The morning barely filtered in, a fragile pale light slipping between the curtains like a hesitant breath.
The light settled on their tangled bodies like a forbidden caress.
And Nari opened her eyes, in a suspended silence — a silence too soft, too calm.
For a second, she thought she was dreaming.
The ceiling wasn't the one in her apartment.
The air wasn't either.
There was a scent of wood, of masculine warmth, of sheets that cost too much.
A scent.
Woody.
Clean.
Slightly minty.
And him.
She slowly pushed herself up, her hair falling around her face still marked by the night.
A sheet slid over her skin, revealing the curve of her shoulder, the fragile hollow of her back.
She realized then — she was naked in his bed.
Or rather… in his.
Nari felt her chest tighten.
She needed to leave.
She needed to get up, get dressed, run, disappear, return to the version of herself who could breathe without him.
But her body didn't move.
As if something inside her refused to leave this suspended moment.
The scene from the previous night came back in waves:
her hands against the wall, his burning breath, his words, his body inside hers, the trembling of her thighs, her own muffled cries against his skin.
She felt ashamed thinking about it.
And yet, a shiver ran through her.
Sion was asleep beside her.
Lying on his back, a hand resting against his chest.
His face, usually so hard, was softened by the morning light; a black lock fell across his forehead, revealing an almost inconceivable hint of humanity for a man like him.
She would have sworn he'd disappear before dawn, like a ghost returning to haunt her life for a single night before vanishing without a trace.
But he was there.
Truly there.
Too real.
Sion stirred slightly, as if he had felt her gaze.
His eyelids opened slowly, revealing his golden eyes — still blurred by sleep, but with a raw intensity that pierced her.
He looked at her without a word for several seconds.
Then a lazy smile, almost too sincere, tugged at the corner of his mouth.
— You didn't run away yet?
His voice was a mix of fatigue and quiet arrogance, that arrogance he wore like a second skin.
Nari raised a brow, trying to hide the storm rolling inside her.
— I was considering it, she murmured, an involuntary smile tugging at her lips.
Then, in a sleep-heavy rasp:
— You planning to keep staring at me for much longer?
She looked away, stung.
— I was checking if you were still breathing.
A slow smile stretched across his mouth.
A dangerous smile, but tired.
A smile that said: you disturb me more than I want to admit.
Sion inhaled, pushed himself halfway up and with a sudden gesture, grabbed her by the waist.
He pulled her onto him effortlessly, as if she weighed nothing.
A small startled sound escaped her lips.
— Hey! stop!
— You talk too early in the morning, he muttered while slipping his fingers along her sides.
She burst into laughter despite herself — a rare laugh, fragile, almost forgotten.
And they rolled together in the sheets, their bodies tangling in a light chaos, almost childish.
He tickled her, she squirmed, their laughs mixing in the dusty morning air.
For a few seconds, everything disappeared.
The pain.
The fear.
The guilt.
Even her boyfriend.
There was nothing left but this suspended bubble, this moment stolen from the world.
Then a sharp knock-knock echoed through the silence, breaking the magic.
— Sir, far be it from me to interrupt, but your father is waiting. You're leaving in ten minutes, said the neutral voice of the assistant behind the door.
Sion froze.
His mind snapped back to reality in an invisible click.
He released Nari, letting her fall back on the mattress, still breathless.
Without a word, he got up, grabbed his black shirt from the chair, his movements quick, precise, mechanical — as if everything they had just shared was nothing more than a parenthesis he had already mastered perfectly.
Nari watched him dress, her heart pounding against her ribs.
She didn't know what she was expecting.
A sentence.
A look.
A sign.
Something.
Before leaving, he turned toward her.
His face returned to impassive, closed-off.
But his voice carried an imperceptible vibration.
— Tonight, he said, expressionless, I'm coming to get you.
She lifted her head.
— You really think I'm going to—
— Tonight, Nari.
Dress well.
He didn't let her respond.
The door slammed.
Silence fell again, brutal.
Nari remained alone, in the middle of the rumpled sheets that smelled like him and the night they had just survived.
A mix of confusion, desire, fear and excitement tightened in her chest.
She placed a hand over her heart.
It was beating too fast.
— I'm screwed… she murmured to herself.
And for the first time, she truly understood it.
The apartment door slammed behind her like a gunshot.
The morning cold hit her in the face, brutal, almost violent, as if to remind her she was leaving a forbidden world to return to the one she was supposed to call "normal."
But nothing was normal.
Not anymore.
Not after that night.
She walked down the stairs of Sion's building with the strange sensation that each step was pulling her away from something she might never have again.
The world seemed dull, gray, muffled, as if nothing could match the intensity of his fingers on her skin, his breath against her neck, his voice whispered into her ear.
She inhaled, trying to calm the trembling in her stomach.
When she entered her apartment, it felt too small, too quiet, too real.
And he was there.
Her boyfriend, sitting on the couch, eyes red, phone in hand.
The moment he saw her, he jumped to his feet.
— Nari! Where were you?! I thought… I thought something happened to you…
She stood still, frozen, unable to answer.
His scent suddenly felt foreign.
His arms around her, soft, reassuring… felt like a cage.
He held her so tightly she felt her body stiffen against her will.
— I slept at a friend's place… she whispered, her voice broken.
He pulled back slightly to look at her.
His eyes were full of sincere worry, almost naïve.
— Why didn't you call me? You had your phone…
She looked away, ashamed, devastated, torn in two.
— I couldn't… I was… I wasn't well.
He thought he understood.
He thought it was her mother.
He thought it was grief speaking.
So he hugged her even tighter, as if that could fix anything.
But his embrace — soft, controlled, kind —
only reminded her of last night's burning chaos,
Sion's fingers marking her,
the way her body had responded without thinking, like a truth she never wanted to face.
And right there…
in the arms of that man so good, so gentle, so simple…
she cried.
For the first time in days, she truly cried.
Not for her mother.
Not for the suffering from before.
But for what she had just destroyed.
For what she could never be again.
For the love she was trying to save, even though she had already let someone else seep into her soul like poison.
— It's gonna be okay, he murmured while stroking her hair.
— I'm here, Nari. You're not alone.
She closed her eyes.
Her tears rolled down, hot and silent.
— I know… she whispered.
A lie.
Another one.
One more.
Because deep inside her, one name burned like an open wound:
Sion.