The house was quiet again.
Too quiet.
He had left that evening with the same detached grace he always wore now — a dark suit clinging to his lean, sculpted frame, his movements efficient, unhurried, as if emotions were an outdated software program he had long since uninstalled. There had been no kiss goodbye, just a brief hand on her shoulder as he passed by — warm, steady, heartbreakingly gentle.
"I'll be at Han Global till late," Dae-Hyun had said, his voice a smooth calm that could've belonged to anyone but the man who had once wept into the crook of her neck like a child on fire.
And then he was gone.
Soo-Ah stood in the same room for what felt like an eternity after the sound of the door closing faded. Her hands were shaking. Her throat ached. Her legs finally gave way beneath her, and she sank slowly to the floor, knees pressing into the hardwood as though she were in prayer — but no god would hear her tonight.
She had thought she was healing him.
All this time, she'd watched his coldness with frustration, his distance with confusion, his unflinching precision with fear. She'd thought: What happened to the man I married? What happened to the sweet, soft-hearted fool who used to burn his fingers on coffee mugs because he was too distracted playing peek-a-boo with our son?
She'd searched for answers like they were pieces of a puzzle he was hiding from her.
And now she understood — there were no pieces. He was the puzzle. Torn apart. Rebuilt. Shattered again. Reconfigured into something that could survive where no human should.
He wasn't hiding from her.
He was protecting her.
From himself.
From the monster he had become to hold back a world that would've let her die.
Soo-Ah buried her face into her palms and sobbed.
It wasn't the delicate crying of someone looking for comfort. It was raw, ugly. A hollowed-out keening that echoed in the cavern of her ribs like a wound reopened. She cried until the skin around her eyes burned. Until her chest cramped with howling grief. Until the tears no longer even made sense.
She wept for her son.
For the small pair of shoes still untouched by the nursery door.
For the sound of laughter that would never return.
But most of all, she wept for him.
For Dae-Hyun.
The boy who had once been so gentle, so insecure, so utterly loving. The one who used to cling to her hand in public like the world might steal her away if he blinked. The one who once woke up every morning to feed Min-Jun so she could sleep. The one who fell in love with her before he fell in love with himself — because he never really did.
And she… had failed him.
She had blamed him in the quiet corners of her mind. She had interrogated him, doubted him, dug at him like he was a criminal hoarding secrets. She had made him relive the worst pain of his life by forcing open doors he had only just managed to seal shut. She had asked, over and over: Why won't you let me in? Not realizing that letting her in would've shattered the fragile architecture of the world he'd rebuilt just to keep her breathing.
"No one stays sane when their soul is buried alive," she whispered to herself.
Not after losing their child.
Not after nearly losing her.
He had every right to go insane.
She hugged herself on the floor, shivering from the cold of her own guilt.
How had he managed to work through all this? To run KGI and Han Global simultaneously, to turn himself into a modern-day king whose word made nations tremble, to train until his body no longer belonged to the boy she once knew — all while secretly pouring every ounce of his remaining humanity into her healing?
And she… had asked him if he blamed her.
What kind of monster was she?
Soo-Ah cried harder, until her tears soaked into the sleeves of his oversized hoodie — the one he used to wear in college when he was still pudgy and shy, the one she stole because it smelled like him. She had kept it after the accident, but never wore it. Now she clung to it as if it could rewind time, breathe life back into the past.
She whispered his name, over and over.
"Dae-Hyun… Dae-Hyun… I'm sorry…"
The silence answered her.
She didn't sleep that night.
She stayed curled up on the couch, facing the door, waiting for the man who had given everything to return. Not to question him. Not to scold him. Not to pick apart his silences.
She would wait, not as his wife, not as Han Soo-Ah, not as a woman with expectations.
But as the only person who owed him everything.