Chapter 189.1

Chapter 189.1

Where was she?

Seoryeong stood there, blinking blankly. The place looked unfamiliar, yet something about it felt oddly familiar..

A figure, neither tall nor short, glided across the frozen lake like the wind.

Hair brushed lightly against the cold air, and a playful laugh melted the chill on her cheeks. Who was that?

An emotion she couldn’t name rose sharply in her throat. Seoryeong’s eyes flew open.

“—!”

Haa, haa—her breathing came fast and shallow, as if she’d just seen something she wasn’t supposed to. The cold sank deep into her bones. When she turned her head, the window was wide open.

Winter had slipped in without a sound.

Time hadn’t healed anything; it only numbed her. The hollow space inside her stayed empty, but the pain that used to tear through her had dulled with each passing day.

She ate, exercised lightly, even brushed her hair in front of the mirror she’d once avoided.

Two whole seasons had passed since she last heard whether Lee Wooshin was alive or dead.

Moving sluggishly, Seoryeong got up and stepped into the narrow living room where the fireplace sat cold and still. Once she woke before dawn, sleep never came back. She stretched, easing her stiff body as the quiet morning settled around her.

Pressing her bare feet against the cold floor, she touched the empty sofa, there wasn’t a trace of warmth left.

Kia must have stayed out again.

Lately, something troubling seemed to have happened to him, and the times they shared meals had decreased noticeably. It would almost be better if he had found a girlfriend…

She thought she could live on her own now—but Kia was the problem. Every time she started to look a little stronger, he’d watch her with those restless, greedy eyes, like he couldn’t stand it. Whenever he did, she’d throw whatever was in her hand or smack the top of his head without a second thought.

“Haa…”

She really needed to start earning her own money and move out as soon as possible.

No matter how much she told herself they were like siblings, an adult man and woman couldn’t keep living together in that kind of tension. Remembering the days she’d hurled forks at him for breathing wrong made her sigh again.

“Wherever I end up, I’ll figure out how to live like a normal person.”

Like a cat, she lazily rubbed the sleep from her eyes, pulled on thick socks, a knit sweater, a wool hat, and finally her black padded jacket.

When she opened the cabin door, the world outside was completely white—it must’ve snowed overnight. She quickly put on a mask to block the freezing air and jogged into the mountains with quick, steady steps.

‘Forget all the unhappy memories.’

Sometimes, that voice would catch up to her like a tangled net.

‘If anyone asks about your childhood, just remember the good parts.’

She shook her head hard and kept running. Through the quiet, visitorless forest, her mind drifted back to that silent winter fortress she used to call home.

But the net tangled over her mind was too complicated and old; it wasn’t easy to pull out only the good parts. Forgotten memories burst forth like a broken dam, but unpleasantly, they were all dirty mud.

Every memory was caked with terrible residue. How could there be a “best moment”?

Trying to untangle the threads that had become a giant lump seemed almost impossible. Unable to find meaning in it, Seoryeong eventually locked away her entire past.

As the weather grew colder, headaches came more often, but she couldn’t even distinguish whether it was from grief or longing.

“Hoo… hoo…”

Her legs moved faster. She remembered how the jog training had nearly killed her at first, unable to run even ten minutes.

The image of Instructor Lee Wooshin, casually teasing the recruits while sitting on a truck, came to mind, tightening her chest.

Biting her lip, she forced herself to empty her mind again and again. Her thighs grew stronger, her breathing steadier.

Even if she wasn’t perfect, she had to keep moving. Looking forward was proof she hadn’t been caught in Lee Wooshin’s net again.

Seoryeong straightened her back and lengthened her stride. Good posture was where everything began. Her chin stayed high as she left footprints in the thin snow, as if she were stepping there for the first time.

From the base of the mountain to the peak and back down again, she never once looked over her shoulder.

Little by little, she was forgetting him.

“Kia, I think it’s time I find a job.”

Kia’s eyes widened, scanning her up and down before his expression twisted with disapproval.

He’d been gone for days. When he came back, he’d tried to hug Sonya and got smacked hard for it. Now he sat in front of the soup she’d made, muttering a quick prayer before his face hardened again.

“You’re an Interpol fugitive.”