There was never a time Seo Ji-hyeon believed she wasn't loved.
She had lost both her parents before she understood the meaning of absence, yet she never grew up with a hollow space where love should've been. Her grandmother, Joo Bae-kyung, filled that space with such boundless affection that Ji-hyeon rarely thought about what was missing. Bae-kyung was not the kind of Halmeoni that scolded first and hugged later—she was the sort who always listened first. In a tradition where children's feelings were often silenced, Bae-kyung encouraged hers to speak. And Ji-hyeon always did.
By the time she turned twenty, Ji-hyeon had travelled more than most kids her age. Not because she needed to, but because Bae-kyung believed experiences were the finest form of inheritance. JBKyung Hotel & Stays had been Bae-kyung's legacy, but Ji-hyeon never felt pressured to inherit it. Her grandmother had hoped, of course—there were murmurs in the boardroom, subtle arrangements, plans sketched loosely in the corners of contracts—but Ji-hyeon had made it clear: she didn't want to run the company. She wanted to design its spaces.
She joined the development and design team straight out of university. While others presented spreadsheets and cost estimations, Ji-hyeon brought hand-sketched colour palettes and lighting plans inspired by memory and mood. Her first project was a boutique wing in Busan. She called it "The Sea Never Sleeps."
It was around then that she met Jung Hyun-seok.
He wasn't much older—just a few months—and carried himself with the kind of poise that felt effortless. He was sharp, composed, and just as committed to his vision as she was. Their first conversation was an argument over spatial flow in a shared hotel development. Their second was over coffee. They didn't have a third before they realised they didn't want to stop talking.
They married young. Not out of haste, but out of certainty. People whispered that they were reckless—two bright minds drunk on love. But anyone who knew them could see: it wasn't recklessness. It was inevitability.
When they were together, even strangers noticed. Waitresses would smile fondly. Taxi drivers would ask if they were newlyweds even after three years. They held each other like home.
When Ji-hyeon found out she was pregnant, she cried. Not from fear. From joy.
They named their son Soo-min together. She designed his nursery with soft greens and sky blue tones. Hyun-seok took over baby-proofing everything in sight. Every morning, Ji-hyeon would kiss her son's forehead before leaving for work, and every night, she would come home and press her cheek against his tiny chest just to hear the steadiness of his breathing.
Motherhood didn't dull her love for her work. It sharpened it.
When people asked how she balanced being a mother and a designer, she would smile and say, "They're not different things. I'm creating safe spaces either way."
It was Hyun-seok who surprised her the most. She had always known he would be a good father. But watching him become one was something else. The way he held Soo-min as if he were the most precious thing in the world. The way he sang lullabies that always went off key halfway through. The way he kept a sketch Soo-min had drawn on his office wall for years, even when the ink faded.
They had rituals. Family breakfasts every Sunday where Soo-min would try to flip pancakes and fail gloriously. Beach trips where Ji-hyeon insisted on building sandcastles and Hyun-seok pretended he didn't care before building the tallest tower. Nighttime stories read together, voices overlapping, laughter echoing into the hall.
One evening, as autumn folded into early winter, Ji-hyeon had sat with Bae-kyung in the sunroom. Soo-min was asleep. Hyun-seok had stepped out for a call.
"Halmeoni," she'd said softly. "I think I'm happy in a way I didn't know was possible."
Bae-kyung had smiled, patting her hand. "You're allowed to be. You were always meant to be."
Then one day—
There was no laughter in the house.
There was only silence. The kind that doesn't arrive all at once, but creeps in slowly, curling into the edges of everyday things. His shoes were still at the door. His bowl still sat half-filled with breakfast. But the house no longer breathed.
Ji-hyeon stopped going to work. Not because anyone asked her to. Not because she couldn't. But because stepping into the spaces she once designed with joy made her feel like she couldn't breathe.
She tried to stay strong. She really did. She listened to every detective. Showed up at every meeting. Held Hyun-seok's hand even when hers trembled. But the days passed like ghosts, and Soo-min didn't come back.
She began to forget things. Small things, at first. The date. Whether she had eaten. Whether she had spoken that day. Then came the bigger things. Her appointments. The passwords to her design software. Her own birthday.
She touched Soo-min's clothes every night. Folded them. Unfolded them. Folded them again.
She stopped speaking much. Avoided Hyun-seok's eyes. Not out of blame. But because she couldn't stand the look of shared devastation.
She would stare at the television screen but not see anything. She would hear the news anchors say words like "runaway," and her knuckles would go white.
She didn't know why. It slipped from her like air.
Then came the final conversation. One morning, over lukewarm barley tea, she sat across from Bae-kyung, who looked older than she ever had.
"I see you disappearing," Bae-kyung whispered. "And I don't know how to hold you here."
Ji-hyeon's voice cracked. "I'm tired, Halmeoni. I'm so tired of pretending I still believe he'll walk through that door."
"Jihyeon-ah, you don't have to pretend," Bae-kyung said. "But please… don't leave."
Ji-hyeon had taken her hand. "I don't want to die, Halmeoni. I just can't stay here while he's not."
She never said goodbye. Not to her grandmother. Not to Hyun-seok.
One morning, she just wasn't there.
It rained the morning they buried her. Not hard. Not loud. Just enough to make the soil soft and the world grey. Hyun-seok stood beside her grave, suit clinging to his frame, not because he cared about appearances, but because he didn't know how else to show respect. The collar itched. The silence made his ears ring. Every umbrella around him looked like a barrier he didn't know how to cross.
People said words. They said she was kind. Brilliant. Beautiful. They said things like "a light gone too soon."
No one mentioned Soo-min.
Only he did.
"She never left," he said quietly, when it was his turn. "Not really. She stayed as long as she could. Longer than anyone should've asked her to."
He didn't cry. He'd done enough of that. His grief had no tears left. It had calcified into something cold and silent.
Instead, he walked to her grave after everyone had left. Placed a folded sketch inside a glass case.
It was a drawing Soo-min had done. A house by the sea. Three people. All smiling. Crayon lines, sun too big, windows lopsided. But it was perfect. It was them.
He whispered her name.
"Ji-hyeon-ah."
And for the first time, he didn't ask why.
Because he knew.
She hadn't wanted to die.
She just couldn't keep living without their son.