Exposure (19)
The whisper carried an overt, deliberate intent to seduce—a slightly coquettish lilt laced with a heartbreaking fragility. It was the voice of a truly detestable woman, yet it held a strange, almost demonic power of temptation. It was more than enough to root Seoyeon in place just as she had been about to turn away.
By now, the girl was staring at the pair on the distant bench with a gaze so intense it seemed ready to pierce straight through them. But when Yeon Minha made her suggestion, the male student responded in a somewhat troubled tone, clearly declining.
“Here… you mean…?”
“Yes. I don’t mind if you stay undressed when you’re with me.”
“…It feels a bit inappropriate outdoors.”
“Why…? Are you worried someone else might see…?”
“…”
He answered with silence.
“It’s fine. At this hour, past curfew, we’re the only ones out here. Sometimes you need a bit of fresh air…”
Yet Yeon Minha continued her persuasion, her voice carrying an almost desperate edge.
“If you’re really that uneasy, should I spread my spirits out to check…? Then…”
The moment he heard those words, Seoyeon’s heart plummeted.
She reflexively tightened the hand covering her mouth, but she knew it was pointless. Even if she could hide her presence, there was no way a spirit would fail to detect the high-density particles her jealousy was emitting.
However, after a brief moment of consideration, the male student shook his head.
“There’s no need for that. Besides, the connection with spirits grows stronger at night, doesn’t it? We should still be cautious.”
“I-I think I’ll be okay…”
At his reply, Yeon Minha trailed off as if flustered. But contrary to her tone, her face was flooded with satisfaction—a thick, sticky emotion born from the fact that he was worrying about her.
Watching the scene, Seoyeon felt an inexplicable surge of irritation. At the same time, a sharp ache began to bloom in her chest.
“…”
After a short deliberation that lasted little more than a minute, the masked male student finally gave a small nod, accepting Yeon Minha’s proposal.
“Just… for a little while…”
With those words, he raised both hands to the clasps on his mask. Yeon Minha’s throat bobbed repeatedly as she swallowed, hard. Seoyeon was hardly any different. Her heart hammered violently, pumping blood through her entire body with ferocious force. Her eyes remained fixed on him without a single blink.
Click.
Click.
With practiced fingers, he undid the clasps one by one.
Click.
Click.
The night was exceptionally quiet, so the metallic sounds echoed loudly, ringing through the surroundings.
…Click.
After what felt like an eternity compressed into a single instant, every clasp hung loose and defenseless. He applied a light tug, pulling the mask forward.
And at last, the shell that had concealed something secret and precious peeled away, revealing everything beneath without reservation.
“…!”
Seoyeon couldn’t speak.
The contradictory suspicion that had tormented her so relentlessly these past few days—the final piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place.
Seoyeon bit down hard on her own fingers to keep from making a sound. Blood trickled from the torn skin, but she paid it no mind. A heavy numbness filled her chest, and tears welled up in her eyes, falling in fat drops to the ground.
Hair the color of deep, rich ink, fluttering and scattering in the gentle breeze. Clear, vivid blue eyes that seemed ready to pull you in at any moment. That characteristically blunt expression that might seem curt at first glance, but was actually filled with nothing but shyness.
Everything was exactly as she remembered.
It was an undeniable truth, no matter what anyone said.
The masked male student was, without question, the very boy she had known.
All her previous speculations crumbled into nothing the moment the mask fell away. But Seoyeon had already forgotten those details long ago. In the face of the joy that he was alive, everything else was meaningless.
Now, not even the tiniest speck of doubt remained about the boy’s identity. Certainty dragged her into the realm of pure instinct. Before she knew it, her eyes were devouring every inch of him.
The boy was still a boy, but upon closer inspection, he wasn’t entirely unchanged. His nose was still straight and elegant, yet the corners of his eyes had grown slightly deeper, and his jawline had sharpened with a more resolute angle. The once purely innocent gaze now carried a sharpness that hadn’t been there before. And then there was that low, resonant voice, thick with steadfast reliability.
But the greatest change was in his physique. He was now a full head taller than her—his once adorable frame that had fit so perfectly in her arms had grown massive enough to envelop her with a single embrace. Just the breadth of his shoulders and the glimpse of his arms made it easy to imagine the solid, muscular body beneath.
The pure, innocent boy she had once wanted to bite simply from looking at him had returned before her as a complete man.
At the mere awareness of him, heat flooded Seoyeon’s entire body and face. She could easily imagine how flushed her cheeks had become. The old him had been unbearably lovable, but the current him stirred something far beyond mere instinctual attraction.
Over the past two years, she had become even more dazzlingly beautiful. She had learned how to care for and adorn herself, and her body had developed even more alluring, gracefully curved lines. Meanwhile, he had grown larger and harder. What had once been meaningless lumps of flesh when he was just a boy were now elements that made her crave him even more intensely.
Seoyeon felt an overwhelming urge to throw herself into his arms. After that, she wanted to rub her entire body against him—from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes—covering him thoroughly with her own scent.
Because he was the one everyone had been so curious about. He was her beloved fiancé, the one she could never stop loving.
“How is it…? Nice, right…?”
But the next moment, the interloper’s voice rang out, and the elation swelling in Seoyeon’s chest instantly turned ice-cold.
She glared at Yeon Minha with eyes filled with vicious hatred and fury.
“…It’s nice. I can feel the breeze, and the view feels much brighter and clearer…”
Oblivious to her feelings, the boy continued to look around with an awkward expression. Then he gave a small, satisfied nod.
“It reminds me of the village I used to live in. There was a hill there covered in white flowers just like these. Whenever I had time, I would lie down there and spend hours…”
Just hearing the voice thick with nostalgia instantly melted away Seoyeon’s anger. Instead, an almost foolishly bright smile spread across her face.
He liked this place for the same reason she did. And needless to say, the only person who had ever lain beside him there was her. They shared the same memories and the same longing.
Therefore, the only person who belonged at his side was naturally her.
Once she thought that, the sight of that female student clinging so tightly to his side began to grate on her even more.
Of course, his charm needed no explanation. It was only natural that women would flock to him like bees to flowers. But why wasn’t the boy pushing Yeon Minha away?
As far as Seoyeon knew, Yeon Minha was the embodiment of the most terrible arrogance and insolence—precisely the kind of personality the boy hated most. There had been a time when Seoyeon herself had been like that. It had taken her several long months of painstaking effort to drain every last drop of that poison and transform herself into the kind of woman who could capture his heart.
It had been grueling and exhausting, but the moment she saw that once-cold gaze begin to flicker with affection, the joy had been indescribable. Now she had learned to maintain a certain outward demeanor, but Yeon Minha made no such minimal effort.
So why… why was he looking at that girl with such gentle eyes?
“…”
Seoyeon desperately tried to calm her boiling emotions. She forced herself to analyze the current situation as mechanically and logically as possible.
In the first place, it had been the boy who chose Yeon Minha during the mentoring selection process. But there were doubts about whether he had done so of his own free will. As she had thought earlier, Yeon Minha’s exceptional venomousness was exactly the type of personality he despised most.
Therefore, it was possible that someone else’s influence had been involved in the process itself. The Black Lotus, or perhaps the headmaster. In any case, the interference of someone who did not welcome the Paecheon family’s monopoly.
Although he could be blunt, impulsive, and quick to anger, Seoyeon knew better than anyone that he possessed a warmer, more compassionate heart than most.
That would explain why he had not abandoned Yeon Minha even after the Red Fire family had fallen so miserably. Even if their bond had begun under a degree of coercion.
Perhaps the attitude Yeon Minha was showing now was nothing more than a calculated ploy to win his sympathy. After all, the only pillars the Red Fire family had left to lean on were him and the Black Lotus.
The only saving grace was that the boy didn’t seem to fully understand the vulgarity behind those gestures. But did he know? That her family was one of the enemies who had shattered their happiness, and that Yeon Minha was a member of that hated bloodline?
“…”
Seoyeon struggled to suppress the rage boiling inside her. But in the next instant, Yeon Minha suddenly reached out toward the boy.
Soon, her pale, slender fingers came to rest on a certain spot on his face. The impact hit Seoyeon’s chest like hundreds of massive boulders crashing down at once.
The place Yeon Minha’s fingers touched.
Beneath the boy’s left eye. There lay a rough, jagged scar stretching horizontally from the edge of his temple toward his nose.
“Ah… ugh…”
Seoyeon barely managed to swallow the groan threatening to escape. The unconscious part of her that had desperately been averting its gaze from something finally confronted reality.
It was far too painful, too stinging to simply call it a scar. The shape of something else entirely. Her own original sin was right there.
The scar she had carved into him. The sin she could never wash away.
“Thanks to you, a place like this… Senior?”
The moment Yeon Minha’s fingers touched him, Lee Hyun reflexively flinched. Yeon Minha quickly withdrew her hand.
Then she looked up at him carefully and asked, “D-did it hurt…?”
“No. It’s not that… It’s just… unsightly…”
Lee Hyun lowered his head deeply, like someone who had committed a crime. Yeon Minha stared at him in silence for a moment. Her expression was filled with pity and compassion.
“Maybe I should put the mask back on…”
“It’s fine, I told you. It’s not unsightly at all.”
Yeon Minha immediately shook her head at his words.
“If anything, it makes you look more manly and cool. Quite dependable, actually.”
Yeon Minha abruptly cut herself off as if she had made a verbal slip. Her face had already flushed bright red like an apple. After a brief silence, she cleared her throat with a small cough.
Then, as if nothing had happened, she continued, “You said it happened while helping a friend…?”
“…Yes.”
Only then did Lee Hyun lift his gaze to meet hers.
“That friend must have been truly grateful to you. It must have been an incredibly dangerous situation, one where lives were on the line…”
“…I’m not sure.”
Instead, Lee Hyun wore a pained expression and shook his head.
“I… don’t really know.”
Yeon Minha looked puzzled and asked again, “You don’t know…? Does that mean they never even thanked you?”
“…”
Lee Hyun answered with silence. Yeon Minha, who had been watching him quietly, reached out toward his face once more. This time, he did not reject her touch. When her slender fingers reached the edge of the scar, he simply closed his eyes gently.
Yeon Minha carefully traced the scar from end to end, again and again. It was as if she were trying to erase it with her fingertips.
When Lee Hyun opened his eyes again, he found Yeon Minha’s face right in front of him, completely absorbed in her task. She was so focused that even though her lukewarm breath was brushing against him, she hadn’t noticed that he had opened his eyes.
Seeing her like that, Lee Hyun smiled without realizing it.
At the small burst of laughter, Yeon Minha snapped back to her senses and met his eyes. She flinched slightly, then turned her body away with an embarrassed expression. Pouting just a little, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
“Why are you looking at me like that… it’s embarrassing…”
“How could I not look? When you’re touching someone else’s face so freely.”
“I-I’m not touching it freely, I’m caressing it…! I’d appreciate it if you refrained from using such crude expressions…”
Flustered, Yeon Minha quickly changed her tone and asked cautiously, “So… was it okay…?”
After a brief moment of thought, Lee Hyun gave a small nod.
“…Yes. It felt good. Warm…”
It was only a single sentence in return, but Yeon Minha’s face turned red as if that was more than enough. Of course, she whipped her head in the opposite direction so he wouldn’t see.
Drunk on sweetness and smiling brightly, Yeon Minha suddenly shot up from her seat.
“W-we should go now… It’s getting really late…”
“…Alright.”
Lee Hyun offered no objection. He simply put the mask back on, fastened the clasps, and stood up to follow her. The two of them slowly walked toward the beech tree dormitory. Even their strides and the order of their steps matched perfectly.
Long after they had disappeared, a sudden sound came from behind a large tree at the edge of the garden—like something collapsing with a heavy thud.
After standing frozen for a long time, Seoyeon collapsed like a sandcastle crumbling. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered both ears tightly, as if she had witnessed a horrific illusion. Her entire body trembled like someone suffering from a terrible illness.
It had been nothing more than the simple word “friend,” yet it coiled around her like a massive serpent. The sight of him shaking his head with that pained expression only deepened her agony.
She wanted to rush out right then and answer him. To tell him that what he had shown her was courage she could never repay in a lifetime, and that it still served as her lighthouse.
But when she recalled the cold attitude the masked male student had shown her all this time, her mouth and feet froze in place as if bound by ice.
Until now, Seoyeon had not known who he was, but he had known of her existence the entire time. Yet he had treated her with perpetual indifference, as if she were a stranger. And Seoyeon knew the reason clearly.
She had simply been too afraid—too terrified—to face him, so she had pretended not to know. That the Red Fire and Paecheon families were the enemies who had destroyed their paradise needed no further explanation.
Then the one who had driven the boy to his suicide journey was…
“No… no… I…”
Seoyeon shook her head violently, her body quivering. It had been a painful, irreversible mistake born from failing to recognize his frailty. And the attitude of the boy who had returned from death made it… far too clear.