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# Chapter 174: The Way the Fire Goes Out
Saea didn’t move. Her back pressed against the wall of the hospital room. If she shifted even slightly, she felt the entire space might collapse.
Kang Mijun. That name echoed inside her skull. Kang Mijun. CEO of JYA Entertainment. The true power broker of the music industry. And her father.
The word father refused to solidify into reality. It circled inside her mouth, untethered from the external world. Like speaking a language that was no longer her native tongue. Like someone stranded in a foreign land.
“Mom,” Saea said. She didn’t recognize her own voice.
“Yes.” Her mother answered with her eyes closed. As if refusing to look at Saea could erase this conversation from ever happening.
“Kang Riou is…”
The sentence died before it could finish. What was Kang Riou? A half-brother? The man who’d tried to save her—did he carry the same blood as she did? Was that an explanation? Was that a justification?
“Kang Riou didn’t not know you,” her mother said, still not opening her eyes.
“What?”
“He knew you. From the beginning. Your father must have told him. Or Riou figured it out himself. You’re really…”
Her mother fell silent. The next word felt dangerous.
“Really what?”
“You look like your father.”
Saea began searching for a mirror. There had to be one somewhere in this hospital room. Part of her didn’t want to see her own reflection. But part of her did. As if she needed to look in that mirror to understand who she was. As if her father’s shadow was somehow hiding behind her face.
“Kang Riou came looking for you. He called me a few days ago.”
Her mother continued.
“What did he say?”
“’Do you know where my older sister is?’ That’s what he said. Sister. That’s what he called you.”
Saea’s heart didn’t stop. But its rhythm became strange, discordant. Like someone was playing an instrument in her chest with the wrong fingers. Kang Riou had been looking for her. He knew she was his older sister. He’d come to the hospital searching for their mother to find her.
“What did you tell him?” Saea asked.
Her mother paused, understanding the question behind the question.
“I told him: ‘Our daughter is our daughter. Nothing more, nothing less.’”
The weight of those words fell on Saea like a block of iron. Her mother had rejected him. Rejected her own half-brother. And the answer was right, wasn’t it? Kang Riou wasn’t her brother. He was just a man who’d tried to save her. A man who’d wanted to control her. A man who’d wanted to possess her. And now she understood—that was what the call of blood meant.
“Saea.”
Her mother spoke her name.
“Hmm?”
“You’re not his daughter. You’re my daughter. And you’re Dohyun’s older sister. That’s all that matters. The rest doesn’t.”
But it was a lie. Saea knew it. The rest couldn’t not matter. The fact that Kang Mijun was her father. The fact that Kang Riou was her brother. These things were already mixed into her blood. They had already shaped her.
“Mom, what exactly did Riou say?”
Her mother held a long silence. As if she knew the next words might destroy Saea completely.
“’I saw my sister last night. At a café. She looked like something was wrong. Do you think she should come to the hospital?’”
Saea processed this. Last night. A café. When she’d met him. When she’d held his hand. When she’d traced his trembling fingers.
And after seeing her like that, Kang Riou had called their mother. Asked if his sister needed to go to the hospital. Said she looked unwell.
“Why did you tell me?” Saea finally asked. “Why now?”
“Because I’m looking at you,” her mother said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re burning yourself up. Slowly. Every day. And you don’t realize whose fire it is that’s consuming you.”
Saea said nothing. It was true. She was burning. She was burning herself. And she didn’t know for whom.
“That man didn’t come looking for you to save you. He came looking for you to save himself. Through you.”
“Even Kang Mijun?” Saea asked. Had her father tried to save her?
“Kang Mijun never even knew you existed. Not until Riou found you.”
That was worse somehow. Her father didn’t know her. He’d ignored her existence. The man who’d fathered her had treated her as nothing. And even now, even if Kang Riou had told him, Kang Mijun would see her not as a daughter but as an embarrassing relic of the past.
“Saea, you don’t belong to anyone.”
“What?”
“You’re not Kang Mijun’s daughter. You’re not Kang Riou’s sister. You’re not anyone’s anything. You’re just Na Saea. That’s the only truth.”
But Saea knew better. She was already someone’s daughter. Already someone’s sister. Her blood had already defined her. Already shaped her into something she couldn’t escape.
Saea left the room. She couldn’t listen to her mother’s voice anymore. Couldn’t hold her hand. Couldn’t accept her false comfort.
The corridor was still white under the fluorescent lights. She walked through that brightness like a ghost that already knew it was dead. Like her body remained in this world but her soul had already departed.
At the elevator, she looked at her hands. Her fingers were trembling. Like Kang Riou’s hands. Like her father’s hands. Genetics had already invaded her. She was already contaminated. Already incomplete.
Her phone rang. It was Haneul. A message: “Saea, what are you doing? It’s time for your tattoo treatment. You can’t let it get infected. You’re at the hospital, right? Come now. I’m serious.”
Saea read the message and deleted it. Haneul needed to understand. She could no longer be helped. She was already corrupted.
She stepped into the elevator. Pressed the button for the first floor. To get out of the hospital. To escape this world. To return to the state before she had a name.
The elevator descended. In the mirror-like walls, Saea saw her reflection. And finally she understood. What her mother meant. Who she resembled. In that mirror, she saw Kang Mijun’s shadow—cold, indifferent, somehow foreign.
Outside the hospital was night. Seoul’s night. A night full of lights. But to Saea’s eyes, all those lights were going out. As if everything she was burning for was simultaneously extinguishing. As if the fire she’d been burning for someone else was now turning back to consume her.
Her phone rang again. This time, an unknown number. She didn’t answer. But a message came through. “I think you’re my sister. I’m Kang Riou. We need to meet. Right now. It’s really important. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Saea read it without finishing. She already knew how the sentence would end. How it would call to her.
She put the phone in her pocket and began walking. With no destination. No purpose. Just walking. As if she were following a path already decided. As if she already knew the way the fire goes out.
The Han River was somewhere nearby. Saea walked toward it. The night Han River. Where lights reflected off water. The place she’d wanted to go before. The place she’d wanted to leave from.
And Saea understood. This was the end. The way her story would finish. The final light her burning would give. The only moment that would show her who she was.
She walked toward the river. As if she already knew the way the fire goes out. As if she’d prophesied this moment from the beginning. As if she’d been destined to end like this from the start.
The night sky held no stars. Seoul’s lights had swallowed them all. And Saea thought that was right. Stars were never meant for people like her. People like her only needed the lights of the city. And those lights were going out.
Her phone rang again. Kang Riou. Again. And again. She didn’t answer. But she kept hearing that ringing. As if it were calling her. As if it were a summons she could no longer refuse.
In the end, she answered. She picked up the phone and opened her mouth. But no sound came out. She had nothing left to say. She’d already lost everything. Her voice. Her name. Her reason for existing.
“Sister?”
Kang Riou asked. And with that single word, everything was decided.
Saea was a sister now. Someone’s sister. A woman who was both someone’s daughter and someone’s sister. And she could no longer exist as Na Saea.
She hung up. And continued walking toward the Han River. The night was getting deeper. The lights were getting dimmer. And Saea understood. Her fire was about to go out for the last time.
The final chapter of Volume Seven. Saea walking toward the Han River. And what happens next, no one knows. Only Saea knows. Where she’s going. Who she means to meet. How she means to end.