My lips trembled slightly.

My breathing seemed to become rough.

The sound of waves crashing filled the pitch-black night along with the breath of two people, but he did not say a word.

He unbuttoned my white shirt one by one.

I neither rejected his hands nor guided them.

The room had only a bed and dresser, with a small TV hanging on the wall, but only their faint outlines were visible in the moonlight coming through the window.

After unbuttoning my shirt, he took a long breath and sought my lips.

Though I had loved him for so long, this was the first time for such a moment. We had never sworn premarital chastity, but he had never asked for more than a light kiss.

Even when he suddenly suggested a trip to Baengnyeong Island, I never imagined I would spend a night like this with him.

Because I loved him, I was prepared to give him my all if he wanted, so I warmly accepted his lips.

On this cold winter day, it felt as if the white frost from our breaths covered the space between our lips, and my chest was filled with fear and trembling at the first experience.

His body moved like the rolling waves of the sea.

His lips seemed to cover my entire body like the white foam on seawater.

The dark room seemed to be chaotically filled with only his rough breathing and my dazed gaze, while outside the window, only the distant sound of crashing waves could be heard.

How much time had passed?

The room fell into a silence where even the sound of breathing felt cumbersome, and then he finally spoke.

“I’m… going to America. I might not be able to return for a long time.”

“You decided to go to America for your doctoral program?”

“Yes. I received an acceptance email from HaX’d in Boston.”

“That’s really something to congratulate. But you seemed depressed all day today.”

“…”

He said nothing. As if something had gone wrong.

*****

I first met him 7 years ago.

He had an unfortunate childhood and difficult past that didn’t match his handsome appearance.

His father was an alcoholic who couldn’t sleep without drinking more than three bottles of soju a day, and his mother tried to live tenaciously by working in restaurant kitchens instead of her incompetent father, but life was as barren as sprinkling a light drizzle on a field cracked by drought.

I first met him when his drunk father was brought to the emergency room of the hospital where I worked as a nursing assistant after falling down.

Red blood was flowing down one side of his face from his forehead, and he, who had rushed in holding a white towel to stop the bleeding, had skin so white it was hard to believe he was a man.

Although there was red blood on the back of his hand as he tried to stop his father’s bleeding, he seemed accustomed to such daily occurrences and maintained a calm expression while stopping the bleeding.

The emergency room was buzzing with the sudden appearance of a tall, handsome man.

Various conversations went back and forth among the night shift nurses and nursing assistants.

“That man got into another accident while drunk. How many times is this just this year!?”

“How can his son be so handsome? He could rival a top idol star with that face and proportions. Just look at that ratio.”

“He must be over 185cm tall. Is he a model somewhere?”

.

.

.

I was the same when I first saw him. I couldn’t take my eyes off his appearance, which was different from ordinary people, as if I had seen an alien.

Neat hair, impressive eyes under black eyebrows held a deep atmosphere, and his clearly defined nose bridge and reddish lips like a woman’s contrasted with his white skin.

The night duty doctor approached his father and asked familiarly:

“Where did you drink too much again? Did you fall?”

“I didn’t fall, the asphalt road rose up and hit my head. As I was going up the stairs, the asphalt road suddenly struck me.”

“Sir, please cut down on the alcohol. The smell of alcohol is overwhelming.”

“Without alcohol, what fun is there in life?”

“You already have cirrhosis, if you keep drinking excessively like this every day, you won’t live long.”

“…How can I endure this boring world without drinking…”

He watched the conversation between his father and the duty doctor expressionlessly.

The doctor said he needed to stitch up the cut on his forehead and asked me to disinfect it.

I moved over to his father’s side where he was sitting and naturally came into slight contact with him.

“Excuse me. Could you move over a bit?”

“…Ah, yes. I’m sorry.”

His father’s accidents continued after that, and I naturally met him several times while working as an emergency room nursing assistant.

As disappointment accumulated with the low pay I received while working as a nursing assistant, I started studying to enter nursing school, and finally got accepted into the nursing department of S University, the envy of all students, through a social consideration admission for the near-poor class.

I met him again at the S University Medical School library.

My life wasn’t very comfortable either, so I split my 24 hours a day into minute units, going only between the library, part-time jobs, and my gosiwon room.

The medical school library was open 24 hours, so I would comfortably go to study as soon as I opened my eyes in the early morning, and did part-time jobs at convenience stores and gas stations in between.

While sitting at a library desk with an anatomy book open, memorizing unfamiliar bone names and blood vessel names, his figure appeared from afar.

Whether in the hospital emergency room or appearing in the medical school library, his aura was intense enough to recognize at a glance.

Although we had met several times while treating his father in the emergency room, I didn’t think he would remember me, so I tried to avoid an awkward gaze and focus on my book.

I was surprised when I raised my face to see if he had passed by.

He was standing in front of my table, looking at me.

“Are you perhaps that nurse from the hospital back then?”

“…But I wasn’t a nurse then, I was a nursing assistant.”

“Ah… I see. I knew nurses and nursing assistants wore different colored clothes, but as you know, I was in a state of confusion then.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“…But how did you come to this school?”

“I entered the nursing department this year.”

“I see. Congratulations. The competition for nursing must have been no joke.”

He had entered medical school and was in his first year of the main course, and we quickly became close, perhaps because we had the same sense of belonging to the healthcare field, and naturally became lovers without any special moment.

He was a year older than me, but he preferred to be called Hyun Woo instead of elder brother.

His pre-med life and my nursing studies had similar courses and internship periods, so we passed time busily studying together and sometimes doing part-time jobs.

In our third year, we had no time to date as we were going back and forth to the hospital for rotation training, and in our fourth year, we literally had to live in the library to prepare for the national exam, just like preparing for the college entrance exam in high school.

As we juggled studies and part-time jobs, we didn’t have the luxury for romantic dates in our twenties.

Still, we had small happiness like looking at the stars in the night sky while coming out of the library after studying together late at night, dreaming of a better future, or eating cup noodles at a convenience store.

We had the happiness of living a better today than yesterday and dreaming of a better future than today.

As much as we studied hard, we both passed the national exam safely, and he received his medical license while I received my nursing license.

Even though his father, who had tormented and troubled him endlessly throughout his life, passed away from cirrhosis when he was in his second year of pre-med, he wanted to research ‘addiction’ that had plagued his father.

Although he hated and resented him the most, he also understood his father’s difficult life, so he had a love-hate relationship with his father, and wanted to walk the path of a basic medical researcher rather than making money as a doctor.

When I started working as a nurse at the hospital where I had worked as a nursing assistant, he entered the master’s program at S University Medical School.

While working, I had faith in the years we had spent together.

There were kisses between lovers, and sweet moments of first kisses.

But nothing more than that. I knew and understood that he didn’t ask for more because he cherished me.

Even when friends from our departments asked about the progress of our relationship, which was rumored to be a campus couple, I told the truth, and friends who heard my answer joked that I should definitely check his performance before marriage to make sure he wasn’t impotent, but I laughed it off.

I thought he cherished me as much as he loved me, and never once doubted his love.

When he suggested a trip to Baengnyeong Island, I had my own delusion that he might propose to me.

From the moment we boarded the ship to enter the island, he became noticeably quieter.

Since he wasn’t the talkative type to begin with, I was also inwardly savoring our first overnight trip while admiring the winter sea.

Even during dinner, he didn’t say much, and quietly drank three bottles of soju before entering the pension we had reserved.

As it was our first overnight trip in nearly five years of dating, I was so nervous that I didn’t know how to break the silence, so I quietly followed his lead.

He seemed to be getting drunk, took a sip of water from the refrigerator, then turned off the lights and lay down on the bed.

And we shared our first love.

After that, his words about leaving for HaX’d University came as a shock.

Even when he decided to enter S University graduate school instead of earning enough money as a doctor, I tried to understand him.

I tried to understand when he said he needed to research ‘addiction’ out of love-hate for his father.

But the atmosphere he showed today, different from usual, as we came all the way to Baengnyeong Island, the act of first love, and the words he spoke afterwards felt very unfamiliar, unlike usual, and it was hard to see the love of 5 years in them.

What is this?

I opened my mouth with difficulty.

“There’s a reason you made our first night together gloomy, right?”