Chapter 0 / Prologue

Prologue

“Cut!”

The torrent of water, pouring like a downpour, ceased.

“We’ll take a short break!”

Amidst the artificial rain, so heavy that it was difficult to even open her eyes, the model, who had been struggling until her lips turned blue, slumped to the ground. Her manager rushed over, carrying a large towel and a blanket.

“Lee Yeon, are you alright?”

She trembled uncontrollably, barely managing a nod. Her condition seemed worse than before.

The manager had been restless, seeing her condition deteriorate as the shoot progressed.

“This won’t do. Continuing like this is too much.”

“I’m f-fine.”

“Fine? Do you even know what your face looks like right now? I’ll tell the production team—”

“No. Don’t do that.”

Lee Yeon, despite looking like someone who had just barely survived drowning, refused to give in.

“Hyeongseok. I can do this.”

Her eyes, looking up at her manager, held a resolute determination, a fierce resolve to see this through no matter what.

Hyeongseok felt that if he tried to stop her after seeing that, he would regret it later, so he ultimately backed down.

“Alright. I’ll go get you some warm hot packs, so rest for a bit.”

Seeing her finally manage a small smile, he frowned and hurried away.

Left alone, Lee Yeon’s face instantly became blank. She huddled, her body chilled, catching her breath. When she closed her eyes, the tears that had been welling up finally spilled.

“……”

It was a relief she was already soaked. No one would find it strange.

For a while now, she had been exhausted from fighting the lingering specters of her past. Because of that, she hadn’t noticed someone’s persistent gaze or the approaching footsteps.

When a hot pack suddenly appeared before her, she naturally assumed it was her manager.

“Thank you, Hyeongseok—”

However, it was someone else standing before her.

“……!”

Unlike her, thoroughly drenched, the man before her wore a smile that seemed sun-dried and bright. It was Guk Geonwoo.

He stood in his usual impeccable suit, his shoes spotless, exuding his characteristic casual arrogance.

Sunlight, brilliant as a halo, framed him as he looked down, radiating an effortless air of superiority.

With one hand in his pocket, he surveyed the surroundings with a seemingly innocent curiosity, as if he were visiting a film set for the very first time.

So, others probably hadn’t noticed at all.

How chillingly he was looking at her right now.

“Lee Yeon. Are you having a difficult time?”

His gaze seemed to confirm her suspicion that this entire situation had originated in his mind.

“… This is your doing, isn’t it?”

The wet soil and grass crumpled in her clenched hand.

She was sitting on the bare earth, surrounded by overgrown, wild grass.

When she was suddenly told the filming location had changed, she had dismissed it as a coincidence, but seeing the storyboard confirmed it. This was Guk Geonwoo’s doing.

A woman in an ivory dress, caught in a rainstorm so heavy it obscured everything.

A close-up shot, with a barbed-wire fence between them.

This was unmistakably… a recreation of that day’s set.

Only the man standing before her could do something like this.

“How is it? Does it bring back old memories?”

For once, he answered with a frank affirmation. He usually pretended otherwise, feigning ignorance, but this time, it seemed he had no intention of hiding it.

“…”

“Ah. You’re trembling so much.”

This man, always skilled at deception, tidied her blanket with a feigned concern, yet the temperature in his eyes remained cold. His hands, pulling the barbed wire fence, which the manager had moved aside, back between them, moved with an air of profound boredom, a stark contrast to his seemingly worried tone.

“The sun will set soon… If the shoot drags on, you’ll be too exhausted, Lee Yeon. Let’s focus a little more and get that ‘okay’ cut.”

Through the wire mesh, his face bore a gentle expression that matched his kind words.

But that was merely a disguise for others to see; Lee Yeon could see the face hidden behind it.

“Lee Yeon is a professional, so I’m sure she’ll do well.”

The man’s true face, no longer concealing his intentions from her, was always sharply, fiercely cold.

“And you’ve done it once before, haven’t you?”

It wouldn’t have surprised her if her heart had been sliced open.

“…

He wasn’t wrong.

The storyboard for this shot, which they had been intensely filming for hours, was ‘the face of a woman resolved to betray her lover.’ She was supposed to show a cruel yet beautiful smile through the wire mesh, but she, famous for her immersive acting, couldn’t quite manage it.

As he said, this was an act of reliving a moment from the past.

“Try to remember clearly.”

In front of the man who smiled nonchalantly, knowing full well how she must feel, Lee Yeon couldn’t hold back her tears any longer.

She had never wanted to cry in front of him.

With a choked gasp of indignation, she bit her lip and turned her head. There was a jarring crash as the barbed wire fence toppled over, and then a hot hand gripped her face.

“Ugh.”

The man’s face, reflected in her wet eyes, seemed to be trying to confirm something.

But Lee Yeon, already pushed to her emotional limit, had no strength to deeply consider the meaning of his expression. She simply thought he was angry again, that he wanted to gloat over her suffering.

‘Why are you the one who’s angry?’

The fundamental question she always harbored in this relationship resurfaced. A question whose answer she could never grasp, which only ever brought her anxiety.

Who exactly was this man?

She had endured him, believing it was an act of atonement, but now, she truly couldn’t take it anymore.

It was only natural that the words she had choked down countless times finally burst out.

“Let me… meet that person.”

She simply couldn’t bear it any longer.

He wasn’t the one who should be angry. Nor was it his place to mock her current state.

Even if she had to endure worse humiliation than this.

“I have to meet him.”

But Guk Geonwoo’s expression changed strangely at her words.

He gazed at her with a complicated, subtle face that was difficult to describe, and an unsettling tightness clenched her chest. It was like the premonition of something bad about to happen.

As she watched his face grow colder and colder, feeling that something was wrong, he spoke.

“San is dead. On that day, in that very spot, where you abandoned him.”

“…!”

That was the first time the name ‘San’ had ever come from his lips.

“See, Yeonhwa. You shouldn’t have abandoned him.”

And that was the first time he had called her Yeonhwa.