Last Christmas

Setting: Berlin, winter - the city draped in snow and golden lights. The year feels like it's ending too quietly.

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Last Christmas, Jeong Taeui gave his heart away - literally, to Ilay Riegrow, the foreign intelligence officer who walked into his life like a storm and left it just as abruptly. They had spent that one December together in Berlin - laughter in crowded Christmas markets, stolen kisses under strings of fairy lights, promises whispered through cold breaths. Then Ilay disappeared without a word, leaving Taeui with silence, unanswered questions, and the sound of carol bells fading behind him.

A year later, Taeui returns to Berlin for work, determined to treat that memory as nothing more than a foolish mistake. He keeps himself busy, photographing winter streets and ignoring the ghosts that linger in every familiar corner. But fate - or perhaps Berlin itself - seems to have other plans.

He meets Ilay again at a charity concert on Christmas Eve. The man looks the same, save for the faint scar along his jaw and the weary light in his eyes. He smiles like it doesn't hurt, but Taeui can tell it does. The truth comes out slowly: Ilay had vanished on an undercover mission that went wrong, and he'd stayed away to protect Taeui from the danger that followed him.

Now, amidst falling snow and flickering candles, they are faced with the same question - can something once broken still be given again?

Ilay tries to joke about it, murmuring,

"Last Christmas, you gave me your heart. I've been trying to give it back ever since."

But Taeui only shakes his head, his voice quiet but certain:

"You can't return what I never stopped giving."

As the church bells ring and the snow begins to fall heavier outside, they stand together under the same Berlin sky, no longer pretending not to care. This time, Last Christmas doesn't end in heartbreak - it ends with forgiveness, warmth, and the quiet realization that love, no matter how wounded, can still find