Chapter One Hundred Fifteen: Guilt Never Sleeps
I sat at the edge of my bed in darkness, shoulders heavy with blood and silence. The penthouse was a tomb—all glass and steel and shadows that swallowed sound. My shirt was torn, hanging off one shoulder, the bandages around my side fresh but already stained through. The wound throbbed, a dull, persistent ache that matched the one in my chest.
But it wasn't the bullet that kept me awake.
It was you.
"She was just a civilian… why did she help?"
The words came out hollow, echoing off the empty walls. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, hands laced together. They were trembling. Barely. A fine tremor I couldn't control.
I closed my eyes.
Your voice echoed in my skull like a lullaby laced with regret.
"I'm not letting you bleed out."
"Sue me later."
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter.
Your scent still lingered faintly on my clothes—something floral, something young, something that didn't belong in my world of blood and bullets. Your voice had no tremble. No fear. Just stubborn kindness that made me want to shake you, to scream at you, to ask you why you couldn't just walk away like a normal person.
"I left her."
The whisper cracked on the last word.
I left you.
In the wreckage. In the dark. In a foreign country where you had no one, where your sister was miles away, where the men who had tried to kill me might come back to finish the job.
I left you reaching for me.
And I didn't look back.
---
I'd always done what had to be done.
That was the lie I told myself. The armor I wore. The excuse I used to sleep at night, back when I still slept, back before I knew what guilt felt like.
I never hesitated. Never looked back. Never let sentiment cloud survival.
But now…
Every time I saw a girl on the street. On a train. In a café. Every time I caught a glimpse of dark hair, a flash of a smile, the curve of a shoulder—I saw you.
I saw your hand reaching for me through the broken glass.
I saw your eyes watching me leave.
---
A Week Later
The safe house in Rome was cold, sterile, empty. I stood by the window, watching the sun rise over the ancient city, my reflection a ghost in the glass.
Junseok entered behind me. I heard his footsteps, felt his hesitation.
"Any news on the girl from the accident?"
He paused. I saw his confusion in the reflection—the way his brow furrowed, the way his mouth opened, then closed.
" She wasn't part of our mission. Why are we—"
"Find her." My voice was flat. Final. "Discreetly. She helped me. I want to know if… she is alive."
He stared at me for a long moment. Then nodded, slipping back out the door.
I turned back to the window.
The sun was rising over Rome, painting the rooftops in shades of gold and rose. Somewhere out there, you were waking up—or not. Somewhere out there, you were healing—or dying.
I didn't know which thought was worse.
---
The Diary
The call came three days later.
Junseok's voice was careful, measured, the way it always was when he was delivering news he didn't know how to deliver.
"We found her bag. At the accident site. It was hidden under the wreckage—must have been thrown from the car during the crash."
My heart stopped.
"Bring it to me."
---
It arrived that evening, wrapped in evidence bags, handled with gloves.
A leather satchel—worn at the edges, soft with use. Brown, the color of earth and autumn. I took it from Junseok's hands, dismissing him with a nod, and carried it to my room.
I sat on the edge of the bed and opened it.
The first thing I saw was the diary.
Small. Leather-bound. The same deep brown as the bag. I lifted it out, my fingers trembling, and set it aside.
Next: a pen. Cheap, plastic, the kind you bought at airport kiosks. The ink was blue, nearly gone.
A peacock feather.
I held it up to the light, watching the colors shift—green to blue to gold. It was beautiful. Delicate. The kind of thing a girl picked up because it caught her eye, because she wanted to carry a piece of beauty with her.
A gold chain.
The locket was shaped like angel wings—broken, the clasp snapped, the glass cracked. I opened it carefully, my breath catching.
A photograph.
Two girls. Sisters.
You were younger in the photo. Seventeen, maybe. Your hair was shorter, your smile wider, your eyes bright with a hope that hadn't yet been dimmed by the world.
Beside you, your sister.Her arm around your shoulders, her cheek pressed to your temple, both of you laughing at something just out of frame.
I stared at the photo for a long time.
Then I set it aside and picked up the diary.
---
The pages were soft, worn, the edges curling. I opened to the first entry, my eyes scanning the familiar handwriting.
"I want to remember this life. The way the wind feels in the morning. The way my sister's laughter wraps around my chest like home."
I turned the page.
"My sister made me wear sunscreen three times before I left the house. I don't even tan."
Another page. A heart in the margin.
"There's a man who walks past the shop every Friday at 3PM. Like clockwork. Like habit. Like something he can't escape. He never looks in. Not once. But today… he did. Eyes like dark—tired, distant, as if carrying miles no map could trace. I wonder what kind of storm he's been walking through. If he felt it too—the quiet pull, the thread between strangers."
My breath caught.
Because it was me.
You had seen me. Back in Seoul. Back when I thought I was invisible to the world, when I walked through crowds like a ghost, when I never looked twice at anyone because looking meant seeing, and seeing meant caring, and caring meant weakness.
You had seen me.
And You had written about me.
I turned the page.
"He came again today. Same time. Same distance. Same careful way of holding himself, like he was carrying something heavy. I wanted to call out. Wanted to say something—anything—that would make him look at me again. But I didn't. I never do."
Another entry, days later.
"I think he's gone. I haven't seen him in weeks. Maybe he moved. Maybe he died. Maybe he was never real at all—just a ghost I invented to make the lonely days feel less empty."
I closed the diary.
My hands were shaking.
---
The Truth
I sat in the dark, the diary in my lap, the broken locket in my palm.
You had seen me in Seoul. Before Venice. Before the accident. Before I became the man who left you bleeding in a wrecked car.
You had seen me, and you had written about me, and you had called me a ghost.
But I was the one who had been haunted.
By your voice. Your hands. Your stubborn, foolish, impossible kindness.
I found a name in the back of the diary, scrawled on a loose page—an address in Seoul, a university, a department.
You were a student.
You were from Seoul.
You had come to Italy as a tourist, a graduation gift to yourself, a last taste of freedom before the responsibilities of adulthood.
And you had saved my life.
And I had left you.
---
The Flight Home
The plane cut through the clouds, carrying me back to Seoul, back to a city I'd been avoiding, back to a girl I couldn't forget.
I held the diary in my lap, the peacock feather tucked between the pages, the broken locket around my neck.
"This is the foolish girl's diary," I thought. "The foolish girl who helped a stranger. The foolish girl who saw a monster and decided he was worth saving."
I hated you for it.
I hated your kindness. Your courage. Your refusal to look away.
Because you made me feel things I'd spent years trying not to feel.
Guilt.
Regret.
Hope.
___
The diary was in my hands.
I opened it to the last entry.
"I don't know his name. I don't know where he's from. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. But I hope—wherever he is—he's okay. I hope someone is taking care of him. I hope he knows that not everyone in this world is cruel."
I closed the diary.
Pressed it to my chest.