이 포스팅은 쿠팡 파트너스 활동의 일환으로, 이에 따른 일정액의 수수료를 제공받습니다.
# Chapter 14: Crisis in Moonlight
Seo-jun wanted to answer Han-su’s question, but his mind had already wandered elsewhere. Not in this interrogation room at the Podae-cheong, but in the courtyard before Park Yeon-woo’s house, admiring the silver moonlight. The thought clung to him like morning dew—he could not shake the faces of those in the room. Yeon-woo’s smile had captured his heart, while Han-su’s gaze pierced straight through to his very core. Seo-jun’s fingers trembled subtly, his heartbeat quickening with each passing moment.
He tried to gather his thoughts and respond to the official’s question. Yet his mind remained elsewhere, yearning to escape this interrogation chamber and stand beside Yeon-woo beneath the silver glow of her courtyard moon. Through the window came the cool night air of Seoul, mingled with the distant sounds of the city. Inside, the musty smell of aged books stacked upon dusty shelves assailed his nostrils.
“I… I came from Jeolla Province,” Seo-jun replied, though his thoughts had already fled to another place. The lamplight illuminated his face, and his voice wavered slightly.
“From Jeolla? Then who is your guarantor?” Han-su’s question struck like an arrow, finding its mark with precision. Seo-jun’s eyes blurred as he looked around the room, the faces and bookshelves becoming indistinct.
“I… I have no guarantor yet,” he finally answered.
Han-su’s eyes bore into him, suspicion etched deeply in their depths. Seo-jun’s chest trembled with each word, his heart moving in rhythm with the mention of her family.
He longed to escape this interrogation room, to stand with Yeon-woo beneath the silver moonlight of her courtyard. Yet the faces in this chamber would not release him. Yeon-woo’s smile had seized his heart, and Han-su’s penetrating gaze pierced his very soul. The creases from the paper he’d held moments before still marked his palms.
As the questioning continued, Seo-jun found himself listening intently to Yeon-woo speak of her mother’s final days. He wondered how she had endured after losing her. His heart quickened with each word she spoke, moved by the love and conflict within her family. The air in the room grew cold as she spoke, yet her face—illuminated by the lamplight—warmed his chest like a beacon in darkness.
Through her words, he came to understand her innermost thoughts more deeply. When his hand found hers, her smile captured him completely. Beneath the moonlight, their shadows merged into one, and Seo-jun’s heart swelled with the desperate hope that this moment might last forever.
Seo-jun and Yeon-woo stood together in her courtyard, bathed in the soft silver of the moon hanging high above them. Its gentle light enveloped them both. Through her stories of her family and her mother’s final day, he came to understand her grief more fully.
Then he remembered—he was still in the interrogation room at Podae-cheong. He tried to focus on the official’s questions, but his mind remained with her.
“Seo-jun, what did you last see?” the official demanded.
He struggled to answer. “I… the last thing I saw was… Yeon-woo.”
“Park Yeon-woo? Where was she?”
“In her courtyard. I wanted to admire the moonlight with her…” The words tumbled from his lips before he could stop them.
The official’s eyes narrowed. “Seo-jun, you are here in this interrogation room. You cannot be admiring moonlight in her courtyard.”
The harsh truth struck him like a blow. Seo-jun’s resolve crumbled. Yeon-woo’s smile and Han-su’s penetrating gaze held him captive still, even as the walls of this chamber closed in around him.
“You are here, Seo-jun,” the official repeated coldly. “You will remain here until you tell us the truth.”
Seo-jun sat in silence, torn between two worlds—the cold interrogation room before him and the moonlit courtyard that lived only in his heart.