looking toward the door again. He dismisses me with a flick of his eyes, as if I'm an annoying solicitor.
"I don't know who you are or why you're pretending to be my wife," he says to the wall, his voice devoid of any emotion. "But I want you to leave. Your presence is... disturbing."
The doctor bursts into the room then, followed by two nurses. They rush to the monitors, checking his pupils, asking him orientation questions.
"Prosecutor Kang, do you know what year it is?" the doctor asks.
"2021," Min-ho answers firmly.
My knees finally give out. I sink to the floor, the cold linoleum biting into my skin. 2021. He's missing five years. He's missing us.
Every kiss, every secret whispered in the dark, every time he told me I was the only person he ever trusted—it's all gone. Deleted. In his head, I am a stranger. A liar. A "disturbing" presence.
I look up from the floor and see him talking to the doctor. He's sharp, focused, and utterly oblivious to the fact that he just destroyed my world.
He looks at the doctor, then points a trembling finger at me.
"Doctor," Min-ho says, his voice ringing with a cold authority that chills me to the bone. "Please get this woman out of here. And call Park So-hee. Tell her I'm awake."
I stand up slowly, my sling-bound arm heavy against my chest. I want to scream. I want to shake him until the memories fall back into place. But as I look at him, I see something in his eyes that I didn't notice before. It isn't just amnesia.
It's a flicker of something else—a hidden question, a shadow of a memory he's fighting to keep suppressed.
Is he really forgetting? Or is his mind protecting him from a truth so dark it would break him all over again?
As the nurses gently guide me toward the door, I catch one last glimpse of my husband. He isn't looking at me. He's looking at the door, waiting for a woman who tried to have him killed, while the woman who took a bullet for him is being escorted out like a criminal.
But as I reach the hallway, the mystery deepens. Why did he call me "disturbing" instead of just "unknown"? Why did his pulse spike the moment I touched his skin if he truly didn't know who I was?
I turn back one last time, the heavy hospital door swinging shut between us. My husband is alive, but the man who loved me is gone. And as I stare at the wood grain of the door, I have to wonder...
If his heart still beats for a lie, what happens when the truth finally comes to collect its debt?