The memory of those nights—his voice low and soothing, his hands stroking her hair until she drifted off—felt so far away now. She had taken that comfort for granted, and in one moment of jealousy and cruelty, she had shattered it.
But even through the ache, a fierce resolve settled in her chest. 'I will get it back. I will earn every single touch, every gentle word. No matter how long it takes. No matter how hard I have to work.' She made a silent vow to herself: she would never disappoint him again. Never hurt him like this.
She would prove—day after day, with every action—that she deserved the trust she had broken. She would be patient. She would be steady. She would show him she could be the safe place for him, just as he had been for her.
Mi-Kyung hugged him deeper, digging herself into his chest as much as she could, pressing every inch of her trembling body against him.
She wanted to melt into him, to erase the space he was keeping. But she didn't complain. She didn't beg for more. She simply accepted the restrained comfort he was willing to give, knowing she had to earn the rest.
Min-seok continued to stroke her back slowly, his fingers tracing careful lines along her spine. His touch was kind, but it lacked the effortless tenderness of before. It was the bare minimum of reassurance—enough to keep her from falling apart completely, but not enough to make her feel truly held.
And Mi-Kyung felt every bit of that restraint.
She closed her eyes, tears still falling silently, and whispered against his neck, voice thick with emotion.
"I know I hurt you. I know I broke something between us. But I swear… I'll spend every day fixing it. However long it takes. I won't give up on us. I won't give up on you."
She tightened her arms around him, pressing her cheek harder against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart beneath the guarded warmth of his embrace.
She would wait. She would work. She would prove herself worthy of the love she had almost lost.
And she would never—never—let him cry alone again.
After that day, Mi-Kyung became fiercely protective of her bond with Min-seok. Whenever other men tried to approach her—flirting at the salon or asking her out during her breaks—she turned stern and cold, brushing them off with sharp words like, "I'm not interested. Please leave."
Her heart belonged to him now, and she couldn't bear the thought of anyone else intruding on the fragile trust they were rebuilding. But as weeks turned into months, she noticed a change in Min-seok. He never talked about himself or his family again.
Whenever she gently brought it up—asking about his sisters or how he was feeling—he either changed the subject smoothly, saying something like, "Let's talk about your day instead," or simply didn't answer at all, his eyes distant and guarded.
No matter how much she tried to coax vulnerability out of him, he held back. He was kind, attentive—still fixing things around the salon, still bringing her coffee, giving her comfort, love and care—but the walls were up.
One evening, after a particularly quiet dinner at her house, Mi-Kyung took his hand and said softly, "Min-seok... you can open up to me. Like you almost did before. I want to be there for you, the way you were for me."
He paused, his eyes flickering with something raw—pain, perhaps, or the edge of tears. For a moment, she felt him softening, his shoulders slumping as if he might finally let go.
But then, abruptly, he pulled his hand away and stood. "I... I have to go," he muttered, voice tight. He left without another word, the door clicking shut behind him.
Worried, Mi-Kyung followed him discreetly, her heart pounding. She trailed him to a quiet cemetery on the outskirts of the city, watching from behind a tree as he knelt at a simple gravestone—his mother's. He sat there for hours, talking in a low, broken voice, pouring out everything he kept hidden.
"Mom... it's hard. Every day, I see you in my dreams—dead, covered in white, the girls clinging to me, crying. I jerk awake every night, but I can't tell them. They think they're the ones still hurting, but it's me... I failed you. If I hadn't gone out that birthday..."
His shoulders shook with sobs, tears streaming freely down his face. He cried to his heart's content, alone, expressing vulnerabilities he shared with no one else—his guilt, his loneliness, his fear of losing his sisters too.
Mi-Kyung's eyes filled with tears. She stepped forward, wanting nothing more than to comfort him, to wrap him in her arms and wipe away his pain. But before she could reach him, a firm hand grabbed her arm.
It was his cousin—the same woman she had insulted—standing with Min-seok's three younger sisters, all of them watching protectively from the shadows.
"Don't you dare disturb him right now," the cousin said sternly, her voice low but fierce. She pulled Mi-Kyung back behind the tree line. The sisters—young women in their early 20s, with faces that mirrored Min-seok's kind eyes—gathered close, their expressions a mix of wariness and quiet resolve.
"I don't know what your relationship is with my brother, but if you really care about him, let him cry to his heart's content. The thing he hates the most is someone invading his private space without him asking for it."
Mi-Kyung's heart sank, but she nodded, whispering, "I... I just want to help him."
The cousin's eyes narrowed. "He told me everything about what happened between you two that day. For your information, he did celebrate his birthday—but it was all for show. We could feel it; he was just going through the motions for our sake. He had no real will to celebrate otherwise. Do you think we're blind?
We're his sisters—we see him hurting himself every day. Why do you think I come every single time around his birthday? To get him to at least pretend to celebrate, when he has no will at all.
Those 'pampered' acts we sisters do? It's not because we're still traumatized—we came out of that incident a long time ago. We act that way to give him a reason to remember he's not alone. We don't care if he sees us naked or touches our private parts—we just want to bring him out of his hell any which way possible.
We realize everything he's been through, and we fear he might start wanting to die. So we cling to him, even if others call us characterless. For us, our brother is more important than anything, even our character or how we are perceived by others."
One of the sisters, the eldest among them, stepped forward, her voice soft but steady. "He was closest to our mother among all of us. He never came out of her death.
He has nightmares every single day—we know it well because we make him sleep with us not because we have nightmares but because he has nightmares. In his dreams, he sees her dead body covered in white, us traumatized and clinging to him, crying like babies.
His body jerks more than ours ever did. But he tells no one about it. He wears that happy, confident smile, being the most dependable brother he can—making money, running the family, protecting us, doing everything our mother would have done."
The youngest sister wiped a tear from her eye. "He's like the reincarnation of our mother—giving us all the happiness in the world while suffering in silence. We don't even mind if he develops sexual feelings for us all or any of us, if it means he'll stop blaming himself for her death, and start living happily without guilt. We'd do anything to pull him out of that guilt, being his woman is the least of the things we would do for him."
The middle sister nodded, her gaze hard on Mi-Kyung. "Honestly, we don't like you one bit—especially after you hurt our brother like that, the day before his birthday. We sisters collectively want you to be far away from us, not bothering him with your face.
But that's not our choice to make. It's his. He chooses what he wants to do. If you really care about him, don't you dare try to disturb him right now and respect his privacy while also realising how much he's suffering alone.
And if you want to be with him, bring him out of the misery you put him in and that too within a year, before his birthday, if you can't get success stay the fuck away from him. None of us give a damn what you feel, if my brother cannot forgive you in a year he's not going to ever again, so stay away from me.
But never—ever—disturb him when he's talking with his mother. That's his time with her. If you do anything to take that away from him, we'll personally make sure you regret it."
Mi-Kyung stood there, tears streaming down her face, overwhelmed by their words. She watched Min-seok from afar, her heart breaking for the man who carried so much alone.
The sisters' fierce love for him, their willingness to sacrifice everything to keep him going—it mirrored her own growing devotion. She nodded silently, backing away, vowing to herself that she would earn his vulnerability back, no matter what it took. She would be the one to help him heal, to show him he didn't have to suffer in silence anymore.
Mi-Kyung sat quietly in her salon the next day, her mind replaying the scene at the grave over and over. The image of Min-seok kneeling there, his voice breaking as he poured out his heart to his mother's stone, haunted her.
She had learned from his sisters about his nightmares—the ones he never mentioned to her, even before she broke his trust. Every night, they said, his body would jerk in his sleep, reliving the horror: his mother's dead body draped in white, bloodstained and still; his sisters, small and traumatized, clinging to him, their cries echoing in the silence.
He would wake gasping, but he'd never admit it. Instead, he'd flash that dependable smile in the morning, making breakfast for his sisters, ensuring they felt safe while his own inner world crumbled.
She wondered, her heart aching with a mix of awe and sorrow, how he had been able to give her so much warmth and love that first night—holding her through her tears, singing lullabies, pushing aside his own cravings for comfort to prioritize hers.
'How could he do that?' she thought, staring at her reflection in the salon mirror. 'When he was starving for the same thing himself? How did he bury his needs so deep to lift me up?'
If she hadn't broken his trust with her jealous outburst, she might never have found out the depth of his pain—but no, she corrected herself quickly, shaking her head. 'If I hadn't broken it, he would have actually opened up to me. He was going to, on his birthday. He would have let me in, and I could have been there for him like he was for me.'
A newfound respect swelled in her chest for him—immense, almost overwhelming. On the outside, he was so emotionally stable: the rock for his sisters, the protector who fixed lights and chased away landlords, the man who smiled through everything. But inside?
A total mess of guilt, nightmares, and unspoken grief. He shielded everyone around him, yet carried a storm no one could touch. 'He's incredible,' she thought, tears pricking her eyes. 'How does he keep going? Protecting the world while his own falls apart?'
The sisters' words echoed in her mind: "He takes care of the world around us," the eldest had said, her voice firm but laced with love. "So we make sure to protect his inner world. We hug him through those nightmares every night.
He jerks awake, sweating, and subconsciously calls us 'Mom'—his voice so small, so broken. It shatters us every time, feeling how lonely he is deep down. We embrace him then, hold him tight in our arms, and we don't let go—even after he's calmed.
We stay there, wrapped around him, until morning if we have to. Because he needs to know he's not alone, even if he won't say it."
Mi-Kyung had watched from afar as the cousin and sisters approached Min-seok at the grave. She had started to follow, but hesitated, turning to them. "Is it alright for you to go? When he's crying like that?"
The youngest sister nodded, her eyes soft. "Yes. We've seen enough of his suffering—we're qualified to invade that space because he's let us in, even if he doesn't say it. But you... not yet. He hasn't opened that door for you again."
The cousin gave a small, sad smile. "He knows we're coming. We always do this when he's sad. He goes here to talk to his mom, and we follow quietly. It's not an issue for us—we're family."
A/N: If my story made you smile even once, that's a win for me. That's what I want to live for—brightening dull days and reminding people that joy still exists. My dream is to keep getting better, to someday reach a legendary level of storytelling.
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