Plop, plop.

Like snowflakes that wouldn’t stop falling, Yeon Se Eun’s tears piled up softly on the floor.

Naturally, it wasn’t the first time he had seen a crying woman.

Women who cursed and shouted at him, or women who pleaded for affection with tears…

Such cumbersome scenes were imprinted in Ki Sun Woo’s mind to overflowing.

But Se Eun’s tears were different from those until now.

Like transparent eye crystals, he felt an untainted heart.

Was that why?

Even though it was Yeon Se Eun who was crying, Sun Woo felt as if his feet were getting wet.

“Why are you crying?”

It was obvious that if he kept his mouth shut, he would only be questioned about why he came in.

So Sun Woo seized the opportunity while Se Eun was unable to ask questions again due to crying.

Se Eun then wiped her tears with her hand and answered in a small voice.

“The song Ki Sun Woo sir just played… is a song my father composed.”

“…What?”

“It’s the last song my late father composed… for my mother and me. It’s a lullaby.”

“Ah…”

Of all things to choose, he felt dumbfounded and deflated at the same time.

Hadn’t he pulled up someone else’s painful memories like a pulley?

And his own as well.

“I’m sorry about that.”

Sun Woo apologized as he carelessly lifted his hands from the keyboard and stood up.

Guilt was the most unnecessary emotion when doing bad things.

So rather than letting guilt rush in, it was better to shake it off with an emotionless apology.

But unexpectedly, Se Eun slowly approached the piano and picked up the sheet music Sun Woo had just been playing.

Thanks to that, her side profile was clearly captured in his view.

The room was still dark, but thanks to Se Eun just opening the door, a soft light was flowing in from the hallway.

Close. Se Eun’s moist eyes and small, high nose were within arm’s reach.

Her lips, reddened from crying, hesitated before whispering.

“Um… I wasn’t trying to get angry.”

“What?”

Se Eun sniffled and swallowed her tears once more.

Then she continued speaking softly again.

“It’s a bit hard to explain… How should I say it, I felt overwhelmed. When I was sleeping and in my dream… hearing a familiar melody…”

Se Eun’s words stopped there.

Without realizing it, Sun Woo patted her small shoulder.

Coming out in her sleep without wearing a coat, that shoulder was very cold and delicate.

“I understand, so go back to your room. This room is too chilly. You’ll be cold in your pajamas.”

“Ah…”

Only then did Se Eun seem to realize she had come out in her pajamas.

Taking advantage of her moment of confusion, Sun Woo led her out of the room quickly.

“Now, hurry and lie back down.”

After pushing Se Eun back to bed, Sun Woo pulled the blanket up to her chin.

As expected, she was too flustered by the excessive kindness to remember to ask ‘how he had entered the locked room’.

Sun Woo hesitated as he unconsciously went to close the curtains.

Fortunately, Se Eun didn’t see his actions at her bedside.

Sun Woo stood there for a moment, awkwardly wondering whether to say goodnight or not.

That’s when it happened.

From between the buried blankets, Se Eun’s small murmur leaked out.

“…Still, I’m glad I got to hear that song after so long. Somehow I feel like I’ll be able to sleep soundly tonight.”

Something welled up to the tip of his throat, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

In the end, Sun Woo swallowed the words “sleep well”.

Because he had an unfounded certainty that he shouldn’t utter those words right now.

*

The next day, when morning came, the snow had stopped as if it were a lie.

For the first time in a very long while, Se Eun had fallen into a deep sleep and woken up.

That forgotten melody had brought her parents to her in her dream.

Se Eun’s parents in her memory were always frozen at the scene of that accident when she was eight years old.

Like the dream she always had, filled with thick smoke and the salty smell of blood.

No matter how much she tried to recall other memories, it didn’t work as she wished.

So her parents’ faces always remained blurry in her mind.

At some point, even looking at photos became painful and she hid them away.

After being scolded by her grandfather for crying while hugging a picture frame to her chest, she didn’t take them out even more.

She, who survived alone at the cost of her mother’s life, was a person unworthy of missing them.

But the moment that lullaby flowed into her ears last night, her parents’ images came to her very clearly.

Her father’s gentle face smiling brightly as he drew musical notes on the score.

Her beautiful mother’s face smiling along with her father.

It felt like magic anew.

The kind of magic that summons happy memories and warms a frozen heart.

If she could, she wanted to listen to it every day.

“Mmm~.”

As she stretched, Se Eun thought her body felt lighter for the first time in a while.

Then suddenly something touched the edge of that thought.

“Huh? That room… is locked?”

Pitter-patter, holding onto the stair railing, Se Eun came down to the first floor with quick steps.

As expected, Sun Woo, who had woken up earlier today as well, was brewing coffee.

After observing for a few days, she noticed he tended to have a simple breakfast of coffee and toast in the morning.

“Oh, you’re up. Want juice? Or milk?”

Does his memory reset after a day passes?

Newly in awe of Ki Sun Woo’s thick skin, Se Eun stared at him blankly.

He seemed a bit different from usual somehow.

Unlike her who had slept well, he looked slightly tired.

But now was not the time to worry about such things.

“Ki Sun Woo sir.”

“Yeah, what?”

“How did you get into that room yesterday?”

“Ah. That.”

His voice stretched lazily like a low, rhythmic humming.

It was the kind of voice that would surely be followed by an excuse or a lie.

Se Eun watched him intently, determined not to miss anything.

To enter the forbidden area she was told never to enter and even play her father’s piano as he pleased.

Yesterday she had forgotten that sin, lost in emotion, but the more she thought about it, the more outrageous it was.

“That room was definitely locked. So how did you…”

“Well, was it locked?”

Se Eun was dumbfounded by his act of feigning ignorance.

That room had been double-locked by Ko San 20 years ago when this house was closed, especially angry.

Saying that if his precious daughter had met the wrong man, she would have met such a tragic end.

So there was no way it could have been open.

Just as she was about to increase the intensity of her questioning again, Sun Woo suddenly placed a cup in front of her.

“Drink. It’s warm.”

“…”

“You didn’t choose so I decided. Ah, can’t heat up juice so I went with milk.”

As he said, the milk was freshly warmed and very hot.

Wrapping her hands around the cup, Se Eun blankly felt its warmth.

“It’s your hospital day today, right?”

Sun Woo immediately changed the subject and asked in his characteristically indifferent tone.

That dry tone, devoid of sympathy or pity, had a strange way of reassuring Se Eun.

“Yes. If I go after breakfast, the timing will be just right.”

“Want me to take you?”

“…Pardon?”

Se Eun, who had been stabbing her toast with a fork, opened her eyes wide.

Immediately, Se Eun shook her head vigorously, strongly expressing her refusal.

“No. I can go alone. They provide a driver when I go to the hospital.”

“The driver probably doesn’t go all the way into the hospital with you.”

“I’m not a child. It doesn’t take long anyway, so it’s fine.”

“Hmm.”

Sun Woo lowered his gaze and fixed it on Se Eun’s ankle below the hem of her long skirt.

“Still, doesn’t physical therapy and such take a long time? Must be bothersome every time.”

“Ah…”

Se Eun blinked her eyes.

She had been worried he might realize her leg problem was psychological, but it was a problem from before that.

Ki Sun Woo thought she was going to the hospital for leg treatment.

It was natural. If someone with a limp goes to the hospital every week, one would naturally think that.

But the reality was different.

“Um, actually…”

“Yeah?”

Se Eun hesitated, holding her fork.

She couldn’t grasp what the existence of a ‘husband’ meant.

If it was something that would be repeated every week from now on, wouldn’t it be better for both of them to know exactly?

At least what kind of treatment she was going for.

“Actually, what?”

“…It’s nothing.”

“How bland.”

Whoosh, Sun Woo turned his back and started clearing away the dishes he had eaten.

For some reason, a subtle sense of disappointment could be felt from that broad back.

At the same time, she felt she had done well not to say anything after all.

It wasn’t a particularly pleasant truth anyway.

‘Get your head treated until your memories of the Queen’s Tears return.’

After her limp became an established fact, Ko San’s announcement that flowed from his mouth seemed to echo as if it were yesterday.

After her parents passed away in that car accident, her grandfather searched every corner of the house for the ‘Queen’s Tears’.

That jewel, which was supposed to be unveiled at the jewelry brand’s foundation, didn’t turn up anywhere in the house.

The possibility that it was at the accident scene was ruled out.

Because Ko Yeon Hwa had never carried that jewel around.

The missing jewel.

Naturally, Se Eun was the last hint.

So Ko San was more angry about Se Eun losing her memory from shock than injuring her leg.

Enraged, he forced Se Eun to get her head treated every week to recall her memories.

Not psychological counseling, but simple memory retrieval treatment.

That had been going on for over a decade now.

No matter how much Sun Woo had been abandoned by the Juha Group, it was impossible for him to empathize with this situation.

During the few days they had spent together, Se Eun had established one important internal rule.

To not be pitied, at least by this man, Ki Sun Woo.

Even if they were husband and wife in name only, she didn’t want to be seen as a pitiful wife.

Reminding herself of that decision, Se Eun gathered her resolve again.

“Since I go every week anyway, you don’t need to worry about it, Ki Sun Woo sir.”

Yes, hoping he wouldn’t worry was the Yeon Se Eun-like thing to do.

It was always right not to worry about anyone.

Because she was a sinner not worth worrying about or being worried about.