❦ 𝐛𝐢𝐝𝐨 ❦
Growing up, I lived in a small seaside village where the air always smelled faintly of salt and rusted iron. The waves were never loud there—just a steady, patient sound, like the village itself was breathing. Our house sat low to the ground, almost as if it were trying to hide. It was small, narrow, and old, its walls always slightly damp no matter the season. Back then, I didn't understand what people meant when they said a life was "ordinary."
To me, that house was everything.
It was the warmth that clung to the floors in winter, the soft creak of wood beneath bare feet, the way the light slipped through the thin curtains every morning. It was a tiny, fragile kind of happiness—one that didn't shout or shine, but simply existed. And at the time, I thought it would last forever.
I remember leaning out of my bedroom window, my elbows digging into the chipped paint, shouting for my dad to come inside. He'd always be outside, standing near the fence with a cigarette between his fingers, staring at the sea like it was an old friend who never answered back. When I yelled, he'd glance up, squinting, and scold me with a laugh to close the window before the bugs flew in.
I'd complain, he'd wave me off, and for a moment, the world felt unbearably peaceful.
I didn't know how easily peace could break.
Years later, that quiet life felt like something borrowed—something I wasn't allowed to keep. The memory of it shattered the night the banging started.
It was loud. Too loud. Not the kind of knock made by someone impatient, but something desperate and violent, like the door itself had offended whoever stood outside. The sound echoed through the room, each удар landing directly against my chest.
"Who is it…?" I whispered, my voice barely making it past my throat.
A cold sweat crept down my spine as I stared at the door. The frosted glass distorted the figure on the other side, stretching it into something tall and unnatural. A shadow loomed there, shifting slightly, as if whoever it was knew I was watching.
The man beside me stood up immediately.
"I'll go check," he said, his voice calm—but too controlled, like he was forcing it to stay steady. He placed himself between me and the door without even looking back, his body tense, alert. When he spoke again, it was sharp, demanding. He asked who was there and told them to leave if they had no business with us.
For a brief moment, there was silence.
Then a voice slipped through the door.
"It's your dad~~!"
The tone was wrong. Too playful. Too stretched. My stomach twisted violently.
The shadow moved, swaying just enough to make my heart pound harder. The voice continued, dragging out every word like it was savoring them.
"I heard news about your sister~ open the door, I…~~"
My mind screamed that something wasn't right. Every instinct told me to run, to scream, to hide—but my body wouldn't listen. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. The man in front of me tried to block the way, his hand reaching for the door as if he could physically hold it shut.
But the latch clicked.
The door creaked open slowly, painfully slow, and the man standing there stepped into the light.
His face was twisted into a grin far too wide to be human. His eyes were bloodshot, bulging with a feverish intensity that made my skin crawl. He stared at me like I was something he'd been waiting to unwrap.
"It's been so long!!" he exclaimed.
His gaze dragged over me, lingering, invasive.
"You've become such a grown lady!!" he said, his voice thick with something that made my stomach churn. "You are my daughter, right?"
My throat tightened. My legs trembled as I stumbled backward, every memory crashing into me at once. The seaside. The window. The laughter.
"…Dad…" I stammered, the word falling out before I could stop it.
His eyes flickered—then shifted past me.
They locked onto the man standing guard in front of me, and the grin slowly changed. It sharpened. Hardened.
"And who's this man?" he asked.
The room felt smaller. The air heavier.
I stood frozen between the past I desperately wanted to believe in and the present that screamed danger—watching as the tension between the two men thickened, coiled, and waited to snap.
The Ghost of the Seaside
My childhood memories are anchored to a small village by the sea, a place where the air was forever heavy with salt and the distant rhythm of waves felt like a lullaby the world never stopped singing. The horizon there always seemed endless, stretching so far that it made dreams feel possible, even inevitable. We lived in a house that was low and small, crouched close to the earth as if trying to shield itself from the coastal winds. Its walls were thin, its floors often damp, but to me it never felt lacking.
Back then, I didn't truly understand what people meant when they called a life "ordinary."
To me, that house was everything.
It was a soft, quiet happiness—the kind that didn't demand attention or sparkle with excitement. It simply existed, warm and constant. I remember leaning out of the wooden window frame, the rough texture pressing into my arms, watching dust motes dance in the golden evening light. Outside, my father would be standing near the yard, a cigarette glowing faintly between his fingers, his silhouette familiar and grounding against the fading sky.
"Dad! Come inside and eat!" I'd shout, my voice carried by the sea breeze.
He'd turn his head, eyes narrowing slightly as he looked up at me, and give me that half-scolding, half-affectionate expression I knew so well.
"Close the door," he'd say, his tone gentle but firm. "You're letting the bugs in."
It was a simple life.
It was a safe life.
And at the time, I believed that safety was permanent.
Now, those memories feel like they belong to someone else—like I'm peering into a past that no longer recognizes me. The peace of my present shattered without warning, broken by a sound that sent an immediate chill through my veins.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The banging on the front door was heavy, deliberate, each strike echoing through the walls and into my chest. My breath caught as my body went rigid, fear blooming before my mind could catch up.
"Who is it…?" I whispered, my voice barely audible even to myself.
I stood frozen, my eyes locked onto the frosted glass of the door. A massive shadow loomed on the other side, warped and indistinct, pressed too close—as if whoever stood there was already invading the space meant to protect me. The shape shifted slightly, stretching unnaturally across the pane, and my skin prickled with dread.
The man with me—my protector—reacted instantly. He stood up, his expression hardening, his entire demeanor changing in a heartbeat.
"I'll go check," he muttered, his voice low and edged with warning.
He stepped toward the door, placing himself between me and the shadow without hesitation. His posture was tense, ready.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice sharp and commanding. "If you don't have business here, get lost."
For a brief moment, there was silence.
Then a voice slipped through the door.
It was high, almost sing-song, stretched into an unnatural cheerfulness that made my stomach twist violently.
"It's your dad~! I heard news about your sister… open the door… I…!"
The sound of it sent a jolt through my body. It was familiar—but wrong. Like a melody played on broken strings.
The door creaked open slowly, and it felt as if the world itself tilted off its axis.
A man stood in the doorway.
He wasn't the father from my seaside memories. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, darting with a restless intensity that made them seem almost unhinged. A jagged, manic grin was carved across his face, stretching far too wide, empty of warmth or recognition.
"It's been so long!!" he exclaimed.
His gaze swept over me, lingering in a way that made my skin crawl. It felt invasive, claiming, as though he were memorizing me rather than seeing me.
"You've become such a grown lady!!" he said, his voice thick with excitement. "You're my daughter, right? You're my daughter!"
My throat tightened painfully. My legs moved on instinct alone as I stepped backward, every nerve screaming danger.
"…Dad…" I whispered, the word slipping out even though it felt wrong the moment it left my mouth—like forcing a memory onto a stranger.
His attention didn't stay on me for long.
His eyes snapped toward the man standing protectively in front of me, and his expression twisted. The false joy drained away, replaced by something sharp and possessive, something dark.
"And who is this man?" he demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous, accusatory register. "Who is this man in my daughter's house?"
Standing there, caught between the echo of a gentle past and the nightmare in front of me, I understood something with terrifying clarity.
The soft happiness of my childhood was gone.
And some doors, once closed, should never be opened again.
The Quiet Village by the Sea
I used to live in a small, quiet village by the sea—a place that felt as though the world forgot about it on purpose. The roads were narrow, the houses scattered sparingly, and the air was always thick with salt, clinging to skin and memories alike. Our house sat low to the ground, modest and unremarkable, its walls worn down by years of wind and moisture. It wasn't beautiful in any way that would catch a stranger's eye, but it was ours.
Back then, I didn't fully understand what it meant to live an "ordinary" life. I didn't know that people spent their whole lives chasing or escaping it. To me, that house represented something much simpler—a tiny, damp, but incredibly soft kind of happiness. The kind that settled quietly into your bones. The kind you don't question. The kind you only learn the value of once it's already gone.
I remember leaning out of our small window, my hands gripping the rough wooden frame as the salty air brushed against my face. The breeze always carried the distant cries of seagulls and the steady hush of waves breaking against the shore. Outside, my father would be there—sometimes standing still, sometimes pacing, often lost in thoughts I was too young to understand.
"Dad! Come inside!" I'd shout, my voice cutting through the air.
He'd glance back, startled out of whatever occupied his mind, and then smile faintly. Sometimes there'd be a cigarette between his fingers, its smoke curling lazily upward. He'd shake his head and scold me lightly, telling me to shut the door before the bugs swarmed in. His tone was never harsh—just familiar, almost comforting in its predictability.
Those moments were small. Insignificant, maybe, to anyone else. But they were anchored by a peace I believed would last forever.
The Intrusion
Peace, I learned much later, is a fragile thing.
Years after those seaside days faded into memory, silence filled my home again—but it was no longer comforting. It was brittle, stretched thin, like glass ready to shatter. Then it did.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The violent, rhythmic banging on my door ripped through the quiet, each strike echoing through my chest. My breath hitched as my body froze in place, fear settling in before reason could catch up.
"Who is it…?" I whispered, my voice trembling despite my attempt to steady it.
Through the frosted glass of the door, a dark silhouette loomed. Its shape was distorted, swollen by the glass, but unmistakably human—and unmistakably wrong. It didn't resemble a guest waiting patiently outside. It looked like a shadow that had come to reclaim something it believed was owed.
The man I was with—the one who had been my steady anchor during these uncertain days—stood up immediately. His chair scraped softly against the floor as his posture straightened, his jaw tightening. Without hesitation, he moved toward the door, placing himself between me and the shadow.
"I'll go check," he said firmly.
There was no attempt to mask his hostility.
"Who is it?" he called out sharply. "If you have no business here, get lost!"
The response came almost immediately.
The voice filtered through the wood, warped slightly by distance, but clear enough to make my stomach churn. It was high-pitched, almost melodic, stretched into an unsettling sing-song tone that felt deeply wrong.
"It's your dad! I heard news about your sister… open the door, I…!"
Nausea rose sharply in my throat. The words felt like they didn't belong in my home—like they had forced their way in ahead of the speaker.
The Return
The door creaked open slowly, the sound drawn out and unbearable, and the man standing there was a distorted reflection of the father I remembered.
His eyes were wide, bloodshot, fixed in a manic stare that never quite settled. They flickered with something restless and feverish, as if his thoughts couldn't stay still. A jagged grin stretched across his face, far too wide, pulling at the corners of his mouth in a way that looked painful rather than joyful.
"It's been so long!" he cried out.
His voice cracked under the weight of forced enthusiasm. His gaze traveled over me slowly, heavily, lingering in places it shouldn't. I felt exposed under it, like an object being evaluated rather than a daughter being reunited with.
"You've become such a grown lady!!" he continued, his tone rising. "You are my daughter, right?"
The blood drained from my face. My feet moved backward on instinct, my body retreating before my mind could form a response. My heart hammered violently in my chest.
"…Dad…" I managed to whisper.
The word felt thin. Fragile. Almost untrue.
His eyes didn't linger on me. They snapped sharply toward the man standing beside me, narrowing with instant suspicion. The grin never left his face, but something in his gaze hardened, darkened.
"And who's this man?" he demanded.
The softness of my seaside childhood felt impossibly distant in that moment. Standing in the doorway wasn't the man who warned me about bugs and cigarette smoke—it was a stranger, carrying something invasive and poisonous into my home.
The Inheritance of Grief
The funeral had barely ended. The scent of incense still clung stubbornly to my clothes, seeping into the fabric, refusing to fade—as if grief itself had soaked too deeply to wash away. The house was quiet in that hollow, echoing way that follows mourning, where even footsteps feel intrusive.
That was when reality arrived, uninvited.
An older man stood in the living room, his posture relaxed despite the heaviness of the moment. His face wore an expression of sorrow so carefully arranged it felt rehearsed. The sadness never reached his eyes. Those were sharp, observant—calculating.
He looked at me, Bidan's acquaintance, with open scrutiny. Beside me, the girl stood silent, her shoulders tense, her eyes wide with shock and a creeping dread she hadn't yet put into words.
"I am an acquaintance of Bidan," I said, keeping my voice flat, measured. I could feel his gaze weighing every syllable.
"Ahh… I see," he replied. His tone softened unnaturally, slick and oily. He leaned in slightly, peering at me through his glasses. "But just to be sure…" He paused, letting the silence stretch. "You didn't marry Bido or live together like a couple or anything like that, right? As far as I know, there's nothing like that?"
A cold prickle crawled up my spine.
"No," I answered shortly. "There isn't."
Relief washed over his face—far too much of it. His shoulders visibly loosened.
"Then that's a relief. Haha!" he laughed, the sound completely out of place. "Anyway, sorry I couldn't make it to the funeral! I had some circumstances…"
He didn't wait for a response.
He reached out and patted the girl's shoulder, his touch overly familiar. She flinched, her body stiffening instantly. He didn't seem to notice—or care. His attention had already moved on as his hand slipped into the pocket of his olive-green jacket.
"But hmm…" he murmured.
His expression shifted, settling into something firm and businesslike. He pulled out a thick sheath of papers. The sound they made—flit, flit—cut sharply through the room's heavy silence. He licked his thumb with a wet shluck and began flipping through them methodically.
"Can't be helped," he muttered.
He cleared his throat and began to read aloud, adopting a pseudo-official cadence that felt like a violation of the house's lingering grief.
"Civil Law Article 1000, Clause 1… Inheritance follows this order…"
He pointed at the text, his eyes gleaming faintly.
"No. 1: 'The decedent's children, grandchildren.' None." He paused deliberately. "Which leads us to No. 2…"
He looked up then, a predatory smile tugging at his lips.
"'The decedent's parents.' Which means… I'm our Bidan's heir."
He thrust a document toward us.
"Grief is brief," he said coolly, any pretense of sympathy gone, "but reality won't wait."
I looked at the girl. She stared at the paper as if it were alive—coiled and venomous. The man's shadow stretched long across the floor, dark and consuming, eclipsing the small, quiet life Bidan had worked so hard to protect.
The Inheritance of Grief
The air in the room was thick, weighed down by the lingering scent of funeral incense that clung stubbornly to the walls, the furniture, even my clothes. It was the kind of smell that seeped into your lungs and refused to leave, a quiet reminder that someone was gone and would never return. The room should have felt solemn. It should have been a space for silence, for mourning.
Instead, it was polluted by the presence of a man who stood there as though none of that applied to him.
He looked at me—nothing more than an acquaintance of Lee Bidan—with a gaze that was far too sharp, far too calculating for someone who claimed to be grieving. His eyes moved over me the way one might inspect an object, assessing usefulness, value, and obstacles. There was no softness in them. No loss.
"But, just to be sure…" he began, adjusting his glasses as his lips curved into something thin and unpleasant. His voice was oily, each word sliding into the next. "You didn't marry Bidan or live together like a couple or anything like that, right? As far as I know, there's nothing like that?"
The question landed heavily in the room. I felt something cold coil in my stomach—not grief this time, but disgust.
"No," I replied, keeping my voice flat despite the irritation creeping in. "There isn't."
The change in his expression was immediate and startling. Relief flooded his face—too much relief, too obvious, completely unearned. His shoulders loosened, and he even let out a small laugh.
"Then that's a relief. Haha!" he said, the sound grating against the silence. "Anyway, sorry I couldn't make it to the funeral! I had some circumstances…"
He didn't wait for acknowledgment. He didn't pause to let the words settle. Whatever apology he had pretended to offer evaporated instantly as his face hardened, shifting into something "firm," something cold and businesslike. His hand slipped into his jacket with practiced ease.
He pulled out a thick sheaf of papers.
Flit.
Flit.
The sound of them shuffling echoed unnaturally loud in the quiet room. With a wet, careless sound, he licked his thumb and began flipping through the pages, his eyes gleaming faintly behind his lenses as if this were a routine he had rehearsed many times before.
"Can't be helped," he muttered, not bothering to look at us.
Then he began to read aloud, his voice taking on a detached, clinical cadence that felt deeply out of place among the remnants of mourning.
"Civil Law Article 1000, Clause 1… Inheritance follows this order…"
His finger traced the lines with false authority.
"No. 1: 'The decedent's children, grandchildren.' None."
He looked up then, a predatory smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Which leads us to No. 2: 'The decedent's parents.' Which means…" His gaze sharpened. "I'm our Bidan's heir."
He thrust a document toward me without hesitation, as if this moment had been the true purpose of his visit. The bold title screamed up at me from the page:
"Grief is brief," he said coolly, his voice stripped of even the faintest pretense of sympathy, "but reality won't wait."
He leaned in closer, the paper fluttering slightly in his grip.
"There should be a bank account under Bidan's name. Since she wasn't married and had no kids, that money goes to the parents. I just read it, right? It's in the law." His eyes flicked over me impatiently. "You just need to stamp here."
The words barely had time to sink in before I tried to speak—before I could even express how obscene his timing was, how wrong this felt. But he didn't let me.
He pushed me back physically, his hand firm and dismissive.
"Don't interfere in family matters, will you?"
Then he turned his attention to the girl.
His voice changed again, rising into something desperate, something pitiful and grating.
"I… stamp it for me," he pleaded, the tone almost whining now. "Dad's dying these days. Really. The economy is bad, so no one hires an old guy like me anymore." He gestured vaguely, as though hardship alone justified everything. "I'm always tormented by debt collectors, and everything hurts."
He extended the paper once more, insisting, demanding—expecting one last act of obedience, one final performance of "filial piety" from the daughters Bidan had left behind.
I stared at the document.
Then at the man holding it.
Lee Chulsoo.
The so-called heir who had appeared only after death, who spoke of law instead of loss, who reduced a life to numbers and signatures. In that moment, it became painfully clear—
To him, Bidan's death wasn't a tragedy.
It was an opportunity.
The Ghost of a Father
The man standing in the doorway of our cramped home felt less like a living person and more like a ghost that had suddenly decided to wear flesh. For most of my life, he had existed only as a vague silhouette—someone lodged in the blurred, fading corners of my childhood memories. A shadow I assumed had dissolved with time. Yet the man before me was undeniably real. He had lived his life steadily, comfortably, so far removed from us that the years had reshaped him into someone I barely recognized.
Wrinkles traced his face where familiarity should have been. His hair was thinner, his posture relaxed in a way that suggested he had never known urgency, never known desperation. And on his lips rested a casual, practiced smile—one that told me he had long ago shaken off the weight of whatever past we once shared.
"How is it?" he asked lightly. "Simple, right?"
His tone was cheerful, almost friendly, as if he were explaining something trivial. As if he weren't dismantling what little remained of a family. He watched me closely, his eyes sharp and alert, while pretending there was nothing heavy about this moment at all.
I looked down at the documents he had placed in my hands. The paper trembled slightly, though I wasn't sure whether that was because of my grip or something deeper inside me. My eyes fixed on a single line:
HEIR: LEE CHULSOO (FATHER)
The word Father felt strange. Alien. Like a term from a language I hadn't spoken in years—maybe one I had never truly learned. Seeing it printed there, neat and official, stirred something unexpected in my chest. A faint, foolish warmth. For the briefest second, I let myself believe that maybe I wasn't alone in this world after all. That maybe there had been someone, somewhere, connected to us.
That illusion didn't last.
Reality came crashing back, cold and merciless.
He was alive.
He had been alive this entire time. While my sister and I had clawed our way through days that felt like a descent into hell—scraping by, wondering if we would survive the next night—he had been living his life undisturbed. He had been so close. Close enough to hear. Close enough to come. And yet, he had ignored us completely.
That single truth echoed in my head until it drowned out everything else.
"So…" I said slowly, my voice hollow, stripped of any strength I thought I had left. "You didn't even come to the funeral because you were busy checking this stuff out?"
I lifted the papers slightly. Bank accounts. Savings. Inherited property. Page after page that reduced a human life to numbers and signatures. He hadn't come to mourn. He had come to collect.
"It's not like that~~" he replied, waving his hand dismissively, his tone light and irritatingly casual. "I heard the news too late. And with complicated matters like this, it's better if the eldest of the family handles it first."
He leaned in closer, his eyes fixed not on me, but on the document itself. His finger traced a paragraph, lingering there with unmistakable intent.
"As the heir, I agree to transfer all inherited property to Chulsoo as sole beneficiary. I will not raise any objections, and I hereby waive my inheritance rights."
Then he pointed to the blank space at the bottom.
"Your seal should be at home," he said smoothly. "The one you used back when Dad opened a bank account for you as a kid. You still have it, right?"
The memory surfaced against my will—being small, standing at a counter, feeling important as an adult guided my hand. The excitement of having something in my name. Of being told it was for my future. That memory felt rotten now, corroded by the man standing in front of me.
"Right…" I whispered. "That's true."
"Bring it and stamp it next to your name," he urged, impatience finally leaking through the thin veneer of politeness he had maintained.
I waited for anger. I truly did. I expected rage to surge up, to burn through my chest and give me the strength to fight him. But it never came. Instead, there was only emptiness—a vast, echoing hollow that swallowed every emotion before it could take shape. Sadness pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating, and helplessness seeped into my limbs until I felt like I might sink into the floor.
I looked at the man who called himself my father.
And I realized, with crushing clarity, that the person I had missed all those years had never actually existed.
"Then Dad will just find the seal and—"
"LEAVE!" I screamed.
The sound tore out of my throat before I could stop it, raw and desperate. It startled even me.
He blinked, clearly stunned. "Huh?"
"GET OUT!" I roared again, the emptiness inside me finally rupturing into something frantic and uncontrollable.
He stared at me as if I were a stranger. Confusion flickered across his face, quickly curdling into irritation.
"What the heck?!" he snapped. "Why're you screaming like a crazy girl?"
I didn't answer.
My hands moved on their own. I grabbed the papers—the disgusting proof of his entitlement, his betrayal—and began ripping them apart. The sound of tearing paper filled the room, sharp and violent.
"GET OUT, YOU BUG-LIKE BASTARD!!!!!!"
White fragments fluttered through the air, drifting down like mocking snowflakes onto the dirty floor of our semi-basement. The remains of the inheritance waiver scattered at my feet.
"H-how dare you talk to your father like—" he sputtered.
"Please leave now."
The voice was calm. Firm. Another man stepped forward, placing a steady hand on my father's shoulder, guiding him toward the door. My father scoffed, brushing the hand away weakly.
"Is she crazy…?" he muttered as he was finally ushered out.
The door closed.
Silence flooded the room.
I stood there, staring at the shredded remains of a life that was never meant for us. Everything inside me felt rotten, as if it had decayed long before this moment and I had only just noticed. I hadn't realized it until now—but somewhere along the way, everything had already fallen apart.
Outside, the sun was setting.
Miles away, the water reflected its beautiful, indifferent glow—unaware of the wreckage left behind in our home.
Understood. I will expand and deepen the scene only up to the passage you've given, strengthening atmosphere, internal reflection, and emotional weight—without moving the plot forward, without arriving anywhere new, and without adding events beyond what already exists.
The heavy silence in the room wasn't simply the absence of sound. It had weight—dense and suffocating, pressing against my chest until breathing felt like an effort. It clung to the walls, settled into the corners, and wrapped itself around my thoughts, threatening to crush them. An older man had just left, his face twisted with frustration, his voice still ringing in my ears.
"Get your head straight!"
The words echoed long after the door slammed shut. The sharp click of the lock felt final, like the closing of a chapter that had already been rotting for years. Then there was nothing. No footsteps. No voices. Just the long, merciless quiet that followed.
I turned my head slowly and looked at Mr. Shin.
He stood by the wall, arms crossed, his broad frame casting a shadow that stretched across the dim room. His gaze was fixed on nothing in particular, as though he were staring straight through the present and into something far more distant. His expression was unreadable—calm on the surface, but heavy with thoughts he didn't speak aloud.
We were suspended in that moment, caught between what had already broken and what had yet to be built. The past pressed in from behind, the future loomed ahead, and neither of us knew which direction would give way first.
The silence grew unbearable. It swelled, thickened, until it felt like it was screaming without making a sound—until the unspoken thoughts between us grew louder than any argument. My chest tightened. My mouth opened.
At the exact same heartbeat, Mr. Shin spoke.
Our voices collided midair, tangled and thin, each of us startled by the other's attempt to break free from the quiet. The moment passed without resolution, leaving only the echo of what neither of us managed to say.
The train moved beneath us with a steady, rhythmic thrum-thrum, its motion grounding in a way the room had never been. The sound of the tracks felt like a borrowed heartbeat—constant, mechanical, indifferent. I sat beside Mr. Shin, the seat cold against my legs, clutching a small tied bundle in my lap as if it were the last piece of proof that my past had ever existed.
Outside the window, darkness swallowed the landscape. Occasional lights streaked past in blurred lines, fragments of lives continuing on without us. I watched them disappear, one after another, feeling as though I were watching myself fade out of a place I no longer belonged to.
"I'm not sure if this is what we truly wanted," I whispered at last.
The words felt fragile once spoken, like they might dissolve before reaching him. Maybe I was foolish. Maybe I had believed that if I clung tightly enough to my memories—if I treated them like something precious—they would eventually repay me. That they would offer meaning, or closure, or even a quiet sense of peace for everything we had endured.
But sitting there, surrounded by the low hum of the train and the endless dark beyond the glass, the truth felt painfully hollow.
There was no reward for suffering.
Memories were just… memories.
They didn't heal. They didn't justify. They simply lingered.
Mr. Shin turned toward me then. His eyes, usually hidden behind a careful reserve, looked tired. The lenses of his glasses reflected faint, passing lights, making his gaze seem distant yet painfully sharp.
"Clinging to something old only brings back the stench of rot," he said.
His voice was calm, steady—but there was an unmistakable edge beneath it. He wasn't speaking only about the man we'd left behind. He was speaking about lives worn down by neglect, about places that had long stopped offering shelter, about the past we kept circling like a wound that refused to close.
His gaze dropped to 𝐡ands.
I felt his fingers brush against mine—hesitant at first, as if testing whether the contact would be rejected. Then his grip tightened, firm and deliberate. The cool surface of his silver ring pressed against my skin, grounding me. It was a quiet gesture, but it carried weight. An anchor in motion.
"But it was simply the last remaining choice," I murmured, leaning into the contact before I could stop myself.
We weren't going back. We couldn't. Whatever bridge once existed behind us hadn't just burned—it had collapsed entirely, swallowed by the sea along with everything it had once supported.
"I want to go to Seoul," I said, lifting my gaze to the station sign flashing past the window. My voice trembled, but there was a faint strength in it now. "Let's go."
𝐖𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧
Not to start over as someone new.
But to become ghosts of who we used to be.
The rhythmic rattling of the train carriage continued, steady and unchanging, as if determined to keep my thoughts from drifting too far into the darkness outside. Mr. Shin remained beside me, a solid, silent presence. His earlier words lingered heavily in the air between us.
Clinging to something old only brings back the stench of rot.
I lowered my gaze to our joined hands. His fingers were laced through mine now, no longer tentative. The pressure was firm, grounding—both protective and possessive in a way that made my chest ache. The simple silver band on his finger caught what little light filtered through the window, flashing briefly before fading again.
As the train sped onward toward Seoul, the silence between us wasn't empty.
It was acceptance.
"…Maybe so," I murmured.
"𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐢 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞" i whisperred to myself .
𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐔𝐄𝐃