Despite the frantic pulse pounding in his ears, Dong Jiwoo managed to maintain a remarkably calm expression. Thankfully, Seoryeong only had her head down, looking like someone temporarily exhausted and out of breath.

Sure, she had a tendency to go overboard sometimes, but Dong Jiwoo could understand why. She had survived this wretched hell week by sheer grit — there was no way she was going to let it all fall apart just two hours before the end.

Please... Just keep walking, Instructor...

Dong Jiwoo swallowed a dry lump down his throat, but the toes of military boots stopped mercilessly close.

“...!”

Before he could stop himself, he glanced up.

Lee Wooshin stood there, leaning to one side, looking down at Seoryeong with a peculiar expression.

His narrowed eyes, sharper than ever, suggested he had already seen through her ruse. Yet his expression remained strictly businesslike, rigid and unyielding.

The man stood in the night wind, staring her down — from the stiff, mud-crusted hair, to the dirt-smeared forehead, to the training uniform that had become a hardened crust after alternating between mud and seawater, to the combat boots that °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° were so caked in muck they were barely recognizable.

The deeper his gaze roved over her, the deeper the furrow etched across his once-smooth brow. Finally, his eyes dropped to where Seoryeong’s hand lay limply against the sand.

That was when his expression changed.

The impassive face cracked, a fleeting but unmistakable fracture. And Dong Jiwoo, caught up in the inexplicable shift, found himself looking down as well.

He already knew what Seoryeong had been doing right before she passed out — obsessively scrawling something into the dirt. Furrowing his brow, Dong Jiwoo strained to make out the faint traces of letters.

Kim... Kim... What? Kim Hi? Kim Heo?

The instructor’s reaction was something Dong Jiwoo witnessed purely by accident.

Lee Wooshin’s face twisted into something almost indescribable. His hand rose to scratch his cheek with his nails, but he seemed to restrain himself, his jaw clenched tight as though he was fighting some internal battle.

“...Fuck. She’s so damn stubborn. Where the hell did someone like her come from to drive me fucking insane...―”

Even as he cursed under his breath, his eyes remained riveted on Seoryeong’s limp, battered form — eyes that seemed as though they were being drawn in against his will.

His jaw clenched so hard it looked like it might crack. He muttered another string of curses, but then his gaze dropped back to the ground, and one side of his mouth twisted into a strange, almost pained smirk.

Dong Jiwoo scratched at his itchy nape, his expression unreadable. He couldn’t quite understand what was so fascinating about Seoryeong’s wrecked, crumpled figure.

Yet Lee Wooshin’s eyes refused to look away.

In the depths of his eyes, a brief, flickering glimmer of pity appeared — then vanished.

What... the hell?

Instinctively, Dong Jiwoo jerked his head away. It felt like he’d just witnessed something he was absolutely not supposed to see.

Lee Wooshin raised his sleeve, checking the military wristwatch strapped around his arm. He clicked his tongue sharply and trudged a few steps closer to Seoryeong, the sand sucking at his boots.

Oh... oh, shit...!

Dong Jiwoo’s butt twitched against the ground, but he didn’t dare move.

Lee Wooshin paused directly in front of Seoryeong and ground his boot into the sand, erasing the scrawled letters with a couple of slow, deliberate twists. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.

“......”

What the hell was that?

Dong Jiwoo could only stare blankly as the instructor’s back receded into the distance. The wind, once so bitter it felt like it was slicing through skin, had somehow ceased to blow.

Further away, Lee Wooshin stood against the darkening horizon, his silhouette like a lighthouse — stark, unyielding.

Meanwhile, Seoryeong’s finger twitched against the ground again.

***

Her mind drifted in and out of consciousness. Her eyelids felt heavy, impossible to lift. Then, a gentle breeze brushed across her forehead.

Seoryeong lay there, half-submerged in that state, unsure if it was a hand or the wind touching her. It felt like she’d had a terrible dream — something vast and overwhelming. Still half-asleep, her lips moved faintly.

“Kim Hyeon...”

The breeze paused for a moment. Immediately, she tilted her head, searching for the vanished sensation. It was an instinctive gesture, the kind of coyness she only allowed herself with her husband.

Hyeon? Why are you home so early today?

“There’s no food in the house...”

At the casual murmur, the hand that had been brushing back her hair stilled.

A strange unease crept over her. She wanted to open her eyes, desperately. For some reason, it felt like if she could just look now, she might actually see Kim Hyeon’s face.

But her body was pinned down as if trapped beneath the wreckage of a collapsed building. She struggled, her eyelashes fluttering weakly, and then something warm and soft draped over her eyelids — a towel, heated to just the right temperature.

Ah... A sigh escaped from deep within her chest. That warmth... it had to be her husband. Her body relaxed without her even realizing it.

“I had such a weird dream... a really, really terrible dream...”

“What kind of dream was it?”

The warmth, the familiar voice that answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The familiarity of it almost brought tears to her eyes.

“My whole body hurt, and it felt like my chest had been blown open...”

“Where does it hurt exactly? Here?”

That familiar hand massaged her aching arms and legs with a gentle, cautious touch.

“Mm... And I got hit with cold water... and then hit with alcohol...”

“Who the hell would do something like that?”

“Some bastard...”

“......”

“A really awful bastard...”

“......”

“But no matter how hard I looked, you weren’t there.”

At that moment, the hand that had been holding hers seemed to both pull her closer and push her away — as if caught between drawing her in and shoving her aside.

Everything felt like a dream, and nothing felt certain. Seoryeong kept calling his name in a raspy voice until she drifted back to sleep.

“――!”

She jolted awake, her eyes snapping open to the sight of the white ceiling of the infirmary.

Shit...

Her expression immediately darkened, filling with dread and frustration. There was a complete blank space in her memory. She couldn’t remember when it started.

She turned her head sharply, staring out the window. The darkness had vanished; the sun was rising.

Wait, sunrise? How long have I been out?

Her heart plummeted, hammering like a broken drum. Even without a mirror, she could picture her own face — ashen, panicked.

“Ugh...!”

She bit down on a groan, forcing herself to sit up. Just the effort of raising her upper body sent a cold sweat running down her back. It felt like her entire body had been smashed to pulp.

That was when the infirmary door slid open with a creak.

“You...!”

The moment she saw Dong Jiwoo’s pale, haggard face, Seoryeong’s eyes sharpened.

Even just looking at his appearance, she could tell — hell week was over.

The stench of filth was gone. His hair was clean, his clothes fresh.

She stared at him in stunned silence, her words caught in her throat. It felt like she’d been struck from behind. Why don’t I remember anything?

Her heart thudded ominously.

“I... I didn’t get back up after that? Did they find out?”

Her voice trembled uncontrollably, barely holding back panic.

“Answer me. Did they find out?”

The pain raging through her body only intensified as she pressed for answers.

Dong Jiwoo, who had opened his mouth to speak, suddenly froze. Tears welled up in his tired eyes, dropping silently down his cheeks.

His lips moved as if to say something, but no sound came out. The tears flowed soundlessly, like water from a leaky faucet.

“Who found out? Was it Instructor Lee Wooshin? Was it him?”

“...Hey. ...What’s that?”

“What?”

“Why is there... something dripping down your face? It’s not blood... it’s water...”

Seoryeong frowned in confusion. What the hell is he talking about? She wiped her face with a hand and then carelessly rubbed away the moisture with her palm.

During that brief pause, Dong Jiwoo hurried to clarify.

“You can relax. You made it through hell week. You’re just resting here now.”

“How could I finish the training when I don’t even remember anything?”

“You must’ve been half out of your mind...”

Dong Jiwoo looked at her with a mixture of horror and bewilderment.

“But you got up, walked around, talked to people. You were moving fine.”

“......”

“Everyone was sleepwalking like zombies by the end. Even Seong Wookchan ended up covering for you. He was cursing you the entire time, but he still did it. You should probably buy him a meal or something later.”

“......”

“But yeah, you made it. You weren’t caught. You weren’t kicked out. You completed it.”

I really made it...

At that, Seoryeong buried her face in her hands, finally releasing the breath she had been holding.

She had genuinely thought she was done for. The blood that had frozen solid in her veins now started to circulate again, pumping life back into her body.

“But... Instructor Lee Wooshin carried you here right after training ended.”

Dong Jiwoo spoke up awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

“He was the first to notice you’d passed out.”

Seoryeong’s eyebrows drew together, her expression hardening.

“You were walking fine, talking fine. No one suspected a thing. But the second the training ended, Instructor Lee Wooshin just... threw you over his shoulder and brought you here.”

Unconsciously, Seoryeong’s hand moved to scratch at her collarbone.

Aside from her husband, she’d never been carried by anyone before. And now... the skin around her neck was marked with raw, red scratches from her own nails.

She stared blankly out the window at the morning sun, her mind oddly numb. Then, something occurred to her, and her eyes widened.

Seoryeong quickly scanned the infirmary, her voice urgent.

“Was anyone else here besides you?”

“Huh?”

Her vision blurred suddenly. What the hell is wrong with me...? She rubbed at her eyes, but her tear ducts continued to swell as if they’d malfunctioned.

Maybe it was because her body had finally reached its limit, then snapped like a worn-out wire. For the first time, Kim Hyeon had appeared in her dreams.

That man, her husband, who had never shown his face even in her deepest nightmares, had finally come to her in a dream.

Seoryeong flipped her hands over, studying her palms as though they held some kind of answer. Then, abruptly, she thrust them under Dong Jiwoo’s nose.

“Look. My hands are clean, aren’t they?”

“This?”

Dong Jiwoo clearly didn’t believe her, but Seoryeong remembered that warm, damp towel.

“It didn’t feel like a dream...”

“Han Seoryeong, you reek right now. And you think someone sat here and wiped your hands for you? Must’ve been a dream. There were so many people coming in and out of the infirmary after training ended — ah—”

He stopped mid-sentence, his expression shifting subtly.

Just then, the infirmary door swung open without warning. A familiar shadow fell across the room, stretching long against the floor.

Her heart gave a shallow, uneasy flutter as she stared at the looming figure.

Lee Wooshin stood there, hair still damp, his cold eyes flicking sharply between Seoryeong and Dong Jiwoo before his brows knit into a deep scowl.

“That kid,” he said, voice tight, “was it him?”