The Mark That Must Remain
His lips parted, and a hot breath burst free.
He didn’t pull away. Instead, he rubbed his lips against hers with slow, deliberate strokes and whispered,
Shin-wol’s sharp fangs grazed her lip as he spoke in a tightly restrained voice.
Shin-wol’s lips pressed firmly against Yeo-won’s eyelids.
His eyes burned as if they could set her aflame—more beautiful and fierce than anything she had ever seen. Yeo-won found herself breathless.
“…They’re so overwhelming I’m not sure I’ll even be able to close them properly.”
Once again, tears threatened to spill. She bit down hard on her lip to hold them back.
This fox was truly cunning and shameless. He pried open her weaknesses without hesitation, shaking her mercilessly. Yet the words he had spoken were gentler than any love confession she had ever heard. Yeo-won leaned her forehead against his chest and tried to calm her wildly pounding heart.
Even if his heart did not belong to her,
Even if he was seeing someone else when he looked at her,
It was still her—only her—resting in his arms right now.
“I have one request.”
So perhaps she could allow herself this small luxury.
“If I die… please call my name.”
She remembered him saying that they never broke their promises. Yeo-won briefly considered asking about the marble and the past, but the questions suddenly felt utterly pointless.
Even if she faced the cruel reality head-on, she knew she could no longer escape these arms.
Dawn approached.
A faint breathing sound melted softly into the quiet. The steady, even rhythm sounded almost like music, so Shin-wol closed his eyes and listened in silence. After a long while, he slowly opened them again. When he looked down, he saw Yeo-won fast asleep. She had grumbled about the uncomfortable position, but exhaustion soon claimed her and she had drifted off completely.
Once he confirmed she was deeply asleep, Shin-wol rose and leaned against the wall.
[…….]
As Yeo-won shifted in her sleep, several bruises became visible through the thin fabric of her jeogori. Among the marks from bumping into things and falling, one spot stood out in particular.
Beneath the disheveled strands of hair lay her slender neck. A vivid purple bruise clearly bore the imprint of fingers.
Shin-wol’s gaze as he stared at the fragile neck that looked as if it would snap with the slightest touch flickered with displeasure.
No matter what it was, he disliked seeing any mark left on what was his.
Because the sight displeased him, Shin-wol reached out—only to freeze in midair. He held his hand suspended as though time itself had stopped, staring down at her. Then his hand moved again, gently smoothing her tangled hair back into place.
The wound left by the ghost was akin to a curse. Normally a minor curse would be absorbed by a greater one, but because Yeo-won’s vitality had weakened so much, it had failed to be absorbed and remained as a visible mark.
With her main body weakened, the power of the marble had also diminished greatly, making it difficult to draw on spiritual energy.
[It wouldn’t be impossible if I forced it…]
But then she wouldn’t last long.
Shin-wol tilted his head back wearily and exhaled a long, deep breath of smoke.
The words he swallowed dispersed into the air along with the smoke.
Shin-wol rolled his eyes downward to look at the sleeping woman. The bruises wrapped around her neck writhed like living insects. He was suppressing the curse with his power so it could not run rampant, but he could not keep doing this forever.
[Curses are rather troublesome.]
He murmured softly.
Unlike simple wounds, a curse was a calamity engraved into causality itself. There were very few ways to undo it. One crude method was to rip it out of the soul, but that would shatter the medium’s mind. She would either die soon after or spend the rest of her life tormented by madness.
[What should I do?]
Locking her away while deliberately driving her mad wasn’t the worst idea, but then he wouldn’t be able to keep her organs intact.
After pondering for a while, a small smile curved Shin-wol’s lips as if a good idea had occurred to him.
[There was that method.]
Moonlight happened to fall across his eyes just then. In the darkness, those brilliantly shining eyes held an innocence like that of a child.
Once he had burned the last of the incense, he stepped straight into the mist.
*
When Yeo-won opened her eyes, the first thing she felt was a startling clarity of mind. Perhaps because she had slept so deeply she hadn’t even dreamed, the chronic headache that usually plagued her was gone, and her vision was crisp.
She sat up and looked around. Shin-wol was nowhere to be seen.
He was the kind of man who came and went like a ghost, so she assumed he must have gone out. Still, waking up and not seeing him left her feeling strangely disappointed.
At that thought, Yeo-won froze.
Disappointed? Why?
The realization that such a thought had come so naturally left her momentarily stunned. She was shocked at herself for unknowingly relying on him.
Feeling favor toward Shin-wol and this were two entirely different matters.
Reliance led directly to expectation. And once expectations took root, disappointment inevitably followed.
Even if she kissed him, even if she shared her body with him, Yeo-won knew she must never come to depend on him.
‘Because Shin-wol isn’t truly looking at me.’
Her face twisted in pain. She had known from the beginning that the emptiness sometimes visible in his gaze was not directed at her.
Shin-wol often saw the past through her.
That was why Yeo-won had resolved never to reveal her feelings, even if it meant dying.
In the end, she was someone who would die in the palm of his hand.
It was arrogant of her, but she hoped that if she died, he would not suffer because of it.
Yeo-won shook her head to dispel the dark thoughts rising within her and stood up.
The room without Shin-wol felt chilly and unnaturally quiet, as though it had lost its owner.
She thought of going out to the garden and reached for the tightly closed sliding door, but a polite voice from behind stopped her.
Startled by the unfamiliar voice, Yeo-won whipped her head around. When her trembling eyes landed on the source, she saw a single squirrel standing there, as if it had been there the whole time.
“Who…?”
The squirrel answered calmly and bowed its head. Its courteous demeanor was the complete opposite of that cheeky little fox. Yeo-won blinked blankly for a moment before scanning her surroundings again.
“Ah… I see.”
His neat, polished speech was so refined that she had unconsciously used polite language.
“Um… how long have you been in the room…?”
“That means…”
It meant he had seen everything—her troubled expression, her muttering to herself. Yeo-won’s lips parted in embarrassment. The thought that he had witnessed her entire one-woman show made her face burn with mortification.
While she stood there frozen, the squirrel approached with the light, nimble steps typical of its kind.
“What? No, I’m fine.”
The subject was omitted, but it was immediately clear who had given the order. At his words, Yeo-won looked down at her ankle. It hadn’t hurt when she stood up, but the bruise had not yet fully faded.
At the polite request, Yeo-won sat down reflexively. As if he had been waiting for exactly that, Dan brought over some medicine and set it down in front of her ankle.
Dan scooped some ointment onto his tiny paw and spoke calmly. His composed attitude made it seem as though nothing was out of the ordinary. Yeo-won reacted a beat late and hurriedly reached out to stop him.
“No, you don’t have to do that. It really doesn’t hurt!”
The command to speak casually somehow sounded almost coercive. Perhaps because such a dignified voice came from such an adorable face, Yeo-won kept shrinking back.
With a complicated expression, she let out a small groan before speaking again.
“Then I’ll do it myself.”
The moment he finished speaking, Dan began slathering the medicine thickly onto her ankle. Her foot was only a quarter the size of his hand, so he had to work diligently to spread it evenly.
Though they had only exchanged a few words, she could clearly sense his stubborn personality. In the end, Yeo-won gave up and quietly let him treat her. When the medicine was almost finished, she cautiously asked,
“Um… where is Shin-wol?”