A Widow's Truth Buried in Snow
Seo-ah had just followed the two women back into the funeral hall when it happened.
The moment Ki-young stepped through the entrance of Room 2, Dong-ha's family descended on him like wolves.
Then, hobbling out on her bad leg, Dong-ha's paternal grandmother seized him by the collar.
"Neither a man nor a woman—and you dare crawl in here and bring shame on the dead!"
The strange words spilling from the old woman's mouth froze Seo-ah where she stood.
Her mother-in-law, too, wore an unmistakable look of alarm.
Fortunately, though, no one paid any real meaning to the ramblings of a woman pushing ninety.
No one except Seo-ah.
She fixed her gaze on her mother-in-law's face, so busy reading the reactions of the crowd around her. Then their eyes met.
The woman's expression turned cold in an instant, as if nothing had happened at all. She shot Seo-ah a sidelong glance, then hurriedly ushered the grandmother into the mortuary and disappeared inside.
What was that? Seo-ah needed to understand this unpleasant feeling coiling in her chest.
"Unnie, what was Grandmother saying?"
"Wh-what?"
Dong-ju's eyes wavered violently.
"You heard it too, Unnie."
"I, well, that is……"
Just then—
"You little bastard! Get out of here this instant!"
Dong-ju's voice, which had only just struggled free of her heavy lips, was swallowed whole by her father's bellow.
Seo-ah simply could not understand why even her father-in-law had come out to berate Ki-young. Wasn't he the best friend his son had loved so dearly?
"Let's go. For now, let's just get out of here."
Dong-ju took Seo-ah by the arm and pulled her along.
"What did Kim Ki-young do wrong?"
No matter how Seo-ah pressed, Dong-ju seemed incapable of opening her mouth, saying nothing at all.
For now, escaping the chaos of the mortuary came first.
Even after dragging Seo-ah outside, Dong-ju couldn't bring herself to look her in the eye for a long while.
"Tell me. Everyone's acting so strangely toward Kim Ki-young."
Realizing there was no longer any lying her way past this, Dong-ju's shoulders slumped helplessly.
"Seo-ah……"
The depth of heaviness in Dong-ju's voice made Seo-ah more anxious than it ever had before.
"Dong-ha liked men."
"……I'm sorry?"
Did I hear that wrong?
That single, simple sentence from her sister-in-law felt as foreign as a language she'd never studied.
Seo-ah furrowed her brow and tried once more to make sense of the words.
If Dong-ju was telling the truth, then Lee Dong-ha was gay—and Kim Ki-young, the man he called his best friend, was something closer to the lover her husband couldn't live without……
"Ha—!"
Only now grasping her sister-in-law's meaning, Seo-ah staggered backward, letting out a breath that wasn't really a breath at all.
"Dong-ha told me himself. It's true."
"Ha, haha."
A thin, halting laugh leaked out of Seo-ah.
How bitterly she had regretted it—those last moments in the funeral hall, when she had pressed and accused her dying husband. When the news of Dong-ha's death had reached her, her heart had felt ready to burst, she'd been so certain it was her own wretched fault.
And now all of that grief was tearing her apart in an entirely different way.
How had she never known? The answer had been there all along—in how stingy he was with his smiles, in how only Ki-young's voice could ever draw a reaction out of him.
Lee Dong-ha and Kim Ki-young are lovers.
Every doubt she had carried until now dissolved in that single sentence.
"So that's why……"
Clumps of cold crystallized in Seo-ah's frozen eyes.
It was February's white, biting snow, drifting down from a sky that seemed to know exactly what was in her heart.
Seo-ah and Dong-ha had met exactly twice after their arranged date, and then married.
The moment the marriage registration was stamped, Dongha Motors invested as promised, and for a brief while the ailing Won Electric was brought back from the brink.
In those days, Seo-ah had truly believed that Lee Dong-ha, who had chosen her, was her savior.
But for all her effort, her married life refused to flow the way she hoped.
Her mother-in-law was always angry.
As if Seo-ah were a concubine who had stolen her son away, the woman never once let the two of them being together pass without comment.
And yet her nagging for a grandchild never ceased.
It wasn't that Seo-ah had no wish for a child either. She wanted to repay the family that had chosen her, and to ease her father's guilt—that his daughter had entered a marriage she never wanted because of him.
She believed that a grandchild would untangle every last one of those knots.
But as a woman, as a wife, Jin Seo-ah was thoroughly ignored.
Dong-ha hadn't even come to her on their wedding night, claiming work, directly after the ceremony ended.
Even without his mother's interference, he behaved as though he had given up on being her husband entirely.
She hadn't loved the taciturn Lee Dong-ha, but she had tried, patiently, to open her heart to him—because they were husband and wife. Affection would build with time, and someday, she told herself, she would come to love him. That was life, she'd believed.
And so this very moment felt like the delivery of a wretched verdict: that all of that struggle had meant nothing at all.
"What is all of this…… what is it……"
The quiet laugh that had started in Seo-ah's throat grew and grew. It built until her shoulders shook and she was clutching her belly, and then, before she knew it, it curdled into a fury she could not contain.
The betrayal that boiled up in an instant brought with it an unbearable headache, and nausea surged until her stomach churned.
Should she resent him? Or should she grieve?
Seo-ah felt as though her heart had lost its way, unable to choose a direction.
What was she supposed to call you now, Lee Dong-ha? Right up until the moment you died, you were never my husband.
Her strength draining from her body, she swayed and shifted her gaze to the stairs ahead of her.
Dozens of steps rippled like waves, and beneath them yawned a cliff with no bottom in sight.
She gripped the railing and tried desperately to hold on, but before she knew it, blackness began spiraling across her vision.
If I fall from here…… could I die?
Seo-ah's eyes drifted, unfocused.
And then, at last, the strength left the hand gripping the railing, and she lost her balance.
So this—this—is how it ends.
The end that arrived with a single streak of tears came wrapped in a stillness that felt like a lie.
Then, in that very instant, a deep musk enveloped her whole body.
Cologne……?
The steadiness that pierced through that moment made her draw a deep, shuddering breath.
A short while later, Seo-ah blinked her dazed eyes open inside that warm embrace.
Through her half-lowered lashes, she glimpsed the faint silhouette of a man.
I was supposed to be falling down the stairs. Why am I—
Seo-ah spoke to the stranger.
"Who…… are you?"
"Kang Tae-kyung."
At the casual, offhand introduction, Seo-ah blinked slowly.
"……Sorry?"
Only then did the man seem to come back to himself, mumbling blankly.
"Ah."
He loosened the arm wrapped around her and carefully lowered Seo-ah back onto the steps.
"I said Kang Tae-kyung. You asked who I was."
Tae-kyung mumbled the answer with an awkward expression.
"Oh, I……"
Just as Seo-ah was about to say something—
"Seo-ah!"
Dong-ju, belatedly realizing what had happened, came sprinting over, white as a ghost. Then she slapped away the hand of the man supporting her.
"Who are you? Do you know her? Who are you?"
Even under Dong-ju's accusatory glare, Tae-kyung said nothing.
In the meantime, Hee-joon, who had been searching for his boss, spotted him and came running.
"Team Leader!"
When the sprinting Hee-joon saw Seo-ah standing with Tae-kyung, he clapped a hand over his mouth, then hurriedly took his boss by the arm.
"Oh boy—we're so sorry, so very sorry!"
As Hee-joon steered Tae-kyung away by the elbow, Dong-ju, shielding Seo-ah, glared at their retreating backs until they were out of sight.
"Why do you keep pulling these stunts?"
Hee-joon, who had been tearing around the cramped funeral hall trying to track down a boss who kept vanishing, demanded an explanation.
"I didn't do anything. She looked like she was about to fall, so I caught her—and she asked who I was. So I told her my name. That's all."
Ah, damn it. The words were barely out of his mouth before Tae-kyung regretted them.
He'd meant to make excuses and instead confessed that he'd handed a stranger his name—and the absurdity of it embarrassed even him.
Sure enough, Hee-joon reacted like a man stung.
"I'm sorry—what? You just told her your name? Why on earth? Were you toying with a grieving widow?!"
Widow. Only at that word did Tae-kyung remember that she was a married woman.
"No one was toying with anyone. She just stared at me and asked who I was. The name came out on its own."
"You've fallen for her, haven't you? Just like that?"
"……What?"
His rebuttal arrived a beat too late, even to Hee-joon's needling—the thought that it might actually be true had flickered briefly through his mind.
Seriously, though—why?
It made no sense however he turned it over. The world was drowning in beautiful women, so why couldn't he stop thinking about a widow, of all people?
Was it really such an enraging thing, watching those so-called family members strut around and trample a fragile woman? He'd known her for what, five minutes?
He tried his best to talk himself into an explanation, but he couldn't even convince himself.
No idea. Crazy bastard.
He had just given up on arguing with himself and decided it was truly time to leave this place when a man brushed swiftly past his side, shouting.
"Ms. Jin Seo-ah!"
Tae-kyung guessed instinctively that it was her name—and reflexively seized Ki-young by the arm.
"And who the hell are you?"