Annyeongz One-shots

57. Motive

Milan had been all sunlight on old stone and the smell of espresso drifting out of open café doors.

That was where they learned how to orbit each other.

Wonyoung with her casebooks and color-coded tabs, always sitting straight, always prepared. Yujin with business journals he barely read, eyes wandering to the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she concentrated. They met by accident in the university library during finals week — one table left, one awkward nod, one shared charger.

After that, it became routine.

“Study?” he’d text.

“Library. 7,” she’d reply.

They never called it a date. Never called it anything. Just two students in a foreign country, sharing silence, sharing late-night walks back to their dorms under golden streetlights. Their shoulders would brush sometimes. Both would notice. Neither would say a word.

Then she graduated.

She hugged him outside the campus gate, smiling like it didn’t hurt.

“Don’t fail your last year,” she teased.

“Come visit,” he said, like it was casual.

She didn’t. He didn’t ask again.

And life did what life does — it pulled them apart without drama, without closure.

Years later, Korea felt colder than he remembered.

Yujin stood in front of his parents’ house, suitcase beside him, staring at the familiar gates. His father’s voice from that last phone call echoed in his head.

Come home. We need to talk.

The door unlocked with his old code.

The house lights were on.

“Dad?” he called, stepping inside.

No answer.

His footsteps echoed against the marble floor. The silence felt… thick. Like the house was holding its breath.

He walked down the hallway toward his father’s office. The door was half open, warm light spilling onto the carpet.

“Dad, I’m back—”

He stopped.

There were wine glasses on the desk. Two. One tipped over slightly. His father was in the chair, leaning back, head tilted to the side like he’d fallen asleep.

Yujin let out a breath of relief. “You scared me…”

He stepped closer.

“Dad?” He put a hand on his father’s shoulder and shook him gently.

The body slumped forward.

That’s when Yujin saw it.

Dark red.

Soaking through the shirt. Dripping down from the abdomen. Blood staining the chair, the carpet.

His brain refused to understand what his eyes were seeing.

“…Dad?”

His voice came out small. Then louder. “Dad!”

His hands started shaking. He stumbled back, knocking into the desk. The wine glass rolled and fell, shattering on the floor.

And then he screamed.

A high, broken sound that tore out of his chest.

Footsteps rushed down the hallway.