Chasing Shadows

Hell

Cameras wildly flashing, irritating her swollen eyes, rendering her darkened veil useless, Yoon Seri feels fatigue weighing heavily inside her bones. She is tired, the kind of tired that no amount of rest can ever alleviate, the kind that leaves her knees weak, the kind that makes her want to curl up into a pathetic ball under the bed covers for a very long time.

Despite her wishes, she wills herself to remain strong because he deserves a strong woman, a woman capable of showing herself to the public whenever the need arises, and his funeral certainly calls for that kind of strength.

While Seri understands the intrigue surrounding the mysterious death of her late husband, she still cannot wrap her head around the morbid fascination the people had over his grieving widow.

Does her sorrow provide some form of entertainment that they find pleasure in watching? Was the enigmatic J One Holdings CEO reduced to a mere tabloid that the press find the need to exploit?

With great effort, she pulls herself out of that rabbit hole before she inadvertently redirects her pain towards the onlookers. They are not the ones to blame. No, the only one guilty of breaking her heart and sending her into this hell hole is Yoo Jin-woo himself.

The thought of him alone feels like salt on her open wounds, still fresh from the week-old news of his death. That makes her want to laugh, almost, because he is not dead. No matter what they say, she does not and will not believe it. What hurts the most is the dirty trick that he's pulling, a ploy that he might have thought hilarious if he included her in the unsuspecting spectators.

But, despite her feelings, for her, nothing can ever take down Jin-woo, especially not some cruel game that decided it be best to reduce him to a pile of white ash, especially not some game character whose main role is to play the guitar and kill bugs. Her husband has done more than she ever did, and he is going to live far longer than she ever will. Seri will make sure of that.

The funeral passes by like a blur as well as the days after the whole affair. She feels like a ghost inside her own home. Silent. Restless. Haunting the halls. Tears silently fall from her eyes as she lies down on their bed. Their laughter lost in time, echoing in her ears like a haunted love song.

She desperately tries to remember the details. His dimples, his smile, his eyes, his laugh, his kisses, his warmth, his hands. Contrary to popular belief, he loves deeply. And she revels in the fact that she's the only one who knows it, the only one who has lived it.

It takes her a long while before she's able to set her plan into motion. Despite warnings that the dangerous game remains unstable, Seri demands his team to open the server just for her. She has had enough of living a life without him. She wants him back, and she will stop at nothing to save him from his cruel fate.

Park Seon-ho meets up with her in a coffee shop. He tells her that it is time to let him go. Let Jin-woo go. He says it like it is the easiest thing in the world. She looks away, blinking back angry tears that he mistakes for grief. The new CEO does not know that she is no longer in mourning and that she knows more than she lets on.

Jin-woo told her about the things that he had seen, the trauma that he had lived through. And through his stories, she has lived through them, too. She shares his pain, his suffering, his heartbreak. The constant scrutiny, the endless rumors, the useless deaths. She knows them all.

And she also knows that he is still out there. The game might have destroyed the version of him that lived in it, but the real Yoo Jin-woo remains alive out there somewhere.

In the end, she wins the argument. Of course, she does. Her husband himself told her that he cannot win against her, and he is just as stubborn as she is. They open the game server, and she goes to the abandoned school in the middle of nowhere.