Only one step… it was all that was left for everything to be over. She was afraid of this instead. She was afraid to lose everything while the eyes of love looked at her - the eyes of the man Ian SolHi loved more than her own life.
Those eyes instead looked at her coldly, with that coldness of ice that hurt one’s heart like hell. Yet, she didn’t want to see the eyes of love like that. No, she didn’t want to see them looking with hatred and contempt at her, with that cold that cut her inside, which stopped the flow of her blood through her veins and even her breath in her chest. The cold made her regret the decisions she took that day. Even so, Ian SolHi had no power to turn back time or change something.
Actually, even if she knew that she couldn’t turn back time, SolHi still hoped that it would be possible one day. She wanted to turn back time at least for a few moments and change one single detail. What exactly? Not to hurt Him, the one she loved the most, but who made her so unhappy at that moment when she saw the pain in his eyes, which seemed the eyes of a demon at that moment.
Life had its course instead, just as time had its own flow. SolHi couldn’t turn back time or change that small detail she wanted so badly to change. She could only look into DooSan’s eye, regret the past and the decisions she made, and cry, inside her, the unhappiness that took over both of them. SolHi saw it clearly in his eyes - hatred, in those eyes that kept staring at her while fear was seen in her eyes - fear of losing him.
Suddenly, SolHi winced, hearing DooSan’s question, „What? Surprised to see me here?” Questions that made her shudder inside because of the coldness used by the man to say those words, coldness that perfectly reflected the hatred inside him.
SolHi smiled eventually, something that amazed DooSan, who kept looking straight into her eyes. Her eyes instead looked on the sly at those red lips she adored, but from which she didn’t feel warmth or desire as she had felt so many times before coming from him. Only her lips, the color of a ripe peach, were sketching a sad and weird smile, wishing only one thing - the kiss.
However, the kiss she wanted didn’t come. At the same time, the love between them was too late to be felt again, even if the love was so alive in SolHi’s soul. Yet, no scent of love was felt coming from DooSan… only hatred and that cold polar wind that made SolHi often shudder and fear.
She wasn’t afraid for her life, which was hanging on a very thin thread while her right leg was practically stepping into the void, and her left leg was barely touching the edge of the roof. No. What SolHi feared was the same thing she had always feared since she got to know him - that DooSan, blinded by his hatred and desire to get revenge, would release the collar of her coat, which he was squeezing hard at that moment and would turn himself into a criminal though. If this had happened, he would have gotten to the same place of terror called jail where one is treated like a nobody, worse than one could treat a rat. And, as SolHi didn’t want this, as she didn’t want to see him suffer more than she was seeing that he was suffering at that moment, she kept squeezing his wrists, dreaming of being able to make him think rationally again and not curse his life by trying to make hers a hell, like a reward for all those times he suffered because of her.
Hearing DooSan’s next question, „Are you afraid?” SolHi winced again. Yet, she didn’t answer that question. She only smiled: bitterly and sadly, although her soul wanted so badly to cry. Yes, SolHi wanted to cry, but not because of everything that had happened to her in time or because she felt wronged, but because she saw her face mirrored in the black and shiny retina of his eyes, a reflection that made her close her eyes for a few moments, feeling nausea because of herself.
Then, she smiled again. „I look so terrible in his eyes,” she thought while having her eyes closed. After this, opening her eyes again and looking at DooSan, SolHi saw him frowning. She didn’t understand what could confuse or enrage him if he frowned and she didn’t care about this. She only decided that it was time to answer his question and said, „To be afraid of what? Of death?”
„You should be afraid of death once you are so close to embracing it,” replied DooSan drily, looking over the edge of the roof. SolHi looked in the same direction, seeing the pavement of the jail’s backyard, which was about 15 meters under them. Then, she looked at DooSan again when he said, „It’s so easy to embrace death today… All that’s necessary is a simple movement of my hand and you reach hell. The same hell you had always tended to be and where you got to live eventually.”
SolHi smiled again. „Hell?”
„Yes, hell: where you are living right now. Or what… Do you consider it different from the hell that everybody is afraid to get to see one day?”
„No, this place isn’t different from that hell. Yet, even if many are afraid of it, so few of us get to see it one day. At least… I haven’t ever met someone who has returned from there and could tell us about it.”
DooSan’s eyes suddenly sparkled weirdly, something that made SolHi attentive. Moreover, she became attentive when he said, „I wouldn’t be that sure if I were you: that you hadn’t ever known someone who met hell. Why? Because I know this place very well.”
SolHi said nothing. She understood what DooSan was trying to say very well, but she didn’t dare answer him. She definitely didn’t dare to say something else because she understood that no matter what she had told DooSan that day, it wouldn’t have comforted him or helped him to escape from the hell they dared to talk about for the first time since they met.
Unlike her, who wanted to keep silent about this, DooSan seemed eager to talk about that hell. He wanted to be sure she’d know it too. The man wanted her to know how much he suffered because of her because he blamed her for knowing pain and that hell eventually. „My butcher, the one who made me cry my fate on my knees, Ian SolHi. That butcher is you, the one I wish I wouldn’t have ever met.”
Such words have been the punishment for SolHi at that moment. She felt the Sky collapsing over her and how the earth cracked under her soles, ready to swallow her and erase her from the earth’s surface… once and for all. Yet, because of her pride, SolHi wasn’t ready to accept her defeat. She wasn’t ready to show him that he had won in front of her again and could hurt her through such simple words.
Responsible for SolHi’s stubbornness was her pride. Yes, the pride of a hurt woman was to blame for this, a woman who wouldn’t have ever allowed, not even in front of the man she loved more than her life, to know her knelt and in pain. At the same time, she wasn’t ready to accept her end, not as it seemed that he prepared it for her, and this was so because she felt that she was a ruin, a creature whom nobody loved and whom people always surrounded. Even so, she raised her head eventually, proudly looking into DooSan’s eyes, where she would have liked to see herself as she’d been once: beautiful, proud, without her shoulders hunched and without scars in her soul and on her skin.
Not having even this chance, to see herself as she had been once, but so as DooSan wanted to see her at that moment to feel himself avenged, SolHi told herself that even if she didn’t look well at that moment, she should at least not show him that she was afraid of him. At the same time, she wanted to show him that she was self-possessed and could control her own destiny. That’s why she told him eventually, „You know, it’s so simple to leave the hell you are living now behind you, a hell you have chosen to live in, eventually.”
„Simple? Do you think so, SolHi? Do you really think that’s simple to live and leave this hell behind?”
„Yes, it’s simple,” her pride responded instead of SolHi. „Getting rid of the source of pain, you also get rid of problems. Only this way, you can be free of demons, Han DooSan. By releasing my coat… it’s over: once and for all.”
DooSan shuddered. Even his heart stopped for a few moments after hearing such words. His mind instead, confused because of his own ideas, started to form questions so quickly… Questions more complicated than the feelings that took form in the soul of the man at that moment.
„To release her coat?” DooSan understood the first thought that made him shudder again. „How can she speak like that about her own life? How can she think that’s so easy for one to kill? Is it that easy for you, Ian SolHi? Do you think that if I get rid of you, I’ll happily ever live after this? Do you really think this? Do you really think so?”
DooSan asked himself such questions only in his head. He didn’t dare to ask SolHi any of these questions at that moment, although he came there looking for answers. He came there to find out if SolHi was guilty of something and find out what exactly happened that day or how much she hid to save herself. Yet, by coming there, he not only didn’t find answers to his questions, but he formed many more in his head and his soul because he definitely couldn’t understand how SolHi could act like that, how she could not care about her life, and how could she think that it was so easy to leave that world and leave him alone?!
Suddenly, DooSan froze. This happened when he saw SolHi closing her eyes, releasing his wrists, and stretching her arms to the side after laying back. Because of this, DooSan was forced to take one more step in front, which allowed SolHi to take her right foot off the roof, hanging in the air later. If she had taken the second leg off the roof too, it would have been over for sure. Yet… she hesitated. Yes, inside SolHi, a big fight took place at that moment because her mind was yelling at her to take the last step and end up with her pain while her soul, as stubborn as she was, didn’t want to end up her life for nothing in the world, just as it didn’t want to give up on love and on itself.
The moment he felt the tip of his shoe touching the edge of the roof, DooSan finally reacted. And, from one movement, he pulled her toward him, holding SolHi to his chest after this. Feeling her next to him, DooSan was shaking like hell, something that made him wrap his arms more around her just not to give her time to fall prey to her madness and abandon him forever.
Feeling DooSan’s arms wrapped around her body, SolHi suddenly opened her eyes, freezing. It seemed weird to her to feel his chest next to her chest. Just as it seemed weird to her to hear his heart beats again, in her ears. „Tuc-tuc, tuc-tuc,” was rhythmically beating the man’s heart… in the pleasant rhythm of her own heart.
These heartbeats made SolHi dream again. She was dreaming with her eyes wide open, seeing nothing else at that moment than a white shirt and a gray jacket, which she compared with the only border that separated her love from his heart. And, dreaming about the impossible, even if it was only for a few moments, SolHi smiled again.
The moment she felt herself shaken after DooSan grabbed her by the arms, SolHi turned back to her senses and looked at his face. She clearly saw his lips saying something. What he said, SolHi didn’t hear. Only at the end of his speech, SolHi heard, „Have you lost your mind? How can you do that, Ian SolHi? How can you give up on your own life?”
SolHi didn’t answer but smiled, staring at his chest. This made DooSan also keep silent, noticing her glance focused on his chest, something that amazed him. What also amazed him a lot was to hear SolHi’s whisper, „It beats! Your heart beats, DooSan!”
„Of course, it beats,” the man answered, confused. „I’m alive, remember?”
„Yes, I forgot this.”
„That I’m alive?” He asked her dumbly.
„No, I forgot how your heart beats. I forgot its rhythm and its melody, just as I forgot that I missed it.”
DooSan swallowed hard. „She missed it?” He suddenly wondered. „I thought she hated me. Yes, I thought she avoided me because she hated me. After all, it was the only explanation I had for her avoiding seeing me all this year. Yet, confessing this, it’s complicated because, SolHi, I don’t understand anything of what happens to you.”
Such thoughts brought tears to DooSan’s eyes. He couldn’t feel different when he finally found out that SolHi wanted him and that she dreamt of him in silence, closed between four cold and empty walls, and that she probably avoided him so as not to hurt him more than she had done already. And yes, there were feelings between them. It was love, the same as what he felt all that time. He dreamt of her, but pain stopped him from coming there. At the same time, the guilt had impeded him from getting to jail to see her, just as his stupid pride forced him to stay away from her. People also stopped him from seeing her because he preferred to stay away from her after he understood that he loved her, because of the same people who could have judged their love, who could have hated them for the simple fact that they chose to live for each other, and those people who could have hurt her. Why? Because SolHi chose to give up on freedom and love when she accepted a crime she didn’t remember.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Eventually, when he could control himself again, DooSan looked somewhere behind SolHi. The man looked at that red sunset, at the same sunset of death, as he compared it so many times in his mind, at the sunset that was so beautiful at that moment. After that, he asked, „Why, SolHi? Why did you avoid me all this year if you missed me?”
„Because it wasn’t fair,” said SolHi in a shaking voice.
„Wasn’t it fair? For whom?” Looking at her, after he asked the last question, DooSan saw her smiling. Yet, he understood that it wasn’t a smile because they saw each other again, but because of the awkwardness from her soul. The man felt the same awkwardness in her voice too when she also looked at the red sunset and said:
„It wasn’t fair for you, DooSan. It wasn’t also fair for us, for the world, and for the rest. At the same time, I didn’t have this right because… don’t forget why I’m here and that someone suffered because of me.”
DooSan closed his eyes for a few moments, feeling pain because of her words. He felt confused because what SolHi told him was really confusing. On one hand - she told him that she missed him, and on the other hand she told him that it wasn’t fair for him, for the world, but not for what she felt. DooSan didn’t think she didn’t feel the same. He didn’t believe that SolHi didn’t feel wronged. Yet, there wasn’t the right moment to find out this truth. He still had time to find out that truth later. At that moment, he had to find out another truth like, „How did my brother die, SolHi?”
His question made SolHi shudder and stare at him again. „How did he die? I thought this answer was clear for you,” she said, confused.
The man smiled instead. Deep inside him, he understood that SolHi avoided answering his question because she was hiding something. That’s why he decided to insist. „I know,” he suddenly said. „Even so, I think I have the right to hear this from you, don’t you also think so? And you’ll answer my question if you consider that you wronged me when you took my brother from me. So, tell me, SolHi: how exactly did YuSan die that night? More than that: why did you pretend not to have remembered that night all that time, although you remembered every single detail of what happened then?”
These questions made SolHi frown. She felt confused, hearing them from DooSan. At the same time, she felt confused because she didn’t know how to accept in front of him that she lied when she said that she remembered that night. Yes, she lied in Court to protect him. She couldn’t accept this in front of him though. That’s why she murmured only, „It’s not worth it. To revive the past.” After that, she tried to release herself from the trap of his arms.
Stubborn as he was, probably more stubborn than SolHi was, DooSan wrapped his arms more tightly around her. He did that not to give her the chance to run again away from him or avoid answering his question. Yes, he wanted to find out the truth from her at least that day. At least a small detail he wanted SolHi to tell him, a small one from which to start the investigation and find out the truth about YuSan’s death, which she accepted so suddenly, declaring herself his assassin.
Feeling SolHi’s palms touching his chest and pushing him away from her to release herself from the trap of his arms, DooSan looked at them and frowned. He did that when he saw the bandage again and this brought more questions to his head. Yet, he said nothing, not even at that time. He only silently looked at SolHi, who was struggling with him to release herself, something she couldn’t do eventually. That’s why SolHi decided to use another trick she used to use in the past to make him let her go: she tried to kick his ankle or knee and force DooSan to move away from her. Failing and this happened because DooSan learned well each of the lessons she taught him just not to give her the chance to run away from him in the future, SolHi furiously yelled at him, „Han DooSan, what the hell do you think you are doing? Release me!”
„Not until you answer my question.”
„I won’t do that. Just as I don’t intend to play your game, Han DooSan.”
„Game? What do you think I’m doing here? That I’m playing a game?”
„Yes. Otherwise, I can’t explain how Prosecutor Han DooSan had been capable of paying the guards to be left alone with a death-sentenced prisoner like me. So, Prosecutor Han, you’ll do all of us a favor if you do not cross the allowed line, or you can be accused of excess of duties.”
DooSan shook his head. „I don’t like it.”
„You don’t like what?” SolHi hissed through her teeth, still struggling with him to release her.
„I don’t like when you are calling me Prosecutor Han. I like to be called DooSan. By you.”
„What I don’t like is when you try to steal my freedom,” SolHi yelled at him.
Eventually, she’d been forced to give up on her attempt to release herself. This happened when DooSan wrapped his arms even tighter around her. He even stuck his cheek on the top of her head, just to make sure she’d be stuck to her chest. Only after this did DooSan whisper, „So pleasant!”
For a few moments, it was silent all over. Then, when he heard SolHi saying, „Prosecutor Han, don’t you think it’s time to stop this circus?” DooSan frowned again.
„You can be as stubborn as a donkey sometimes,” the man murmured, reproachfully shaking his head. „I told you already: I hate when you call me like that. Tell me DooSan. I like it more.”
SolHi smiled this time. „I also like this,” she thought. „I also like to call you DooSan. Yet, I don’t have this right anymore. Not after all that happened.”
SolHi kept silent after such thoughts, for a long time. DooSan also said nothing. He did that because he understood that there was no need for words at that moment, not when he realized that what he had missed the most all that year was their hug, the scent of lavender that was felt from her, a scent he hadn’t felt anywhere else while they had been separated, just as he missed the moments of dreaming.
Nevertheless, he didn’t have time for a dream because of SolHi, who suddenly yelled at him, „I told you to let me go, Prosecutor Han! It’s time to go and you to…”
„You? Prosecutor?” DooSan hissed through his teeth, staring into her eyes. „This is something new even for you, SolHi. Are we strangers or what?”
Of an enviable calmness, although she seemed on fire only moments ago when she yelled at him, SolHi looked into his eyes and told him, „Yes, we are strangers, Prosecutor Han. I killed your brother. This makes us strangers.”
„Say this one more time and I swear I’ll crack your head,” DooSan growled, furious, taking even SolHi by surprise. She was also confused because she couldn’t understand what happened to him or what his words meant. Yet, she understood this very soon when DooSan told her, right in her face, „Stop lying that you killed YuSan when it’s nothing like that, SolHi! Or what, will you continue to lie that YuSan died because you hit his head with the hammer?” Saying this, DooSan’s eyes were sparkling because of anger.
SolHi frowned instead. „To lie? Ia, Han DooSan… no, wait, Prosecutor Han, I’m not lying when I say that…”
„Of course, you are lying. Why do I know that? Because YuSan didn’t die because someone hit his head.”
„What the hell are you talking about right now, DooSan? Didn’t Han YuSan die because of the hit on his head? I remember very well the moment I hit him. The same thing Captain Lee said… No, he said that…”
„You see? You don’t remember your own confession, SolHi. Or what, don’t you remember what exactly you confessed in Court?”
„Of course, I remember. I clearly remember that I… I killed him and…” SolHi stuttered.
„Okay, if you say you remember what you confessed in Court, you should also remember what is written on this paper, SolHi!” DooSan said that, hissing the words through his teeth while unfolding an A4 sheet of paper, which he took out of his pocket.
SolHi frowned again. „And, how am I supposed to know what is written on that paper?”
„It’s your statement. What you confessed a year ago while still being at the Kanam police station when you said you killed YuSan. You wrote it. Oh, no, wait: you said that you „confessed” and others wrote it, right?! Even so, you have to know what it’s written here: word by word.”
The confidence in DooSan’s voice made SolHi think that it was time to use something else than lies. At the same time, she understood that she was burnt because she hadn’t read what she had signed that day. She had only… trusted Lee. After that, she simply accepted everything he said and planned: to make everybody think that she killed two souls just to make sure she would get to a maximum-security jail. A plan that had to remain only between them. Yet, once DooSan asked her that question, it meant he knew or at least suspected their plan. Even so, stubborn by nature, SolHi decided not to accept that she ever lied. The reason? She wouldn’t have been ever able to look into his eyes again because of shame. For this, to go away with it at least, she stuttered a simple, „Why should I remember what I wrote a year ago, DooSan? I’m not a robot. Now… let me go!” After that, she tried to hit the pike.
Yeah, right! Han DooSan, who learned all her tricks well all those months they lived together, blocked her away again. At the same time, he learned that if Ian SolHi felt herself surrounded was lying to others. Not only this: she turned aggressive, just as she was doing at that moment, something that hinted to him that he was on the right path to find out the truth.
Understanding this, DooSan took a step toward her, insistently looking at her. SolHi took one back, walking backward like crabs. Yet, unlike him, SolHi looked elsewhere because she wouldn’t have looked into his eyes while lying to him. Then, understanding that her only way to escape from the roof was to get to the door, she tried to do that while DooSan kept blocking her away, understanding her intention. Thus, they got to walk in circles.
Going around in circles didn’t help her in anything at this time because DooSan, who seemed to have understood her new trick, suddenly grabbed her arm and didn’t let her go. He only put the A4 sheet of paper in front of her and then hissed through his teeth, „It’s written here, black on white, that you hit YuSan three times. Where exactly?”
SolHi squinted at him. „Three times. This seems like an exaggeration for me even coming from Lee.” Then, catching DooSan’s insistent glance focused on her, she looked elsewhere, mumbling, „The right side, if I remember this well.”
„It’s written here that it was on the left side,” DooSan calmly said.
„Well, yes, the left side,” she stuttered again.
DooSan smiled. „I caught you,” he said to himself. After that, he triumphantly said, „Yet, it’s the right side.”
„It’s what I said, right from the beginning,” said SolHi, furious.
„No, you said the left side. Or what, will you say this time that I’m stupid and that I don’t remember what you have just said to me?”
She failed again. Yes, she understood that she fell into the trap like a stupid. Yet, „I’m not even surprised because I know what kind of hunting dog you are,” she suddenly said, frowning. „Now, let me go!”
„I haven’t finished yet,” DooSan calmly said.
Feeling trapped, SolHi snapped at him. „What now? What? What else do you want to find out? What?”
„The truth!”
„You have it written, right?”
„Not this truth, SolHi, but the one behind this sheet of paper. You have already convinced me that what is written here is a lie.”
SolHi showed him her fangs. „If you are so sure that’s a fucking lie, I don’t understand what you are doing here.”
„I’m looking for safety?” DooSan drily answered.
„Whose exactly?”
„Mine, of course. And yours too. I also want to find out the truth because… YuSan didn’t die because of the hit in his head, but because he’d been stabbed.”
SolHi froze. „Stabbed? Don’t go around the bush, DooSan! I clearly remember that I hit his head. There are also photos from the autopsy. Now you said that…”
„I say the truth because yes, DooSan had a wound on his head. Yet, not this killed him, but those 7 wounds he received in his stomach.” SolHi stumbled, finding out this truth. If DooSan hadn’t grabbed her arm, she would have fallen for sure. Then, staring at her, although SolHi seemed not to see him, DooSan confidently said, „It’s why I said that you lied to me, SolHi because… you never mentioned the wounds on his belly.”
„Even if I didn’t say that, I’m… I’m sure that Captain Lee wrote this in the testimony. It’s impossible not to have written this. He’s not stupid to give himself away.” She kept silent the moment she realized that she talked too much and that she was about to confess in front of him. „Damn it!”
„Yes, SolHi: damn it!” DooSan shouted, furious. „I don’t understand where exactly was your head when you accepted this prank! Or what… did you believe that the truth would die along with you?”
Saying this, DooSan was really furious. He was boiling inside not only because of her but also because of Lee. At the same time, he was furious to find out that if SolHi was in prison, it was because Lee had promised something to her, and SolHi, like a stupid girl, fell into the trap having no plan to escape from there. This was killing him inside: to find out that others had considered them stupid and newcomers, using them to fulfill their own mean purposes. And they, like two inexperienced kids, allowed everything to their enemy, thinking that they would save the world if doing this.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t everything lost even if it seemed that he found out the truth too late. Yes, DooSan felt that it wasn’t too late, at least not for them. That’s why he held her to his chest eventually, sticking her to his body just to feel her closer to him and not consider that it was a simple dream again.
He wasn’t dreaming. He felt it clearly, just as he felt her bony shoulder touching his chest. Yes, that shoulder was bony at that moment when it had been soft and pleasantly smelled like lavender before, a shoulder he couldn’t protect from evil, just as he’d been unable to protect her.
This truth made DooSan hate himself. At the same time, he started to hate the whole world for all the evil things it did to her. Evil he wanted to pay back just to take revenge on them for her, just as he intended to take her out of there. For this, he needed time. How much time?! He didn’t know either. Even so, he didn’t want to give up: neither on his plan nor on her or on the love they felt so intense at that moment.