The One Who Endured (1)
When Cheon Seong’s fingertips brushed against her, Beatrice’s garments slipped softly away.
“Beatrice, you…?”
The words came half-choked, little more than a whisper. Beyond the fallen edge of cloth upon her shoulders, white, smooth skin drank in the moonlight. In that moment Cheon Seong could not tear his eyes away.
It was beauty like a statue wrought of silver. Yet this was living, breathing flesh—hot and fluid and human. Her form in its natural state. Something quiet yet intense, almost too precious to put into words. In metaphor: the purity humanity had possessed at the dawn of time. In plain terms: she simply stood before him without a single layer of clothing, gazing at him.
Cheon Seong closed his eyes and swallowed hard. His heart surged. Until now it had been nothing more than fleeting imagination. But now, in this very moment, she was right before his eyes—within reach of his hands, surrendering everything.
There had been several chances to see Beatrice bare before, but those had been accidents, or coincidences, or her playful, half-joking seductions. This time was different. This time she had guided his own hands to undress her.
His heart pounded wildly. From deep within his body, hot blood surged upward. He thought he could even hear the sound of dark-crimson possessiveness igniting—like a beast long asleep in the depths of his being opening its eyes.
Take this woman.
Instinct whispered. The being standing before him transcended mere beauty; she was shaking Cheon Seong to his very core.
He reached out. Without hesitation, yet carefully. His fingers trailed along her back, and Beatrice let out a small breath.
“Nn…”
At that short sound, Cheon Seong’s mind went blank. It was clearly a response laced with shyness—neither rejection nor fear. Rather, a trembling breath as she offered herself. She was accepting him.
“Beatrice… From now on, you’re mine.”
His voice flowed, buried in his breath. He whispered as he wrapped his arms around the curve of her waist.
“Your heart, this warm body heat, everything… is mine.”
His fingertips did not merely graze her skin. He felt the emotions within, even the quiet tremors. And in that moment Cheon Seong realized that he was walking a dangerously precarious line somewhere between love and desire.
Yet Beatrice did not smile. There was no joke, no playfulness. Her eyes were more serious and quiet than ever.
“I am truly glad. That thou still seest me as a woman. But… there are a few things I must correct.”
Cheon Seong started to speak, then closed his mouth. Suddenly she pulled him into her embrace, and his head was buried against her chest.
“What are you doing…?”
He looked up at her with flustered eyes. But Beatrice met his gaze quietly and spoke.
“In all my life, the one with whom I have formed so deep a bond is—no. There is only one. Thee alone.”
Cheon Seong’s breath stopped. More than the warmth of her body against him, those words struck his heart harder.
“Yes. Because the years I have lived are long, many have sought to tempt me, yet thou art the first and the last to whom I have given both my heart and my body.”
Her words engraved themselves upon his chest as if branded there. In that moment the desire that had been gripping Cheon Seong quietly changed its depth. Not mere possession, but the wish to protect. Beyond the burning desire, an endlessly human emotion welled up.
Cheon Seong slowly slipped free of her embrace. Unable to meet her eyes, his bowed face was flushed red.
“…I’m sorry. Beatrice. For not trusting you… I’m truly sorry.”
The emotion in that single phrase was no mere apology. It was shame, self-reproach, disappointment in himself. The times he had loved her yet failed to trust her. The weight of those times settled upon his shoulders in this moment.
Then Beatrice smiled slowly and spoke.
“It is all right. But if thou art truly sorry… wouldst thou call me ‘Noona’ once more?”
At those words Cheon Seong could not speak for a moment. Then he gently closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
“…Yeah. Noona.”
That single word colored the corners of Beatrice’s lips. She quietly embraced Cheon Seong. The emotions flowing between them were no longer desire alone. Within them was comfort, affection, a deep bond.
Cheon Seong closed his eyes within her arms. Entrusting himself to that warm heat, he buried himself in her embrace like a child.
“My dear. Wilt thou tell me the reason thou hast refused my temptations all this time?”
Her question was low and careful. Cheon Seong gave a slight nod. It took a moment before he could open his mouth, but at last he began to speak, slowly, with complete honesty.
“At first I was just… confused. The feelings changing so fast—I couldn’t handle them. Just getting by thinking of Yuna was already overwhelming… and before I knew it I was thinking of you.”
Beatrice said nothing, gently patting his back. Cheon Seong continued.
“I wondered if it was right for me, who would have to leave in a few years, to tangle our feelings any further. So your temptations too… I deliberately ignored them, and refused them. But… after I accepted Yuna, all of that collapsed.”
His throat tightened. He steadied his breath for a beat, then carefully opened his mouth again.
“After I accepted Yuna as my lover… after I held her, there was no longer any reason to hide those feelings from you either. But when the moment actually came, I was scared. What if… you had someone else besides me? What if Hana was… that person’s child…”
The words were almost a whisper. Even so the emotion was raw beyond measure. He squeezed his eyes shut. He was afraid of having his feelings exposed, and more than anything, the fact that he had harbored such suspicions was unbearably shameful.
Really, I’m the worst. To someone who has looked at me with such sincerity all this time… I harbored such vile suspicions.
Self-loathing washed over him. Cheon Seong clenched his teeth. He vowed inwardly to acknowledge and accept all of this sin.
Even if Beatrice hates me, abandons me… that’s a punishment I deserve.
But Beatrice looked at such a Cheon Seong and smiled without a word. She neither reproached him nor coldly pushed him away. Instead she quietly reached out, cradled his cheek, and spoke.
“So that was it… Thou wert carrying such feelings. I am sorry. If only I had drawn closer a little sooner… I would not have left thee to hurt alone like that.”
Cheon Seong lost his words. In this moment, seeing her not only forgive him but blame herself instead, something burst from deep in his chest.
“No, don’t. Please don’t, Noona. It’s all my fault. Because I was inadequate, because I was a coward… because I couldn’t trust you… I’m truly sorry.”
With trembling hands he covered her hand. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes.
“Then let us call it the fault of us both. It is not something for thee to bear alone.”
She gently wrapped her arms around Cheon Seong’s body. Within that embrace he could say nothing more. He could only breathe. The countless emotions carried in that breath began, at last, to settle slowly.
Cheon Seong trembled slightly in Beatrice’s arms. That trembling did not come from cold. Even within that embrace overflowing with warmth, his heart was endlessly cold.
Why… why do you love someone like me this much…
Emotions too complex to explain in words were tangled together. And at last those emotions spilled out as words.
“Why… why do you love someone like me, Noona? Why did you keep believing in me to the end, when I always put you second? Why… didn’t you abandon me…?”
The question was desperately urgent—a desperation as if he would collapse out of this world if he did not hear the answer. Inner anxiety, regret, and self-loathing were all tangled together. Reason held him back. If he asked something like this, he might only be hurt again. But instinct could not endure. He needed the truth. Not unconditional forgiveness, but a reason for the emotion that he could accept.
Cheon Seong’s heart raced right beside his ear. He could not breathe. In the tension as if his heart might stop at any moment, Beatrice opened her mouth.
“That… I cannot tell thee just yet.”
It was an unexpected answer. Words that might seem like evasion, neither confirmation nor comfort. Cheon Seong’s heart sank with a lurch. But then her fingertips carefully caressed his cheek. In that touch there was neither hesitation nor falsehood.
“But this much I can tell thee.”
She gently guided his hand and placed it over her own heart. Cheon Seong could offer no resistance, following the lead of her hand.
“Even if thou disappointest me, even if thou leavest me coldly, even if thou betrayest me—no matter what happens—I shall love thee unchangingly.”
Those words drove straight into Cheon Seong’s chest. The beat of her heart traveled through his palm. The rhythm was quiet yet firm.
Thump, thump, thump—
A pulse with neither falsehood nor hesitation. The corners of Cheon Seong’s eyes reddened. The dam of his tears broke.
“Thank you… thank you so much, Noona… for someone like me, for this me… thank you so much….”
With his head bowed he buried his face in Beatrice’s shoulder and wept without a sound. That weeping was like a child held in a parent’s arms for the first time—the weeping of the moment when all anxiety and tension collapsed.
When the tears stopped, he steadied his breath and raised his body. Looking at her with reddened eyelids, he smiled.
“…Brace yourself, Noona.”
He had decided now not to hide this emotion any longer. As long as she held him this deeply—he too would no longer hesitate.
At those words Beatrice laughed lightly. Stroking his hair, she quietly opened her mouth.
“Come to think of it, there is one thing I have not yet corrected.”
“…Hm? What is th—”
Whoosh!
Cheon Seong’s vision suddenly spun. The sensation of his body tilting and being pressed onto his back. In that instant, Beatrice mounted atop him.
“…Uh…?”
Cheon Seong was flustered. It had been far too sudden. The self who had been weeping under the weight of emotion until a moment ago was now completely reversed. She moistened her lips lightly with a scarlet tongue and smiled slowly.
“The one who has been enduring… is not thee alone, Cheon Seong.”
Her gaze was like that of a beast of prey. The eyes of instinct that would no longer hold back with its quarry before it.