The apartment was a sanctuary of glass and silence. Located on the 45th floor of a premier Gangnam high-rise, it offered a panoramic view of Seoul—a city of ten million people, all moving like blood cells through the arteries of the Han River.
Dr. Lee Jae-han stood by the window, his reflection ghosting over the twinkling lights. At thirty-two, he was the youngest Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the history of Seoul National University Hospital. He was often called "The Angel of the OR." His patients loved him; his students worshipped him.
He took a slow sip of lukewarm tea, his gaze fixed on a small, dark smudge on his sleeve.
"Jae-han? Are you still up?"
The voice was soft, husky with sleep. Han Seo-yoon stood in the doorway, her military-issue t-shirt hanging loose on her frame. Even in the dim light, the discipline of the Korean National Armed Forces was etched into her posture—shoulders square, eyes instinctively scanning the room.
Jae-han turned. His smile was instantaneous. It wasn't a sudden movement; it was a gradual unfolding, a masterpiece of muscle control that reached his eyes and made them glow with a warmth that shouldn't exist in a man who spent his days cutting into human chests.
"I couldn't sleep, jagiya," he said, his voice a smooth, low baritone. "The surgery today... it was a bit more complex than I anticipated."
Seo-yoon walked toward him, her hand reaching out to touch his arm. She felt the tension in his linen shirt. "Did you lose them?"
"On the contrary," Jae-han whispered, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. His fingers were cool, his touch precise. "I saved them. But sometimes, saving someone feels like... delaying the inevitable. Don't you feel that way in the military? We just move the pieces on the board, but the end of the game is always the same."
Seo-yoon frowned slightly. This was the side of Jae-han she had seen since high school—the philosopher, the boy who stared at the sun too long. Back then, she thought it was genius. Now, after years of service, she saw it as the burden of a man who carried the world's life in his hands.
"You think too much," she murmured, leaning her head against his chest.
She couldn't see his face. If she had, she might have noticed that his smile hadn't faded—it had simply turned static. A mask that didn't need a wearer.
His mind wasn't on the patient. It was on the alleyway in Incheon three hours ago. It was on the way the man had begged, his voice a frantic staccato that ruined the rhythm of the rain. Jae-han had hated the noise. He had corrected the man's breathing with a single, elegant stroke of a scalpel—not for money, not for revenge, but because the man's existence was untidy.
"Your uniform is ready for the ceremony tomorrow," Jae-han said, changing the subject with surgical precision. "Captain Han Seo-yoon. It has a nice ring to it."
"I'm just glad the training is over. I missed this," she said, gesturing to their home. "I missed us."
"We've always been together, Seo-yoon. Since that day behind the science wing in tenth grade. Remember?"
Seo-yoon shivered. She remembered. She had found a group of older boys bullying a stray dog, and Jae-han had stood there, watching. He hadn't been afraid. He had simply been observing. When she intervened, he had smiled at her—the same smile he gave her now—and helped her bury the dog when it died of its injuries an hour later. She had thought he was being kind. She had never asked why he had been carrying a kit of sewing needles in his pocket that day.
"I remember," she whispered.
"Good," Jae-han said. He kissed her forehead. "Go back to sleep. I have to finish some charts."
As she walked back to the bedroom, her military instincts—the ones that saved her life during paratrooper drills—tripped a silent alarm in the back of her brain. Something was off.
She glanced back. Jae-han was looking at his sleeve again. He took a small bottle of peroxide from a cabinet and a cotton swab. He dabbed at the smudge with a terrifyingly steady hand.
It wasn't ink. It was a dark, rust-colored stain.
Seo-yoon stood in the darkness of the hallway, her heart rate spiking to 110 BPM. She was a soldier. She knew the smell of iron. She knew what a man looked like when he was cleaning a weapon.
But this was Jae-han. Her husband. The man who cried at their wedding. The man who had waited for her through every deployment.
She turned away, forcing her breath to slow down. It's just the hospital, she told herself. He's a surgeon. Surgeons deal with blood.
In the kitchen, Jae-han watched the peroxide bubble on his sleeve, turning the red to a fizzing white. He felt nothing. No guilt, no fear, only a slight annoyance that his favorite shirt was ruined.
He looked at the bedroom door where his wife had disappeared. He loved her, in the way a collector loves a rare, fragile porcelain doll. She was the only thing in this world that made his "Angel" mask feel real.
He would keep her safe. He would keep her beautiful. And he would never, ever let her see the basement of his soul.
The moon slid behind a cloud, leaving the apartment in total darkness, save for the blue light of the refrigerator and the glint of the scalpel Jae-han had forgotten to put away.