Chapter 10.3

He had another nightmare.  

In it, a man sent by the family stabbed him in the heart with a knife, his blood-soaked chest staining his white shirt. It was a horrific dream.

Seojun left his bedroom and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. There was static interference as he drank, the sound uneven. With the phone’s speaker still on, he gulped down the water.

In the quiet dawn, knowing no one would come, he hid by the wall and peered out the window. The street outside the building was desolate, with no movement or signs of life. Returning to his seat, he flipped through the eavesdropping channels one by one. The time difference between Korea and Moscow was roughly six hours.

The Chairman was having lunch with Leehan Electronics executives, Nam Leehyun was in a heated meeting with gallery staff, and Shin Jueun had yet to wake up, even though it was past noon. She had been drinking with two rookie male actors late into the night, as he had expected.

As he aimlessly switched channels, a clear voice made him blink.  

• I’d like to order coffee.  

He doubted his ears. 

Could I have mistaken the time? 

He double-checked the numbers on his phone screen.

• Something warm, please. Yes, thank you.

Apart from the voice of the café staff and the sound of pouring drinks, there was nothing else around her. It was probably because it was early dawn, a time when there weren’t many customers.

He gave up on returning to the bedroom and put on his earphones. Listening through earphones rather than speakers helped him catch even the faintest of sounds.

Except for the time when Seo Moonkyeong was alone at home, it was often noisy around her, making it difficult to catch only her voice amidst the chaos.

He listened attentively. It was clear that Seo Moonkyeong was in a good mood at the moment.

While sipping her coffee, she occasionally hummed a tune and, judging by the scratching noises, seemed to be jotting something down.

“What are you doing at this hour?”

Unknowingly, a faint smile spread across his face. On nights when he had nightmares, he would feel an empty ache in his chest as if a cold wind was blowing through. But now, it was a completely different feeling.

Even after she came to Moscow, Seojun’s daily life hadn’t changed much.

He went to school, ate alone, and, even when friends called him out for drinks, he always gave the same answer.

That was the entirety of his routine. Of course, he often heard her voice—when he ate, when he went to bed, and even when he woke up in the morning.

Seo Moonkyeong was more sociable, kind, and warm-hearted than he had expected. While her ballet colleagues openly ignored her, she seemed not to care much about such things.

After three months, things began to feel a little monotonous. Her life was even simpler and more routine than a hamster running on a wheel.

Except for eating or sleeping, she spent nearly all her time in the practice room.

The loud music, the thuds of jumps, the Russian dancers’ crude jokes, and other chatter were hardly worth listening to, so Seojun simply ignored the wiretaps when she was in the practice room.

His favorite time was between 10 and 11 p.m., the moment when the upright and disciplined Seo Moonkyeong finally went to bed.

Feeling her exhausted breathing as she fell asleep after a tiring day was the most peaceful moment for Seojun as well.

But today, Seo Moonkyeong suddenly broke her usual pattern. 

Going out to a café for coffee at this hour?

He tugged at the corner of his lips in amusement. What surprised him even more was the text message she sent to Hyeran shortly after.

A message detailing the clothes she was wearing and her schedule for the day.

It was as if she was pretending to have just woken up and was hurriedly getting ready at home.

In other words, she was aware that Hyeran was wiretapping her phone. Instead, she was using that fact to carve out some freedom for herself.

“Not bad.”

Even after she sent the message to Do Hyeran, he continued to listen as she leisurely left the café and headed to the practice room.

• Good morning, Moonkyeong.
• Oh, Dennis. Good morning!

• Do you have lunch plans today?
• Huh?
• Would you like to have lunch with me?
• Sorry, I already have plans.
• Then how about dinner? Dinner works for me too.

Dennis openly expressed his interest in her. When Seo Moonkyeong declined lunch, he wasn’t flustered at all and immediately suggested dinner. Hearing her hesitant voice, Seojun held his breath.

• Ah, well, dinner might be difficult too. Sorry.

It was only after her firm rejection that he returned to his usual expression. And at that moment, it didn’t take him long to realize how relieved he felt.

Seojun wondered if his plan to bring her here was solely out of a simple desire for her to enjoy a bit of freedom.

Had there been any impure motives? 

He thought about it over and over, but he couldn’t come up with an answer.

Because he had been swayed so many times. He already had enough data to understand how reckless and pointless it was to love someone who wasn’t himself.

Amidst the changing seasons, Seojun noticed a new pattern in Moonkyeong’s life. Every Wednesday at dawn, she would go to a café for coffee.

Although he didn’t know what she was watching, he realized she often smiled or mimicked lines while watching something.

Before long, he identified the movie title through the lines she mimicked and stayed up late watching it himself.

And one Wednesday at dawn, he impulsively went to the café. Though he had never revealed himself openly before, that day, Seojun couldn’t resist.

It was raining lightly, and the weather was chilly for spring.

Finding the café she visited every Wednesday wasn’t difficult. The rarity of 24-hour cafés, combined with overheard conversations around her, made it easy to deduce.

“Welcome.”

The café staff gave a quick wink, clearly impressed by Seojun’s striking appearance.

As he stepped inside, his gaze bypassed everything else and landed solely on Moonkyeong.

Even from afar, he could feel the breath he had only ever heard through his ears. Slowly, he folded his umbrella and brushed off the raindrops from his bangs, his eyes fixed on her.

The moment he saw Moonkyeong again, a shiver ran through his entire body. He instantly knew that the calm sea within him had started to ripple once more.

Why had I wanted so badly to bring her here?

Why did I want to listen to only her voice?

He wanted her. Both physically and mentally, he wanted to dominate her with a selfish desire that surged from deep within. He wanted to pull out everything that belonged to her and place it before him, driven by a madness of obsession.

“Would you like to place an order?”

The staff tried to get his attention, but he continued to stare only at Moonkyeong.

Even her startled expression when their eyes met, or her hurried steps as she grabbed her bag and rushed out, made him desperate to possess her.

He wanted her more than ever. Perhaps it was a primal instinct of a man.

[Do you want to sleep with me?]

The reason he didn’t respond to her absurd question at first was that he wanted to warn her.

Seo Moonkyeong needed to know how dangerous it would be to get entangled with him.

But as time passed, even he couldn’t ignore her. Seo Moonkyeong was excessively bold and, at the same time, excessively beautiful.

Her elegance as she practiced ballet rigorously, refusing to fall short, was dazzling. Balancing her entire body on the tips of her toes to create the ultimate grace was blindingly radiant.

He wanted to protect that brilliance for a very long time. As if she had never known misfortune from the very beginning.

Through the wiretapping program he had planted on Shin Jueun, he had long known the secret of his own birth. It was the reason he couldn’t blend in with the family, like an ugly duckling, and the reason he sometimes loathed his own life.

On the day he watched her fourth performance in Moscow, seated in the audience, he made a resolution.

If his life was meant to be a backup for someone else’s, then he would live as he was born to.

For his entire life, he would serve as a backup for her alone.

But without her knowing. He resolved to create the background and solid foundation she so desperately desired, ensuring that one day, she could leave Do Hyeran’s grasp with her own clear will and find her freedom.

That was the heart of a man who loved a woman so deeply. It was a feeling that could only be explained as love.

When Seojun held her on the island of Ibiza, a haven of indulgence, he could already sense it.

There would never be a moment when he would confess his love to her. He knew he would never foolishly try to keep her by his side.

Instead, he resolved to dedicate everything for her freedom someday, soothing himself with that thought.

Just as he had once told her, he now wanted to live a long life—so he could protect her for as long as possible.