Diana's Obsession
I can't let him go like this.
I can't...!
The same words circled through her mind again and again. Everything had gone to hell. Coming here had been worse than not coming at all. Far from begging his forgiveness, she had torn open his wounds in the most arrogant way possible and packed them with salt.
And what she had gotten in return was—
I've regretted saving you a thousand times over.
The memory of Hansung speaking those words made Diana bite down on her lip.
She had not been herself a moment ago. Exhausted and cornered, she had said things she never would have under ordinary circumstances, and she had earned his misunderstanding for it in full.
Hansung... I never meant it that way. If you only knew how much I think of you...
If only that feeling could have reached him intact. She had never meant to look down on him. Frayed by worry and unease, she had simply spoken more harshly than she intended.
But there's no way Hansung would understand a heart like mine.
The rift between them had cut too deep. No matter what she said now, it would not reach him. Even so, she refused to accept this as the end and simply let it close.
...I'm supposed to swallow this disaster and tell him to leave?
That, more than anything, she hated enough to die. Better to be dead than never to see the man she loved again.
Why had she fallen for him in the first place?
In the beginning, it had been simple curiosity. A young lady of a noble house and a man born in the slums. Different birthplaces, different lives, different roads walked. She had never stood this close to someone from the slums, and that alone had made him fascinating. She had always been told that people from that side of the wall were soaked in liquor and drugs from childhood, living each day as it came, no more than that.
The Hansung she actually met had been nothing of the kind. If anything, he had been the most upright, most unbending person she had ever known.
The men around her were a glut of polished surfaces and empty swagger, all of them angling for her favor. Given her family's standing, she had no choice but to keep their company and play along. She laughed and made conversation, but inside she was cold.
How tedious.
Hansung had none of that. He was not a man raised inside a well-tended fence. He was a wild horse that had grown up rough in a field choked with weeds — coarse and unpolished, and all the freer, all the more bracing for it. Not a man living a life someone else had laid out for him, but one who seized his own fate with his own hands. That, Diana believed, was what a man ought to be. Someone who shattered his own limits and broke through.
The only thing she regretted was her own dullness — that she had not recognized the feeling sooner. At some point she had caught herself waiting for the days she would see him. Thinking of him made her chest tighten and a smile rise to her lips for no reason at all.
The problem was that Hansung had no particular interest in her.
She had been on the receiving end of men's attention until she was sick of it. They strained for one more glance; they assigned meaning to the smallest smile. If Hansung had been that common a type, her interest would have cooled in no time. Instead, she was the one left restless, every single time. He only ever closed the distance as far as he needed to, and rarely gave more than that. Even when Diana deliberately stepped closer, he drew back by the same measure.
For the first time in her life, she felt possessiveness toward a man.
Diana had always been sure of herself. From the moment she was born, she had held a great deal in her hands. A wealthy upbringing. A beautiful face. An education and a station that left nothing wanting. She knew perfectly well that ordinary people spent their entire lives clawing for even one of those three. And yet the man called Hansung drew a line against her — against someone who had all of them. She could not understand it.
She had grown up in a world where she never had to reach out first. Whatever she needed, her surroundings simply provided. And so, whenever she wanted something, she could usually take it without much trouble.
Hansung alone was different. No matter how far she stretched her hand, he slipped through her fingers. Could she even catch him at all? That question drove her half-mad with wanting.
I could treat him better than anyone.
If he needed money, she could give him as much as he wanted. A home. Treatment. Safety. She had more than enough power to ensure he never again had to risk his life wandering beyond the walls. If he needed influence, there was the Rosenthal name.
What woman alive could make Hansung happier than I could?
She could give him the ordinary life he had always wanted. A house inside the city. No more dangerous work as a Seeker. No more worrying about where the next meal would come from.
And if she stepped back now? Sooner or later, some other woman would appear at his side. A woman who had no idea how hard he had fought to survive, who did not even properly know what he had lost. A woman who would take the place beside him as if it were nothing.
...No. Absolutely not.
Diana's fingertips trembled.
If he ends up with a woman like that, Hansung will never be happy. A woman like that could never give him everything he needed the way she could.
So it has to be me.
She knew exactly how selfish the thought was. She had wounded him with her own arrogance only moments ago, and here she still was, telling herself she was the best woman for him.
Even so, it's the truth. I can make him happier than anyone.
She did not mind being hated. She did not mind going unforgiven. But she would not permit him to turn his back on her completely. The one thing she could still do was stay at his side, tend those wounds, and spend the rest of her life atoning.
Diana clenched her teeth once more, desperate.
"Fare...well? Don't make me laugh."
Hansung had told her not to show her face again. Diana had no intention of accepting that goodbye.
Hansung needs me. He just doesn't know it yet.
Of course he would think otherwise right now, when the mere sight of her brought rage boiling up first. That was not his fault. Anyone would have felt the same. But given time, even that hatred and that fury would thin.
This time I'll be careful. Gentle. If I make him see that he needs me, things will change. He'll look at me again.
She had heard until her ears wore thin how vicious and fickle life could be. Even someone like Diana, who had been given everything, sometimes found the world too heavy to bear. How much more exhausted, then, must Hansung be? If he needed somewhere to lean, she would be the one to offer it. If the whole world pointed its finger at him, she at least would be a place he could come home to.
She steeled herself and started to take a step — and in that instant, her pupils shrank. Her hand clenched over her chest.
"Hh—"
Her breath locked. Her chest felt crushed, too tight to draw air, no matter how hard she tried. It was a hyperventilation attack, the kind that had been visiting her off and on ever since she recovered her memories.
Why now, of all times...!
Her breathing ran away from her, faster and faster.
"Hah... ha, hah..."
She could not lose consciousness. She would not.
"Ha... Hansung..."
His name left her mouth as faint as her own breathing. She kept dragging air in, but the attack only worsened. Her fingertips went numb. The world tilted and swam.
I have to... hold on to him. I can't let him go like this...
She was certain she had stepped forward. Instead her body listed the wrong way, and by the time she understood what was happening, gravity had already taken her past the angle where she could stand on her own.
"My lady!"
An attendant, unable to watch any longer, lunged forward and caught her just before she hit the ground.
"My lady! Stay with me!"
Diana sagged into the attendant's arms as if folding into an embrace. There was no strength left in her body at all. Even so, her gaze never left the direction Hansung was disappearing in.
If you won't appear in front of me... then I'll come find you.
Before her eyelids fell shut, a dark obsession swirled in Diana's eyes.
Having thrown a one-sided farewell at Diana, Hansung walked the road that led toward downtown. The stretch between the prison and the city proper was unusually long. Low walls and administrative buildings lined either side, and there was hardly a person or a vehicle in sight. The place was deserted on a good day. In weather like this, it was only natural.
The rain poured down without mercy. It showed not the slightest sign of letting up. Hansung tugged at the collar plastered wet against his skin. He was soaked through to his undershirt.
...Cold.
Diana's umbrella flickered through his mind. He couldn't have taken it. He didn't want a single thing from her.
If I'd known it would be like this, I should've taken the one the guard offered on the way out.
Regret, a beat too late.
Even walking along the road, there was no point hoping for a taxi. No car was going to come this far out — and even if one did, whether the driver would pick up a man soaked to the bone was another question entirely.
And more than anything, I've got no money.
If he skipped the fare, he might well find himself sitting in a police holding cell a few hours after getting out of prison. That was a hard pass.
Wet clothes and a cold wind together made it feel no better than midwinter.
If I stay like this, I'm going to be laid out with a fever tomorrow.
Hansung ducked under a tree for a moment to get out of the rain and checked the bag of his personal effects. There had to be something useful in there. At first he'd figured there was nothing worth any money — then he spotted a prepaid card. Come to think of it, he had heard about this.
Inmates who served six months or more get a prepaid card loaded with three hundred thousand Sol, don't they?
The amount was meant to cover the fare home and a few days of living expenses — a way to cut down on people committing crimes for money the moment they walked out the gate. Suddenly he had enough.
Is there a convenience store around here...?
People came out this way to visit the prison. There had to be a small shop somewhere nearby. An umbrella, a raincoat — a change of clothes, if he could manage it.
Hansung scanned his surroundings. Behind the administrative buildings. A shuttered checkpoint. Massive concrete barricades lining the edge of the road. No convenience store sign anywhere, no matter how hard he looked. And the city still looked a long way off. Far enough, honestly, that a convenience store wouldn't have been strange at all.
"Come on out."
A convenience store. Please.
That was when it happened.
A faint crackle. The scenery at the edge of the sidewalk ahead warped for an instant. A thin wash of noise spread through the air, and from a stretch of empty space, a human silhouette slowly took shape.
"......"
Hansung's expression hardened. Seconds ago, there had been nobody there at all.
A black figure finished resolving into view. The other person wore a black waterproof suit that covered them from head to toe. The face was hidden down to below the nose; all that showed were a pair of sharp eyes and a fall of ash-silver hair. The build was a woman's.
The means she'd used to stay hidden was obvious.
...Optical Camouflage.
Which meant she had been waiting here for him from the start.
Then the woman asked,
"How did you know I was here?"