The protector

Sunbaenim

"There are three steps of love in this world. The first is romantic love, the second is hot love, and the third is dirty love, that's only for experts!"

(The legend of the blue sea)

The pianist tried to hide himself in the crowd, his heart frozen.

That figure.

She looked exactly like the first time he had come to realize her being, as if no time had passed.

2025, Autumn

She was pushing them over any possible limit that day.

For a moment, ignoring the little beads of sweat pouring down his face, Jeong Hyeok paused to look at her.

Was she having fun? Was it a game for her?

No, clearly not. She was used to taking that job in the dojang very seriously, albeit it was just a little more than a hobby for her. Her job was something something something... he couldn't really remember. Someone had told him once, but it must have been more than a year ago.

Or maybe the day before, who knew.

Time was passing and days, months, even years were like beclouded into his memory, blended in a single monotonous hiatus under a single label.

Days without Her.

To what end making the effort to count them, if they were so meaningless?

Instead, the days with Her were all unique, he could remember them one by one, second by second. They were all in his music now, and he was with no memories left to use for his compositions. That was why his music had become so sad and boring. His life was. He was.

Wake up. Shower. Shaving. Apple. Piano. Lunch. Piano. Gym. Dinner. Teeth. Sleep. Repeat.

"Ri Jeong Hyeok ssi, I'm sorry." And she was: her face was a mask of grieving and regret.

Jeong Hyeok immediately understood why she had asked him to choose a third hotel room. Not her one. Not his one.

Loving Se-ri for the first time had been the happiest moment of his life. For three years he had dreamed to hold her in his arms, and it was because of it that, when the moment had arrived, he had lost the strength to be decent and stop their kisses.

He would have wanted. But how many times he had dreamed of her hands under his shirt like that, her soft touch caressing his back?

He would have wanted. But her lips were so addictive that his mind was like benumbed.

He would have wanted, but the sigh she had made when he had kissed her neck had sounded like a plea and he couldn't resist her pleas. He had done it, he had resisted when her eyes had begged him to stay, that day on the border. And it had turned out to be the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life. No, not again.

He had promised to himself that he would have never said no to her again.

He had spent three years thinking about how to say yes to her for the rest of their life.