A luxury sedan was speeding along the coastal road of Ganghwa Island in the middle of January, deep in winter.
Snow had not yet piled up, but the windshield wipers were ruthlessly sweeping away the falling flakes that landed like tufts of cotton.
The car cutting through the blizzard looked like something straight out of a TV commercial—bold, sleek, unstoppable.
Inside the car sat Han Yoojin, prima ballerina of the Korean National Ballet, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
She tried to ignore the harsh rhythm of the wipers and instead focused on the music echoing through the car.
[Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Final Scene, VI Scene, Allegro agitato]
The tragic melody surged toward its climax, filling the surround system with grandeur.
Its urgency, its sorrow, its sense of being driven toward a cliff—all of it made Yoojin's heart pound.
But soon, as always, tragedy turned into comedy again, and she let herself be swept away by the whirlwind of emotion.
Swan Lake.
Yoojin's thoughts drifted into the world of a ballet she knew all too well—its heroine, Princess Odette, cursed to live as a swan by day and only human by night, and the prince Siegfried who tries to save her.
But Yoojin knew the true protagonist was not Odette, nor Siegfried.
It was Rothbart, the sorcerer who coveted Odette.
His twisted desire to possess her, his destructive hunger—he had used even his own daughter, Odile, to claim what he could not have.
Yoojin couldn't stop thinking about Rothbart—the demon who started it all.
Because in truth, she was Odette: trapped in the devil's scheme, elegant and perfect on stage by day, and just Han Yoojin, a woman with nothing left, by night.
A sudden ring from her phone shattered the music.
Lost in thought, Yoojin blinked and glanced at the dashboard screen.
The caller ID read Choi Hyun-oh.
Startled, she hesitated, then pressed the call button.
"Hello?"
— It's me. Are you on your way?
"Yes, I'll be at the pension soon."
— There's a blizzard warning.
"It hasn't piled up here yet. I'll drive carefully."
— Why are you even going to see her?
Yoojin was on her way to meet her only friend, Se-ryun.
She needed to breathe—just for a moment, even if it meant escaping everything.
But Hyun-oh never understood.
He had no one like Se-ryun in his life.
"We promised to take a trip after my final performance. She came all the way to Ganghwa for me. Otherwise, she'd be overseas now."
— If you wanted to travel, you could've gone with me. Why someone else? I swear, I can't tell if you're naive or just stupid.
His cynical tone cut through her like ice. Yoojin pressed her lips together.
Conversations with Hyun-oh always ended this way—he crushed her words, made her doubt herself, until she believed she had nothing worth saying.
He was a master of that kind of domination.
When she fell silent, he spoke again, voice cool and sharp.
— You're not alone anymore. Think about the baby. You're carrying my child now.
Yoojin stared blankly at the wipers moving back and forth, her voice flat.
"Yes… I'll be careful. Just ten more minutes to go. I'll stay one night and come back."
— Tsk.
The line went dead.
"Haah…"
Every time she heard his voice, her body stiffened, as if a serpent's tongue had wrapped around her neck.
And every time it ended, her senses slowly returned, breath shuddering through her chest.
It had been ten years since she met Choi Hyun-oh.
Choi Hyun-oh, the sole heir to Gangrim Group, the nation's largest conglomerate.
Yoojin was an artist sponsored by the Gangrim Cultural Foundation, a subsidiary of the group.
They met after Hyun-oh returned from studying abroad, at a foundation event hosted by his mother, Hong In-hee, the foundation's chairwoman.
His first impression was exactly what Yoojin expected of a chaebol heir—neatly combed pomade hair, a lean frame, a tailored suit, and an elegant face marked by perfect manners.
"Hyun-oh, this is Han Yoojin, one of our foundation's sponsored artists. You'll be seeing her often."
"Yes, Mother."
He tilted his head slightly, scanning Yoojin up and down.
"Hello, I'm Choi Hyun-oh."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Han Yoojin, a first-year dance major at Korea University, supported by the foundation."
Between them stood Hong In-hee, dressed in a custom designer suit, watching the two with a polished social smile.
Yoojin, then barely twenty, wore a white frilled dress reminiscent of a ballet costume.
Her large, luminous eyes, delicate nose and lips, and flushed cheeks filled her small face;
her long neck and slim waist, her legs gracefully extending beneath the frills—
a ballerina's poise radiated from every gesture.
When she bowed gracefully, Hyun-oh trembled faintly, unable to take his eyes off her.
Sensing her son's reaction, Hong In-hee quickly turned away, plastering a formal smile across her face and ushering him along.
Even as he followed her out, Hyun-oh's gaze lingered on Yoojin.
She never imagined then how long their connection would bind her life.
Yoojin passed through Gangrim Arts Middle and High School, graduated top of her class at Korea University's Department of Dance.
Though elite ballet companies from abroad sought her out, she joined the Korean National Ballet, honoring her contractual obligations with the foundation—and within a year, rose to principal soloist.
Envy and jealousy swirled around her, but no one dared show it.
Gangrim's backing was too powerful, and her own talent undeniable.
Still, her life, like her art, became property—owned by the Gangrim Group and its heir, Choi Hyun-oh.
Everyone in the art world knew it, even if no one said it aloud.
Whenever she received a message—
[Friday, 6 PM. Geumseo Art Hall.]
—along with a delivered dress, she understood her role.
She dressed up and became Hyun-oh's companion for the night.
He bound her with invisible chains, and she could not escape.
His desire for her was no secret.
Within three months of meeting her, he had taken her.
No—he didn't have to force her.
He simply had the power to own everything.
Yoojin followed because she had no choice.
Her tuition, her dance—her entire survival depended on his sponsorship.
Even working multiple jobs, she could never afford what he offered.
Her father had died when she was in middle school, her mother when she was in high school.
Fifteen years ago, her father's auto parts company went bankrupt, and he ended his life.
Everything collapsed.
There were no relatives to help; self-made men rarely leave safety nets behind.
Mother and daughter fell to the bottom.
"Mom, please sign it."
"Yoojin, can't you just stop dancing?"
"Mom, I can't live without ballet. Please—sign it."
After her father's funeral, Yoojin begged her mother, Lee Ji-sun, to sign the sponsorship contract the foundation had offered.
Ji-sun read it, pushed it aside, and pleaded to quit instead.
But to the fifteen-year-old girl, ballet was her entire existence.
Without it, she was nothing.
So she forced her mother's trembling hand to sign.
From then on, Ji-sun, too, grew weaker under Gangrim's shadow.
A housewife all her life, she didn't know how to survive in the world outside.
She lived clinging to her former pride, numbed by the foundation's support.
"Our old house was huge, you know."
"That two-carat diamond ring your father bought me—it was only two thousand then, worth five thousand now."
"When our company was booming, we had over a hundred employees."
When her depression deepened, she would repeat those same lines—back when I… when your father… — until her memories rewrote the past, turning the illusion of wealth into a shield against despair.
And so, Lee Ji-sun chased the ghost of her former life—while the debt for that illusion piled up in her daughter's name, under the single file labeled: Han Yoojin — Sponsored Artist.
Her mother's vanity lasted only a year — she took her own life on the first anniversary of her husband's death.