Sometimes, human instincts can be quite frightening.

Perhaps it was because there had been a moment when she was desperate for survival.

When she arrived at her home and was about to enter the door lock password, she abruptly stopped her hand, not because of any evidence, but simply because she had a strange feeling.

Na Eun confirmed that not a single light was shining through the window visible beyond the hallway.

Mom should have already gotten off work and be waiting at home, but it was suspicious how quiet it was as if no one was there.

She quietly lowered her hand that was about to enter the door lock and took out her cell phone from her pocket.

Without going inside or leaving, she sent a message to her mom through the messenger.

[Mom, where are you?] [Mom hasn’t gotten off work yet. Go inside first.]

The reply came faster than expected. Ah, so she’s still at the company.

Even as she lowered her shoulders in relief, small doubts kept welling up in her mind.

It’s strange. Mom always made sure to leave work early and come home first on days when I said I was coming home. There’s no way Mom, the company owner, couldn’t leave because she had to mind her boss.

Even if it was because work was busy, a sharp feeling kept urging her not to go inside.

Just in case, she stared intently at the app in the corner of her phone screen.

They said it was a system that would send her location to the other person in real-time just by turning it on.

Since she never had to use it before, she hoped she wouldn’t have to use it today either.

As she fiddled with the screen out of unfounded anxiety, a messenger notification blinked again.

[It’s cold, so hurry up and go inside.]

Just as she was about to reply honestly that she didn’t want to go inside because of her groundless unease, Na Eun stopped her fingers that were about to move and stiffened her body.

In an instant, a chill ran down her spine.

…Why does it seem like Mom knows I’m hesitating outside the house?

At the same time as thinking that the person she was communicating with might not really be her mom, she quickly pressed the emergency app in the corner of the screen with her thumb.

And the moment she took a step in the opposite direction of the hallway to escape from the house,

−the door of the unlit house where no one was opened wide.

“This girl has sharp instincts, huh?”

She couldn’t even scream.

A large hand roughly covered her mouth, and her body was dragged towards the door by a rough grip.

Unable to resist, a dry groan escaped as her neck was strangled by the fierce force, but even that was swallowed by the hand covering her mouth.

Bang. The door closed. The empty apartment hallway became quiet again as if nothing had happened.

[This is the timeline separator]

Hey, take this. This too? Yeah, you bastard. Take everything there is.

Now that they’re not even rich, there’s probably only some cash and jewelry to take.

Na Eun blankly stared at the backs of the black figures frantically sweeping those things into bags.

Why does a tragedy that others might experience only a few times in their lives strike her so often?

Even if it’s a different kind of tragedy from the nightmare three years ago, the feeling isn’t much different.

She had heard from her mom that there had been a few robbery incidents in the neighboring town, but she didn’t expect to become a direct victim herself.

As soon as she was dragged into the house, something was stuffed into her mouth.

She felt the thick ropes tying her hands and feet scraping her soft skin, creating abrasions.

But the pain was secondary. Fallen to the floor with her limbs tied, she desperately looked at her mom who was unconscious in the corner of the living room.

Soo Hyun, who was tied up not much differently from Na Eun, was unconscious.

There was a torn wound on her forehead as if she had been hit by something, and her face was pale as if drained of color. Just like a dead person.

No. Her heart raced with anxiety.

No. Tears squeezed out and flowed. Please don’t take her away. Mom is all I have left now.

If she lost her mom too, she really didn’t have the confidence to live sanely.

She would endure a moderate tragedy, so she just wished they wouldn’t give her irreversible ones.

She was inwardly praying to a god who may or may not exist that she would offer all her remaining possessions if only her one remaining family would stay by her side.

After collecting all the valuables and cash in the house, one of the pair of robbers put the bulging bag on his back, and the other alternately looked down at Na Eun lying on the floor and the unconscious Soo Hyun.

Na Eun’s complexion turned pale as if she knew what that meant.

Please. No. We didn’t see your faces. We really didn’t!

The scream that she wouldn’t report them and begging them to spare their lives was blocked by the cloth stuffing her mouth.

No matter how much Na Eun struggled on the floor due to being tied up, there was nothing the firmly bound Na Eun could do.

One of the black figures approached the unconscious Soo Hyun with heavy steps.

And without hesitation, he opened the window to the veranda behind Soo Hyun.

The man who lifted Soo Hyun’s body like luggage and hung it over his shoulder headed to the veranda.

Their house was on the 11th floor. If she fell, there was no hope of surviving.

The criminal who chose murder to destroy evidence unremorsefully pushed her mom’s body out the veranda.

The frail body hung over the window frame looked precarious as if it would be thrown into the air at any moment.

Na Eun wanted to beg them to kill her first instead.

Her heart dropped to the floor, and tears wet her cheeks. God clearly doesn’t exist.

If he did, he couldn’t be this cruel to her.

No matter how much she struggled, the ropes that wouldn’t come loose scraped her wrists, causing blood to seep out.

In the same position she had fallen to the floor, the moment she witnessed her mom’s body disappearing beyond the window−.

“…? Wh-what, ahhh!”

The man who was pushing her mom’s body out the window staggered back in surprise, hurriedly taking steps backward.

Along with that, a dull roar resonated. Her eyes, which had been crying sprawled on the floor, opened wide.

What the! The other man who had been standing by the front door, telling his accomplice to pack the bag and finish quickly, took out a blade from his chest in shock. It was only natural.

If someone suddenly appeared outside the 11th floor window and brought his colleague to his knees, anyone would have the same reaction.

Meanwhile, Seo Hee Won, who entered the house through the window, carefully laid the unconscious Soo Hyun on one side of the living room, then kicked the robber who had lost consciousness from a single blow like he was taking out the trash.

And without hesitation, he walked across the living room towards the man who was holding a knife and making feeble attempts at threats.

Hee Won, who hadn’t even changed out of his usual jeans and jacket, let alone disguise himself in the rush to get here, didn’t hesitate at all.

Even though the blade the opponent was holding quickly stabbed towards him, there was no way it could have any impact on him.

Unlike the man who had turned pale as if seeing a ghost, Hee Won showed no signs of tension at all as he grabbed the wrist of the man holding the knife and twisted it.

The wrist bone was crushed, and Hee Won skillfully covered the mouth of the guy who was fainting with his eyes rolled back so he couldn’t scream.

It was out of concern that Na Eun, who was trembling behind him, might be startled.

Hee Won, who had knocked out both robbers in less than 30 seconds, quickly approached Na Eun, who was lying face down on the floor with her limbs tied.

As he untied the cloth covering her mouth and easily snapped the strong ropes binding her hands, he apologized in a low voice.

“Sorry I’m late.”

It was a plain voice without any playfulness or self-satisfaction about having saved her.

As soon as the things covering her mouth disappeared, Na Eun cried with trembling lips.

Mom. Our mom… She was too startled and too scared, so she couldn’t get proper words out, but from those few words, Hee Won immediately understood what she was trying to say.

As he cut the ropes tying Na Eun’s feet, Hee Won said,

“Don’t worry. She’s breathing.”

“…”

“I checked earlier.”

Hee Won had rescued Soo Hyun just before she fell out the window, and in that short time, he had checked the condition of the unconscious woman.

To Hee Won, who confirmed that he had detected a faint but definite exhalation, Na Eun couldn’t say anything more and just cried like a child.

[This is the timeline separator]

“She just fainted for a moment. She’ll wake up soon.”

Fortunately, the diagnosis Soo Hyun received at the nearby emergency room was that there were no major health problems except for a contusion on her head and a torn wound.

Na Eun, who was also a victim but had no major injuries except for various abrasions, was sitting blankly in the guardian waiting room after receiving simple treatment.

Hee Won, who had informed Na Eun of the diagnosis results from the doctor on behalf of the distraught girl, took out a warm coffee from the vending machine and put it in Na Eun’s hands.

It meant to use this as a heater since it was a cold day.

The guardian waiting room, where no one was present except them because it was dawn, felt even chillier.

Na Eun, who had been quietly looking down at the paper cup Hee Won had handed her, muttered softly,

“…Thank you.”

Her voice was hoarse from crying and calming down after a long time.

Her tearful voice and reddened eyes were directed at the ground, unable to even look at Hee Won.

Hee Won, who had been standing face to face with her as she sat, said in a calm tone,

“We’ll take care of those bastards on our side. They saw my face too much to hand them over to the police.”

No one would remember the person who had barged in from outside the 11th floor window in plain clothes, let alone disguising his face, as an ordinary human.

If they just handed them over to the police station, they didn’t know what kind of aftermath might occur.

Na Eun just nodded slightly in agreement to his words.

Although the tension had been relieved with the confirmation that her mother was okay, her tearful expression remained.

Hee Won, who had been looking at Na Eun with a bit of pity as she had this face the whole time while resolving the situation and arriving at the emergency room, bent his knees to match her eye level.

Squatting down to face Na Eun, he said,

“It’s all okay. Everything is okay now.”

“…”

“If you’re angry, should I just kill those bastards for you?”

Actually, it wasn’t that difficult, so when he casually asked, she quickly shook her head.

But it seemed like she was properly expressing her opinion, so Hee Won smiled slightly.

“But you look really ugly when you cry. I’m glad I didn’t hit on you all this time.”

It was a joke to try to lift the mood of the girl who had her mouth tightly shut like a clam and was feeling intimidated.

At those words, Na Eun also let out a small laugh as if she found it a bit funny.

Feeling pleased that he had succeeded, Hee Won stood up from his crouching position.

With his hands in his pockets, he looked around the inside of the bleak guardian waiting room.

“You’ll stay at the hospital until your mother wakes up, right? I’ll stay with you until tomorrow.”

“…”

“What. Are you uncomfortable?”

If she was uncomfortable, should he call Kwon Seung Joo or Lee Sun Jin? That’s how Hee Won interpreted Na Eun’s gaze looking up at him intently.

She had just gone through a rough experience, so he couldn’t leave her alone, and she probably didn’t want to be alone either.

But having her close friends by her side would surely make her feel more at ease than having him around.

“Wait. I’ll go make a call and come back.”

If it was those guys, they would rush over as soon as they heard that Yoon Na Eun had gone through something like this, regardless of what time it was now.

It was the moment when he took out his cell phone and was about to step away for a bit while scrolling through the contacts of his team members.

Na Eun put down the paper cup she was holding, and a feeble hand urgently grabbed his arm as he was about to move his legs. Hee Won stopped his movement.

Taking his eyes off the screen, Hee Won looked down at her.

“What.”

“…”

“Are you hurting somewhere?”

He automatically scanned Na Eun’s wrists with his eyes.

The wounds were covered with ointment, but they were clearly stinging. It had actually been bothering him for a while.

But Na Eun shook her head vigorously as if that wasn’t it.

“That’s not it… I’m saying thank you.”

Thank you. The repeated words were filled with sincerity that was unfamiliar to him.

Hee Won deliberately joked more to try to break the still frozen atmosphere.

“But now that I see you up close, you’re really short.”

“…”

“How does it feel to breathe the air down there?”

Is it any different? He smiled teasingly as he measured the top of Na Eun’s head, which only came up to his chest, with his hand.

But Na Eun, without getting caught up in that joke, persistently continued the sincerity she wanted to convey.

“If it weren’t for you, I really… I really would have died.”

Even if she hadn’t died, she might not have wanted to live anymore.

Na Eun’s eyes started getting wet again as she said that.

This won’t do. Hee Won muttered inwardly as he ran his hand through his hair.

If left like this, she seemed ready to cry until she got dehydrated, so he thought he had to change the mood.

To lighten the atmosphere as much as possible, Hee Won threw out the joke Na Eun hated the most, just like he usually did.

“If you’re that grateful, why don’t you give me a kiss?”

Did you forget that’s the only way I accept thanks from girls? He said that and laughed.

And he waited for Na Eun’s sharp curses or middle finger that would follow, or the irritated rebuke that he should just accept the gratitude when she’s thanking him.

He swore to himself that he was definitely not waiting for the two arms that wrapped around his neck.

The body that felt even smaller as it touched his chest approached him, carrying a faint scent.

He helplessly bent his waist at the lead of the embracing arms, and at the same time, their lips met.

Her closed eyelashes were captured in his frozen field of vision. The few seconds felt like an eternity only to him.

“…”

The warm body temperature slowly fell from his lips.

The shared breaths stopped, and Na Eun loosened her two arms that had been around his neck.

As if he had lost his soul, Hee Won remained stiffly still, not moving even after she had released her arms and his waist was still bent. Na Eun spoke to him in a tearful voice.

“Really, thank you so much.”

“…”

“Truly.”

She, unaware of how her sincerity without any ulterior motives would become poison to the other person, muttered those words a few times before finally stepping back.

With bad timing, the doctor who had been in the emergency room came into the waiting room looking for Soo Hyun’s guardian.

Na Eun hurriedly followed the doctor into the emergency room, and Hee Won, left alone in the waiting room, had to stand in place for a long time.