First Snow

Where Are You?

Author notes: a few hours late but it's here. Thank you dear readers for sticking with me. This chapter is mostly pain pain pain. But it has to.
Stay safe and happy ❤️❤️❤️

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As a child, Ri Jeong Hyeok loved the stories his mother used to read to him before bed. Korean tales for the most part, stories of bravery, sacrifice, battles and love. He had been fascinated by these characters whose epic life sometimes came to a tragic end. This fascination continued when he discovered music and its infinite universe. He, who couldn't always formulate his emotions into words, could convey so much just with a few piano notes. He discovered that the great composers also wrote their own tales through the scores, telling in their own way the great Greco-Roman legends. The one of Orpheus and Euridyce had touched him more than the others. That was why he had played it at the gala, because this composition had come to him naturally, after years without playing it. Maybe it was because he had been disturbed by a certain heiress with whom he had just danced? A certain heiress that had been invading his mind since the day she had litteraly swept him out of his feet.

He was fifteen the first time he had played Orpheus and Eurydice, and his teacher had asked him to read their story to soak up the tragedy of their love. Orpheus, who had himself caused the death of his great love, by loving her perhaps a little too much ...

He was Orpheus. Seri was Eurydice.

As Seri had stepped in front of him only to be thrown against him, he hadn't realized right away what was happening. Everything had just been going too fast, but he had known that something was wrong when he had heard her gasp, and, at the same time, Cho Cheol Gang had been aiming at them with a gun, a fierce scowl deforming his face. His hand had automatically grabbed his gun to shoot, and without even looking at the crumbling form of the man, he had dropped the gun to support Seri as she was slowly becoming heavier, barely standing.

"Seri..."

With horror, he saw the crimson droplets spreading on the snow, but she wasn't facing him and he couldn't see what was happening.

Until she collapsed.

Her head rolled back and her legs gave up, he had barely the time to catch her, lowering her soflty on the frozen ground.

The silence around them was deafening, or maybe it was him who couldn't hear anything other than the erratic beating of his heart and his gasping breathing. He had fallen to his knees, supporting Seri, the snow piercing his pants, but he didn't care. It wasn't the snow that froze him, it was the sight of Seri's bloody abdomen. His shaking hands barely dared to touch her, barely grazing her, as his mind tried to understand.

"No... No... No... Seri ..." he whispered.

She didn't answer, her eyes closed, her skin terrifyingly pale. His hands brushed the wound, he looked at his fingers soaked in a sticky red.
There was blood, so much blood.

"Seri..."

It wasn't true, it couldn't be true. It had to be a nightmare... In shock, his hands were shaking so badly that he couldn't identify exactly where the wound was.

"Seri ... Please..." he whimpered, his voice hoarse, clutching at her lifeless body.

She couldn't leave, not like this, because if she did, she would take his soul and heart with her and he would just die from inside.

Craddling her face with his clean hand, he watched helplessly as blood spreaded quickly on the snow around her. He didn't know what to do, a sudden ringing in his ears making him useless.