With Yiseo distracted by cursing the new menu, Dowon naturally put the straw that Yiseo had touched with her lips into his mouth. 

 

In fact, the taste of the drink, like the earlier meal, wasn’t properly felt.

 

“Yes. It’s fine. It’s delicious.”

 

Seeing such Dowon, Yiseo flinched again. He wondered if she had good intuition. 

 

Every time he seemed to be up to something, she looked at him strangely.

 

However, no matter how good her intuition was, the boy she had only seen for a few minutes yesterday couldn’t know what delusions he had about her that night, or what dreams he had.

 

That night, contrary to expectations, Dowon had a nightmare. 

 

In it, Dowon was the crown prince who had lost his consort….

 

It was no different from the wet dream of the previous day, utterly insane.

 

In the dream, Dowon was lying on the floor writing.

 

Ink drew letters on white silk.

 

The sounds of scratching, scraping, continued endlessly. 

 

Small letters densely filled the white silk. Without distinguishing day from night, unaware of the passing days, the hand filling the letters finally stopped at the edge of the silk.

 

The man who rose from his seat slowly stroked the stone coffin placed in one corner of the shrine with his hand. 

 

As if the cold coffin were a person, he murmured something to it.

 

His deeply sunken, pitch-black eye sockets, from how long he hadn’t slept, looked just like those of the dead. 

 

With bloodshot eyes, he stared at the portrait of the dragon behind the stone coffin.

 

“If you cannot save her.”

 

He whispered in a form that anyone could see was that of a madman.

 

“I will do it.”

 

The dragon wanted proof, and the man opened the coffin.

 

The heavy coffin rattled, revealing a gap. He kissed the corpse inside.

 

The face of the corpse was….

 

“…!”

 

Dowon opened his eyes. The whole world was pitch black. 

 

After blinking a few times, the structure of the room faintly came into view in the darkness.

 

“Ah…”

 

His throat was mercilessly parched.

 

Dowon, having woken from sleep, sat in the dark room without turning on the light and turned on his phone. 

 

Then, he mindlessly searched for Yiseo’s number on the phone and stared at it for a long while. 

 

He couldn’t understand at all why he was having a nightmare of kissing a corpse and doing something like this. But it was because the corpse definitely seemed like Yiseo.

 

‘It wasn’t even the same face.’

 

Yiseo didn’t use SNS. 

 

Dowon went to his father’s SNS and found a group photo taken at university. 

 

There were a couple of group photos with Yiseo in them, small as he was. 

 

Following that, he went to the SNS of Yiseo’s classmates and found a few more photos that included Yiseo.

 

Dowon stared at those few photos for a long time. Even these didn’t feel particularly real.

 

As expected, it felt like he had to hold it in his hand to feel alive.

 

These things had no meaning.

 

🦋

 

The alarm set for 5 a.m. rang noisily.

 

Yiseo staggered to his feet. 

 

As she left the warm blanket, her body shivered. She hunched her shoulders and went out of the room. 

 

After washing her face and coming out of the bathroom, the smell of food wafted through the house from early dawn.

 

“Mom?”

 

“Ack! You’re already up?”

 

Her mom, in the kitchen, turned around in surprise at Yiseo’s call. 

 

Yiseo, startled in turn, said, “I told you I have to pick up materials from another school early this morning and go to work.”

 

“Did you? Wait until you’re mom’s age. See if you remember all that.”

 

“More importantly, what are you doing? Ribs? At this hour?”

 

“Yeongseon is making a fuss that she’s a senior now and is going to pack a lunch from this morning to go to the library.”

 

“Tell her to buy food. Who packs lunch these days? It’s still vacation, and she’s already draining mom’s energy, that kid. And she’ll probably oversleep today, too?”

 

Yiseo clung to her skinny mom’s back and whined. 

 

Mom giggled like a girl and replied, 

 

“You think Yiseo didn’t have it when she was in her third year of high school? Don’t you remember how, during her third year, she kept having nightmares from stress and insisted on sleeping with Mom, kicking Dad out?”

 

“That was just cute. At least I didn’t make Mom prepare meals from dawn. You know I hate seeing our mom suffer the most.”

 

“That’s why you’re the older sister, and she’s the younger one.”

 

It was when Mom tapped Yiseo’s arm, saying it was getting heavy and to let go. 

 

A sharp voice cut through the kitchen and dropped.

 

“I heard everything. Both of you.”

 

Yiseo froze. 

 

A third-year-high schooler in puberty was that terrifying a being. Yiseo carefully pretended not to know and spoke to her younger sister.

 

“You’re up early. Yeongseon….”

 

The younger sister crossed the living room without a reply and went into the bathroom. The slammed door was a bonus.

 

“She’ll be sulking for a while again. She’s already sensitive these days.”

 

Mom added with a sigh.

 

“You should go to the temple this weekend and get a talisman. You got one when you were in third year, too.”

 

“That stuff is all superstition.”

 

“You got one, but you don’t want her to feel left out because she didn’t, and see your sister get upset? And you got that talisman for mental stability or whatever and stopped having nightmares and slept well.”

 

“That’s…. Fine. Got it. I’ll go this weekend.”

 

Yiseo shook her head and returned to her room. 

 

The nightmares from her school days were a topic she didn’t particularly want to bring up.

 

Because….

 

Honestly, they were a bit too bizarre to call nightmares.

 

It was a dream where an extremely handsome man terrifyingly chased her or locked her up, but if it were just that, she could have brushed it off as ‘I must have been really stressed from entrance exams.’

 

But the strange part was that every time she woke from the dream, the man’s face, which had felt so vivid, was completely unforgettable.

 

“Ah, don’t think about it. No recalling.”

 

Yiseo muttered to herself as she took off the T-shirt she wore as pajamas. And while changing into a hoodie, her eyes suddenly caught the mirror. 

 

Glancing down at her stomach, which had no marks or scars, Yiseo put down the hoodie.

 

In fact, those strange dreams repeated throughout her school years. 

 

But she started regarding them as nightmares after one day in her third year, when she discovered a large red handprint on her waist, exactly like in the dream.

 

Back then, she really thought it was some ghost’s doing and made a fuss about sleeping with Mom….

 

Well, thinking about it now, it was probably just a mark from bumping into something in my sleep that I mistakenly got worked up over. 

 

Everyone’s a bit out of it in their senior year of high school, right?

 

Yiseo roughly rubbed lotion on her face while checking her phone.

 

“Time…”

 

At that moment, her phone vibrated in her hand. 

 

A message from someone not particularly welcome popped up. Yiseo swallowed a sigh and ignored it. 

 

However, as soon as she sent a message to the graduate group chat saying she was heading out to pick up the materials, a call came through immediately.

 

“Ah, seriously.”

 

Yiseo let the vibration ring for a while before finally answering with reluctant fingers.

 

Before Yiseo could say anything, the other person laughed first.

 

—Noona, were you sleeping? You said you had to wake up early today.

 

“Yeah, well…”

 

—I called to wake you up since you didn’t reply. Hurry and get up.

 

“Okay, thanks. Thanks, but… Dowon, you don’t have to go this far. You must be tired too. Go back to sleep.”

 

She mustered up as much kindness as she could in her response, but inwardly, she was groaning first. 

 

Yiseo couldn’t figure out why this awkward and uncomfortable professor’s son was acting like this. 

 

Ever since their last meeting, he kept coming to the department office under the excuse of visiting his dad and hitting on her.

 

Yeah. At first, she denied it several times, thinking ‘No way, but it was definitely hitting on her.’

 

—I’m not tired. I’m in front of noona’s house. You said you’re stopping by another school before heading to work today. I came to give you a ride.

 

“…”

 

If this isn’t hitting on her, then what is?

 

Yiseo looked in the mirror. 

 

Of course, staring again didn’t suddenly turn the reflection into some stunning beauty. 

 

Still completely baffled as to why this kid, who had everything in excess and nothing lacking, was chasing after her, Yiseo shuffled outside.

 

“…”

 

Dowon, showing not a trace of fatigue despite the early hour, smiled the moment he saw Yiseo.

 

“Noona.”

 

“Yeah…”

 

A handsome guy smiling was nice to look at, but Yiseo nodded awkwardly. 

 

Pretending not to notice, Dowon approached her and grabbed her arm.

 

“I finished all my driving lessons now. I came to give noona a ride. Mornings are tough, right?”

 

“Huh…”