The paramedics arrived at a run, gently pushing Nari aside.
— Miss, please step back.
She somehow managed to get back on her feet,
her legs shaking like cracked glass.
She stumbled back a few steps.
She watched their hands working quickly,
the bandages being rolled out,
the respirator being prepared,
voices overlapping around her.
— He's still breathing.
— Weak pulse.
— Possible mandibular fracture.
— Probable head trauma.
Words that shot through her mind like poisoned arrows.
But one word rang louder than all the others.
Death.
The death that had hovered.
The death that could have taken him.
The death Sion had flirted with for her.
She wanted to throw up.
Scream.
Tear off her own skin.
But she stayed there, frozen, her hand over her mouth,
unable to move or breathe.
This is all my fault.
The sentence rose in her head like a silent scream.
All around her, passersby whispered, their voices hissing through the cold air:
— That's her, the girl between the two…
— Looks like a love triangle…
— I filmed everything, I'm gonna post it…
— The guy could've died…
Each word was another stab.
The police arrived too, blocking off the bridge.
People stepped aside.
— Miss, are you with the victim?
She nodded, unable to speak.
— You'll have to come down to the station to give your statement.
She turned toward the stretcher as they lifted her unconscious fiancé.
Her eyes filled with a pain so fierce she thought she would collapse.
They loaded him into the ambulance.
The door shut.
She was left standing alone, the reflection of the siren lights flickering in her tear-filled eyes.
And it was only when the ambulance drove away,
blue and red flashing in the Seoul night,
that she felt something break inside her.
Not just a crack.
A total collapse.
An internal quake.
Her heart had just given way under its own weight.
She thought of Sion, of his crazed look, of that single silent tear,
and the world tore open a second time.
She clutched her chest with one hand.
— Why… why are you doing this to me… Sion… she whispered.
Her legs gave out.
The ambulance was gone.
The crowd had scattered like a guilty tide.
And yet, in the middle of that now-empty bridge,
there was still the smell of blood on the asphalt,
the marks of Sion's shoes,
and Nari's trembling breath that wouldn't steady.
She sat there, knees pulled up to her chest,
her arms wrapped around herself,
like a child trying to protect herself from the entire world.
The freezing wind of Seoul howled around her,
but she didn't even feel it anymore.
She wasn't there.
She'd been ripped out of her own body.
Her fiancé had just brushed against death.
Sion had become a living danger.
And she… she had just lost everything in a single night.
The silence finally broke when a police officer came back toward her.
— Miss, let's go.
She nodded mechanically,
but before following him,
she turned one last time toward the spot where Sion had disappeared,
where a single tear had slid down his cheek,
where one part of her had screamed at him to stay,
and another to run.
That tear haunted her more than the blood.
More than the blows.
More than the violence.
Why… why did you cry?
The question looped in her head.
It tore her apart.
It destroyed her.
— Miss? Please…
She followed the officer.
The neon lights of Seoul reflected in the puddles
like shattered shards of colored glass,
and each step felt like sinking in mud,
as if the city itself were trying to hold her back.
Her inner voice had stopped screaming.
Now it whispered, exhausted, broken:
It's all my fault…
It's all my fault…
It's all my fault…
Meanwhile…
on the other side of Seoul—
Sion walked alone.
With no purpose.
No destination.
No real awareness of where he was putting his feet.
His hands were covered in blood.
His knuckles split open.
His breathing short.
His pupils blown wide.
His clothes torn.
But no pain reached his body.
None.
He couldn't feel anything anymore.
Nothing but a single image.
A single vision.
A single nightmare:
Nari kissing her fiancé under the applause.
Nari smiling.
Nari happy without him.
Nari living her life as if everything they had shared
had been nothing but a passing mistake.
And worse than all of it:
Nari begging him to stop,
to let the other man go,
her eyes filled with a fear he had caused.
Shame ripped open his chest.
A burning, acidic shame.
He didn't feel powerful anymore.
Or dominant.
Or dangerous.
He felt…
small.
Like a child abandoned in an alley.
Like a son who had lost his mother a thousand times.
Like a man who had just destroyed the only thing
he had ever wanted to keep close.
He collapsed onto a bench in an empty street.
The cold bit into his fingers.
The dried blood pulled at his skin.
He closed his eyes.
And in the darkness that rose up,
he saw the whole scene again:
— SHE'S MINE!
— YOU HEAR ME?!
— MINE!!
His own scream echoed in his skull,
terrifying, feral, inhuman.
He saw his fist striking.
Again.
Again.
Again.
He heard the bones crack.
Then…
Nari crying.
Nari wrapping her arms around his waist.
Nari pleading.
— I'm begging you, stop…
And finally…
the tear.
His.
The one she had seen.
The only one he hadn't been able to hold back.
He brought his hand to his face,
his palm pressing against his eyes
as if that could erase what he had done.
But nothing moved.
He had crossed a line.
He knew it.
There was no going back anymore.
His shoulders slumped.
He whispered into the empty air:
— Nari…
Just once.
Like a prayer.
Like a confession.
Like an admission he had never allowed himself.
The wind carried his breath away.
The city swallowed him whole.
That night,
Seoul became witness
not only to his jealousy,
but to his downfall.
He was no longer just a dangerous man.
He was a man who had just realized
he loved someone
enough to go insane.