THE INFINITE DROUGHT
Seventeen days.
For the rest of the world, it was just a little over two weeks—a standard blip in a busy calendar, a brief stretch of routine formatting. But for Woonseok, it was an absolute, suffocating eternity. It was a relentless, agonizing drought that stripped the color from his world and left him functioning like a hollow, beautifully crafted machine.
Ever since the screen had gone black on their last video call, his life had devolved into a grueling cycle of sleepless nights and exhausting days. He was currently in the absolute thick of preparing for a massive global tour, and the agency was pushing him harder than ever before. He spent four to five hours every morning in the recording booth, throwing his entire soul into vocal tracks until his throat burned. Then, he would spend the entire afternoon and evening locked in the dimly lit dance studios, executing heavy, complex choreography until his limbs shook with pure fatigue and his clothes were completely drenched in sweat.
But no matter how brutal the physical exhaustion became, it was nothing compared to the violent, unyielding noise in his mind.
A shoot-at-sight order.
Those four words had played on a loop in his head every single second of every single day. Every time he closed his eyes, he didn't see the bright lights of the stage or the adoring crowds; he saw a dark, humid field in India. He saw flashing police lights, shattered glass, and a stray bullet tearing through the darkness toward his Butterfly. The sheer, suffocating helplessness of being a global superstar trapped thousands of miles away in a pristine penthouse while the woman he loved faced down armed syndicates was a slow, agonizing torture.
Yet, despite the tearing anxiety, Woonseok kept his sacred promise perfectly.
Every single morning, without fail, he would sit at his granite kitchen counter, stare at his steaming mug of black coffee, and take a photograph. He would type out a brief, loving message, his long fingers trembling slightly over the screen.
Morning, Butterfly. The sun is up in Seoul, but it's completely dark without you. Please be safe today. Drink water. Remember that I am breathing only because you are.
He would hit send, only to watch the message sit there with a single, unyielding grey checkmark. No blue ticks. No "Online" status. Just dead, radio silence.
In the afternoons, during his brief ten-minute breaks in the dance studio, while the backing dancers collapsed on the floor to catch their breath, Woonseok would grab his phone. He would lean against the mirrors, snap a quick, exhausted selca showing his damp hair and tired eyes, and send it into the void.
Just finished the third run-through of the title track. I'm completely spent, Sana. Min Ho keeps nagging me to smile more, but my smiles are locked away in your suitcase. Eat your lunch, okay? I am checking.
At night, when he finally returned to his silent, vast penthouse at two or three in the morning, he would photograph his untouched meal on the table.
I'm home. It's quiet here. Too quiet. I looked at the diamond butterfly pendant in the vault today just to remind myself of your warmth. I am flooding your phone just like you asked. Please, turn it on soon. I need you.
He would place the phone face-down on the nightstand, staring at the ceiling for hours, desperately praying to a universe he didn't trust to send his warrior back to him in one piece.
On the seventeenth day, the silence finally broke—but not before the dark reality of the law demanded its pound of flesh.
The tactical operation had been a complete, resounding success. The cross-state syndicate that had threatened the peace of the entire district was officially dismantled, its top leaders apprehended, and the illicit weapon shipments seized. Officer Sana had executed the raid with absolute, military-grade precision, standing firmly as the shield she had promised to be.
But justice was never free.
The raid on the syndicate's final warehouse had turned incredibly violent. When the tactical team breached the reinforced steel doors, a desperate, chaotic shootout had erupted in the dim, dust-filled space. Sana had thrown herself into the center of the conflict, chasing down the primary target through a labyrinth of collapsing iron shelves and shattered glass crates.
During the final, brutal hand-to-hand struggle to disarm the syndicate leader, a jagged piece of a broken iron strut had sliced violently across her path. She had successfully subdued the criminal, slamming the handcuffs onto his wrists, but the physical toll was deeply etched into her skin.
By the time she finally returned home at 7:00 PM, she was walking on pure adrenaline and sheer exhaustion.
The heavy front door clicked open, and the moment she stepped into the living room, her mother let out a sharp, horrified gasp.
"Sana! Oh my God, beta!" her mother cried, dropping the kitchen towel she was holding as she rushed forward, her face pale with immediate, intense panic.
"I'm fine, Mom, I promise. The case is completely over. We won," I whispered, my voice incredibly rough and dry.
But my mother wasn't listening to the professional victory. Her trembling hands hovered over me, her eyes filling with tears as she took in the damage. My left hand was heavily bruised, the knuckles swollen and wrapped in clean medical tape. A stark, white sterile bandage was taped securely just beneath my left eye, covering a nasty cut from flying glass debris. Another thick, vertical bandage was pressed against the right side of my neck, hiding a deep, jagged scratch from the iron strut.
"Look at you... look at what they did to my child!" her mother sobbed quietly, gently guiding her toward the hallway. "Go, go wash up. I will bring some warm turmeric milk to your room. You need to rest, Sana. You cannot keep doing this to yourself."
"Thank you, Mom," I murmured, giving her a reassuring squeeze with my uninjured hand.
I retreated swiftly to the absolute sanctuary of my bedroom, closing the wooden door and locking out the harshness of the world. The physical pain was finally starting to throb through the adrenaline, but as I looked around my quiet room, a sudden, electric surge of pure excitement and happiness completely eclipsed the ache in my body.
Seventeen days. I was finally, officially off duty. I was back in my space, and more than anything else in the entire universe, I was desperate to see Woonseok.
I quickly stripped off the stained, heavy police uniform, handling my bruised hand with careful winces. I washed my face gently, avoiding the stinging bandage under my eye, and pulled on my ultimate comfort clothes—a pair of incredibly loose, soft flannel pajamas and a faded, oversized grey T-shirt.
Crawling onto the edge of my bed, my heart began to pound against my ribs like a trapped bird. With a shaking, bandaged hand, I reached over and grabbed my personal smartphone from the drawer, sliding the battery back in and powering it on.
The screen bloomed to life, and within seconds, the phone began to vibrate continuously, a wild, chaotic avalanche of notifications completely taking over the display.
Dozens of missed calls. And hundreds of messages.
I leaned back against my pillows, a massive, brilliant smile breaking across my face despite the tight pull of the bandage on my neck. I opened the chat, my eyes tearing up with pure happiness as I began to scroll through the endless archive of his love. I looked at the photos of his morning coffee, the blurry mirror selcas from his dance studio where he looked so incredibly handsome yet so beautifully tired, and the late-night texts filled with his fiercely possessive, anxious warnings.
He had actually done it. He had kept his promise perfectly, documenting his entire existence just to give me a lifeline to crawl back to. I smiled over each photo, tracing his digital face with my thumb, feeling the cold, dark weight of the last seventeen days completely melt away.
But the peace of the oasis was brutally short-lived.
Just as I was about to type out a message, the quiet safety of the house was violently shattered by the sound of angry, raised voices echoing down the hallway. The sharp, aggressive tone of my father's voice cut through the air, followed closely by the stressed, defensive tone of my mother.
They were arguing. Again.
My smile died instantly. A heavy, familiar wave of frustration and dread settled deep into my stomach. I carefully placed my phone face-down on the mattress, slipped out of bed, and walked out into the corridor.
As I approached the living room, the words became horrifyingly clear.
"Dad, what happened now?" I asked loudly, stepping into the space, my voice tight with exhaustion.
My mother turned around rapidly, her eyes red-rimmed. She immediately tried to step between me and my father, her face tight with anxiety. "Beta, it's nothing. It's just a misunderstanding. Go back to your room and rest, you are injured."
"No, Mom," I said, a little frustrated, my gaze shifting past her to lock onto my father. He was standing by the heavy wooden desk, dressed in his formal political attire, his face set in a rigid, unyielding mask of absolute authority. "Dad, what is it now? I literally just walked through the door from a life-threatening case. Why is there yelling in this house?"
My father looked at me, his dark eyes sweeping over the bandages on my face and neck without a single flicker of paternal softness or concern. To him, the physical markers of my sacrifice were completely secondary to the structural rules of his world.
"What's now?" my father repeated, his voice dropping to that terrifyingly cold, definitive tone that always signaled a political decree. He pointed a rigid finger at my mother, his jaw clenched tightly. "Teach your mother something, Sana. Teach her to stop filling your head with dangerous nonsense. She always thinks that because of your modern thinking, or this progressive world you live in, that you can simply choose someone on your own to marry!"
My eyes widened drastically. A cold shock rushed through my veins, the bruises on my hand completely forgotten as the suffocating weight of his words hit me. I looked at my mother, whose shoulders were slumped in pure, defeated sorrow. She had been trying to defend me while I was away. She had been trying to argue for my freedom.
A surge of hot, rebellious anger flared up in my chest, burning away my fatigue. I took a step forward, standing tall despite the throbbing pain in my neck.
"And what exactly is wrong with that, Dad?" I demanded, my voice ringing clearly through the tense silence of the living room. "What is wrong with a woman choosing the partner she wants to spend the rest of her life with? I am an independent, self-settled officer! I manage an entire district's security! Why can I not manage my own heart?"
My father's expression didn't even flicker. He stepped closer, his imposing frame casting a long, dark shadow over the room.
"Don't you dare stand there and tell me what is right or wrong, Sana," he stated, his voice a low, unyielding rumble of absolute finality. "We do not live in a vacuum. We live in a society. A society where I have worked for decades to build immense respect, status, and political alignment. You hold a highly respectable, powerful government job. Your marriage is not just a personal whim; it is a reflection of this family's standing. So do not think, even for a single second, that you can marry on your own choice."
"Dad, that is completely unfair—" I started, a desperate, suffocating plea rising rapidly in my throat.
"I have no time for this debate," he finished brutally, checking his watch with a cold, mechanical movement. He picked up his leather portfolio from the table, completely cutting off my words. "The committee meeting starts in twenty minutes. We will not discuss this further. The family we have selected will be visiting next week, and you will comply. That is final."
Without a single backward glance, without even asking how I had sustained the injuries on my face, he turned and walked out of the house, the heavy front door slamming shut behind him with a definitive, echoing thud.
The silence that followed his departure was heavy and suffocating, thick with the tragic reality of my existence.
I turned to my mother, my heart breaking as I saw the quiet tears tracking down her worn cheeks. She looked so small, so entirely trapped within the iron cage of my father's traditional authority.
"Mom," I whispered, walking over to her and gently placing my uninjured hand on her trembling shoulder. "Please... please don't say anything to Dad from now on. Don't fight with him because of me. Don't worry about me, okay? I don't want you taking his anger."
My mother looked up at me, her hands reaching out to gently touch the edge of the bandage near my eye, her voice cracking with pure maternal anguish. "But dear... I know you. I see the light in your eyes when you look at your phone. I know you don't want a forceful, arranged marriage. I know you are carrying a secret in your heart. How can I sit silently and watch him lock you into a life you don't want?"
I swallowed the bitter, burning lump of emotion in my throat, forcing a brave, empty smile onto my face.
"I know, Mom. Don't worry," I lied softly, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. "I will find a way. I will convince Dad when the time is right. Just... please go and rest now. You've had a long, stressful day. Let me handle this."
"Okay, beta," she whispered defeatedly, kissing my cheek gently before turning and walking slowly toward her room, her spirit completely exhausted by the domestic warfare.
I walked back down the dark hallway to my bedroom, closing the door and leaning my back against the wood. The false bravery I had displayed in front of my mother completely disintegrated, leaving behind a cold, hollow despair that made it difficult to breathe.
I can never convince him, I thought to myself, a single, heavy tear finally escaping my eye and stinging the cut beneath my bandage. I know my dad. He would rather destroy my happiness than lose a single ounce of his societal respect. His world is an iron fortress.
I walked over to the bed and slumped onto the mattress, picking up my phone once again. I opened Woonseok's chat, staring at his beautiful, laughing face in one of the older photos he had sent. A sad, painful smile curved my lips as the brutal contrast of our worlds crashed over me.
Woonseok... my beautiful, pure Mr. Idol, I thought, my chest aching with an unbearable weight. How am I ever going to tell you the truth? How can I tell my dad about a global Korean star when he expects a traditional political alignment? I love you so much... but I don't want you to be dragged into my toxic, suffocating world. I don't want my family's rigid expectations to tarnish the purity of what we have.
Suddenly, the phone in my hand vibrated violently. The screen changed from the text archive to a full-screen incoming call notification.
Woonseok. An incoming video call.
My heart skipped a beat, a frantic panic instantly replacing my sadness. I looked down at my pajamas, then at the stark white bandages glaring back at me from the dark reflection of the window pane. I couldn't let him see me like this. Not after he had literally begged me not to get a single scratch.
But the phone kept ringing, his name flashing like a desperate beacon. I knew that if I didn't pick up right now, after seventeen days of radio silence, he would completely lose his mind. He would think the absolute worst had happened.
I took a deep, shaky breath, forcing the sadness out of my eyes, and wiped away the single tear. I smoothed down my messy hair, settled myself comfortably against the pillows on my bed, and slid the screen to accept the call, forcing a bright, wide, and utterly loving smile onto my face.
"Hi, my dear love!" I exclaimed brightly, my voice intentionally lifting into that cheerful, teasing tone he loved so much.
The screen flickered, and Woonseok's face appeared.
He was sitting in the back of a sleek, dimly lit agency van, likely heading back from a late-night schedule. The passing streetlights of Seoul cast long, golden shadows across his sharp, breathtaking features. The moment the connection stabilized and my image filled his screen, he froze entirely.
His dark, piercing eyes locked onto my face. The exhausted, longing expression he had been wearing vanished in a fraction of a second, violently replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated horror.
Woonseok didn't just see a tired face. His eyes scanned my image with terrifying, laser-like precision. He saw the thick, white sterile bandage taped beneath my left eye, covering the angry cut. His gaze dropped lower, tracking the jagged, vertical bandage pressed against the vulnerable skin of my neck. Then, he noticed my left hand resting on the phone, the fingers heavily bruised and bound tightly in white medical tape.
"Sana..." Woonseok breathed out.
The word didn't sound like him. It was a low, hollow gasp, completely stripped of all his usual smooth, velvety composure. His face turned a dangerous, ghostly shade of pale, the color draining from his lips as he stared at the physical evidence of my violence.
Seeing his dramatic, paralyzed reaction, I tried to laugh it off, trying desperately to downplay the severity of the situation to keep him from completely breaking down.
"Look at you, Mr. Idol," I said teasingly, tilting my head slightly and offering him a gentle, watery smile. "We are finally seeing each other after seventeen long days of silence, and you are staring at me like you've just seen a ghost. What happened? Did my messy hair scare you that much?"
Woonseok did not smile. He didn't even blink.
The silence that stretched through the phone was deafening, heavy with a terrifying, mounting pressure. On the screen, I watched his chest begin to heave rapidly under his black jacket. His jaw clenched so tightly that a sharp, violent pulse began to throb furiously against his skin. The pure, agonizing panic in his eyes slowly began to warp into a dark, volatile fury—the fury of a man who had explicitly begged the universe for one simple thing, only to be completely ignored.
"Who did that to you?" Woonseok demanded.
His voice didn't rise to a shout. Instead, it dropped to a dangerously quiet, vibrating whisper that sent an involuntary shiver straight down my spine. It was the cold, ruthless voice of Chairman Woonseok, stripped of all warmth, vibrating with an explosive, suppressed rage that threatened to tear through the digital connection.
"Woon, please, it's really not a big deal—"
"I asked you a question, SANA!" he roared suddenly, his control completely snapping.
He slammed his clenched fist violently against the leather seat beside him, the sound booming loudly through the microphone. He leaned his face incredibly close to his camera, his dark eyes blazing with a mixture of raw, bleeding heartbreak and absolute fury.
"Look at your face!" he breathed out, his voice trembling violently as a single, heavy tear of pure agony escaped his eye. "Look at your eye! Look at your neck! There are bandages all over you! Your hand is wrapped in tape! I sat on that couch for seventeen days, losing my mind, praying to God that you wouldn't get a single scratch. And you walk back into my sight looking like you were deployed to a war zone!"
"Woonseok, please, listen to me," I begged softly, my heart shattering into a million pieces at the sight of his tears. "The case was successfully completed today. The syndicate is entirely gone. These are just minor bruises and small cuts from flying debris during the final raid. It doesn't even hurt that much, I promise you."
"Don't lie to me!" he choked out, his voice cracking painfully as his fury dissolved into a deep, desperate vulnerability. He pressed his large hand against his forehead, closing his eyes tightly as he let out a ragged, trembling breath. "Don't you dare sit there in your pajamas and tell me it doesn't hurt. When I look at that bandage on your neck... do you have any idea what that does to my chest, Sana? A few centimeters deeper, and I would be looking at a corpse right now."
He opened his eyes, and they were completely bloodshot, filled with an ocean of terrifying, helpless sorrow. He reached his long fingers out, pressing them flat against his smartphone screen, desperately trying to cover the bandages on my face through the glass partition.
"I am thousands of miles away," Woonseok whispered, his voice dropping to a broken, weeping rumble that stole the very air from my lungs. "I am standing on stages, signing contracts, living in luxury... while you are bleeding in the dark. I cannot protect you. I cannot hold you. I cannot take the pain away from your skin. You told me you were a commander, Sana... but to me, you are just my fragile, beautiful Butterfly. And seeing you broken like this... it is an unforgivable torture."
I sat there on my bed, the tears finally overflowing from my eyes and soaking into the edges of my bandages as I watched the most powerful man in the music industry completely break down into helpless, desperate weeping just because I had a few cuts on my skin. The heavy shadow of my father's traditional marriage talk was still lingering in my mind, but looking at Woonseok's absolute, unyielding devotion through the screen, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: no matter how toxic or impossible my world became, my heart would rather burn to ashes than ever belong to anyone else but him.
The silent tears continued to trace paths down Woonseok's pale cheeks, mirroring the quiet ache inside my own chest. Watching him through the glowing phone screen, my heart twisted with a profound, complicated tangle of emotions.
As he kept his trembling hand pressed flat against the glass of his screen, desperately trying to touch the bandages covering my wounds, an intense internal monologue took over my mind.
Look at him, I thought, a bitter, tragic lump forming in my throat. Look at how much this man loves me. He is completely shattering into pieces from thousands of miles away just because I have a few scratches on my skin.
Inevitably, the dark, suffocating shadow of my home life crept back into my thoughts. The contrast was brutal, violent, and entirely unforgivable. Just ten minutes ago, my own father had stood in this very room. A man of my own blood, the parent whose approval and love I had subconsciously chased my entire life. He had looked directly at my face. He had seen the sterile white bandage taped beneath my eye, the thick dressing pressed against the raw cut on my neck, and the heavy medical tape binding my swollen knuckles.
And he hadn't said a single word about it.
There was no "Are you okay, Sana?" There was no "Does it hurt, beta?" He didn't offer a single shred of the comfort or paternal love I desperately deserved after risking my life for the nation. To my father, my bleeding skin was completely invisible—secondary to the cold, rigid rules of his political status, his societal reputation, and his demands for a forced, traditional marriage. He had looked at his injured daughter and chosen to launch into a ruthless lecture about family duty and societal expectations before walking out the door.
Yet here was Woonseok. A global superstar, a king in his own right, weeping openly in the back of a dark agency van because he couldn't bear the thought of me experiencing a single second of physical pain.
A profound wave of terror suddenly mixed with my gratitude. How am I ever going to let him into my toxic world? I wondered desperately, my chest tightening with fear. My family's reality is an iron cage of cold authority, manipulation, and suffocating expectations. Woonseok's love is the purest, most beautiful thing I have ever known. If I drag him into this domestic warfare, if I let my father's toxic ambitions touch him, it will tarnish the absolute sanctity of what we share. I want to protect him from the storm brewing in my own home.
I swallowed the bitter taste of my family drama, forcing myself to lock those dark thoughts away into the deepest corners of my mind. I couldn't let Woonseok see the heavy psychological toll my father had just taken on me. He was already drowning in enough panic over my physical injuries; he didn't need to carry the weight of my emotional fractures too.
I took a deep, stabilizing breath, forcing the sadness completely out of my eyes. I looked back at his tear-stained, intensely beautiful face on the screen, and a genuine, deeply affectionate warmth flooded my system.
"My beautiful, dramatic fool in love..." I murmured softly, a tender, watery smile finally breaking across my face.
Woonseok blinked, his jaw clenching slightly as he wiped a stray tear from his cheek with the back of his hand, his dark eyes still burning with an incredibly intense, overprotective anxiety. "Rashi, I am entirely serious. Don't call me a fool when you are sitting there covered in—"
"Hey! Listen to me, Mr. Idol," I interrupted brightly, my voice completely shifting gears into that resilient, playfully commanding tone that always managed to break through his cold celebrity exterior.
Wanting to completely shatter the heavy, suffocating tension in the air, I sat up perfectly straight against my pillows. Despite the slight, stinging protest from the muscles in my back, I raised my right arm dynamically toward the webcam. I clenched my fist tightly and flexed my bicep, putting on a highly exaggerated, comical show of physical strength.
"See this? Look at these muscles, Woonseok," I said teasingly, winking at the camera with my unbandaged eye. "I am completely fit and fine! I am an elite, highly trained IPS officer—a true warrior of the law. Have you forgotten that already? These little things on my face and neck? They are nothing but minor injuries. Just a tiny tax for completely taking down a cross-state syndicate. A warrior doesn't cry over a couple of battlefield scratches!"
Woonseok froze, his hands hovering over his knees as he stared at me through the screen in absolute, stunned bewilderment. The sudden transition from my tearful guilt to me aggressively flexing my muscles like a gym instructor completely short-circuited his brain. His lips parted slightly, a mixture of sheer disbelief and helpless adoration fracturing his tense, furious expression.
"You are unbelievable," he breathed out, a soft, exhausted sigh escaping his lips as he shook his head. "Sana, you just finished weeping over a 'stupid joke,' and now you are flexing your bicep at me while wearing flannel pajamas and medical tape. Do you have any idea how chaotic you are?"
"Chaotic? I prefer the term 'highly effective'," I retorted, my smile widening into a brilliant, unfiltered grin that made the tight bandage on my neck pull slightly.
THE PLAYFUL DEMAND
I lowered my arm, leaning my chin comfortably onto my uninjured hand as I looked at him through the digital glass, my eyes sparkling with a mischievous, demanding energy.
"But honestly, look at you, Mr. Idol," I said, putting on a perfectly calibrated, playful pout. "We are finally speaking to each other after seventeen straight days of absolute radio silence. I just successfully completed the biggest, most dangerous assignment of my career. And yet, since the moment this call connected, you haven't even told me that you love me. You haven't praised your brilliant girlfriend even a single time for winning the case!"
Woonseok's eyebrows shot up in total surprise, a sudden, beautiful flush of color returning to his pale cheeks at my blatant accusation. "Sana, I was literally crying because I thought you were dying—"
"I don't care about the excuses, Chairman," I interrupted smoothly, tapping my index finger against the desk with mock severity. "An officer expects proper recognition for her victories. You were supposed to flood my screen with praise! You were supposed to say, 'Wow, Officer Sana, you are the most incredible, powerful woman in the world, and I am the luckiest boyfriend alive.' But instead, I just got a massive, terrifying lecture and a fist slammed against a car seat. I am highly disappointed."
A breathless, beautiful sound suddenly erupted from Woonseok's throat. It was a genuine, melodic laugh—the exact sound I had been desperately craving to hear for nearly three weeks. He covered his face with both of his large hands, his broad shoulders shaking quietly in the dim light of the agency van as my ridiculous, stubborn playfulness completely disarmed his lingering panic.
When he finally dropped his hands, his dark eyes were shining with a profound, earth-shattering devotion that made my knees feel weak even while sitting down.
"Okay, okay, you stubborn, impossible Captain," Woonseok murmured, his deep voice returning to that intoxicating, velvety warmth that always made my heart race. He leaned directly into the camera, a breathtaking, proud smile completely illuminating his sharp features. "You want your praise? Then listen to me carefully. You are, without a single shadow of a doubt, the most brilliant, fierce, and awe-inspiring officer this world has ever seen. I am so intensely proud of your victory today, Rashi. And yes... I love you. I love you so much it completely terrifies me. I am the luckiest, most helplessly devoted boyfriend on this planet. Is that sufficient for you , Officer?"
My cheeks flushed a deep, burning crimson, my playful confidence momentarily faltering under the sheer, unfiltered intensity of his gaze. "Yes," I whispered, a soft, genuinely happy smile gracing my lips. "That is highly sufficient."
But then, my gaze focused entirely on the physical details of his face, and my playful demeanor instantly shifted into deep, real maternal concern.
Even through the golden, passing streetlights of Seoul filtering into his van, I could see the profound toll the last seventeen days had taken on him. There were dark, heavy shadows beneath his gorgeous eyes. His face looked slightly leaner, sharper, as if he had been running on nothing but caffeine and raw nervous energy. The sheer physical and mental exhaustion radiating from his posture was undeniable.
"But seriously, Woon... please, stop being stressed and don't be mad at me anymore," I said, my voice dropping into a gentle, soft plea. "And you need to answer my questions right now. Did you actually rest properly while I was away? Did you eat your meals up completely today? Because I can look at your face right now through this screen and see exactly how exhausted you are. Your eyes look so heavy."
I leaned closer to my laptop, my hand resting near the webcam as if I could soothe the tired lines around his eyes.
"So tell me the absolute truth, Mr. Idol," I commanded softly, holding his gaze. "What exactly did you do to yourself during these seventeen days? Tell me everything about your schedules. I want to know how you survived without your Butterfly."
Woonseok looked at me, a soft, weary smile touching his lips as he realized the roles had completely reversed. The warrior was now the caretaker, demanding accounts of his health just as he had done for hers. He leaned his head back against the leather headrest of the van seat, letting out a long, slow breath that signaled the final release of all his built-up anxiety.
"What did I do, Sana?" Woonseok whispered, his dark eyes locking onto mine with a beautiful, heavy honesty. "I lived in a nightmare. For seventeen days, my entire existence was divided into two things: executing mechanical movements on a dance floor to satisfy the trainers, and staring at a phone screen that refused to show me your name."
He adjusted his position, turning his phone slightly so I could see the dark, quiet highway of Seoul passing by outside his window.
"The agency has been running me like a machine," he explained quietly. "We are finalized for the world tour, so the rehearsals have been brutal. Six hours of non-stop choreography adjustments every day, followed by late-night recording sessions to finish the Japanese mini-album. Min Ho has been practically living in my penthouse, forcing high-protein meals down my throat because my weight started dropping from the stress. I ate, Sana. I promise you I ate, if only because I knew that if I collapsed, I wouldn't have the strength to answer the call when you finally turned your phone back on."
He turned his face back to the camera, his gaze tracing the outline of my face with an aching tenderness that bridged the thousands of miles between us.
"Every single night, I came back to that empty apartment, sat on the couch, and looked at the photos I sent you," Woonseok confessed, his voice dropping to a low, emotional rumble. "I talked to your dead chat profile. I told you about my choreography mistakes. I told you how much I hated the taste of the energy drinks. I did exactly what you asked me to do—I kept our bridge alive in the dark. It was the only thing that kept me sane, Butterfly. Just the faint, desperate hope that somewhere out there, under the same sky, you were fighting your way back to me."
He reached out, his long fingers gently tapping his screen right over the image of my uninjured hand. "So don't ask me not to be stressed. My heart has been completely out of my chest for over two weeks, running around India in a police uniform. But now that I can see you... now that I can hear your voice demanding to know if I ate my dinner... I can finally breathe again. The drought is officially over."
I stared at his face on the screen, my heart aching with a mixture of overwhelming love and a deep, heavy bittersweetness. The way he spoke about his eighteen days of agony, the way he admitted to talking to a dead chat profile just to feel close to me—it was beautiful, but it was also terrifying. He was a global icon, an untouchable figure in the music industry, yet he was completely anchoring his sanity to a girl thousands of miles away who spent her days chasing armed criminals.
I let out a soft, slow sigh, leaning my head back against the pillows. The physical pain from the cut on my neck twinged slightly, a sharp reminder of the reality I inhabited.
"What am I going to do with you, my stubborn idol?" I murmured, my voice a blend of playful exasperation and deep tenderness. I offered him a soft, wistful smile through the camera. "Seriously, Woon. I told you from the very beginning that my life is exactly like this. This is what I chose when I put on the uniform."
Woonseok's dark eyes locked onto mine, his jaw tightening as he listened, sensing the shift in my tone.
"Are you really going to stress yourself like this every single time I go out on an assignment?" I asked gently, searching his face. "If you do, you're going to give yourself grey hairs before your first world tour even finishes. You need to get used to this, okay? You have to train your heart to be as tough as mine, because this is my reality."
I paused, the image of my father's cold, authoritative face flashing vividly behind my eyes. The echo of his harsh decree about my marriage vibrated in my ears, casting a sudden, dark shadow over my features.
"Get used to it," I repeated, my voice dropping to a quiet, fragile whisper, "because... in the future, we don't even know what will be our future. We don't know what cards destiny is going to play against us."
The moment those words left my mouth, the fragile peace we had just built completely shattered.
Woonseok didn't just freeze; his entire posture hardened into granite. The passing golden streetlights of Seoul flickered across his face, catching the sudden, intense storm brewing in his dark eyes. He slowly pulled his hand back from the screen, his fingers curling into a tight, white-knuckled fist against his knee.
"What did you just say?" Woonseok asked.
His voice didn't rise to a shout, but it possessed a terrifyingly cold, low, and quiet vibration that sent a violent shiver straight down my spine. It was the tone of a man who had just been struck by a physical blow and was refusing to fall.
"Woon..."
"No, Sana. Don't 'Woon' me," he interrupted ruthlessly, his dark eyes blazing through the digital connection with a fierce, desperate intensity. He leaned forward so fast his face filled the entire frame, his chest heaving under his jacket. "What do you mean we don't know what our future holds? Are you telling me that while I am breaking my body in dance studios and fighting my agency to secure a life for us, you are already giving up on us?"
"I am not giving up!" I protested quickly, my eyes widening as tears threatened to spill over my bandages. "Woonseok, look at me. I love you more than my own life. But you have to be realistic. I am an officer in a dangerous territory. And my family... my world is so deeply complicated and traditional. There are so many forces trying to dictate my path."
"I don't care about the forces!" Woonseok roared softly, a desperate, breathless sound escaping his throat. He slammed his fist against the leather seat of the van once more, his face contorting with a raw, bleeding heartbreak. "I don't care about your syndicates, and I don't care any cages your society tries to build around you! Do you think I am fighting this hard just for a temporary romance? Do you think I endured seventeen days of absolute mental torture just to let our future be a question mark?"
He ran a frantic, trembling hand through his dark hair, his breath hitching as a single, heavy tear of pure frustration escaped his eye.
"You tell me to get used to seeing you bleeding," he whispered, his voice cracking painfully as he looked at the bandages on my neck and eye. "You tell me to get used to the idea that a bullet might take you away from me. I will never get used to that, Sana. Never. If loving a warrior means I have to live in perpetual terror, then I will carry that terror until the day I die. But don't you dare tell me our future is uncertain."
He stopped, taking a deep, ragged breath to steady the violent panic my words had triggered. He stared at me through the screen, his bloodshot eyes full of an all-consuming, possessive devotion that defied the thousands of miles, the cultural barriers, and the toxic shadow of my family.
"Listen to me carefully, Butterfly," Woonseok commanded, his deep voice returning to a steady, vibrating vow that echoed with absolute authority. "I don't care how dark or complicated your world is. if your duty takes you into the fire. I am making you my future. I have already locked my heart into your orbit, and there is no rewriting that destiny."
He reached out, his long fingers pressing flat against his screen once more, directly over the image of my tear-stained face, his expression softening into a look of profound, eternal reverence.
"So don't you dare try to push me out to protect me from your storm," he murmured, his voice dropping to a low, velvety purr that completely melted the icy despair in my chest. "I am staying right here. Go fight your battles tomorrow, Officer Sana. Conquer your criminals and But do it knowing that your stubborn idol has already claimed you, and he is never, ever letting go."