The probability of winning the lottery jackpot: 1 in 8,145,060.

The probability of dying from a fall in the bathtub: 1 in 801,923.

The probability of dying in a plane crash: 1 in 1,000,000.

The probability of dying from a lightning strike: 1 in 4,289,651.

Experts estimate that smoking will kill a billion people in the twenty-first century, yet most smokers who can't quit simply buy another cigarette and light it with the baseless, almost gambling-like conviction that they won't be among that billion.

Things that feel like they could never happen to me.

The tendency to feel excessive fear about certain events — preparing obsessively against them — while in other matters surrendering one's future entirely to luck and clinging to a boldly optimistic faith: this was no one person's failing but an age-old contradiction inherent to humanity itself.

Today, which seems like it will repeat forever, appears incapable of leading anywhere, no matter how much time passes.

A fifteen-year-old boy cannot concretely picture himself at twenty or thirty, and a twenty-three-year-old cannot imagine reaching forty or fifty, stepping into middle age.

We rationally understand that such days will inevitably arrive, yet imagination fails to realize the very concept that reason has already accepted.

Moving from fifteen to sixteen feels natural enough, but we cannot truly feel the reality of becoming thirty or forty — of skin yielding to gravity, forming deep wrinkles, no longer young.

It feels as remote as a future hundreds or thousands of years away. And so we consume each day feigning ignorance of the one certainty we all share: that we will inevitably lose who we are today. We live as though we could exist forever in our current form. Perhaps that is the substance of an ordinary human life.

If, for convenience, we define that as ordinary, then Ihyeon's parents could be said to have deviated somewhat from the norm.

Ihyeon's father came from a fishing village. A model student — excellent grades, gentle temperament, never once causing his parents any grief — he spent his school years carrying everyone's expectation that he would enter a prestigious university and one day provide for his family.

However, even a seemingly mild person can harbor an inner passion. Being mild-mannered and having no convictions are entirely unrelated, yet it was a common misunderstanding — a prejudice — that a child who never argued or raised his voice couldn't possibly have any burning desire worth sacrificing everything for.

His passion lay in painting.

Until the year he turned twenty-three — when he finally confessed his long deception to his parents — no one in his family had known he harbored any dream of it. He had hidden his passion with that kind of thoroughness.

Perhaps it wasn't his thoroughness at all, but rather their extreme indifference — or a self-deception that saw only what it wished to see — that had inadvertently turned his passion into a secret.

As expected, he was accepted into a prestigious university. As soon as he moved to the city alone, he hid the truth from his parents, submitted a leave of absence on his first day, and immediately enrolled in a private art academy for entrance exam preparation.

Except for the hours spent tutoring to cover his minimal living expenses, he devoted almost all his time to painting. Even before and after classes, he would seek out the academy's empty rooms and draw whatever came to mind. Simply being able to receive proper practical instruction was happiness enough, and in the moments he was absorbed in the process — where lines became planes and planes became three-dimensional forms — he felt a kind of freedom, as if all other relationships had fallen away and only the subject and himself remained.

Ihyeon's mother was in the exact opposite situation.

Her great-grandfather was an artist whose major works commanded auction prices in the range of a billion won even nearly fifty years after his death, making him one of the key figures discussed when speaking of Korea's modern and contemporary art history.

Her father was a painter and art critic, and her mother a poet with profound knowledge of various arts, including painting. She grew up surrounded by art, and whether by genetic predisposition or environmental influence, she naturally developed an interest in it. Unlike Ihyeon's father, she had her parents' enthusiastic support: she moved through arts-focused middle and high schools and entered the Painting Department of a prestigious university without much difficulty. It was the very university and department Ihyeon's father had once longed for.

Yet her passion lay in comics.

And her parents held a strictly negative stance toward all forms of art considered minor.

Unlike Ihyeon's father, she hadn't hidden her passion through middle and high school, but her parents tried to confine comics to a mere hobby — going so far as to dump her entire collection, painstakingly gathered since second or third grade, into the bathtub and soak it through.

They desperately tried to calm their anxiety by reminding themselves she was enrolled in the Painting Department of the university they had always dreamed of for her, pressuring her to one day follow in her great-grandfather's footsteps and become one of Korea's leading artists.

Environment shapes a person, they said. Under the guidance of famous professors at a top-tier university, they believed that once her youthful wandering ended, she would enter the sublime world of art.

This foolish self-deception — seeing only what one wishes to see, believing only what one wishes to believe — was playing out everywhere, regardless of wealth.

Contrary to her parents' wishes, she co-founded a manhwa club with a classmate from her department, devoting far more energy to the club than to her actual coursework. Her co-founder was already a veteran of the scene — having joined a manhwa circle back in middle school and had been self-publishing his own comics since his sophomore year of high school. Naturally, he became the club’s president, and she took the role of vice president.

He was the one who insisted that her credentials from such a prestigious art university would pave the way for her future career as a manhwaga. Having already resolved to live solely by his craft, he was entirely self-funded, paying his own way through school—which meant his day-to-day circumstances were far from comfortable.

Watching him up close—balancing his studies and club duties while teaching middle schoolers at a prep academy near campus just to scrape by — she came to see herself objectively. She was simply too soft to throw herself entirely into her dreams, and so, she began looking for ways to compensate for that weakness.

She significantly increased the time she spent painting and seriously prepared for art competitions. She strengthened her plots and studied books and films to give her characters greater depth.

Since she didn't need to work part-time, she handled the club's practical administrative tasks in place of the president. She also frequented the art academy where the president worked, building rapport with the instructors and director, and occasionally earned extra income working as an assistant teacher.

It was there that she got to know a man the other students called "Painting Julien."

He was someone who chained himself to the academy for over ten hours a day, producing an enormous volume of work. The vice director jokingly said new students enrolled just to catch a glimpse of him — he was that handsome — yet he showed not the slightest inclination to use his looks to enjoy his youth.

And after talking with him, she discovered he was also fighting to defy his parents' expectations. His official enrollment at that prestigious university hung over him like a cumbersome sandbag shackled to his ankle — a weight he was desperate to cast off.

In a way, they were exact opposites: what one was desperate to discard, the other deeply desired. Yet in their shared yearning for a life beyond the one thrust upon them, they were remarkably alike.

As they shared their stories and found mutual understanding, a deep bond grew rapidly between them.

She critiqued his paintings; he gave her candid feedback on her manhwa. The hours they spent together—which had once included her club president as well—gradually narrowed down to just the two of them. When they finally reached for each other, wanting not just each other's passion, but their bodies, minds, and futures, it was no reckless impulse of youth.

Neither could imagine anyone else as the colleague who would keep their resolve from crumbling, the lover whose shoulder they could lean on through beautiful nights, or the lifelong partner with whom they would share the rest of their days.

What if they hadn't had each other?

Perhaps he would have returned to his original university — crushed by guilt over his poor parents who went out to fish before dawn with hands that never lost their smell of the sea — and studied to become a civil servant or land a position at a large corporation.

Perhaps she, too, worn down by the unending conflict with her parents and the unfamiliar hardship of making ends meet, would have chosen the predetermined safe path. She didn't dislike painting; she simply yearned for comics more.

Without each other, either outcome would have been entirely possible.

Because they had each other, they kept from giving up on themselves and held their resolve steady. They reminded each other that life is finite — and that the end will come, whether one can imagine it or not.

Having chosen each other as lifelong partners while still so young, they had to give up everything they had, whether little or much, and turn their backs on the expectations of everyone around them. It was certainly not something either of them did lightly, as if tossing aside a burdensome weight. After all, disappointing one's parents is perhaps one of the things humans fear most.

The two often joked about how her wealthy family and his family — for whom financial hardship was a part of daily life — had reached the exact same conclusion. Despite their vastly different circumstances, both sides opposed the marriage just the same.

All of this happened before Ihyeon was born.

As he grew up, he gradually pieced together these "old stories." On one side was his mother, who had spent weekends at a family villa and traveled abroad multiple times a year, viewing masterpiece artworks in person. On the other was his father, who, before coming to Seoul, had shared a room with his hyung while studying to keep his high marks — all while eating the cosmetically damaged fish that couldn't be sold at market as a daily side dish year-round.

Although he had never met either set of grandparents, he never questioned this or felt any particular sense of loss about it.

Whatever the reality of those old stories, Ihyeon never heard a trace of regret or resentment when they told them to him. They always listened attentively to his feelings, and they expressed their trust and affection for each other so readily that young Ihyeon would sometimes feel a pang of jealousy.

To Ihyeon, his mother was defined by a single image: sitting at the living room table or the desk in her small studio, the radio playing softly in the background as she drew her manhwa.

His father — who worked thirty hours a week at a nearby mobile phone factory and devoted every remaining hour to oil painting with the goal of becoming a full-time artist — was the father Ihyeon knew.

To a young Ihyeon, the studio they shared looked like a secret base. No matter how deeply they loved him, that room always felt like an exclusive world belonging only to them — a place of quiet communion from which he was gently shut out.

Ihyeon was a child who rarely threw tantrums, but he intensely disliked it when both parents were in the studio together. So they established a rule: his mother used it during the day, and his father used it after work, taking turns.

The rule had been in place since before Ihyeon even started elementary school. Back then, his parents found his jealousy so endearing that they would sometimes hide in the studio on purpose just to make him cry.

As Ihyeon grew older, moving into the upper grades and then into middle school, he began to express his own world through painting. As he gradually built an identity outside of his parents' shadow, his desperate urge to wedge himself between them faded. Yet, whenever everyone around them marveled at what a couple they still seemed, like lovers even now, Ihyeon's heart would grow heavy.

Still, it was the kind of ordinary flaw found in any family, and Ihyeon felt deeply satisfied and grateful for his life. Far more than most of his peers, he appreciated his parents' optimistic, gentle natures and the way they raised him with total respect for his choices.

The lush green of the miniature jungle his mother had cultivated on the veranda of their old villa.

The vintage pop songs drifting softly all day from her radio.

The daily sunlight slowly crawling across the floorboards, stretching from the bookshelf all the way to the sofa.

The heavy scent of oil paint mixed with the posters made from his mother's illustrations.

These were peaceful days that felt as though they would go on forever, with no final curtain call in sight.

The summer Ihyeon turned sixteen, he won a Special Jury Award at an art contest hosted by a major gallery. Upon hearing the news, his maternal grandparents reached out and invited the three of them to dinner.

It was the first time they had met in about seventeen years — since Ihyeon's mother had declared she would become a manhwa artist and left home, almost as though she had run away or been kicked out.

The competition itself was highly unconventional, often sparking debate over its legitimacy. It boasted no age restrictions, made no distinction between amateurs and professionals, and placed no limitations on subject matter or style. Yet its prestige was undeniable, backed by one of the top three major galleries in the country.

Furthermore, regardless of any controversy, a win in this competition instantly transformed an artist's career. Amateurs and newcomers became overnight sensations, flooded with proposals for solo exhibitions or contracts to sign as gallery-backed artists. For established figures, their market value could skyrocket four or five times higher.

Then in its seventh year, the contest was renowned for attracting highly distinguished and authoritative judges. It generated even greater buzz when Suki Kim — a United States-based, second-generation Korean American painter of international renown — specifically singled out Ihyeon's work, leaving a glowing review and personally purchasing one of his pieces.

Of course, Ihyeon's youth also played a major role in captivating the art world. At just sixteen, he was the youngest award recipient in the competition's history, and the only teenager to ever win with an abstract piece.

Because the high art world was far removed from popular culture, the news never quite crossed over to the general public. Even so, the gallery contacted the family frequently for a time, relaying a steady stream of persistent interview requests from various media outlets wanting photographs of the young prodigy.

After consulting with Ihyeon, his parents requested that the gallery keep his real name and personal details strictly confidential. A month later, when a Hong Kong publisher reached out wanting to feature Ihyeon's painting on the cover of a globally renowned novelist's new edition, all correspondence was handled through the gallery — allowing Ihyeon to avoid the media frenzy entirely.

The dinner invitation from his maternal grandparents arrived right on the heels of the award announcement. That evening, Ihyeon remembered hearing his mother raise her voice on the phone — a shocking rarity in their quiet household.

Though she ultimately gave in after lengthy persuasion from his father, she was far from forgiving them. The moment her parents laid eyes on Ihyeon and rushed forward in tears to embrace him, she roughly pulled him back, shielding him behind her. It was the first time Ihyeon had ever seen her act that way.

A few days later, she came quietly to his bedroom. She told him that if he wished to have a relationship with his grandparents, he was entirely free to do so, regardless of her own feelings — the choice was his alone. He nodded to reassure her, but in truth, his grandparents were just strangers who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Yet, there was one thing Ihyeon felt he understood.

Although his mother always spoke of the past as if it were a harmless memory that no longer held any power over her, deep down, she still resented, sometimes hated, and still loved her parents.

Ihyeon felt he could vaguely understand his mother's conflicted feelings: how she bitterly accused her parents of reaching out for selfish reasons only after hearing about his award, yet how, being their child, she couldn't help but soften during that first meeting in seventeen years — moved by the sight of their tears.

Following Ihyeon's award, the second half of that year felt like a season when the long efforts and hardships of his family finally began to bear fruit.

His maternal grandparents did everything they could to prove they weren't welcoming the family back solely because of their grandson's sudden artistic success.

They looked much older than his mother remembered. They humbly admitted that everything they had once prioritized was ultimately a futile illusion — nothing more than pride and face-saving that did nothing to help build a happy life.

Now, the decision of whether to accept her no longer rested with her parents. It was up to her whether to accept their goodwill, and they were all making small, careful efforts, little by little.

That autumn, the longest serialized work of her career as an artist — something she had been working on for about ten years — finally came to an end. This was a rare feat in the modern comics industry, which was heavily dominated by provocative, short-form webtoons. Despite its long run, her work received widespread praise for its masterful conclusion and achieved massive commercial success.

In November, her work won the grand prize at an event hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism alongside the Korea Creative Content Agency.

Although she had won various awards throughout her life, the weight and meaning of this one felt entirely different. While the prize itself wasn't definitive proof of her passion or her work's artistic completeness, it was deeply comforting to feel that someone had truly witnessed and validated her decades of struggle.

The awards ceremony was held on the second Monday of December, just two weeks before Christmas.

Ihyeon's father, unable to attend due to an unyielding work schedule, had prepared a small plan instead to celebrate her.

He knew that while she wanted to accept her parents' efforts, the love-hate she had harbored for so long was getting in the way. He could sense — even if no one else could — that the moment she heard the news of the award, she had wanted to tell her parents right away. Yet at the same time, she hesitated to contact them, unsure whether they would truly be happy about an award for a comic rather than a traditional painting.

So, he secretly reached out to her parents first to break the news. Just as he had expected, their joy was unmistakable even over the phone. No — they were practically ecstatic.

When he suggested they all surprise her together on the evening of the ceremony, they accepted instantly, thanking him profusely for the idea.

At the time, her parents were on a brief stay in Europe for her father's art exhibition, but they immediately contacted a travel agency to move up their return flights, paying hefty fees to cancel all their remaining hotel reservations. All of it, just to celebrate their daughter who had won an award for "just some comic." And they did so gladly.

Ihyeon's father truly believed she deserved every ounce of this happiness.

She had never regretted giving up the immense privileges her parents' wealth and prestige could have easily handed her. Rather than simply stepping onto a life already planned and laid out by others, she had chosen to live a life as a process of discovering who she truly was.

The young girl who had sparkled with raw passion in her early twenties was now approaching forty, standing on the threshold of middle age.

She was a woman fully deserving of congratulations and support: from her aging parents who deeply regretted their past, from her husband who was a steadfast colleague, a tender lover, and her most ardent fan, and from her beloved son, whose abundant talent had been shaped so beautifully by his parents' influence.

He reserved a table at an upscale restaurant, a rare indulgence compared to their usual spots. His plan was to pick Ihyeon up after school and head to a hotel near the express bus terminal, while she would meet them there straight from the ceremony. That very morning, her face bright with anticipation, she had jokingly complained that she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten at a hotel buffet, vowing to stuff herself with king crab and Peking duck. She had absolutely no idea her parents were currently flying in from Berlin to surprise her.

The plan was modest: her parents would arrive at the restaurant first and be seated. Then, the three of them would meet in the lobby downstairs and head up together. Once guided to their reserved table, her parents — fresh off the plane from Berlin — would surprise her with a bouquet and their heartfelt congratulations.

However, the flight out of Berlin was delayed due to severe weather, and by the time Ihyeon's grandparents touched down at Incheon, an hour had already slipped past the scheduled meeting time. Hurriedly, they began making their way toward the city.

Fortunately, the awards ceremony ran longer than expected. Even so, it became clear that her grandparents, traveling all the way from the airport, would never make it to the Gangnam hotel before she did.

Ihyeon's mother was already in a taxi on her way. After hearing that a mechanical breakdown at Seongsu Station had caused massive delays across the entire Line 2 subway, she had splurged on a taxi, a luxury she rarely allowed herself.

Recognizing the timing conflict, Ihyeon's father quickly changed the plan. He moved the dinner to a location where her grandparents, coming straight from the airport, could manage to arrive just a few minutes ahead of her.

He called her and asked if she mind switching to the local Thai restaurant the three of them always frequented. She agreed immediately, calling it a wonderful idea. It felt even more meaningful, she added warmly, since that was the very place where they had celebrated Ihyeon's award.

"Should we take the Route 3 Tunnel, or go past Seoul Station?" the driver asked after the destination changed.

She simply answered, "Seoul Station"—she had always disliked the stuffy, claustrophobic feeling of tunnels.

Heading from Tongil-ro in front of Seoul Station toward Samgakji, the taxi slipped through the intersection just as the light turned, barely crossing the stop line. The driver grumbled that if the car ahead hadn't dawdled at the previous light they wouldn't have been caught, but she merely smiled, far too happy to care.

Wham!'s "Last Christmas" was playing softly on the radio. Humming along to the warmly nostalgic melody, she leaned back against the seat.

For about a month since hearing the news of her award, she had been mulling over how to spend the substantial prize money. Sitting in the audience earlier that afternoon waiting for her name to be called, she had finally made up her mind: she was going to take the three of them on an art museum tour of Europe during Ihyeon's winter break.

She planned to suggest it over dinner tonight. Just imagining their surprised and delighted faces made her smile as if she could already see the joy in their eyes.

"Huh? What's that? What's wrong with it?!"

The driver's sudden, panicked voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and she reflexively looked straight ahead.

The oncoming traffic, obeying the green light, was moving in a gentle, sweeping arc from Hangang-daero toward Tongil-ro. And in the very next instant, a blue one-ton truck charging at high speed from Sejong-daero tore into her field of vision — barreling straight toward the line of cars.

Then came a roar as if the world had stopped.

It wasn't merely a loud noise. It was a sound deeply laced with violence and misfortune — entirely different from the harmless clamor of a construction site or the roaring cheers of a sporting event.

Both she and the taxi driver watched in horror as the blue truck slammed headlong into a mid-sized sedan. The collision looked like nothing less than a deliberate act of self-destruction.

She clapped both hands over her mouth as screams erupted from the driver as well.

The silver sedan, struck violently on its rear passenger door, spun out of control — thrown backward, lunging directly toward the backseat of her taxi alongside the truck that had hit it. The taxi driver sustained serious injuries. She died instantly.

From the moment the driver shouted and she looked up, everything had unfolded in less than thirty seconds.

· · · · ·

The place where I opened my eyes was unfamiliar.

It wasn't the room I used at Manager Han's house.

I was lying in bed, and the pillows and bedding covering me were all clean and cozy — so despite waking in an unfamiliar place, I didn't feel immediately threatened.

I had absolutely no memory of how I had gotten here or how I had fallen asleep, so it took time for my consciousness to fully engage.

My body was temporarily unresponsive, like waking from sleep paralysis. In the strange sensation of amnesia — as if a specific stretch of memory had simply vanished — I slowly moved my fingers and toes beneath the duvet, light as a feather and full of air.

The bed was fixed against the wall at the head, with space on either side, and to the left, curtains were drawn across what I took to be a window.

It was raining. Perhaps because of the excellent soundproofing, there was almost no sound of rain — only the air felt different. A subtle moisture drifting in the emptiness. Maybe after five years living near the sea, I had developed that kind of sensitivity.

Right. I was helping with the filming of Old Future at the Director's house.

It took a long while before my thoughts reached even that much.

And then I realized I was crying.

I couldn't tell if I'd been crying even while asleep, or if, as my mind began to work again, new tears had started flowing — my memory connecting back to the painting I had encountered in the living room, and the grotesque pain that had been sealed away, dragged out through it.

The wet path the tears had left along my temple had begun to ache. The moment I became aware of it, fresh tears started flowing again.

His living room. My painting was hanging above the large, minimally designed sofa. It was the piece I had won the Special Jury Award for at a major gallery contest when I was sixteen.

My mother and father loved me without lacking anything — so much so that my friends envied me — and they never pushed me toward good grades or predetermined my future career.

Instead, every decision was mine to make — and so was the responsibility for it. My parents would offer advice if I asked, but the final word was always mine — from choosing essay topics to deciding whether to sit the entrance exam for an arts middle school or attend a regular one.

My friends bonded over pushing back against their parents and anyone older — a kind of shared rebellion I had no use for. What kind of rebellion can you mount against people who demand nothing of you?

I could understand the frustration of friends whose parents docked their allowance over bad grades or refused to buy them certain clothes on the grounds of bad influence — but understanding something and feeling it alongside someone are different things.

Instead, for my mother and father, each other always came first. There was a powerful bond between them; they deeply understood, respected, and admired one another. Their situation was different from couples whose passion for each other had long faded, replaced by affection for their children and a sense of shared duty.

The world does not revolve around me, and my parents' lives don't revolve around me either. Only my own life revolves around me.

That was the stark reality of life I had naturally grasped through my parents' way of raising me.

No one else could take responsibility for my choices, and blaming or resenting my parents wouldn't change a thing. No matter how much my parents loved me, they couldn't turn back time. They couldn't take exams for me, nor could they paint for me.

My choice — the one that kept me from fully belonging, with my peers or with my parents — was painting.

Painting was my language.

Technique and color were my words.

The more techniques and colors I could command, the richer and more precise my expression became — they were my vocabulary, my grammar.

My mother and father never gave advice on my paintings and only helped when I came to them with specific technical questions. By the time I submitted work to competitions, my paintings were untouched by the influence of any particular artist, style, or trend in the art world.

Put kindly, my work was original. Put unkindly, it was rootless. Some media outlets that viewed my award negatively even spoke of a crisis in modern art, where "orthodoxy" was under threat.

But it didn't matter, because I hadn't been painting with the goal of gaining acceptance from the mainstream art world. I had rarely entered youth art competitions — but I decided to submit to this one precisely because it was experimental, judging solely on the merit of the work itself, regardless of age, fame, or artistic style.

I didn't want an award. Painting was my language, and I wanted to use it — to reach the world, to reach someone. I wanted to know if that language was even capable of connecting with another person.

╭────

The opposite concept of alienation is probably connection — that state in which individual entities find comfort and belonging in one another through similarity, reassured that they are not alone.

Beyond that stage, connection expands outward toward the other person. To understand and accept another, to become deeply intertwined with them, and finally to reach a place where one can surrender one's own life for the other — trusting that my concerns can become yours, and yours can touch mine — that is likely the ultimate state connection can achieve.

The two figures in the work cling to each other like Siamese twins wholly dependent on one another, and contrast sharply with the distractingly dense background of geometric patterns pressing in around them.

As solid as the stability and cohesion binding the two central figures, the energy of the surrounding background is unstable and bizarre.

Unlike literature, irony is not easily achieved in visual art. By placing two people bound by connection at the center of the work, the artist is in fact making an appeal to alienation. Given the artist's young age, this must be called a bold choice.

The expressive style — combining traditional painting techniques with Pop Art sensibility — is somewhat rough, yet full of a rawness and energy that could only belong to a new artist.

Unlike solitude, alienation is a concept that only exists in relation to something else. It is the feeling that arises when one is rejected and excluded by another — an emotion that cannot be experienced alone. Looking at this work, one will recall the longing, jealousy, and sense of alienation felt toward beautiful, warm, and loving things — feelings most people have known at least once. And one might find comfort in realizing that those ugly emotions, once carefully hidden, were never theirs alone to carry — allowing them to "connect" with the artist's own sense of "alienation" and "connection."

╰────

Suki Kim's review for the Special Jury Award was enough.

Reading her review felt like watching my painting put into words.

At that moment my world expanded — from inside the household to beyond it. It was the first time I understood that I could find connection outside of my parents, that my worth didn't have to be defined only by my relationship with them.

But when I came face to face with that painting again, what met me wasn't the memory of being understood.

It was the childish jealousy I had poured into it — toward my mother and father. But that was nothing compared to what came after.

My mother's accident. Striking from above before that first precious feeling had even had time to take root, shattering everything.

And then, my father — who had completely alienated himself from a world without her.

Those terrible things, as if they had lined up outside the door and waited their turn, now came crawling out of that painting and drove themselves through me. A merciless monster with four arms, six legs, three necks, swinging its blade.

I had thought that time was doing its work — that without my even trying, things were going numb on their own — even against my will. But I was wrong.

Confronted with the past in its rawest form, suddenly right in front of me, I was still just a fragile sixteen-year-old. Completely unprepared.

Tears fell. But they were mechanical tears.

Not the tears of emotional release that surge up from the shaking foundations of existence and burst. Just a physical reaction — tears that kept flowing without cooling anything down or resolving anything at all.

Lying down, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I raised my still-stiff arms, wiped my face, and slowly pushed myself upright, looking around the room.

It seemed to be a space intended purely for sleep. The room held only a bed, a nightstand, a single armchair, and a small table beside it. Instead of a pendant light hanging from the center, small indirect lights ran along the perimeter of the ceiling, softly lit. The brightness was set very low, yet just enough to distinguish everything in the room. On the nightstand sat a tray holding a glass bottle of water and a cup.

That someone had left a light on and set out water for when I woke — just that was enough to give me a small measure of strength.

As I threw off the covers and put my feet on the floor, I realized I was wearing pajamas. Without thinking, I touched my chest and stomach. Had I changed into them myself and climbed into bed? I tried to force the memory, but the last thing I could recall was standing at the entrance to the living room and telling him, "Because I painted it."

My legs were unsteady, so I stretched slowly to loosen up. No physical injury, yet my body felt like it was running on something stripped down. Not the ordinary kind of tired.

I made the bed, slipped on the indoor slippers someone had clearly left out for me, and carefully stepped out of the room.

The short hallway stretching before me was unfamiliar, just as I'd expected. Walking to its end, I arrived at a small lounge furnished with tall bookshelves and an armchair, a railing placed in front of it. Beyond the railing was nothing but open space.

The interior was quiet — only the faint sound of rain. I walked to the railing. I was on the second floor, looking down into the living room below. Fortunately, this was his house, just as I had expected. At least I hadn't woken up somewhere completely unknown with my memory wiped clean.

Unlike the bedroom with its dimmed lighting, the living room was brightly lit. The sun had clearly set long ago. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, it was completely dark.

He was sitting on the sofa, drinking something. Even from a distance he looked deep in thought. I couldn't see Juhan hyung or Yuni nuna anywhere. And the painting that had been hanging above the sofa was gone.

Had it all been a dream? Like what happened to Alice in Wonderland?

Of course not.

I followed the railing with my fingertips until I found the stairs. As I descended the white stairs — designed to look as though they floated in midair, with gaps between each tread — and reached the entrance to the living room, he turned his gaze toward me.

One thing was certain: he had been present during the stretch of time my memory had been erased. He would know what I had said, what I had done. That realization made approaching him even more difficult and awkward. I felt as though I had exposed a fatal weakness to the last person I would ever want to see me at my most vulnerable.

Unable to approach easily, I stood at the living room entrance and rested a hand on the wall. He set down the rocks glass he was holding, rose from his seat, walked toward me — and spoke.

"You should've stayed in bed longer."

His voice was low and husky, as though he hadn't spoken in a long time. When he finished, he cleared his throat once or twice, as if trying to loosen it.

"I… I'm sorry. Earlier… I forced myself to eat a hamburger even though I had no appetite, and I think that didn't sit well. I've been tense since yesterday, and I drank a bit too much beer too… I'm not usually this weak, so I don't know why it happened so suddenly…. Did I, perhaps, pass out?"

Trying to seem fine, I ended up babbling more than usual. But I hated the idea of him thinking the cause of all this was psychological. If he started pressing with questions — direct as he was — I'd have neither the courage to tell the truth nor the composure to fabricate a convincing lie.

He stopped, barely a step away from where I stood, and frowned. Then he clicked his tongue.

"You don't have to try so hard to lie when you're not feeling well."

"……"

"I won't ask you anything."

He dropped his gaze to somewhere around my shoulder and slowly stroked his chin with one hand, the other still tucked in his pocket. His expression was complicated. And his reaction was different from what I had expected.

"I'm telling you this because you seem anxious about not remembering, but you didn't lose consciousness. You were showing signs of hyperventilation, so I stepped in — I helped support you, but you walked to the bedroom on your own. There was no… embarrassing scene of the kind you seem to be worried about."

He was reassuring me there had been no embarrassing scene, yet his face, still fixed somewhere around my shoulder, was rigid with what looked like unease — or suspicion.

A sudden chill ran through me, and I let my hand slide down from where it had been braced against the wall.

"I'm sorry… for causing so much trouble…"

His gaze traveled up from my shoulder to my face.

"I know you don't think of me as overflowing with warmth, but I'm not so cold-hearted as to think someone who's unwell is being a nuisance… so don't worry about that. I told Yuni and Juhan that you suddenly felt unwell and needed to rest inside."

I murmured my thanks and nodded, and his expression eased slightly.

"I have some egg porridge. Eat a little and then get more rest."

I grabbed him urgently as he started to turn toward the kitchen.

"No. I'm fine now. I should be going."

When he turned back, it wasn't just a frown this time. His eyes hardened. He looked as though I had wounded him somehow. He turned his body fully to stand before me, crossed his arms, and looked down at me.

"Seo Ihyeon-ssi, you don't remember what you were like, do you?"

"……"

"You know, intellectually, that hyperventilation won't kill you no matter how much pain you're in. Even knowing that — watching someone cling to you desperately, suffering as if they're about to die — honestly, it's not a pleasant experience. If you truly hate being a burden to me, then stay here and rest today so that I can feel at ease."

He suddenly developed a fever and wasn't feeling well, so I had him lie down for a bit — but he fell asleep without waking. So I've decided to just let him sleep here tonight. He added that he had already told Manager Han the same thing. It felt as though he knew exactly what I had been worrying about.

The fact that he had brought Phantom to where it stood today and continued to run it successfully made him an extraordinarily accomplished person by any measure, but regrettably, I had never felt the weight of his being ten years older than me quite as vividly as I did in that moment.

Judging from his expression and tone, he had clearly made up his mind not to let me leave today. Declining a kindness is not always the polite thing to do.

After looking down at me from beneath his furrowed brow for a moment, he let out a sigh — as if regretting his forceful tone — and approached. He placed both hands on my shoulders and bent forward to look closely at my face. He must have showered while I was asleep; his hair, still faintly damp, lay neatly in place.

"Right now, taking care of yourself comes first. Let's not think about anything, not worry about anything. Like flipping a switch in your brain and turning it off. Can you do that?"

I wasn't entirely sure what turning off the brain switch meant, but under the steadiness of his gaze and tone, I nodded.

He gave a faint smile, then squeezed my shoulders firmly and stepped back.

"You probably have no appetite, but eat a little. For your own sake."

He said this as he turned and walked ahead. For your own sake. I turned that striking phrase over in my mind and moved my still-stiff legs to follow him.

We crossed the living room I hadn't managed to set foot in before, turned a corner, and found the kitchen. He sat me at the dining table and warmed up some pre-prepared porridge, transferring it to a bowl.

When he asked if I wanted to eat in the bedroom, I shook my head. With a slightly reluctant, worried expression, he placed a tray in front of me. It was egg porridge with a cheerful color palette — finely chopped carrots and zucchini worked in. A small dish of stir-fried anchovies mixed with almonds and another of salt accompanied the bowl.

Had he made this himself while I was asleep? Chopped the zucchini and carrots himself? These days, delivery services were good enough that he could have ordered it, but this wasn't the moment to ask.

I picked up my spoon and looked down at the bowl of porridge in front of me. My mouth felt numb, as though it had been anesthetized, and I could barely taste anything, but the porridge went down easily.

If this had been any other time, his gaze from the seat across the corner, watching me eat, would have felt oppressive. Right now, it was comforting. I couldn't deny that I was feeling weak.

"Whether it's mentally or physically, when things are hard, it's good to try to maintain your usual routines as much as possible. If you stop eating because you don't have an appetite, the dark things inside us start looking for a chance to step forward. Even if it's only a little, put food into your body the way you normally would. Show those things that we haven't given up on ourselves yet. That's what's important."

It was persuasive. Not letting the usual pattern break. Enduring while holding on to the same version of yourself. It carried more practical weight than things like cheer up or time will heal everything.

I paused and looked at him. His words weren't empty consolation. He was clearly speaking from experience—about the times he'd endured and overcome hardships of his own.

When I nodded, he offered a silent smile. It was the kind of smile that seemed to say, good job.

"Um… where are you going?"

I must have sounded desperate. My gaze, lifted toward him as he rose from his chair, was surely unsteady as well. But I didn't have the luxury of worrying about appearances right now.

"I'll get you a blanket."

Following his gaze down to my hand, I saw that the spoon was trembling.

"It's okay. It's not because I'm cold…"

A little while ago, I'd put on a brave face and said I was fine and should be going, but the truth was that I didn't want to be alone, even if only for a little while. Still, I didn't have the courage to say it out loud—to ask him not to leave because I didn't want to be by myself.

"Hmm."

With a troubled expression, he chewed his lower lip for a moment. Then, instead of going to get a blanket, he pulled off the sweatshirt he was wearing and held it out to me.

"No, really… I'm not cold."

When I tried to refuse, he took matters into his own hands. The neckline of the sweatshirt slipped over my head in an instant.

"You are cold. You're already not feeling well, it's raining outside, and your body temperature's dropped. Seo Ihyeon-ssi, you can't even tell that much right now. Listen to someone who's healthy."

It would have been awkward to take it off now that it was already over my head. I set down my spoon and slipped my arms into the thick sweatshirt.

The sweatshirt that fit him perfectly was a little loose on me. With the difference in our height and build, that was inevitable. Because he'd been wearing it, it still held his warmth. How much comfort a person's warmth could bring. Even when that person was someone whose presence alone made me feel a slight panic.

After sitting back down, he kept letting out little chuckles, looking as though he was trying not to laugh outright. Having someone laugh beside you could be just as comforting as body heat. If I'd gone back to my room at Manager Han's house, I might have been completely swallowed by the "dark things" he'd mentioned and dragged down into the darkness. I had to admit it.

After eating about half the porridge, I set down my spoon. He didn't pressure me to eat any more. I started to get up to at least clear away the tray, but he stopped me.

"Want to wash up?"

As I came back from setting the tray in the sink, he tapped his cheek twice with his index finger and asked. Only then did I remember that I still hadn't taken off my makeup.

"I'll stay with you."

I wanted to tell him that wasn't necessary, but in my current state, this house without him was nothing more than an unfamiliar place that made me even more anxious. I put aside my pointless pride and nodded.

He led me back to the room where I'd woken up earlier. There was an en-suite bathroom attached. I couldn't quite place it, but it had a simple yet exotic atmosphere that reminded me of a resort in some vacation destination.

While I brushed my teeth at about a third of my usual speed and washed my face and feet, he leaned against the frame of the bathroom door I'd left open. Even though I knew he was there, I kept checking through the mirror or by turning my head to make sure. Every time, he gave me a faint smile, as if to reassure me.

I wiped the water from my face with the fresh towel he'd handed me and slowly made my way back to the bedroom. The room was dim, lit only by indirect lighting, just as it had been when I'd left.

I stood awkwardly in the empty space. Aside from the bed, there wasn't a single large piece of furniture in the room. As I fidgeted with the towel in my hands, he walked over and took it from me.

"Your bangs are wet."

Then, with careful hands, he lightly brushed the dampness from my bangs.

Through his treatment of Shushu, I already knew that direct words and an indifferent expression weren't the whole of him. But I had never considered that his gentleness might be directed toward me. The hostility I had sensed from him recently was gone, yet that still wasn't the same as kindness.

Is it because I'm sick? Is that why he's being so nice to me?

It would be hard for anyone to remain indifferent toward someone who had clung to them desperately while suffering as though they might die. Even the Liu I knew wasn't that cold-blooded.

"Sleep in this room. I'll take another one."

"……"

Though I said nothing, my expression must have shown that I didn't want him to leave. I even wondered whether he was deliberately saying something to tease me, knowing exactly how I felt. Perhaps that wasn't an entirely wrong guess — I heard him chuckle softly above my head.

"You're like a different person when you're sick."

I'm not really sick.

No. Maybe I was. I was sick. I was hurting badly, but I didn't even know where or how much, and I hadn't tried to understand it either. But he was the same. The way he was acting, the things he was saying—he seemed like a different person because I was sick.

He bent down and tilted his head slightly, bringing his eyes level with mine.

"You don't want me to go? You want me to stay — get into the bed and sleep with you?"

Before I could even react, he let out a self-deprecating laugh and straightened up again. Watching his back as he walked past me to the bed, pulled back the comforter, and adjusted the pillow, preparing the bed for me, I finally realized that what he'd said was meant as a suggestive joke. It wasn't that I was innocent; my mind was simply moving that slowly right now.

"I'll stay on the sofa until you fall asleep, so lie down."

I'd relied on him so much today that neither thank you nor I'm sorry felt sufficient anymore. In my current state, the best way to be less of a burden was probably to follow what he said.

"Aren't you hot in that sweatshirt? Do you want to take it off before you sleep?"

I stopped before reaching the bed and looked down at what I was wearing. I remembered the warmth and sense of security I'd felt when he'd put it on me. The space beneath the covers had been warm enough when I'd first woken up, but I didn't want to take it off now. I shook my head.

"Alright, then."

He simply stepped back.

I climbed onto the bed on my knees, settled in, and lay down. He covered my body with the white, fluffy comforter that seemed to hold the air.

When I looked up, he was gazing down at me from above. His expression suggested there were countless things he wanted to ask but was forcing himself to swallow. In the dim light, his eyes seemed paler than usual as they traced over my face, lingering on every corner.

"Close your eyes."

At his words, I closed them.

Right now, I must look like a twenty-two-year-old coward to him—someone who needed to be accompanied to the bathroom and have someone stay by his side until he fell asleep. But there was no denying that was exactly what I was.

"Good night."

I sensed him stepping back. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell the room had grown a little darker.

The sound of him sinking into the plush sofa. The faint patter of rain, and now and then, the sound of the trees in the garden thrashing their branches in the wind and rain. And in the darkness behind my closed eyelids, the dark things inside me were beginning to stir again.

How did that painting end up in this house?

Suki Kim had expressed her desire to purchase the painting immediately after the contest results were announced. After consulting with my parents, I had conveyed our wish to give it to her as a gift — but she insisted on buying it, paying what was, at the time, a considerable sum to my parents and me.

Of course, collectors are free to do whatever they want with paintings they've purchased. Just because the painting was here now didn't mean I thought she'd treated it carelessly. No—even if she had, it wouldn't diminish in the slightest the sense of connection I'd felt through her critique back then.

That I wasn't alone. That someone was receiving the signals I was sending out.

"Director."

"Yes, I'm here."

His voice held a hint of playfulness, yet it was low and gentle.

"Did you… like that painting?"

"……"

Tears welled up again. My temples burned. But these were only mechanical tears. Fortunately, the room was dark and there was enough distance between us that I didn't think he'd notice. I was just about to turn over, pretending to shift in bed, when his voice reached me—quiet, yet clear enough to ripple through the darkness.

"Seo Ihyeon-ssi."

"……"

"Do you want me to make you forget everything?"

I heard him rise from the sofa, and a moment later the far edge of the bed sank heavily beneath his weight. Just as it had that afternoon when we'd taken photos in the garden, his knees were settling in on either side of my legs.

I slowly lifted my eyelids. He had come in deep between my thighs. His gaze, looking down at my still-damp eyes, seemed almost angry. I knew he wasn't angry, but whatever emotion was there was difficult to identify as anything else.

Did he like that painting? I tried to find the answer to my question in his eyes, but the touch of his fingertips against my face kept scattering my concentration.

The hand tracing my jaw moved upward and wiped away the dampness at my temple. His pale eyes looked even fainter in the darkness, like a ghost on the verge of vanishing. Yet the warmth of the hand brushing away my tears belonged unmistakably to someone alive.

That hand traced down along my cheek and lightly took hold of my chin. His thumb, damp with tears, brushed across my lower lip, then tipped it slightly and grazed the soft inner flesh.

A heavy weight settled between my legs. His body covered mine, pressing down. His lips, now close enough to touch, carried the sweet residue of strong liquor on his breath.

"I'll make it so you can't think about anything. So that nothing matters anymore..."

The lips whispering hotly against me seemed on the verge of a kiss, but they brushed past my cheek instead and dove deeper, enveloping my neck.

For a moment, I closed my eyes. It felt as though I'd lost my balance on a surfboard and been swept away by a colossal wave of his scent.

Using only his lips, he lightly bit and released the tender skin beneath my ear where it met the back of my neck as he pulled the covers away. The body heat and weight pressing down on me became more direct. Just as my body tried to shrink from the unfamiliar sensation, an unfamiliar breath slipped from my lips. A short sound, like a muffled sob.

His lips reached my ear, and with a hot, damp breath, a wet tongue burrowed inside. Reacting to my response, he cupped the back of my head as if drawing me close and pressed his lips deeper into my ear. He kissed the surface of my ear here and there as if kissing it, traced the contours with his tongue, and let a low, thick murmur flow into me.

"Do you like it when I do this to your ear?"

"Ngh…"

As the sensation — as though each syllable had turned into a soft feather tickling the inside of my ear — grew stronger, I tilted my head back and gripped his shoulder. His body, which until then had been simply pressing down on me, twisted at the waist and began slowly grinding its full length against mine.

This time, my breath grew shallow. My lower half was in thin pajamas; he was in slightly thicker sweatpants. Both were indoor wear, soft-textured, and utterly insufficient to conceal the bulk of his arousal.

Keeping his groin pressed tightly against mine as he rubbed against me with subtle insistence, he pushed his right knee against the inside of my left thigh and wedged himself deeper between my legs, settling into place. A heavy mass of flesh rested between my naturally parted legs. Judging by the soft give of it, he clearly wasn't fully hard yet, and still he felt impossibly heavy between my legs. My gaze dropped openly downward before I even realized it.

Perhaps noticing where I was looking, he laughed low against my ear. There, even laughter became a caress. I hunched my shoulders and bit my lower lip, and he lightly scraped my ear with his front teeth. It was a teasing motion, almost like a bite, but instead of making me laugh, it only roughened my breathing.

He didn't rush to strip away our clothes and press bare skin together. Instead, he slowly warmed our bodies, letting our cocks slide softly together through the fabric. But there was nothing innocent about the movement. The way he lowered his hips and pressed upward again, ensuring he was stimulated thoroughly from base to tip through his underwear, carried a strangely deliberate sensuality.

His right hand, which had been toying with my hair, drifted lightly down my cheek and ear, traced the back of my neck as though playing piano keys, then caught the neckline of my sweatshirt as if dissatisfied with it.

"Should I take this off?"

I realized that at this distance—with his lips buried against my ear—any words became a whispered seduction. A shiver ran through me, and I tightened my grip on his shoulders. His t-shirt shifted beneath my hands. Looking down at me, he kissed the skin beside my lips — so close — then straightened and pulled off his t-shirt, tossing it aside.

After removing his own top, he caught my wrist and guided it above my head before grabbing the sleeve of my sweatshirt and pulling it straight upward. It was an odd method, but the shirt came off all the same. He looked down at me and smiled. Probably at the sight of my hair, completely mussed from the sweatshirt being tugged away.

When he wore a suit, I had thought his build was sleek, but his upper body was far sturdier than I had imagined. His muscles were large, yet sharply defined, and the breadth of his shoulders and torso was considerable. He wasn't bulky, but contrary to my impression that he was simply slender for his height, he was markedly muscular. Compared to him, my own body felt immature, still in the process of growing. In the dim light, shadows gathered between his chest and abdominal muscles, sharpening their contours even further.

Perhaps it was because he had shed his clothes and bared his skin. His scent had grown richer. Like the way he braced himself over me now, it was a powerful scent that seemed to press down from above. Without realizing it, I drew in a deep breath. I wanted to take in more of it.

After tossing the discarded sweatshirt somewhere beneath the bed, he pushed back between my legs and laid his body over mine. When we touched again, he had become the scent itself.

Hah— hah— hah… My breathing rhythm shattered. My eyes widened and my limbs trembled. I twisted the sheets with whatever my hands landed on before grabbing hold of his bare shoulder.

Shh, shh— Like soothing a frightened child—or one crying so hard they could barely breathe—he stroked my face and murmured low.

"Breathe out slowly… It's okay. This isn't hyperventilation. Don't be scared. Close your eyes."

His large, warm palm covered my eyes. My vision was blocked, but I wasn't afraid. I closed my eyes in time with the slow downward sweep of his hand. I was anxious—I didn't understand why my body was reacting this way—but it wasn't the kind of fear that made me feel threatened.

It wasn't fear. If anything, it was desire. Fierce and impossible to resist. Desire so strong it made my body tremble—for his body slowly rocking side to side, grinding the length between my legs.

"Just focus on how you're going to answer my question."

His hand slid down past my lips and neck and slipped through the V-neck of my pajamas. They were sleepwear, and the neckline hung loose. His palm swept over the skin of my chest, cupping it hollowly as though measuring the volume of the muscle beneath.

"How does it feel?"

The first question was too difficult to answer. He changed direction.

"Does it make you uncomfortable?"

This time, I shook my head. Several times. Firmly.

Just as I had begun adapting to the weight of his body draped over mine, I was slowly adapting to the weight of his scent as well. The place pressed against him was growing hot. I knew I was moving my hips on my own, but I had lost the restraint that would have made me stop out of embarrassment.

The fingertips that had been stroking broadly across my chest tapped upward against my hardened nipple from below.

"Then does it feel good?"

"Hngh…"

My hips jerked upward. That was probably answer enough.

Using his thumb and forefinger, he gripped widely from the outer edge of my areola, enclosing my entire nipple, then pressed and twisted firmly as though trying to draw something out from deep inside.

"Haa… haa…"

Unbelievably, I was reacting to his hand so intensely my breath was already breaking.

I lost and regained my grip on his shoulder again and again, until, driven by a desperate need for him to press harder against me below, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He was only squeezing my nipple, yet it felt as though my entire body were being twisted from its core.

"I won't do anything Seo Ihyeon-ssi doesn't want. If something starts to feel unpleasant, tell me right away. You're not scared, are you?"

I nodded. Several times.

Soon his face burrowed into my neck, rubbing his cheek and lips against me and pressing our bodies even closer together. His hand, released from my neckline, began undoing the buttons of my pajamas.

The vivid sensation of my clothes being removed made my eyes open. He was gnawing lightly at the place beneath my chin where my neck met my collarbone, while deftly undoing the buttons with his right hand. Because of the position, it felt as though he were nestled against my chest. With each pass of his hand, my chest—swelling and falling with excitement and stimulation—bared another stretch of skin.

Spreading the open front of my pajamas wider, his lips slid downward. Dragging heavily across my skin as though crushing his own mouth against it, he moved steadily lower.

He bit down against my collarbone, traced dizzying lines across my upper chest, and his dry lips brushed over my nipple again and again. Unfamiliar sensations—ones I had never known through self-pleasure alone, only through contact with another person—gave me no respite as they pursued me relentlessly.

Impatience flared, and my toes curled inward. Wanting him to suck harder instead of merely brushing against me, my back arched. Glancing up at me with only his eyes, he rubbed the edge of his lips over my nipple. Deliberately. As though putting it on display. Barely enough for skin to graze skin.

"Hngh… Unngh…"

Biting down hard on my lower lip, I gripped the back of his neck. The gaze fixed on me was different from usual. His pale blue eyes looked flushed with red—an illusion, surely—as though he too had become feverishly heated.

He extended his tongue and grazed the base of my hardened nipple once. The sensation rang through my entire chest, and I rubbed the back of my head against the pillow and pushed my hips upward. When I tipped my chin up, it felt as though his scent were wrapping around my throat.

He poked my nipple once more with the tip of his tongue and said,

"Let me bite it."

His voice was tightly constricted.

Pulling at the back of his neck, I used my other hand to gather the muscle of my chest and draw my nipple further forward. Adjusting the angle, I guided it directly into his mouth. Unbelievably, I did all of it without a moment's hesitation.

As his lips closed around my nipple, he sucked hard in a single pull. "Unngh." Even as I twisted and arched at the pleasure laced with pain, fingers tangled in the hair at the back of his head, I couldn't tear my eyes away from his mouth.

He kept grinding between my legs, lowering only his head to suck at my chest. The position twisted my lower back, yet he seemed utterly unbothered, even using his right hand to caress my side and lower abdomen.

He had told me to speak if I felt uncomfortable. But I didn't dislike the hand tracing circles around my navel, drawing my stomach tight. I felt no urge to push away the mouth sucking and chewing at my nipple, and no aversion to the weight of his body pressed over mine, grinding against me below.

My body responded immediately to the first friction of another person's cock against my own. I had never imagined it would be another man's—but neither had I ever believed it couldn't be.

I had only been vaguely aware of it, but piecing together the way I had reacted to him lately, it wasn't strange at all that I felt no resistance to this with him.

Each time he bent his head as though in a fervent kiss and sucked hard enough to hollow his cheek deeply, I inhaled like someone being strangled. He lifted his eyes to me. When I bit down hard on my lower lip to suppress a moan, he reached up and gently freed it. Then, as though he couldn't see, he traced my lips with his fingertips.

Redrawing their shape, his fingers swept across my upper and lower lips, brushing and testing them until one slipped lightly between my teeth. Without thinking, I bit down on it. Below, he pulled his mouth from my chest. Looking down, I saw a strand of saliva stretching like a thread between his lips and my nipple. He kissed it once more to break the strand, then crawled upward toward my neck.

Following the friction of our lower bodies, our upper bodies now pressed together without the slightest gap. While sucking at my neck, he worked both the inside and outside of my lips with his fingers. As a part of him entered my mouth, his scent filled my entire body, and it felt as though my brain were melting into something soft.

The sense of smell adapts quickly to repeated stimulation, numbing itself to the same scent. It was strange that, no matter how intense his fragrance was, it felt stronger now than when it had first struck me.

But I couldn't think deeply about why. My mind felt completely steeped. Unable to think, unable to care about anything. Just as he had said, the stimulation was strong enough to numb everything—the hyperventilation from the living room, even the pain of resurfaced memories.

Our hardened cocks ached beneath the pressure. Each time he pressed and rubbed against me, they bumped and slid past one another. Even in that misaligned friction, sparks flew.

"Mmm… haa…"

After kissing his way across the back of my neck—parting his lips to rub the soft inner flesh against my skin, lightly biting and tugging with his teeth, then drawing in hard with sharp suction—he finally buried his nose and mouth completely and took a deep breath. In the dizzying sensation that his breath might pull my whole body inward, I swallowed the index finger that had been tracing between my teeth all the way in.

He was unusually tall for Korea. Considering the difference in our height, he had to be well over 190 centimeters. Naturally, his fingers were long and thick to match. Even though it felt as if I had taken him deep into my mouth, I had only managed two knuckles.

He raised his head and looked down at me, still sprawled over me as I sucked on his finger. His eyes were curious and serious, yet thick with lust.

Gripping the base of his palm with both hands, I pursed my lips around his finger and pressed gently. Looking down at me with reddened eyes, he slowly pushed his middle finger into my mouth alongside the first. Only two fingers, yet with two knuckles inside, they were difficult to hold. He never took his eyes off me as I struggled with them, biting down and releasing again and again. His broad, thick shoulders swelled and fell heavily within my view.

His hand fumbled along my side and pulled down my pajamas and underwear. Pulling with only one hand made the pajamas slide crookedly. The moment my cock was exposed, shame finally struck me. I grabbed his hand with both of mine and pulled his fingers from my mouth. Still watching my lips, he parted his own with unmistakable reluctance. Each breath that came from him seemed like particles of scent.

I turned my head away and reached hurriedly for my pajamas, trying to escape his gaze. Even in the dim light, I could clearly see his erection, pressed against his lower abdomen, gleaming.

"I'm… wet…"

"……"

Had I said something strange? The way he stopped moving entirely unsettled me.

My cock, exposed for the first time to stimulation from another person, had leaked enough pre-cum to soak my underwear through. The wet fabric, the slickness between my legs—it all embarrassed me. Some fragile thread of reason still remained, stinging with shame at the fact that I had to expose myself to him like this.

When I tried once more to pull my pajamas back up, he firmly slapped my hand aside and pressed his lower body tightly against mine, leaving no room for my hand to slip between us. Covering me completely—from groin to lower abdomen to chest—he breathed roughly through his nose and pressed down with the full weight of his body.

It wasn't mere pressure. It was a caress, his entire body rubbing against mine. My unbuttoned pajamas fell farther open, and his bare skin slid smoothly against my own.

"Say it one more time. Right here."

Turning his head, he rubbed his ear against my lips as he asked it. The movement of his hips against me was quickening. The fact that he was aroused only made me more so. Wrapping my arms around his head, I exhaled heated breath near his ear. He slid closer, and his lips brushed against my ear as well. With our mouths buried near each other's ears, chest pressed to chest, we revealed our excitement openly. My shame was fading into the distance again.

"Tell me. What's happening down there with Seo Ihyeon-ssi right now? What does it feel like?"

His damp voice made something inside me tingle. He had become the scent itself, pressing down on me. That fragrance stripped away all judgment. Tilting my head slightly, I exhaled an honest breath against his ear.

"…I'm wet."

"……"

His shoulders stiffened for a moment. Then he let out a low curse and bit at my ear as though he might tear it off. His solid thighs thrust upward beneath me as if to lift my hips, while he rapidly stimulated me below.

"What got wet? Why are you wet?"

His breath, betraying his excitement without restraint, was dizzying against my ear. His hips rocked as if he were already inside me.

"Where are you wet?"

"There… down there…"

"Down there… your knees? Or your feet?"

"……"

"Where is it so wet you've gotten like this? Hm? Tell me."

I couldn't resist the urge to whisper that forbidden word into his ear. Tightening my arms around his neck, I brushed my lips against his ear.

"My… cock. It's wet."

Simply saying the word — barely audible even to him — sent a rush of desire crashing through my entire body, the urge to fling myself in every direction. And from him, who had merely heard it, came an excitement even more violent than before.

He licked my ear with his tongue while ceaselessly working against me below.

"Good. Once you spit it out, it's not so bad, is it?"

Even his whispered praise made my stomach tighten. I had said something vulgar and been praised for it. But just as he said, now that I had actually spoken it aloud, it no longer felt vulgar or shameful. There was even a strange sense of release. Merely hearing that word from me was enough to make him swell with excitement as he held me.

Sliding his hand beneath the small of my back, he gripped my hips fully in his palm and shook them.

"But I bet that's not the only place that's wet."

"……"

The hand gripping and twisting my hips slipped between my legs. His middle finger, buried between the soft flesh, found my entrance at once—as though he could see it.

"Ah— wait!"

His fingertip circled my entrance as though it might push inside at any moment, and I shoved at his neck, trying to lift my upper body.

But his shoulders didn't budge. Frowning in concentration, he rubbed around my entrance with searching fingertips, as though looking for something. Then he withdrew his hand and brought the fingers that had been between my legs to his nose and mouth, smelling them and even touching them with his tongue. I tried to snatch his hand away and tell him to stop, but he had already gotten what he wanted. Looking down at me, he smiled softly.

"No, I won't. We made a promise. I said I wouldn't do anything you don't want."

As if reassuring me, he kissed the cheek beside my lips and pressed against me once more. His lips slid from my cheek to my ear, and again he poured a hot whisper into it.

"Mine's the same. Slick all over."

He took my hand and guided it between our stomachs. Just as he said, he was completely slick. But more than that, I couldn't help being staggered by the sheer size of him. In my hand, he felt even more overwhelming than he had pressed against my body. Maybe it was a natural trait of a Golden Alpha. I didn't know much about the size of other people's bodies—especially erect ones—but I could tell that his, heated and pulsing now, existed beyond any ordinary frame of reference. My gaze dropped openly downward before I realized it. Smiling, he kissed my ear and brushed my damp hair back from my forehead.

"I like the way you look at it."

Shifting the body that had been covering mine completely, he eased us apart just enough to separate our pressed-together chests and stomachs and guided my hand deeper. My fingertips brushed against thick hair at the root. He was hot all the way to the base. The dim light and the shadow cast by his body kept me from seeing clearly, but the silhouette and feel alone were enough to tell me his weight and thickness.

It was erotic. For the first time in years, I found myself thinking that about another person's body. He seemed to embody every kind of sexuality in the world—something made for no other purpose but this.

A heavy shadow rose from his groin toward my lower abdomen. It wasn't only thick and long but rigid enough to hold its angle without drooping, even with him lying nearly on his side. Guided by his hand, I stroked him softly.

"Mm…"

As though savoring the touch, he let out a sweet sound behind closed lips. The bridge of his nose brushed my right cheek. Releasing my hand, he slid his fingers up along the inside of my thigh and wrapped them around my cock.

He rubbed himself against my erection, flattened hard against my lower abdomen. Ungh… A strained sound escaped me too.

"More."

He kissed my temple and urged me on. I held him, he held me, and we worked the two together like crossed blades. He produced so much pre-cum that it slid over the back of my hand and dripped onto my stomach.

Whether imagination or not, it felt as though a scent was vibrating up from between our legs. Not sweet, not subtle, not fragrant — something entirely different. A scent that stirred lust, ignited desire, and made the inside of my body boil. It pricked at my nerves like needles, weighed heavily between my legs, and sent a trembling sensation through my fingertips and toes.

"You like my perfume, don't you?"

Cradled sideways in his embrace, I nodded several times. Keeping an erection for this long had left me far from clearheaded. For someone whose only experience was masturbation, even the breath spilling into my ear or the hardness in my hand was overwhelming enough to push me toward climax.

"Just focus on that scent."

It had never been this strong before. The fragrance crashed over me, as though an entire bottle of perfume had spilled at once—not only over my sense of smell but over every sense I possessed. No, it was more than a spilled bottle. I was submerged in a bathtub filled with it. I was sinking to the bottom of a swimming pool steeped in that scent.

I thought I was sinking, but my body was rising.

He slipped an arm behind my back and lifted me. I found myself seated on his thighs while he knelt on the bed with his legs spread wide. His arm supported me without any effort from my waist. In truth, even if I had wanted to hold myself up, I couldn't have.

My legs fell naturally open along his sides, our cocks trapped between our lower abdomens. One arm crossed diagonally behind my back while the other wrapped around my waist and gripped my hips. Using the strength of his lower body, he pushed me upward.

The arm pulling me close compressed us together; the lift of his thighs made us rub against each other. Whenever I started to sink back down, his hips drove me upward again. The intimacy—so much more vivid than when we had been rubbing together lying down—made me pull his head close, burying his face in my collarbone as he bit into it.

Everything was completely different from masturbation. This wasn't the hollow cycle of arousal and release that ended in emptiness. This was friction against my cock, his lips and tongue wandering over my chest, the hand twisting and lifting my hips, fingers spread wide as they stroked slow circles.

He was awakening every single cell that made up my body, making each one tremble with sensitivity. A sharp, cramping ache formed in my lower abdomen. I was feeling everything with unbearable intensity.

Having sex with another person was also a first for me. And I had never imagined I would react this way.

"What is… what is this…?"

He had to have done something to me. How else could I explain the vulgar word I had whispered into his ear of my own accord, the impulse I had felt while holding him, or the strange way I was now rocking against his lower abdomen myself? I wanted to blame him.

It felt as though I'd lost the ability to form complex sentences. Terrifyingly close to becoming a fool, my entire body was completely focused only on this—on him.

He looked up at me with eyes stripped of their usual dryness, glistening with a feverish sheen, and simply bit lightly at my chin. He gave no answer.

"It's not… perfume, is it?"

Tightening his hold on me, he rolled his hips and rubbed us together. My legs had spread so wide that my groin was pressed flush against his body—closer than seemed possible. Just looking down at that contact and friction sent a heavy swell of climax gathering at the tip of my cock.

"This is strange… it feels strange."

Even while saying that, I pushed my feet back and ground myself harder against him. He rubbed his nose against my lips, moving my hips opposite the slow rotation of his own. As the angle shifted, another wave surged through me.

"If Seo Ihyeon-ssi is a Beta… then this has to be perfume."

Hngh— hnnngh— ah—

This time, he wrapped both arms tightly around my waist. Holding me fast, like fastening a seatbelt, he began to rock me rapidly, as if trying to wring every last drop of moisture from me.

"Say something else. Anything other than strange. Right now... how do you feel?"

"Good. It feels good…"

Threading my hands through his hair, trembling as if I'd been thrown into a washing machine on spin cycle, I mumbled incoherently. I was completely unlike my usual self, as though I could say anything he wanted to hear.

Even though all he was doing was pressing and rubbing against my slick, wet lower abdomen, the pressure and burning friction felt almost like penetration somewhere impossibly tight, and it sent me soaring.

Reaching climax from nothing more than the force of his rocking and the pressure on my lower abdomen — without any direct touch — the confessions of pleasure I poured into his ear at that peak were unbelievable even to me.

As I poured into his ear my arousal over his thick cock and the obscene sensation of all the slippery fluids we'd spilled together... and as I listened to the even more shameless whispers he breathed back in response... what I saw in that moment felt like heaven, and also like a hell seething with lust. Whatever it was, it was an extreme. Not a pleasure that belonged to any ordinary category.

As if trying to wring out the very last drop, he stayed half-risen on his knees and continued to rock me. Invaded by scent and arousal, my body trembled with a pleasure so intense it was almost destructive.

By the time he laid me back down on the bed, I was utterly spent. As though the core supporting my body had been pulled out, as though my bones had melted away, weakness swept through me. My body sank heavily into the sheets, as if it might simply disappear into them.

I will make it so you can't think of anything. So that nothing matters anymore.

Just as he'd promised, that was exactly what happened. I could forget. I could escape. Unbelievably, all it had taken was... something as simple as sex.

Whether I had blacked out or merely drifted to sleep for a while, I couldn't tell. When I jolted awake at the sensation of moisture against my skin, I found myself lying face down on the bed. A warm washcloth was pressed against my back.

His still-hard cock swayed faintly in the dim light. Faced with the evidence that desire still lingered within him, the urge to touch it again stirred inside me. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—I had no strength left at all. I couldn't move a finger, much less my lips to call out to him.

I couldn't trust the accuracy of my memory, but it seemed he hadn't climaxed. Only after everything was over did I realize that from beginning to end, the entire encounter had revolved around me—done solely to comfort me.

The hand that had been wiping the mingled fluids from the insides of my thighs as I lay face down suddenly stopped. The mattress tilted slightly, and the next moment a warm, damp palm gently stroked my buttock. The lingering arousal immediately flared to life again, but all I could do was let out a weak groan and curl up slightly. I still had no strength.

The hand kneading my buttock slid between my legs. Slightly firm fingertips, like those of a doctor performing an examination, carefully traced the valley where skin met skin, as though searching for the cause of some hidden symptom.

"Ungh... mm..."

The hand withdrew, and a moment later, lips touched me instead. My stiffened back writhed against the mattress. Turning my head while lying face down, I saw him pressed between my legs, his face buried against me. The sensation of his wet tongue licking around my hole made me bury my face back into the pillow.

My body convulsed on its own. As if reassuring me that everything was fine, he patted the flesh a couple of times.

The tongue that had been moving cautiously, as though checking something, gradually became more deliberate, wetting my hole with unmistakable sexual intent. Like a persistent, unhurried courtship, it went on for a long time.

Extending his tongue, he rubbed firmly over it with the full surface of his tongue. Then he took the entrance into his mouth and sucked several times as though kissing it before finally lifting his face away.

"This doesn't make sense... This just doesn't make sense."

I couldn't be certain, but that was what it sounded like. This doesn't make sense. He muttered in a dazed voice while finishing the task of cleaning between my legs with the damp cloth.

It had been a day that didn't make sense. I already knew what it was like for a single day to overwhelm hundreds of others. I just hadn't known I would experience such a day again—the kind of day that changes the direction, the speed, and the color of a life.

Someone dragged me mercilessly into sleep.

To be continued in Diamond Dust, Volume 2.

Paddling: A surfing term. The act of lying prone on the board and using one's arms to move through the water, in order to reach a position to catch a wave.