The first time he saw Hong Yu-yeon was nine years ago, in a university lecture hall.
It was a time when everything in his life went his way, leaving him without a shred of desperation. Days that merely drifted along as they pleased.
At the time, Hyeon-myeong was two weeks away from his military enlistment, forced to attend class only because the professor insisted that students must show up until the very eve of enlistment to receive a grade.
Naturally, he had no enthusiasm for the lecture. On top of that, that day’s class consisted entirely of group presentations, so Hyeon-myeong took a seat in the farthest corner, satisfied simply to have shown his face, and let the time waste away.
With fifteen minutes left before the class ended, it was the final group’s turn. Before beginning their presentation, the group members bustled about, connecting a laptop and handing out prepared printouts to each of the students.
It was the most exhausting hour of the afternoon. Having already sat through far too many tedious presentations, he had no energy left to focus on the last one. Hyeon-myeong rested his chin on one hand and closed his eyes.
How many seconds had passed like that?
Rustle.
A handout was set down beside him. Still propping up his chin, Hyeon-myeong cracked an eye open.
At that moment, his eyes met a woman’s. Her gaze was far too clear and distinct to simply brush aside.
Fair skin so pale it seemed translucent, large eyes, and a delicate smile that naturally suited her face hovered there with effortless grace.
Startled, Hyeon-myeong flinched, his free elbow knocking against the phone beside him. It had been left carelessly on the desk. Perhaps it had slid forward while he was nodding off; balanced right on the edge, the phone tumbled into the air.
Just as it was about to hit the floor with a thud—
Snatch.
With quick reflexes, the woman caught the falling phone.
Smiling softly as if it were nothing, she set the phone back on the desk. Once she finished handing out all the printouts, her hands free, she walked back to her seat.
Throughout the rest of the lecture, Hyeon-myeong watched only her. Strangely enough, he could not tear his eyes away.
The woman’s name was Hong Yu-yeon.
A computer science major sitting in on business administration lectures, driven by an impressive passion for learning.
A few days later.
Their second encounter was even briefer than the first. In truth, it was closer to witnessing something than meeting at all.
At a university known for intense academic ambition, the entire campus immersed itself in study whenever exam periods arrived. Students took extra care not to disturb one another, which meant they rarely showed interest in accidents or incidents involving people they did not know.
Against that backdrop, the woman’s piercing cry rang out, carrying across several dozen meters. Hyeon-myeong’s gaze tracked the sound. Ordinarily, he would have walked on, but the voice felt strangely familiar, drawing his steps forward as if under a spell.
The voice belonged to Hong Yu-yeon.
Her shout echoing across the grounds had already drawn a crowd. In front of Yu-yeon lay a middle-aged woman, motionless. Kneeling beside the fallen woman with her hands clasped tightly over the center of the chest, Yu-yeon put her full body weight into rapid, deep compressions.
Wherever she had learned it, she performed CPR flawlessly, just as her sharp, clever impression would suggest.
Hair disheveled, face strained. Even as that lovely countenance fell into disarray, Yu-yeon moved with frantic urgency, wholly and desperately focused on the woman before her.
After several cycles of CPR, the woman’s breathing thankfully returned. An unprecedented round of applause broke out across the exam-season campus.
Hong Yu-yeon. She was a woman who, in mere moments, had strangely stirred Hyeon-myeong’s feelings.
Two years later, after completing his military service, Hyeon-myeong sought her out again.
In those two years, Yu-yeon had grown even more beautiful. Naturally, she seemed just as popular. She already had a boyfriend, too. While the poor timing was a slight pity, they shared no real connection anyway, so Hyeon-myeong quickly brushed aside his lingering fondness.
Time moved on once more. Hyeon-myeong continued his unremarkable days, serving whatever purpose was expected of him.
Thinking to himself: what else was there, other than living the life mapped out for him?
What was meant to happen would happen without effort, and what was not would fail no matter how desperately one wished for it. If something could never be, he figured it was better not to desire it at all.
He rarely wanted anything in the first place, and even if he did, it came easily into his grasp, leaving him devoid of desperate longing in every matter. Just as before, his life was devoid of struggle.
Only after more than four years had passed did something resembling a connection with Hong Yu-yeon truly begin.
Having become an executive director at Choi Sun Mulsan, Hyeon-myeong received an unexpected email. Among the dozens piling up every day, his body reacted the moment he spotted the sender’s name: Hong Yu-yeon. Opening it at once, he confirmed that the sender was indeed the Hong Yu-yeon he knew.
After leaving her job at a game company and turning freelance, Yu-yeon had reached out to sell a program she had developed to Choi Sun Mulsan. It seemed she had not emailed him out of any recollection of Hyeon-myeong, but simply because she had contacted the head of the distribution division.
Hyeon-myeong proceeded with a meeting according to standard company procedure, while looking into Yu-yeon’s background on the side. Finding that she was still dating Do Yong-tae, the boyfriend she had been with four years earlier, he added an inquiry into Do Yong-tae as well.
And on that day.
Hyeon-myeong received an unsparing background report on Do Yong-tae.
Claiming he was studying for the patent attorney exam, Yu-yeon’s boyfriend was holed up in a gosiwon, regularly frequenting red-light massage parlors—a complete bastard.
Unaware of such depravity, Hong Yu-yeon had spent years looking only at him with pure devotion.
Sitting across from Yu-yeon alone after learning the truth, everything about her felt frustrating, infuriating. Because this lovely woman was lovely today as well. Because she was bright and spirited. Because she worked far too hard at life.
Knowing nothing of what sort of man her boyfriend was, she had likely handed over every penny she had saved just out of pure affection, and Hyeon-myeong found her pathetic, resenting her despite having no right to.
Picturing Do Yong-tae’s brazen face—squandering his severance pay on massage parlors while leeching gosiwon rent off his girlfriend—ignited a murderous urge Hyeon-myeong had no right to feel.
A right. That damn right.
It was a surge of emotion he had never experienced in his life.
Pushed beyond his emotional limit, Hyeon-myeong had ended up making that provocative offer.
It had been a warped outburst of jealousy. A distorted plea for her to look at a world beyond Do Yong-tae.
That day, watching Hong Yu-yeon storm off as if she would never see him again, Hyeon-myeong resolved to confront her a few days later. He fully intended to lay out everything uncovered about Do Yong-tae.
Yet an unforeseen tragedy rendered all of Hyeon-myeong’s plans meaningless.
Hong Yu-yeon was caught in a traffic accident on her way home after having a meal with her boyfriend.
Her family crumbled, and Hong Yu-yeon fell into a coma.
The world plunged into a long, bitter winter.
If only he had not wasted his breath on sarcasm and told her the truth outright, she would never have gone to eat with her boyfriend, and the accident would never have happened.
As the past washed over him, Hyeon-myeong let out a long sigh, as though blowing out smoke without a cigarette.
Two years ago, it would have shattered her world, but after two years had passed, it had become a truth that hardly mattered whether he told her or not.
‘Would it be better never to speak of it at all?’
With a faint, hollow smirk, Hyeon-myeong took hold of the steering wheel.
Deep in the night, the lights in the hospital corridors were turned off.
Her younger sister Jeong-yeon had gone home, and since they had decided not to keep a nighttime caregiver anymore, Yu-yeon was alone in the room.
After falling into a deep sleep for a spell, Yu-yeon opened her eyes, saw that the night was still far from over, and closed them again.
Just then, the door to the hospital room swung quietly open with the faintest whisper of friction.
Yu-yeon wondered who it could be at this hour, but assuming it was just a nurse checking in on her as usual, she kept still without opening her eyes.
Normally, she would have heard the nurse approaching to check the IV bag or take her temperature, but strangely, there was no sound of movement at all.
Belatedly, Yu-yeon opened her eyes.
A man whose face she could not clearly make out was creeping toward the bed.
Startled by Yu-yeon’s voice, the man in the darkness froze in his tracks.
“Ah, I’m sorry. I have the wrong room.”
With a hasty bow, he turned on his heel and rushed out of the hospital room.
Yu-yeon called after him, but he offered no answer.
The door clicked shut, returning the room to silence.
Only the faint moonlight filtering through the window barely illuminated the room.
Thinking how bizarre that was, Yu-yeon closed her eyes to go back to sleep. But then she opened them again.
The man’s words nagged at her.
‘My name should be right outside the door. How could he have the wrong room?’
The fact that she hadn’t seen his face left her feeling strangely uneasy.
Yu-yeon reached out and woke the screen of the phone Jeong-yeon had left behind.
1:25 AM. It was far too absurd an hour to be visiting a patient.