Chapter 39

A hook hanging from the ceiling, limp legs dangling, gray liquid dripping downward.  

Like a crude sketch made with a crayon, her facial features were smudged away, and the lines forming her body wavered unsteadily.  

Taeheon stared at the incomprehensible scene before turning away.  

But even when he turned, the living room remained black and white.  

Stepping across the leaden-colored floor, he walked out to the yard in utter calm.  

From that moment on, Taeheon’s world lost its sense of reality.  

Even when he was injured, it felt as if it were happening to someone else.  

He could observe pain without truly feeling it.  

His father, his father’s new women, his trash of a life—none of it mattered.  

Nothing mattered.  

Nothing meant anything.  

Living or dying—it was all the same.  

Life was merely a series of repeated wounds. Either you got hurt, or you hurt others.  

If tearing people apart and breaking them was his natural instinct, then simply following that nature wasn’t so bad.  

One evening, while sitting in an airport in New York, waiting to return to Korea, he watched the setting sun and made his decision.  

If his destiny was to ruin everything around him, then he might as well go home.  

Because there was no place he wished destruction upon more than there.  

He would return to the shadow of his family—to settle his debts.  

…Ever since his mother’s death, he had been trapped in one place.  

A place that was unbearably cold.  

So cold, so dark—where distant cries echoed from afar.  

No matter how far he walked, he could never escape.  

It was a strange place, where every path led back to the same spot.  

‘So this is where I’ll stay.’ 

‘Alone.’

Just when he had resigned himself to a hollow conclusion, a girl he had never seen before appeared.  

A girl who had stopped at the same age as Taeheon.  

The moment he saw her, he knew—she, too, was someone bound by her wounds.  

She lingered nearby hesitantly, circling around him in an irritating way.  

When he ignored her or pushed her away, she grew sullen and watched him cautiously.  

When he finally asked why she was here, she said, ‘My mother left me behind and never came back.’

‘Taeheon only said it to himself, but—so did mine.’

She was a kind and beautiful human being. The first of her kind that Taeheon had ever seen.  

Even with her face on the verge of tears, she reached out to him.  

She stroked his hair.  

She loved him.  

At first, he thought she was just a fool.  

But before he knew it, he felt relief.  

‘I’m not alone.’

‘As long as we’re together.’

Taeheon wanted to lean his head against her small, round shoulders.  

Like young mice bracing against the winter cold—if they huddled together, maybe it wouldn’t be quite so freezing.  

‘After all, there’s only the two of us here…’

‘If only we could stay together forever.’

For Lee Yaein, perhaps that wish had been a curse.  

Taeheon ran his fingers through Yaein’s hair.  

Her once-damp strands had dried, slipping smoothly between his fingers.  

Look at this foolish and lovely offering.  

Taeheon would ruin her.  

The unfortunate woman—his chosen sacrifice.  

His burial treasure, to rot with him in the grave.  

Yaein’s eyelids fluttered open, revealing her soft-colored eyes.  

Whenever he watched her wake up, he always felt a strange sense of disbelief.  

It was just opening her eyes, and yet—  

“Good morning.”  

As he greeted her, Yaein slowly blinked, then closed her eyes again before reopening them.  

She still looked groggy.  

“…Am I alive?”  

“No. This is hell.”  

Taeheon deliberately chose a mean-spirited answer.  

But Yaein didn’t react much—just blinked at him.  

“Then that means you died too.”  

“I followed you into the sea, didn’t I?”  

Yaein let out a quiet chuckle, as if he had made a joke.  

As if to say, there’s no way you would have.  

“…Is the baby safe?”  

“That’s the first thing you ask?”

Yaein nodded.  

Even after barely surviving, her expression was eerily calm.  

It’s unsettling. Taeheon repeated the thought in his mind.  

Yes. Kwon Taeheon was feeling fear.  

For the first time in a very long time.  

“If anything happens to our baby, I will never forgive you.”  

Even now, she said our baby.  

Even when she thought she was being harsh, Yaein was still soft.  

Lee Yaein was, by nature, a kind person.  

The complete opposite of Taeheon.  

“The baby is fine.”  

“…”  

“You don’t believe me.”  

Considering the circumstances, that was understandable.  

“The hospital confirmed it. Given your condition, it’s surprising—but there are no major issues. It seems to be growing just fine, even at the expense of your health.”  

A disturbingly resilient life.  

The first one hadn’t lasted long at all, but this one—this one clung on stubbornly.  

He had pulled Yaein out of the water and rushed her straight to the hospital.  

Hearing that her life wasn’t in danger had been a relief.  

But when they confirmed that the fetus was also unharmed, he felt something sharper, more complicated.  

“That’s a relief…”

That’s exactly how Yaein would respond.  

His stomach twisted.  

‘What exactly is the relief here?’

The doctors had given the same diagnosis as before—the pregnancy was taking a toll on Yaein’s health.  

Then, sensing Taeheon’s reaction, they had added that pregnancy was like that sometimes.  

That only soured his mood further.  

So this was how it was going to be.  

As long as that child lived.  

He would have to watch his own child slowly drain the life from Lee Yaein.  

“Taeheon.”  

Yaein’s voice pulled him out of his dark thoughts.  

The tension in his furrowed brow eased.  

“Where are we?”  

“Our home.”  

“Since when could we see the ocean from our house?”  

She gestured toward the large window beside the bed.  

The second-floor home, built right by the sea, had been designed with the view in mind.  

He had originally bought it as an investment property.  

He never thought he’d end up using it like this.  

“This house is ours. Yours and mine.”  

“…I didn’t even know we had another house.”

Yaein responded mechanically as she opened the window.  

A cool breeze slipped in, and she stretched her neck forward through the opening.  

The pale skin along her throat revealed faint blue veins beneath the surface.  

Taeheon had considered admitting her to a hospital.  

When she had briefly regained consciousness before falling back asleep, the medical staff had deemed her stable.  

Before, he would have insisted on keeping her in the hospital for several days to monitor her condition.  

But now, he couldn’t take that risk.  

“If I left you in a hospital, it would have been harder to get you out. It’s easier to watch over you somewhere isolated.”  

He had the urge to place her somewhere with no one else around.  

He expected her to get angry, to lash out for being confined here.  

But Yaein only leaned against the window and looked down.  

Beyond the house, the sea churned restlessly.  

The shoreline here was nearly identical to where she had fallen into the ocean—rocky instead of sandy, and the water deepened quickly.  

“We didn’t come far, did we?”  

“From where you fell?”  

Yaein nodded and opened the window wider.  

“This is near my hometown.”  

Her upper body leaned past the threshold.  

The moment her face disappeared from view, unease crept in.  

Taeheon’s fingers curled inward as he fought the urge to pull her back.  

Then, Yaein returned, leaning against the headboard of the bed.  

The cold wind had already turned the tip of her nose pink.  

“I lived near here with my grandmother. And my mother… though only for a short time.”  

Did she realize that every time she mentioned Mother, her expression turned unbearably sad?  

Taeheon knew exactly how that hope had been crushed for her.  

He should have felt satisfied—her loss had given him the opportunity to claim her.  

His mind calculated the cost-benefit equation, yet irritation still gnawed at him.  

“Was I so unbearable that you had to lie about another man?”  

He finally said it.  

His words held far more weight than the simple question suggested.  

Whether it was a supposed affair partner or her own mother—it was the same.  

The person Yaein had been in contact with was nothing more than a con artist, interested only in money.  

If she hadn’t been useful as an easy source of cash, they wouldn’t have kept in touch.  

And yet, she still thought that person was better than Taeheon.  

“I thought if I said that, you would let me go. You wouldn’t forgive something like that.”  

“You hate lying.”  

Even when she deceived his parents, guilt had often flickered across her face.  

But he already knew the truth, even without asking.  

Her aversion to lying had been outweighed by her desperation to escape him.  

“Eat something. The doctors told me to make sure you rest and eat properly.

Taeheon didn’t press any further and went downstairs.  

When Yaein followed shortly after, a warm bowl of porridge was already set on the table.  

She hesitated as she picked up her spoon, her movements slow and reluctant, showing no trace of appetite.  

Even though it was just plain rice porridge with finely chopped vegetables, Yaein barely took a few bites before setting her spoon down.  

Her throat moved as she swallowed back nausea. It was just like back at home.  

“I’ll eat later.”  

She pushed the bowl toward the center of the table and pressed the back of her hand against her lips.  

Her frail, bony hands unsettled him.  

But when is ‘later’? 

She looked as if she might collapse at any moment.  

And yet, he couldn’t force the food into her mouth.  

Even Taeheon knew that coercion wouldn’t work.  

It frustrated him to no end.  

He had finally reclaimed her.  

He had thought that as long as she was within sight, within reach, it would be enough.  

But just having her body within his grasp wasn’t satisfying.  

To his surprise, it wasn’t enough.  

Taeheon had been wrong.  

“Can I go outside?”  

As she cleared the table, Yaein cautiously pointed toward the beach below the house.  

“I won’t go far. I just want to look around.”  

“The cold air isn’t good for you. The doctor said you should avoid it for now.”  

When he refused, Yaein fell silent.  

They were prisoner and warden—just like his father and mother had been.  

Yaein only sat by the window, watching the world outside.  

She didn’t beg to be let out, nor did she get angry or demand that he stop.  

She said nothing, but just by looking at her, he could tell what she was thinking.  

She was still trying to leave.  

Still—all she wanted was to escape.  

Taeheon clenched his teeth without realizing it.  

His jaw, tensed for too long, ached with stiffness.  

“You want to go out that badly?”  

You want to run away that badly?  

“…I just want to see the ocean. With my own eyes.”  

“You nearly drowned not long ago, and you already want to go back?”  

Yaein gave him a faint, bitter smile.  

“You’re right. When you put it that way, it does sound strange.”  

And that was the end of it.  

She didn’t ask again.  

She didn’t demand anything or throw fits.  

Instead, she wandered around the modestly furnished house, so different from their home in Seoul, or spent long hours sleeping.  

She was escaping into sleep just to avoid him now.  

The next day, Yaein remained just as quiet.  

She never spoke first, only responding when Taeheon addressed her.  

The only thing she did was lean by the window, letting the wind brush against her face.  

The silence grated on him.  

His thirst deepened.  

Taeheon no longer knew exactly what he wanted.  

If she tried to disappear from his sight again, it would drive him mad.  

But her lifeless, doll-like state irritated him just as much.  

Taeheon stared at Yaein.  

She sat by the round wooden table by the window, her eyes closed.  

Like this, she truly looked like a wax figure.  

It reminded him of when she had been lying in a hospital bed.