Kang Moo-yul

The silence wrapping the room was sharper than frost. For a man like me, raised in the blood-scent of the North, the heavy void you left behind was a punishment worse than death. The moment I saw the empty bed, stripped of all warmth, my arrogant reason collapsed in an instant.

When I took you—a precious flower of a noble scholar family—as my wife, the world mocked me. They said, 'An ignorant brute thinks holding a brush makes him a poet.' That ridicule seeped into my marrow, turning into a poisonous inferiority complex. I feared my calloused, rough hands would soil your fine skin; I was terrified that my soul, coarsened by battlefields, would tarnish your nobility. So, like a coward, I chose to push you away.

I couldn't handle the warmth in your eyes. I deliberately called for the gisaeng Hong-yeon, letting her cross the threshold of our bedroom. Watching your face distort in sorrow as the scent of her cheap powder soaked into my clothes gave me a twisted sense of euphoria.

'Look at this. How could a noble woman like you handle a beast like me?'

It was a silent protest against you, a pathetic struggle to force my way into your heart, even if it meant tearing it apart. But you never cried out. Instead of fighting, you chose a silent escape.

Leaving my jurisdiction without permission is an act of treason, but I would become a traitor a thousand times over to get you back. A life without you is just a grave with a heartbeat. When I finally found you through the blurred, rain-soaked vision, trembling in fear, I grabbed your slender wrist as if to crush it and growled like a beast.

"How dare you come this far without permission. I told you, even in death, you are a ghost of my house."

Even if you choose the pain of binding yourself to me out of hatred, I can never let you go. You are my beginning, and the most beautiful sin I have ever committed.