Chapter 38

A sound like thunder roared.  

Yaein turned around. The deafening noise faded, leaving only a dull ringing in her ears.  

All that remained in the darkening sky were birds soaring overhead.  

What was that sound? She struggled to push away grim thoughts and lowered her body even further.  

She had tried to get as far away from Taeheon as possible, but moving in stealth naturally slowed her down.  

Not only did she have to stay aware of Taeheon’s movements, but the uneven, jagged rocks underfoot made it nearly impossible to move quickly.  

The waves crashed violently, their spray cold as it landed on her forehead.  

The coastline, composed entirely of steep, jagged rocks, looked treacherous—as if one misstep would send her plunging straight into the sea.  

‘I need to move farther inland.’

Holding her stomach, Yaein distanced herself from the shoreline. Fortunately, a few trees stood sparsely nearby. She moved toward them for cover, but as she slipped behind one, she suddenly spun around.  

Through the swaying branches, she saw something.  

Am I imagining it? She asked herself—but she already knew the answer.  

Her fears, when it came to Taeheon, had never been wrong.  

Yaein took off running.  

Behind her, the sound of branches parting, grass rustling, and rocks shifting followed closely. If she turned her head now, she would meet his eyes.  

She could already picture Taeheon’s gaze, locked onto her retreating figure.  

Her legs, stiff from being bound for so long, ached. Her thighs felt tight. Desperately, she pushed herself forward.  

Her ankle twisted dangerously as she stumbled.  

She felt fingertips graze the edge of her clothes. He was right there.  

Yaein leaped onto a rock at the water’s edge. Its surface, wet from the sea, was slick and slippery.  

“That’s dangerous.”  

A whisper.  

So close, it felt as though it was spoken directly into her ear.  

A wave surged up, threatening to swallow her whole.  

The crest of the deep blue tide shattered into sharp, white foam—like jagged teeth.  

Panting, Yaein stopped.  

There was nowhere left to run.  

Below her was the sea.  

To the side, Taeheon’s subordinates stood waiting beyond the tall grass. 

And behind her, of course—Taeheon.  

“It’s been a while,” he said.

Framed against the backdrop of dry grass and dark rocks, Taeheon still looked as striking as ever.  

He was as composed as he had been that night on the midnight road, when he had stepped in front of her car—completely certain that she would end up in his grasp.  

Yaein rubbed her face in frustration.  

She was exhausted.  

Truly, utterly exhausted, as if she might collapse from sheer fatigue.  

The sun, once hanging in the clouded sky, now dipped into the sea. Twilight had arrived.  

The sky flickered crimson, waves turning dark red, as if stained with blood.  

Within that red-stained world, Taeheon moved toward her.  

The burning horizon traced the sharp lines of his face in vivid red.  

With the sun at his back, he looked less like a man and more like something out of a ghost story—an apparition, a demon who lured in his prey and stole their very breath.  

Had it been foolish to think she could ever escape him?  

Yaein swept back her windblown hair.  

Her weary body swayed in kind.  

The fiery sunset bore down on her.  

Taeheon’s elongated shadow stretched toward her feet.  

It was so close—so impossibly close—it felt as if she might be consumed whole.

***

The sea breeze was fierce. A body as light as hers could be swept away in an instant.  

Taeheon stepped toward Yaein.  

“Let’s go home, Yaein.”  

He reached out his hand to her.  

Yaein tilted her head slightly, as if hearing her own name from his lips felt unfamiliar. She moved just a little farther from his outstretched hand.  

“Promise me… that you won’t hurt the child.”  

Her voice, though suppressed, trembled at the edges. The raw, unfiltered sound of it blended with the crashing waves, forming an unexpectedly beautiful harmony.  

Taeheon quietly savored the moment. A shiver ran through his veins, heating his blood.  

Still watching him with wary eyes, Yaein continued.  

“If you promise me that… then I’ll go with you.”  

It was a moment of choice.  

He had expected she might demand such a condition.  

Had she asked for her weight in gold or a daily offering of silk to be torn apart, he would have gladly agreed.  

But all she wanted was the child’s life.  

Taeheon erased all expression from his face.  

If he had been able to say Of course without hesitation, he wouldn’t have come this far.  

The thing he had been searching for was right in front of him, yet he couldn’t touch it.  

I’ll just deceive her. Lure her in with a convincing lie and take her back. Taeheon had always been skilled in sin.  

“You’ll regret it once you give birth to that child.”  

But the words that left his mouth were different from what he had intended.  

Yaein’s tear-filled eyes fixed on him with unyielding determination.  

She always demanded truth—nothing less, nothing more.  

“I won’t. Never.”  

She was firm. Taeheon knew well that she would never bend on this matter.  

“Do you not care what happens to your mother?”  

He decided to change tactics. Yaein reacted instantly.  

“…You know?”  

“I thought she was just a hidden mistress.”  

“Funny, isn’t it? Foolish.”  

Yaein let out a sorrowful smile.  

The moment he saw her tear-brimmed eyes waver, something in his chest ached.  

His composure slipped away.  

Taeheon inhaled deeply through his lips.  

A salty taste lingered on his tongue—like the taste of the tears welling in Yaein’s eyes.

“I won’t become like my mother. As long as you refuse to change your mind, there’s no way for me to protect my child while staying by your side…”  

Yaein stepped back. She was at the very edge.  

If the sea breeze pushed her even slightly, the deep, dark waves would swallow her whole.  

“If we can’t live together, at the very least, we can die together.”  

“Lee Yaein.”  

Taeheon called her name urgently.  

When she turned to glance at the sea behind her, fear surged into her expression.  

“Tell me—do you still stand by your decision?”  

Her lips, pale as ice, pressed him for an answer.  

“Just come over here first. It’s dangerous.”  

All he had to do was reach out and grab her. Only a single step remained between them.  

The moment he stretched his arm, ready to pull her back, Yaein took another step away.  

But there was no more ground left to step on.  

Her fluttering clothes brushed against his fingertips.  

He curled his fingers desperately, but the thin fabric slipped through his grasp and floated away.  

Everything seemed to move in slow motion.  

As if mocking his overconfidence, her body fell beyond his reach—her hair streaming, her sorrowful face imprinted in his vision.  

Had she truly reached out for him at the very last moment, or had it just been a trick of the eye?  

The waves devoured Yaein.  

At that instant, an icy chill flooded his entire body, as if he had been plunged into freezing water.  

A numbing cold spread through him in an instant, freezing him to the core.  

The violent waves clawed at him like talons, stripping away every last piece of composure.  

He forgot how to breathe. His lungs ached, tightening painfully in his chest.  

It felt as if he were drowning.  

Yaein had fallen into the sea, yet Taeheon, still standing on solid ground, felt as though he had sunk along with her.  

He didn’t know whether a mere second or an eternity had passed.  

No thoughts surfaced in his mind—only instinct.  

“Director!”  

Hands grasped at him from behind, trying to hold him back.  

Taeheon shook them off and leaped straight into the sea.

***

He couldn’t breathe.  

The harder he struggled, the deeper he sank. The icy pressure crushed Taeheon’s body.  

When he tried to inhale, salt water scorched his throat.  

It was always like this whenever he fell into a certain memory—suffocating, as if dying, as if killing.  

Taeheon had long known what he would see in his final moments, the images that would flash before his eyes right before death.  

To split the path between heaven and hell, God would show him his mother’s last moments.  

And then, without a single word of defense, he would descend into the depths himself.  

A sleek foreign car door swung open.  

A woman, her hair a wild mess, was dragged out by her scalp—his father’s hand gripping her tightly.  

From the second-floor window, Taeheon watched. He flinched and scrambled back behind the curtain.  

Yet somehow, his mother—who had been staggering like a corpse—was already staring up at him with burning, furious eyes.  

She had left, saying she would start over somewhere else.  

But within days, she had been dragged back home.  

His father never let her go.  

Despite cursing her for being a cripple, despite indulging in countless other women, he still couldn’t bear to watch her leave. Taeheon never understood why.  

That was just the kind of man his father was—a monster who made up half of what Taeheon was.  

On the day she left, his mother had looked radiant with hope as she ran down the stairs, clutching her bags.  

Just before she stepped out of the house for the last time, she had stroked Taeheon’s hair.  

Taeheon, stay well.  

She had said it would be better if they lived apart.  

It felt as if she would never return.  

Fear gripped him.  

Even though she despised him, she was the only one who ever applied ointment to his burns, the only one who washed his hair. 

‘I have to stay here. But you’re leaving.’

So he called his father.  

He told him that Mother had left.  

That she was carrying her luggage.  

His father listened quietly, then simply said, ‘I see.’

And, Good job.  

When his father dragged her back, she already looked like a dead woman.  

She wouldn’t respond when Taeheon spoke to her.  

She didn’t curse him, didn’t push him away like she usually did—just stared blankly, as if broken beyond repair.  

She refused to eat or sleep.  

When Taeheon brought her bread, she crushed it in her hands and sneered at him.  

“Of course, it’s your fault.”

She had found him out.  

Just like she always said—Taeheon had ruined her.  

Taeheon had been the first to find her in her final moments.  

The image was burned into his memory, jagged lines and colorless black-and-white.