Prologue

Drop.

Hanna, opening the yellow glue cap, gently spread the glue over the smooth film paper.

She carefully pressed the thin photo onto the notebook she had opened beforehand and slowly removed her covering hand.

For a long time, she caressed a single black dot in the photo with the tip of her index finger. At first glance, it looked like a noisy black-and-white television screen, and in some ways, it resembled the vast universe.

“This is… a child…”

She muttered in a barely audible voice.

The ultrasound photo, which she was seeing for the first time in her life, felt utterly unfamiliar.

An unexpected pregnancy at the mere age of twenty-three.

Above all, when she thought of the child’s father, Hanna felt a tightening pain deep in her abdomen.

It wasn’t just because of her young age that the sudden reality of pregnancy felt so hopeless.

Rather, it was more because her current situation was not easy in many ways to take responsibility for a child.

Since she was a dead person, since she didn’t even have a name…

Even if she blindly gave birth to the child, caught up in a vague sense of responsibility, there was no way she could raise it properly.

At this rate, she wouldn’t even be able to register the child’s birth.

Then, of course, the child wouldn’t be able to go to hospitals or schools.

Even if the child were born, they would have to live a non-existent life.

It had only been a few months, but Hanna, who had lived such a life, did not want to pass that hardship down to her child.

Would a child even want a life like that?

“Seo Beomgyo…”

Above all, if that man found out…

Hanna clenched her fists tightly, her spine chilling at the mere assumption.

At that moment, her sharply raised fingernail happened to scratch a long line across the surface of the photo.

The white line drawn over the black dot seemed to show the child’s predetermined fate.

Yes, if she couldn’t take responsibility until the end, giving up might be a form of responsibility too.

Contrary to her thinking brain, hot tears welled up in Hanna’s painfully distorted eyes.

It was because the sound of the child’s heartbeat that she had heard at the hospital suddenly echoed in her ears.

That small, loud heartbeat, which stubbornly held on to live and be born into this harsh world, touched Hanna’s pathetic maternal instinct.

In the end, she abruptly snatched up the prenatal care notebook and began to frantically rub the scratch on the ultrasound photo.

She even pulled her sleeve over to scrub it hard, but the deeply gouged scratch did not disappear.

It was just when Hanna dropped her head along with her hands in a belated rush of apology.

Thud, thud.

Someone knocked violently on the room door.

Hanna’s shoulders flinched at the sound, and she snapped her head around.

She quietly stared toward the front door, which had fallen silent like an auditory hallucination, just like the child’s heartbeat that had been ringing in her ears a moment ago.

With another thud, the tightly closed door shook once more.

Hanna instinctively held the prenatal care notebook close to her chest and jumped up from her seat.

“W-Who is it…?”

She barely squeezed out a voice that wouldn’t come, but there was no response.

Was it because her voice was too quiet?

Or else…

When the thought crossed her mind that the person outside that door might be Seo Beomgyo, Hanna’s large eyes shook violently.

No.

No way, how could he have found me…

Shaking off the encroaching anxiety, Hanna hesitantly approached the front door and parted her trembling lips once more.

At that moment, a sharp voice forced its way through the crack in the door first.

“Look here, young lady! It’s already been a week. Didn’t I say we require advance payment!”

The voice, thick with irritation, belonged to the particularly unfriendly motel landlady.

A faint sigh escaped from between Hanna’s teeth, relieved that it wasn’t a man, and that it wasn’t Seo Beomgyo.

After running away from Seo Beomgyo, Hanna had moved motels every week, and she had only paid for a week’s stay here as well.

Therefore, she was supposed to vacate the room today, but she had completely forgotten about it because she had been out of her mind all day.

“Hey, young lady!”

Hanna’s shoulders jolted again at the landlady’s urging voice.

Outside the window, heavy March snow was pouring down.

Fearing she might be kicked out into the dark night street in such foul weather, she immediately pulled down the doorknob.

“I’m sorry, landlady. The motel fee, right now…”

However, she stopped mid-sentence and froze.

It was because through the widening crack of the door, she faced a broad chest instead of the landlady’s angry face.

The moment she saw the man’s black shirt with a couple of buttons undone, Hanna instinctively pulled back on the doorknob she was clutching.

But the man’s large hand, which abruptly thrust through the narrowing gap, easily caught and stopped the solid steel door.

Following the crumpled shirt collar and the thick neck muscles, Hanna’s gaze slowly traveled upward.

No.

It can’t be…

The thread of hope that she couldn’t bring herself to let go of broke with a snap the moment she confirmed the man’s face.

“Ahjussi…”

The man who stepped into the room by prying open the door with irresistible force was none other than Seo Beomgyo, the one Hanna had desperately hoped it wouldn’t be.

One step, two steps.

Hanna stepped backward as if pushed by the approaching man.

But like the countless misfortunes that tripped her up every time, this time the threshold of the entryway caught her heel.

The moment her body tottered, Hanna instinctively shielded her abdomen first.

Because of that, the notebook she lost from her grip rolled right in front of Seo Beomgyo’s pitch-black shoe caps.

No…

Hanna, turning deathly pale, tried to bend down immediately to pick it up.

However, the strong grip that had been blocking the door roughly pulled her arm.

“Ugh…!”

In an instant, Hanna, who was practically thrown against the entryway mirror, groaned as she hunched her impacted back.

But the moment Beomgyo’s large hand slammed right beside her face, her faint breath was sucked back in.

Unable to look straight at the man, Hanna kept her head dropped low as a heavily sunken voice descended over her head.

“If you’re going to run away, f*ck, you should have at least left Busan.”

Beomgyo, who found it utterly ridiculous no matter how much he thought about it, chewed on a dry, bitter laugh.

Without delay, he revealed the reason why he had combed through every inch of Busan to find her.

“You know Seo Yeji, don’t you?”

Seo Yeji…

At that name, Hanna’s complexion turned deathly pale.

In the end, it was clear that he had found out everything.

The truth that she had hidden, the truth she had no choice but to hide…

“A-Ahjussi…”

What should she do if a moment like this came?

She had worried about it countless times and thought she had a plan of her own…

But facing it right before her eyes made everything useless.

“I was wrong, ahjussi.”

Hanna, who did not dare to make any excuses or explanations, eventually brought her hands together in front of her rapidly heaving chest and began to beg desperately.

“I’m sorry. Even now, I’ll tell you everything honestly…!”

However, Beomgyo’s fist slamming into the mirror choked off her words.

As Hanna froze with her eyes wide open, the sound of the mirror cracking loudly echoed in her ears.

At the same time, she felt a heavy, tightening sensation in her lower abdomen.

Just as Hanna fumbled over her flat stomach and dropped her gaze with cold legs, Beomgyo brutally grabbed her slender chin and pulled it up.

“What is your relationship with Seo Yeji?”

“…”

Hanna, her throat completely tight, could only repeatedly part her empty lips.

In the midst of that, the metallic scent of blood emanating from Beomgyo’s hand, which gripped her chin, violently turned her stomach.

“Ugh!”

Unable to hold back the surging nausea any longer, Hanna pushed Beomgyo away with all her might and rushed into the bathroom opposite her.

“What the f*ck…”

As Beomgyo turned around while twisting his stinging jaw, something suddenly brushed against his foot.

It was the notebook Hanna had dropped earlier.

He had intended to ruthlessly trample over it and pass by, but the silhouette of a pregnant woman stamped clearly on the cover, and the words printed above it, forced Beomgyo to a halt.

[Mom & Baby]

Ultimately, bending his waist to pick up the notebook, he wedged his fingertip into the gap of the paper where the film was sticking out.

As the page slowly unfolded and he faced the ultrasound photo attached there, Beomgyo’s eyes widened in an instant.

[Congratulations on your pregnancy.]

Neither the photo nor the word ‘pregnancy’ felt real.

The personal information pressed down in neat handwriting below it was even more surreal.

[Patient Name: Seo Yeji / Date of Birth: — Year — Month — Day]

Because the patient was none other than his younger sister, who was said to have died a few months ago.

However, the date of the medical examination was today.

How could a person who was already dead?

No matter how much he thought about it, it was impossible.

Unless someone was using his sister’s name.

“…”

Dropping the hand holding the notebook, Beomgyo strode into the bathroom.

Subsequently, he grabbed the back of Hanna’s hair as she sat slumped on the tiles with her head buried over the toilet, and yanked it up roughly.

“Gasp!”

For a moment, he carefully scrutinized the face of the woman, who had clear tears hanging from her reddened eyes, and slowly chewed out his cracked voice word by word.

“What is your real name?”

Whether it was Duna or Sena, he already knew that the name she had given him once upon a time was not real.

Was it a mistake to have let this kid’s clumsy lie slide back then?

Beomgyo ruthlessly twisted his grip on Hanna’s hair as she dropped tears without answering, and urged her once more.

“Are you Kim Hanna?”

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

“I’m asking you! Are you Kim Hanna…!”

“I did everything wrong, ahjussi…”

Watching Hanna, who only repeated incomprehensible apologies instead of answering the question, Beomgyo finally let out a hollow breath.

“What the hell are you…”

He then pulled her hair, bringing her right in front of his face, and shouted like thunder with his bloodshot eyes wide open.

“Who the f*ck are you?!”

Hanna couldn’t give any answer.

How could she protect the child in her womb?

Ridiculously, that was the only thought filling her mind.

How could she handle the child of this man, who was looking at her with eyes full of pure hatred…