The morning sun poured through the vast windows of their bedroom, casting soft gold across the sheets tangled at the foot of their bed. A breeze lifted the sheer curtains, and birdsong filtered faintly from the courtyard garden below — distant, like a memory trying to find its way home.
Soo-Ah stirred first, her hand reaching out across the mattress, brushing the warm indent where he had lain beside her hours earlier. But Dae-Hyun wasn't gone. He stood by the window, shirtless, dressed only in black linen pants, a glass of water half-finished in his hand. The light etched the lean sculpture of his body, turning him into something mythic — and yet impossibly real.
She watched him in silence for a long moment.
There was something about the way he stood there — not regal, not relaxed, but waiting. Like a man who didn't know what to do with the stillness of happiness. Who didn't trust it.
She rose slowly, the silk of her nightgown whispering as it slipped over her skin, and padded barefoot across the floor.
He turned only when she reached for his hand, his fingers curling reflexively around hers, warm and strong.
"You didn't sleep," she said softly.
"I did," he lied.
She smiled faintly, brushing a strand of hair from his eyes. "You stayed awake watching me again, didn't you?"
He said nothing. That silence was answer enough.
Then, boldly, she leaned forward, pressing her lips just beneath his jaw. His breath hitched.
"What are you doing?" he murmured, voice husky.
She smiled into his skin. "I want to do it again."
He blinked. "What?"
She looked up, her expression resolute. "Right now. In daylight."
There was a long pause. A stunned, near-horrified pause.
And then Dae-Hyun took a half-step back, eyes wide, lips parted in something between amusement and incredulity.
"Have you gone insane?" he asked, not unkindly — more like a man questioning reality. "I thought I was the insane one in this house."
She burst out laughing. The sound was light, unguarded — the first true laugh he'd heard from her since she woke. It was music and memory and oxygen.
He stared at her, mouth slightly agape.
She looked almost… playful.
"I have gone insane," she said, with a small shrug. "After everything, how could I not? But maybe I want to be insane with you."
He blinked again. "I don't even know what that means."
"It means I want to live. I want to stop being scared of sunlight. Of mornings. Of touching you without guilt." Her smile softened, growing bittersweet. "Last night was the first time I felt alive since… Min-Jun."
At the mention of their son's name, Dae-Hyun's face twitched — just slightly. That wound would never close. Not for either of them.
"But if we wait for the pain to vanish before we let ourselves feel joy again," she continued, "then we'll be waiting forever."
He stared at her like she'd spoken a foreign language.
Then, slowly, he set the glass down on the windowsill.
"You want joy?" he asked.
She nodded.
He stepped forward, gaze sharp, unreadable. "You want me — the me I am now — without flinching?"
She met his eyes squarely. "Yes. All of you."
The stillness that followed was electric.
And then he reached for her.
They made love that morning with the sun pouring in, draping their bodies in light and warmth and something like hope. It was different from the night before — no longer the mourning of ghosts, but something tentative and real. Still slow. Still reverent. But laced now with something more dangerous:
Possibility.
He kissed her neck as the morning birds sang. She whispered his name with trembling breath. His hands, once unsure, grew more confident as they rediscovered her — as if some part of the old Dae-Hyun, the one who used to laugh and chase her down beach villas and kiss her in elevators, had been pulled up from the abyss and reborn in the daylight.
Afterward, they lay tangled together in the center of the bed, sweat-soaked and glowing, sheets kicked to the floor.
Soo-Ah curled against his chest, listening to his heart.
"You're still my Dae-Hyun," she whispered.
He stared at the ceiling, silent.
"But?" she asked.
He sighed. "But I'm also something else now."
She looked up. "Do you regret becoming this version of you?"
He turned his face toward her. "I regret that you had to meet him."
Her smile faltered. "I don't. He saved me. He never gave up."
"And if you hadn't woken up?" he asked, voice low. "If you'd stayed like that forever?"
She reached up, brushing the tear that slipped from the corner of his eye before he could hide it.
"I would've wanted you to live," she said. "Even if it meant going a little insane."
He laughed, just a breath. Then he kissed her again — slow and deep and full of unsaid things.