Chapter 208.1

Chapter 208.1

At his quiet plea, Seoryeong suddenly stopped.

“Korea?”

“Or would you prefer another country?”

“What are you talking about?”

“We need to live together again. Are you just going to let me go like this?”

“….”

“I’m never living apart from you again. Not in this life.” Lee Wooshin said.

Even after his confession, she couldn’t bring herself to speak.

Would their third reunion really work out this time?

That doubt, that quiet dread, filled her mind before anything else. In their first marriage, her husband had vanished, though there had been a reason.

In the second, he’d been shot… again, for a reason.

Thinking back on everything the two of them had done, even if there had been justification each time, it was hard to imagine anything resembling peace.

Whether things were peaceful or they fought endlessly, the same suspicion always surfaced; an unease that something would go wrong again, breaking out each morning like hives on her skin. It was the remnant of a wound that had never closed.

Layer upon layer of failure had turned her into a coward. She had the courage to admit that this man was her only one, but it wasn’t easy to trust the parts of him she couldn’t see, not like before.

As she stayed silent for a while, a peculiar gaze fell on her. Fearing he might misread her hesitation, Seoryeong hurried to raise a practical excuse like a shield.

“As you know, Instructor, I’m still on Interpol’s wanted list.”

“That’s been taken care of.”

Lee Wooshin brushed her hair aside, his fingertips tickling her forehead.

“I sent a request to have your name removed from the list a while ago.”

“How?”

“I explained that the shooting incident was clearly my fault. And Interpol strictly forbids involvement in political, military, or religious matters. The funny thing is, Russia happens to be classified as an ‘Interpol abuser.’”

He kissed her forehead lightly, his low, steady voice flowing on.

“The Russian president’s been abusing red notices to eliminate political rivals, so Interpol restricted their access. Since I was ‘Solzhenitsyn,’ they focused on the likelihood of another abuse of power, and the withdrawal request went through fairly easily.”

“….”

Ah, there went her shield. Feeling cornered, Seoryeong could only nod.

But if Lee Wooshin said he was going to the convenience store around midnight, could she honestly not suspect him? If he said he was going to work, could she really believe that?

Would she finally feel at ease if she had Solzhenitsyn’s child? Two children? Three? Four? She didn’t know.

Cold sweat seemed to form as she realized how serious her thoughts had become. Unable to bear her pounding heartbeat, she lowered her eyes first and tried to sound casual.

“Then, Instructor, are you going to keep working as an agent?”

He froze, his hand halfway through smoothing his eyebrows.

“So you’ll still be going to work and coming back, keeping all sorts of secrets.”

“…”

“Traveling here and there for missions too.”

“Seoryeong.”

“And lying more and more as time goes on.”

Did she have the mental strength to wait for him, knowing all that? She couldn’t very well keep a lie detector at home and interrogate him every night.

Otherwise, she’d end up sneaking through his phone while he slept. And if that didn’t ease her mind, she’d start checking for a hidden second phone, rummaging through the car’s glove compartment. And if even that wasn’t enough…

Clone his phone entirely. At that point, it would be a crime.

Suddenly, an old lesson surfaced in her mind: nothing could be protected through violence.

Was this paranoia? Or was she already afflicted by it? Maybe she’d had it all along.

Her thoughts were spiraling toward the extreme when the blanket rustled. Lee Wooshin sat up, bracing himself on one hand over the pillow. Unintentionally trapping her beneath him, he frowned.

“You don’t trust me.”

He said it with quiet certainty, his voice flat and even. His steady gaze, unshaken and direct, made her flinch instead.

Even if their hearts had found each other again, maybe there really was no such thing as a perfectly healed wound in this world.

“I probably wouldn’t even believe you on your way to work,” Seoryeong said quietly. “Even if you sent photos or messages, I’d still think something that simple could be faked. Because if you wanted to, you could deceive me anytime. That’s what scares me the most. I can’t overcome that.”

This time, she didn’t swallow down her anxiety, she let it spill out. Lee Wooshin shut his eyes tightly. Of all topics, this was the one that left him speechless, his head hanging low in shame. As if accepting punishment, he buried his face against her neck and held his breath.

“No matter how much you say it was for my sake… what I went through, that deception… I never want to experience it again. Not twice. Never again, Instructor.”