ITSN 13

Chapter 13

She thought she might cry a little.
No, she had even made up her mind to cry on purpose. After all, the only mourning she could offer herself was just crying.

But she hadn’t expected to sob this much.

That she had died. And that her death was so miserable it had taken eight whole days just to recover her body.

It wasn’t frightening so much as it was sorrowful.

It was last night. After parting ways with Seo Taejo and returning home, she went up to her room and scrolled through her phone.

“How did they handle the aftermath of the accident?”

Was the government still insisting on calling that dreadful tragedy a “gas explosion”?

It had clearly been a bombing.

Then, checking the date, she was startled. It had already been eight days since Juhong had died.

“Her funeral…?”

She had no family to arrange it for her. Had she been handled as an unclaimed body?

With all sorts of thoughts racing through her, she combed through articles one by one.

And then…

She discovered through the news that her funeral still hadn’t been held.

“The body of accident victim Miss Juhong (30) has been fully recovered. Tomorrow at 10 a.m., on the ninth day since the accident, a joint memorial service will be held…”

The moment she saw the article, the words of that white line came back to her—that her body had been too damaged to be usable.

That was why it had chosen Yoo Hae-in’s body instead, since it had comparatively fewer injuries.

“How shattered was I…?”

Just how broken had she been, for them to only hold the service after nine days?

As she thought this, Juhong laughed bitterly at herself.

Of course she knew.

It had been her body, and she had lived through that horrific moment.

Her soul may have left her body at some point, but she still remembered in excruciating detail what it had felt like.

When the terror of that day resurfaced, nausea rose violently in her throat.

Churning with sickness, Juhong couldn’t sleep until dawn. So she prepared herself, over and over. And early in the morning, she left her house.

At the memorial service, at the crematorium, and at the enshrinement. She rehearsed what expressions she would wear, how she would carry herself.

Even her sunglasses had been chosen for that reason. To cry elegantly, then turn away coolly.

But she couldn’t.

The first tears came from being moved.

Having lost her family all at once, Juhong wondered if there would even be anyone to remember her death.

But the people from her church had come to the memorial.

Sister Rive had even sat in the family’s seat, standing in for them.

She couldn’t help crying then.

She even forgot that her body had been shattered beyond repair. She was only grateful—glad she could at least have a proper funeral this way.

The next tears came at the Seoul City Crematorium.

When her fragmented body disappeared into the blazing red flames. The heavy realization that she could never return to her original body. She cried for a long time.

And the third time was on the bus to the columbarium.

“…But who are you? Our Hong, are you a friend of hers?”

It was Sister Rive, who had motioned for her to sit beside her when she got on the bus without thinking.

“Ah, I…”

She hesitated, then managed to answer.

“I’m Yoo Hae-in… the one who was with Juhong until her very last moment…”

The word Yoo Hae-in stuck in her throat, jagged and painful.

But since living as Yoo Hae-in was now her first task, she forced the word out through a dry swallow.

“…That’s my name. I’m the survivor of the accident.”

At her answer, Sister Rive’s eyes brimmed with tears, her wrinkled face seeming to collapse further.

“Then… can you tell me? Our Hong… did she… have a hard time going?”

Her parched hands closed around Juhong’s.

She wasn’t asking blindly. Every comment under the news articles had said things like that—how broken must a body be, that it took eight days to collect the pieces?

The truth was that Juhong had died a brutal, brutal death. That was why the nun’s face was wet with tears.

She wanted to comfort her.

“…No.”

Her throat felt tight, her voice catching. Only after swallowing several times could she continue.

“It all happened in the blink of an eye. She wouldn’t have felt a thing. Not any pain… she went peacefully.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“She went very well. So please…”

So please don’t worry. Don’t grieve.

Though she couldn’t finish the words, Sister Rive shed tears too.

“Thank you.”

Then she pulled her into a firm embrace.

The nun’s shoulder grew damp with her tears, and her own was soaked with the nun’s.

“Did you know? Our Hong, you see—”

Our Hong.

That tender phrase pierced her heart painfully.

“My dream of her before birth was of a golden-white cat… they said she would be a queen.”
“Yes.”
“She was supposed to meet a good man, fall in love beautifully, build a happy home, and live treated like a queen.”
“…”
“She wasn’t meant to leave like this.”

The nun’s shoulders shook harder.

“Sob… She wasn’t supposed to go… so suddenly, so in vain.”

…Her heart ached.

So she cried for a long while again.

The sunglasses she had brought like a shield gave her some comfort. Just a little longer, then she promised herself she would be composed when she stepped off the bus.

But even that didn’t go her way. For this columbarium was where her parents’ and brother’s urns were enshrined.

Her entire family, gathered in one place like this—was it tragedy or calamity?

Choking back a wail, Juhong fled to her parents’ and brother’s urns, crouched down, and buried her face in her knees.

If only she had died, she would have met her mother and father by now. She could have found her brother and poured out her grievances.

But as a being both dead and alive, she could do nothing but weep.

And it was then, in the dimming light of late afternoon filtering into the columbarium, that Seo Taejo appeared before her.

Thud, thud.

At the weighty sound of footsteps, she lifted her face from her knees.

Black leather shoes.

Then a black suit, a black tie, and black eyes…

Cold eyes, like a dusk that came too early in April, bore down on her.

“Yoo Hae-in.”

The sunset cast a reddish glow across his tilted face.

His sharply defined brows and tall nose carved dynamic shadows over features so sculpted they seemed unreal. It made him look all the more imposing, almost overpowering.

Then Seo Taejo murmured quietly—

“Two hours of crying is enough.”

Two hours.

She had been like this for two whole hours already, it seemed.

“I’ll take you home.”

Get up.

Seo Taejo extended his hand.

Juhong stared blankly at his fingertips.

A large, masculine hand, yet the clean nails and long, slender fingers gave it a delicate shape.

Her heart gave a sharp, strange throb.

It wasn’t that she had fallen for him.

How could she fall for a man she had barely met a few times—one who looked at her only with open contempt?

It was only because his hand resembled someone’s so much.

And, if she had to explain, because in this strange, lonely world where she had fallen so utterly alone, he had at least spoken to her—to take her home.

That small kindness had stirred old memories and struck a chord within her.

“…Do you even know where my home is?”

Her stomach turned, her voice trembling at the edges.

“Do you…?”