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Chapter 14
Up until now, the greatest worry in Tae-heon’s life had been his younger brother, Tae-gyeom.
He had never once heard of Tae-gyeom dating a girl, nor even liking someone.
Not in his teenage years, not after starting university.
Tae-gyeom was good-looking, with a decent build, but introverted—a textbook nerd.
He had gone through all-boys’ middle and high schools, then entered an engineering college, so his entire world was men.
And since he made no effort to meet women either, the thought naturally arose: Maybe he likes men.
Tae-heon was ready to accept it if his brother was gay, but their conservative parents would never take it well.
Worse—if it became known that the heir to Cheongshin Group, the future chairman, was homosexual, the shockwaves across Korea would be enormous.
More than anything, Tae-heon worried about how unbearably hard the road ahead would be for his brother.
He thought that would be the heaviest burden he’d ever carry.
But another came.
Erectile dysfunction—in his twenties.
He had long lost interest in relationships, but at least his body had always responded when aroused.
Now, no matter who stood before him, he felt nothing.
The doctor called it psychogenic erectile dysfunction.
A mental issue—something that would fade once the root was solved.
The doctor said, “Don’t worry. What you really need is to take better care of your body.”
But for Tae-heon, that was the harder thing to do.
Would anything ever happen strong enough to break through his layers of suffocating boredom?
One day, it did.
His neat, tedious, predictable life began to crack.
He had started dating a younger student because he couldn’t bear to reject her tearful confession at the end of term.
That was how it began.
And whenever Tae-heon tried to break it off, she would cry and cling to him.
So the relationship dragged on.
She promised to move on before the next semester as long as he gave her a little time over break. It was tiresome, but manageable.
After one such half-hearted “date,” Tae-heon instinctively reached for a cigarette—only to find a single one left.
He pulled into a convenience store. The sky had been gray all day, and now, finally, snow began to fall.
Something about it felt strange.
Until then, the weather had always seemed to be on his side. This was the first time it felt like the world had turned against him.
The sharp protective shell around him loosened, just a little.
Even though the snow threatened to ruin his beloved car, he strangely felt lighter.
He slung an umbrella over his shoulder, cigarette between his fingers, and locked the car.
Beep!
And then—someone flew across his vision.
“Ah!”
The cigarette forgotten, Tae-heon turned. A girl had slipped and fallen in the snow.
She was a mess—her long hair wild, her hands scraped raw, her clothes old and faded: a colorless tracksuit under a worn-out padded coat.
Her slippers, the toe straps frayed, barely counted as shoes.
Snow piled quickly on her back; she had no umbrella.
“Wow, you really flew. That must’ve hurt.”
She looked up at him, eyes wet. For the briefest second, the air shifted.
Her bare face was as pale as the falling snow—perhaps only because her hair was so starkly black.
She wasn’t glamorous, not a conventional beauty. But there was something in her features—small face, delicate balance—that caught the eye.
Like snowflakes falling thick on a strangely warm winter day, she felt both ordinary and enchanting.
“Are you okay?”
Up close, her eyes were larger, her nose graceful. But it was her lips—soft, striking—that held him captive.
And her eyes… he couldn’t look away.
Somehow, they felt familiar, though he was certain he’d never met her before.
When her lips parted, he swallowed dryly, unthinking.
She couldn’t be from his campus. With her looks, there would have been gossip already. And what kind of student walked around dressed like that, without an umbrella, on a day like this?
“Not bad. But if this is insurance fraud, your acting needs work.”
“…It’s not.”
She frowned, serious.
As they traded a few meaningless words, she tried to stand—only to slip again, sliding helplessly.
She’d either fall again, or be buried under the snow.
Tae-heon shoved his cigarette and lighter back in his pocket and reached out his hand.
“Careful where you grab. That’s my favorite car right there.”
And he meant it.
The blue sports car, his beetle car, was the one he loved most. He’d even shipped it from America to Korea.
Her hand was icy, chapped with tiny cuts. But as warmth flowed into it from his palm, it softened.
The sensation tickled strangely.
“Strange,” he murmured.
“…Thank you.”
She checked her tattered clothes, then looked up toward the hill. That must’ve been where her home was. The snow only grew heavier.
He handed her the umbrella on impulse.
Because snow was piling too thick on her shoulders.
Because she looked cold.
Because it felt wrong to ignore how hard she’d fallen.
Because her reddened eyes somehow caught at him.
“Don’t follow me. Don’t talk to me either.”
Her back seemed too fragile to carry the weight of all that snow.
“This is for you. I’m not following. Didn’t you learn you shouldn’t go with strangers?”
He repeated something he’d once been told himself.
Then he watched her trudge up the hill in her ragged slippers, snow clinging to her as she went.
He knew he should leave, before more snow trapped him too. Yet somehow, his feet didn’t want to move.
But that was all. She was just another passerby, another fleeting encounter.
He turned, pulled the cigarette from his pocket—only to find it broken clean in half.
With no choice, he headed into the convenience store for a new pack.
And as he walked, he noticed something odd.
A tightness below.
“…Huh?”
That was when he realized—his body was reacting.
Tae-heon was a healthy young man. His mornings usually began with an involuntary, vigorous wake-up. Normally, it faded after a trip to the bathroom, or simply with time.
But lately, in the days since that encounter, it hadn’t gone away.
“Damn it…”
The problem wasn’t his body anymore.
The problem was that memory—replaying in his mind, over and over, without mercy.
