The moment the doors to the manor closed behind them with a dull finality, Soo-Ah spun around.
Her heels echoed sharply on the marble as she paced toward the vast living room, Dae-Hyun silently following a few steps behind like a shadow that had no choice but to be bound to its light.
She turned abruptly.
"You chased away every single man who even dared speak to me tonight," she said, voice not quite angry but tight — as if she were restraining something more volatile from bubbling to the surface. "Even Ji-Won noticed."
Dae-Hyun's expression remained unreadable. He stepped past the entryway, pulling off his gloves and setting them on the console with the casual detachment of a man returning from war, not a party.
"So?" he asked, voice soft, almost amused.
"So?" she echoed, incredulous. "Do you even realize how insane that makes you look?"
He paused, as if tasting the word on his tongue, then gave a small smile.
"You're saying that," he said lightly, "to someone who was diagnosed as clinically insane."
Soo-Ah blinked.
The sentence landed in the air between them like a dropped wine glass—silent, fragile, and deeply wrong.
But Dae-Hyun simply walked over to the glass cabinet, opened it, and poured himself water. As if he hadn't just casually revealed something so chillingly intimate. As if it was no different than mentioning the weather.
He didn't elaborate.
Didn't explain when.
Didn't explain how.
Didn't explain what it meant.
Only added, with a gentle tilt of his lips, "But don't worry. Next time, even if some flirty fool abducts you in front of me, I'll just wave goodbye. Send my regards. Maybe throw in a bottle of champagne as a farewell gift."
Soo-Ah's nostrils flared.
"You're unbelievable," she snapped, her voice shaking. "You're so used to controlling everything that you think this is some kind of twisted joke? You know what, maybe you are insane. You hide behind this cold wall and pretend you're over everything, but you're not. And instead of talking to me, you keep—"
He didn't flinch.
He didn't argue.
He didn't defend.
He just stood there, letting her words slash against the shell of him.
She was so furious she didn't see the way his hand trembled as he held the glass. She didn't hear the nearly imperceptible crack threading through its surface. Didn't see how his shoulders tensed, then relaxed again in a calculated exhale, like a man reminding himself how to breathe in a room filled with smoke.
"You should sleep," he said softly, his voice gentle, devoid of resistance. "I have an early call."
And then, just as she turned, fuming, and disappeared up the stairs in a flurry of silk and frustration—
The glass in his hand shattered.
Not from dropping.
Not from slipping.
It collapsed under the pressure of his grip, fracturing in silence until shards trickled between his fingers and into the marble with a delicate chime.
He stared at the remains of it, bleeding water across his skin, leaving crimson trails as the tiny cuts etched their punishment into his flesh. But he didn't react. Not with pain. Not even a wince. Only a weary smile that belonged to a man who had long since grown numb to both agony and affection.
A part of him wanted her anger.
Because anger meant she still cared.
But another part — the one he locked behind reinforced steel and the cold flicker of logical self-loathing — bled more than his fingers did.
She didn't know.
How could she?
She didn't know that she was the only thing keeping him tethered to this life. That without her, there would be no dawn. No breath. No heartbeat. No point. That he'd survive nuclear war, stock market collapse, and corporate backstabbing without blinking — but if she ever walked away from him, even with her soft smile and light footsteps, he'd die right there on the spot.
But he'd never say it.
He couldn't.
Instead, he cleaned the blood absentmindedly with the corner of his shirt, eyes flat, and made his way silently into the private gym two floors below — the one she didn't even know existed.
There, beneath the automated lighting, surrounded by soundproofed walls and a room full of stainless steel machines calibrated to maximum resistance, he set down the pain like a ritual.
And as he lifted weights far too heavy for most men to even attempt, he welcomed the burn.
The fire in his muscles was honest.
It did not lie.
It reminded him he was still alive — even if only barely.
Even if only because of her.
He didn't cry.
He didn't break.
He just kept moving, rep after rep, breath after breath, deeper into the silence where no one would hear the sound of a man trying to hold back a scream carved out of grief, love, madness, and the quiet terror of losing everything again.
And all the while, the words echoed in his mind like an old lullaby turned cruel:
"You're insane."
"You're really insane."
"You're saying that to someone who was diagnosed as clinically insane."
And he smiled — a smile without warmth, without hope — and lifted more.