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" Mu-deok is Naksu…"
The words struck like thunder in a cave—loud, echoing, irreversible.
A cold pool formed in Na-ra's chest, sharp and nauseating, as if something ancient had awakened inside her and twisted tight. Her legs wouldn't move. Her breath caught in her throat. All she could do was stare.
The girl in the distance still stood in sight, but she no longer looked like someone Na-ra could reach.
Beside her, Yul turned slowly. His gaze didn't search the horizon—it searched her. Quiet, deliberate.
" You knew?" he asked.
There was no anger. Not yet. But the fracture in his voice came at the end, raw and uncertain, as if he already suspected the answer and was still hoping to be wrong.
Na-ra didn't respond. Her eyes were locked forward, unmoving. She could feel his presence closer now, the way he stepped in, gently closing the space between them, but still waiting for her to speak.
She looked at him only when his concern began to outweigh his shock—when she felt the heat of it radiating off him, not like judgment, but something softer.
Guilt.
Pain.
She turned at last, barely, and let him see what she was holding inside—just a sliver of it. Her eyes glinted with something too complicated for sorrow. It was hurt, maybe. Or betrayal. Or the burden of knowing something too long.
"When?" he asked.
The word came out quieter this time, not pushing her. Just… reaching.
A beat passed before she answered, her voice barely above a breath.
"....When she was drunk. In dahyanggok."
And then silence.
Heavy, thick silence that stretched between them like a rope on the verge of snapping. Yul didn't speak, and Na-ra couldn't. Her throat burned. Her chest tightened. She was one second away from unraveling everything—every truth, every secret she’d sewn into herself for months.
But instead, Yul asked again.
" Does anyone else know?"
Na-ra exhaled through her nose, eyes flickering faintly as if trying to hold in more than just words.
"Besides Uk... I don't think so."
Again, silence—but softer this time. And in that quiet, she felt it; his fingers brushing against hers.
