The stale scent of yesterday's rain still clung to the corners of the photo shop, mingling with the sharper tang of chemicals. Morning light, weak and watery, filtered through the streaked front window. Y/N was refilling paper trays behind the counter when the bell jingled, less harshly than last night.

Taehyung leaned against the doorframe, a familiar insulated lunch container dangling from his fingers. "Left this on your porch step," he announced, his voice easy, familiar. He crossed the small space and set the container down on the glass countertop with a soft thump. "Halmeoni looked ready to march down here herself when she realized."

Y/N stopped her task, wiping her hands on a lint cloth. "Ah. Thank you." Her tone wasn't warm, but the brittle edge from last night was gone, replaced by a weary acknowledgment. She took the container, the warmth seeping into her palms. "I got caught up closing."

Taehyung propped his elbows on the counter, watching her stow the lunch under the register. "Shop busy?" He nodded towards the empty space.

"Quiet morning." She picked up a lens cloth, meticulously cleaning a display camera that didn't need it. Her gaze stayed on her task.

He shifted, the casual posture tightening slightly. "And... the other thing? Any bites?" He kept it vague, respectful of the weight it carried.

Her movements didn't falter. "Still looking." The cloth moved in precise circles. "Applied for a subtitling contract last night. Technical manual." She didn't sound hopeful. Just factual.

Taehyung was quiet for a beat. He knew better than to offer empty platitudes about 'something turning up'. He’d seen the strain around her eyes, the careful way she managed the shop’s accounts, the silent worry for her grandfather. "Technical manuals need sharp minds," he said instead, his voice low and steady. "Precision. You’ve got that."

He tapped a finger lightly on the glass counter. "Remember that convoluted legal document for Professor Kim you untangled in university? The one that made the actual lawyers blink? You’ll find it, Y/N. It’s just... timing. And you’re too damn talented for it not to happen." His words weren't loud or overly bright. They held the quiet conviction of someone who’d known her competence for years.

Y/N finally looked up from the camera, meeting his eyes for a brief moment. No smile touched her lips, but a fraction of the tension in her shoulders seemed to ease. It wasn't joy; it was the faint, almost imperceptible relief of being seen, of competence acknowledged without fuss. "We'll see," she murmured, her voice flat but lacking the earlier bleakness. She placed the cleaned camera back on its stand with deliberate care. "Thanks. For the lunch. And... for saying that."

He pushed off the counter, a small, understanding nod his only reply. "Don't let the japchae get cold." He turned towards the door, the bell giving a softer chime this time as he left. She watched his retreating back for a second, then turned back to the counter. Her hand rested briefly on the warm lunch container before she pulled her laptop closer, the job board tab already open. The cursor blinked in the search bar, patient and persistent.

| 𝐖 |

The afternoon sun bled pale gold through the photo shop’s large window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the still air. Y/N was meticulously cataloging negatives at the back counter, the soft shfft of sleeves the only sound, when the bell chimed. Not the cheerful jingle of a regular, but a single, decisive note that sliced through the quiet.

She didn't turn immediately, finishing the notation on the envelope in her precise hand. A presence solidified near the entrance – a stillness that felt less like waiting and more like an imposition. She capped her pen deliberately, the soft click loud in the new silence, then turned.

Jeon Jungkook stood just inside the threshold. No rain today, no protective jacket. He wore immaculate black – a fine-knit sweater, dark jeans, boots polished to a dull sheen. Hands were thrust deep into his pockets, shoulders squared beneath the expensive fabric. The afternoon light fell harshly across his face, etching the sharp lines of his jaw, the unforgiving planes of his cheeks, the deep hollows beneath his eyes. There was no expression there. Not impatience, not apology. Only a focused, unnerving vacancy. His gaze, when it landed on her, was like twin shards of obsidian – flat, dark, absorbing all light and giving nothing back.

"Choi Y/N."

Her name in his voice was a statement, not a greeting. Low, resonant, stripped of inflection. It wasn't a question. It was an identification, an assertion of purpose.

Y/N moved from the back counter to the front register, her steps measured, betraying nothing. She stopped behind the glass countertop, placing her hands flat on its cool surface. She didn't offer a smile. Didn't speak. The air between them crackled with a taut silence, thick with the unspoken weight of last night's rain, his reputation, and the passport photos now presumably tucked away.

Wordlessly, he withdrew his right hand. Between his thumb and forefinger, held with deliberate precision, was a single, crisp 10,000 won note. Not folded. Not crumpled. Presented like a sterile exhibit. He didn't extend it towards her; he simply held it aloft, suspended in the space between them.

"Passport photos," he stated. Two words. No pleasantry. No reference to the forgotten wallet, the rain, the awkwardness of his departure. Just the transaction named, cold and absolute.

Y/N didn't blink. She reached beneath the counter, her movements economical, and slid the cash drawer open. The metallic rasp echoed sharply. Her eyes stayed fixed on the drawer as she selected the exact change: three 1,000 won notes, ten 100 won coins. She placed them on the counter beside the register, arranging them in a neat, deliberate stack. Only then did her gaze lift, meeting his. Her own expression was a mirror of his impassivity – carefully schooled, revealing nothing. A wall of ice facing a wall of stone.

"Four thousand won," she stated, her voice level, devoid of warmth or welcome. She didn't reach for his bill. She merely indicated her stacked change with the faintest tilt of her head.

"The quality was functional," he amended his earlier, sparse assessment. The word ‘functional’ landed like a pebble dropped in still water. It wasn’t praise; it was a bare acknowledgment of minimum standards. Then, without shifting his gaze, he added, "You offer registered mail services here?"

The question was abrupt, jarringly out of place. It hung in the charged air, sharp as the bell’s earlier chime. Why? The question screamed silently in Y/N’s mind. What possible need could he have for registered mail at a neighborhood photo shop?

She held his stare, refusing to flinch. A sliver of cold surprise threatened her composure, instantly clamped down. "We accept pre-paid parcels for customer pickup," she clarified, her tone maintaining its careful neutrality, though the ice beneath it thickened. "We are not an authorized postal outlet for initiating registered delivery." She emphasized the distinction, her words precise, leaving no ambiguity.

He absorbed this. His expression didn't flicker. No nod, no frown. Only that unnerving, unwavering stare holding hers for three long, silent heartbeats. He was measuring her answer, her reaction, the subtle tightening around her eyes. Then, with a swiftness that was almost startling, his hand darted out. Not towards her, but towards the change. His fingers closed around the coins and bills in one fluid, efficient motion, scooping them off the counter. He didn't count them. He didn't look at them.

The coins disappeared into his pocket. He turned on his heel, a single, sharp pivot, and walked towards the door. No farewell. No acknowledgment of the 10,000 won note lying abandoned on the counter beside her pen.

The bell chimed again as he pushed through the door, stepping into the mundane afternoon light. He didn't glance back. He strode away, his posture rigid, disappearing down the sidewalk. The crisp banknote remained, a stark rectangle of green against the pale countertop. It wasn't payment; it felt like a deliberate token left behind. A marker.

The abandoned 10,000 won note lay untouched on the countertop when Y/N’s phone buzzed, shattering the heavy silence left by Jungkook. She answered, her voice flat but clear.

"Y/N-ah," her grandmother’s voice crackled slightly through the speaker, laced with its usual quiet urgency. "An order for the memorial service. It needs delivering before five. Can you come?"

Y/N glanced at the clock, then at the unclaimed money. "I’ll be there shortly, Halmeoni," she stated, her tone devoid of inflection but carrying the necessary assent. She ended the call, pocketed the phone, and turned away from the counter, leaving the crisp bill where it lay. The scent of sandalwood still hung faintly in the air as she reached for her keys.

| 𝐖 |

The scooter’s worn seat vibrated beneath her, a constant thrum matching the idle of the engine between her knees. Seoul’s afternoon pressed in – a wall of humid air thick with exhaust fumes, the cacophony of traffic horns, and the low drone of a thousand engines. White chrysanthemums, shrouded in crackling cellophane, lay in the scooter’s footwell, their earthy, slightly bitter scent a fragile counterpoint to the city’s metallic breath. Y/N gripped the handlebars, knuckles pale, her gaze fixed on the stubborn red light hanging over the intersection. Ten minutes already lost in this gridlock. Halmeoni would be worrying.

A sudden, capricious gust of wind, funneled like a river between the canyon walls of glass and steel high-rises, tore down the street. It snatched debris from overflowing bins – discarded wrappers, a plastic bag, and a single, flimsy leaflet. It cartwheeled wildly, a pale blur against the grimy asphalt, before smacking flat against the scratched plastic of her visor with a startling thwack, obscuring her view.

Y/N flinched, a rare saddress of irritation flashing through her usual apathy. With a gloved hand, she peeled the damp paper off her visor. It clung stubbornly before fluttering down to land across the handlebars, partially covering the speedometer. Annoyed, she crumpled it roughly, ready to toss it onto the already littered street.

Then, the bold, blocky print snagged her eye, stark against the cheap, greyish paper:

The roar of the city seemed to recede, muffled by the sudden, hammering pulse in her own ears. Fourteen languages. They lived inside her skull, a complex, humming archive. This list? It wasn't just familiar; it felt like someone had reached into her mind and pulled out seven specific keys.

It was absurdly, impossibly specific. A constellation of linguistic requirements aligning perfectly with the scattered stars of her own history. Overqualified wasn't the word. This wasn't a job she could do; it felt like a lock designed for the unique, intricate shape of her key.

Her gaze, sharp now, laser-focused, snapped to the small print crammed at the bottom:

47 Gwanak-ro 41-gil. The breath caught in her throat. Suite 3B in the Sejong Building was adjacent, sharing a wall or perhaps just a narrow alley.

A sound escaped her – not a laugh, but a short, harsh exhalation that fogged the inside of her visor for a second. Bitter disbelief warred with a cold, sharp jolt of something dangerously close to adrenaline. Fate, if she believed in such things, wasn't just knocking; it had shoved a flyer in her face while she was stuck at a red light.

Behind her, an impatient taxi driver leaned on his horn, a long, blaring wail that shattered the momentary bubble of shock. The light had turned green. Traffic surged forward.

Y/N acted on pure instinct. She crumpled the precious leaflet tightly, its damp edges digging into her palm through the glove, and shoved it deep into the pocket of her jacket, zipping it shut. The paper felt like a live wire against her side. She twisted the scooter’s throttle. The engine whined in protest before leaping forward, weaving into the gap in the traffic. The scent of chrysanthemums intensified as the bouquet shifted, mingling with petrol fumes and the electric tang of sudden, overwhelming possibility.

She had a memorial bouquet to deliver to the Addresss at number 45. And now, imprinted on her mind as clearly as the address, was the knowledge that tomorrow, at 47, Suite 3B, a door might open – a door bizarrely, perfectly shaped for her alone. The city blurred around her, not as a prison of noise and delay, but suddenly, terrifyingly, as a landscape where impossible things could land right in your lap. Or on your visor.

| 𝐖 |

Y/N parked Taehyung’s scooter, the bouquet of white chrysanthemums cradled awkwardly in one arm. The air in the narrow alley felt thick, still. She pushed through the building’s heavy main door into a dim, cool foyer smelling faintly of stale incense and floor polish. Apartment 4C.

She pressed the buzzer. Moments later, the door opened a crack, revealing a harried-looking young man in a black dress shirt slightly too big for him – clearly an assistant. He offered a tight, professional smile.

"Jeon residence? Flower delivery for the—"

Before she could finish, a low, cold voice cut through from the shadowed hallway behind the assistant. "You know how much I hate when someone else touches them, Minho."

The assistant flinched, stepping back instantly as if burned. "Sir, I was just—"

"Just standing there." Jeon Jungkook emerged into the sliver of light from the open door. He wore another black sweater, sleeves pushed up his forearms, his expression carved from stone. He didn’t look at Y/N. His focus was entirely on the flowers.

He reached out, his movements precise and devoid of hesitation, and took the bouquet from her arms. His fingers brushed hers – a brief, impersonal contact as cold as his voice. He handled the chrysanthemums with a peculiar, almost reverential care, adjusting the cellophane, his gaze tracing the white petals. The scent of the blooms seemed to intensify in the charged silence.

Still without looking at her face, he reached into his back pocket with his free hand, pulled out a slim leather wallet, and extracted a single, crisp 50,000 won note. He held it out towards her, his arm extended, his eyes still fixed on the flowers in his other hand. It wasn’t dismissive; it was as if she were merely an extension of the delivery service, invisible beyond her function.

"Payment," he stated, the word flat and final.

Y/N stared at the outstretched bill, then at his profile – the sharp line of his jaw, the intense focus on the white blooms. The crumpled leaflet in her pocket felt like a brand. The address for the translator job – Suite 3B in the building next door – pulsed in her mind. This man, receiving memorial flowers with cold intensity, lived practically adjacent to where her potential future might start tomorrow.

She took the note. Her fingers didn't tremble this time. "Thank you," she said, her voice carefully neutral, matching his detachment. She didn't mention change. He clearly didn't expect it. Nor did she expect acknowledgment.

He gave none. As soon as the note left his fingers, he turned away, stepping back into the apartment's dim interior, the chrysanthemums held close. The assistant, Minho, gave Y/N a swift, almost apologetic glance before silently closing the door.

The heavy thud echoed in the quiet foyer. Y/N stood for a moment, the 50,000 won note smooth and cool in her hand, the scent of chrysanthemums and something older, like sandalwood and grief, lingering in the air. Down the hall, through a half-open doorway, she caught a glimpse of a framed photograph on a low table – a woman’s smiling face wreathed in incense smoke. She looked away quickly.

Turning, she walked back into the humid alley, the roar of the city rushing back. She unzipped her jacket pocket, her fingers closing around the crumpled leaflet. Tomorrow. 10 AM. Suite 3B. She shoved the leaflet back down, climbed onto the scooter, and kicked it to life, the engine’s whine a welcome distraction from the charged silence still clinging to her skin and the unsettling image of Jungkook cradling those pure white chrysanthemums like fragile, frozen ghosts.

| 𝐖 |

The Seoul National Cemetery stretched grey and silent under a low, bruised sky. Rain threatened, hanging heavy in the still air, the scent of damp earth and pine resin thick enough to taste. Jeon Jungkook stood before a simple granite slab, polished to a cold sheen. No ostentatious angel, no sprawling monument. Just a name, dates too close together, and the stark, carved characters: Beloved Wife.

For long minutes, he was utterly still. A statue carved from grief and granite. The only movement was the subtle rise and fall of his chest beneath the black wool coat. The silence wasn't peaceful; it was a physical pressure, dense and suffocating. Birdsong felt like an intrusion. The distant hum of the city, a sacrilege.

He knelt. Not with reverence, but with the slow, stiff collapse of something breaking. His expensive trousers sank into the damp grass, heedless of the mud. His gaze remained fixed on the name etched in stone.

With meticulous, almost painful slowness, he lifted a hand. Not to touch the inscription, but to brush away invisible dust from the cold, smooth surface. His fingertips traced the edge of the stone, the movement precise, tender in a way his interactions with the living never were. He adjusted a single, stray blade of grass encroaching on the base.

Then, the rigidity shattered.

His shoulders slumped forward, a silent, seismic shift. His spine curved, the proud posture dissolving. Slowly, with infinite weariness, he lowered his forehead until it pressed against the cold, unyielding granite. Right above her name.

He didn’t weep. No sound escaped him. No tremor shook his frame. He simply rested his head there, his dark hair stark against the grey stone. His eyes squeezed shut, the lines of his face – usually sharp with control or cold indifference – contorted into an agony so profound it was wordless. It was the posture of utter exhaustion, of a man finally succumbing to a weight he’d carried alone for two long years. A silent plea pressed into cold rock.

The dampness of the grave seeped into his skin. The scent of wet earth and stone filled his nostrils, replacing the phantom sandalwood. His breath fogged faintly on the polished surface near his mouth, a fleeting, pathetic warmth against the eternal cold.

He stayed like that. Minutes bled into one another, marked only by the deepening chill in the air and the first, fat drops of rain that began to fall, splashing cold onto his coat, his neck, the stone beneath his cheek. He didn’t flinch. He absorbed it, as if the rain were the only thing left that could touch him, a physical manifestation of the desolation within.

It wasn’t an embrace. It was a surrender. A man laying his broken weight against the only thing left solid in his world, the immutable fact of her absence carved in stone. The proud director, the man whispered about in fear and suspicion, reduced here to this: a solitary figure bowed in silent, unbearable anguish against a cold grave, the rain beginning its indifferent descent.

The rain fell harder now, icy needles against his neck, soaking into the wool of his coat where it met the unyielding granite. Jungkook didn’t lift his head. The cold seeped into his skin, into his bones, a familiar, grounding pain. It was easier than the other pain, the one that lived inside the hollowed-out cavity of his chest.

Behind his closed eyelids, it wasn't darkness. It was her.

Not scenes unfolding like a film – he’d long since forbidden himself that particular torture. Instead, it was fractured sensory echoes, sharp and unbidden, piercing the numbness he cultivated like a shield.

The scent of jasmine and turpentine. She’d paint in the cramped studio corner of their first apartment, humming off-key, her hands smudged with vibrant oils, the sharp tang of solvents always battling the delicate perfume she loved. He’d pretend to read scripts, watching her fierce concentration dissolve into sudden, brilliant smiles when a colour worked.

The phantom warmth against his side on a sofa that felt too large now. Sunday afternoons drowned in silence, not the heavy kind he lived in now, but a comfortable, shared quiet. Her head resting on his shoulder, the soft rhythm of her breath, the faint rustle of pages as she devoured another novel, her bare feet tucked under his thigh. He’d trace idle patterns on her arm, a wordless anchor.

The sharp, metallic taste of her anger. Not the cold fury he wielded like a weapon, but a bright, hot spark. Arguments that crackled – about his long hours, her stubborn independence, the messy chaos of her art supplies invading his meticulously ordered study. He’d storm out, slamming the door, only to return hours later, contrite, finding her asleep at her easel, a streak of cobalt blue on her cheekbone. He’d carry her to bed, the anger already a spent fire, replaced by a fierce, protective ache.

The sound of rain on a tin roof, not this cold cemetery deluge. Huddled together on a rickety porch during a sudden mountain downpour on their first anniversary trip, sharing a single, scratchy blanket. Her laughter, bright and startled, as a leak dripped icy water onto his head. The way she’d pressed closer, her chilled fingers seeking warmth under his shirt, whispering promises against his skin that felt eternal then.

Now, pressed against the stone that bore her name, those fragments weren't comforting ghosts. They were shards of glass raked across his soul. The jasmine scent was choked by damp earth and decay. The warmth was replaced by the relentless chill leaching from the grave. The taste of her anger was ash in his mouth. The sound of rain on that tin roof was drowned by this relentless, indifferent downpour on Seoul’s stone and silence.

He remembered the weight of her hand in his, small but strong. The impossible lightness of her laughter. The fierce, uncomplicated way she’d believed in him before the world twisted his ambition into something darker. Before the whispers started. Before the hollow space beside him became an abyss.

He had built walls of ice to survive the world’s suspicion, the suffocating pity, the gnawing guilt that was his constant companion. But here, against this cold stone, those walls crumbled. Not into tears – he’d forgotten how – but into the crushing weight of pure, unmitigated absence. The brutal, inescapable truth: she was gone. The shared silences, the fiery arguments, the stolen warmth, the scent of jasmine and paint… all gone. Reduced to echoes in a hollow man, pressed against a slab of rock in the rain.

The memories didn’t soothe. They condemned. They were the measure of everything he’d lost, everything he’d failed to protect, everything he could never reclaim. They were the life he’d had, starkly contrasted against the desolate landscape of the life he endured. The rain soaked through, plastering his hair to his forehead, mingling with the dampness on the stone beneath his cheek – indistinguishable from tears he couldn’t shed. He didn’t move. He simply endured the onslaught of the past, letting it break against the immutable, cold reality of the present, etched forever in granite: Beloved Wife. Two words holding an ocean of silent, shattering grief.

The rain plastered Jungkook’s hair to his forehead, icy rivulets tracing paths down his temples, over the sharp planes of his cheeks. His forehead remained pressed against the cold granite, the carved letters of Beloved Wife biting into his skin. His eyes were squeezed shut, jaw clenched so tightly a muscle spasmed in his cheek.

Then, against the iron grip of his will, it happened.

A single, hot tear welled at the corner of his left eye, defying the cold rain. It swelled, heavy and insistent, before spilling over. It traced a scalding path through the rainwater, distinct in its warmth, before vanishing into the soaked collar of his coat. Another followed from his right eye, a silent traitor escaping the fortress of his control. They fell steadily now, mingling with the indifferent rain, a silent, involuntary rebellion of the body against the frozen wasteland within.

Inside, where his heart should have been a raw, beating wound, there was only a vast, glacial emptiness. The tears were a biological betrayal, saltwater seepage from a reservoir he’d thought long frozen solid. They held no warmth, no release. They were simply… leakage. Evidence of a system under extreme, unsustainable pressure. The profound sorrow that should have fueled them was buried too deep beneath layers of guilt, suspicion, and a cold fury that burned without light.

He felt the damp heat on his skin, the slight tremor in his closed eyelids as more tears were forced out, yet his core remained encased in ice. The memories – the jasmine, the shared warmth, the laughter in the rain – didn’t soften the void; they highlighted its absolute, suffocating depth. They were ghosts haunting a mausoleum he’d built within himself.

He didn’t sob. His breath hitched only once, a barely audible catch quickly suppressed. The tears fell silently, relentlessly, onto the stone beneath his cheek, indistinguishable from the rain to any observer but carrying the unbearable, invisible weight of his contradiction: a body weeping, a soul encased in permafrost.

Slowly, painfully, he lifted his head. Rain and tears streaked his face, glistening in the grey light. His eyes, when they opened, were red-rimmed, wet, yet utterly devoid of the softness grief should bring. They held only a bleak, hollowed-out exhaustion and a familiar, chilling distance. He stared at the name on the stone, his gaze unwavering, intense. His lips, pale and cold, parted. The voice that emerged was a raw scrape, barely louder than the falling rain, devoid of pleading, filled instead with a cold, desperate conviction aimed at the silent earth and unforgiving stone

“You know I didn’t kill you.”