Boundless

제 21 장

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ATHENA'S POV

"Flight 137 to Atlanta, Georgia now boarding at Gate 12."

The intercom echoed like a final bell. I stood, legs heavy, soul heavier. My fingers curled around the handle of my suitcase as I cast one last glance around the terminal. The faces, the language, the sky outside—all of it familiar now, all of it painful.

These were the last breaths of my time in South Korea, a country that had quietly grown roots beneath my skin. I never intended to fall in love here. I never planned to be transformed. But then—he found me. Or maybe, I found him. A soft collision of fate. And now, I was being peeled away from the only thing that ever made me feel whole.

Jae was never just a boy. He was the air I inhaled, the storm that electrified my quiet sky. Not nicotine. No, he was more than an addiction—he was the high I was never meant to keep. And now, I was spiraling through the comedown, clawing at my chest where his love once steadied my heartbeat.

I never said goodbye.

I never kissed him one last time.

The image of his tear-streaked face, screaming my name as machines flatlined beside him, haunts me more than any nightmare. I carry that memory with me, not in my suitcase, but sewn into the lining of my soul. I whisper a vow to the ache: Survive. Not for me. Not even for him. But for us. For the tiny heartbeat pulsing inside me.

Jae will heal, I tell myself. He'll return to music, to his studies. To smiling again. Maybe he'll even forgive his father. Maybe...

But me? I'll carry his spirit. Our child will grow with his eyes, his laugh. A living symbol of a love that bloomed in secret, in silence, and ended in fire. A piece of Jae Eun, forever.

I clenched my fists. My eyes burned, but I wiped the tears away with quiet defiance. I come from women made of fire—my mother, her mother before her. I will do the same. I will become the mother my child needs. I will rise, again and again, even when my legs tremble and my chest collapses with grief.

I will wear my strength like armor, stitched with pain and pride.

And so—I board.

The plane lifts from the earth, and Seoul disappears beneath the clouds. I stare down through the window, thinking about how I fled one suffocating household only to escape another. My mother's grip, Jae's father's wrath. And in the middle—me. A woman forced to run, again.

I press my hand gently to the curve of my belly. "She's gonna lose her mind when she sees you, little one," I whisper with a bittersweet smile. "But we'll be okay. We have to be okay."

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JAE'S POV

The light stabs my eyes.

I wake slowly, the world a blur of white and antiseptic. My chest aches, my body feels foreign, as if I've been dragged from the underworld. A nurse gasps beside me. "He's awake. Doctor—I'll inform the Senator."

The doctor rushes in, checking my vitals, his mouth moving, but I hear only one word echoing in my skull: Athena.

"Where is she?" My voice is rough, gravel in my throat. "The woman who was with me... the one who's pregnant—where is she?"

His face darkens.

"She was here, yes. But after your cardiac arrest... she vanished. She screamed your name, caused a commotion. Security escorted her into the lobby. And then—your father arrived. She hasn't been seen since."

My heart stops again—but this time, no machines scream. Only my soul does.

"What do you mean, she's gone?"

Then he enters.

My father. The tyrant. The devil in a tailored suit.

"Doctor, leave us," he commands. The doctor bows and exits. And then the air turns poison.

"You ungrateful bastard," he snarls. "You broke your word. You agreed to the deal. The girl ruined you."

"That was before Athena. Before I knew what love was. Before I knew I'd be a father."

He smiles then. Cruel. Calculated. "Exactly why I had to erase her."

My blood runs cold.

"What... are you saying?"

"I offered her a price. Told her to run. And she did. She's gone, Jae Eun. Gone back to America. Where she belongs. Or better yet—back to Africa, where—"

"You sick bastard!" I roar, throat tearing. "You're lying! She would never leave me!"

"Oh, but she did," he says, smug. "Because I made her believe she had no other choice. And now, you'll get back to your studies. You'll salvage this family. You'll do as I say."

My heart splits open.

Tears fall freely as I curl my fists into the sheets, screaming through sobs. "You sent those men, didn't you? You tried to kill her. You wanted to destroy our child. You're a murderer!"

He doesn't deny it.

He walks forward, hand raised—and strikes me across the face.

The sting is nothing compared to the hollow left inside me.

"I should've finished it," he hisses. "Get yourself together before I do it for you."

And then he's gone.

The room is quiet again.

But I am not.

I am broken.
I am burning.
And I am alone.

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