Noh Sangcheol after losing his wife on their wedding day barely sleeps due to the trauma, he has developed a habit of getting up in the middle of the night and staring at the wedding photo in the living room.
Then he takes Goh Jeongwoo in and let's him live at his house.
At night as usual Noh Sangcheol felt almost weightless as he drifted from his bed to the living room. This was his ritual, his haunting pilgrimage every night since that day. His steps led him to the photo hanging on the wall, where his wife smiled back at him from a happier, simpler time. Her face felt like a whisper now, a shadow of a memory too bright to fully hold onto.
Tonight, though, as he stared up at her, something felt… different.
He glanced down, and there, just beneath the frame, lay Goh Jeongwoo on the couch, curled up tight and shivering slightly, a haunted look even in his sleep. He looked too much like the boy he would have been 10 years ago. Sangcheol couldn't for the life of him understand how someone who has been betrayed by the ones closest to him can be so trusting of an outsider who only ever showed animosity towards him. Sangcheol blinks his gaze flitting back and forth between the photo and the man on his couch who had kept pursuing him and begging for his help even when he pushed him away repeatedly.
Slowly, as if in a trance, his feet moved of their own will, and he found himself crouching by Jeongwoo. Sangcheol reached for the blanket tossed at the end of the couch, draping it carefully over Jeongwoo’s shoulders. The young man shivered again, curling further into the warmth, his breath evening out as Sangcheol tucked him in.
Standing up, he looked once more at the wedding photo—his wife, forever frozen in time, beautiful and smiling, yet distant. And then, he looked down at Jeongwoo, he felt something stir in his chest—something heavy but soft, like the first warmth after a bitter winter.
That night, back in his own bed, Noh Sangcheol slept. A light, gentle sleep, but a sleep, nonetheless, the first in so long.
In the coming days it became a rhythm, a new kind of vigil. Each night, he would wake, and each night, he would walk to the living room. At first, his eyes were drawn, as always, to her. But each time, he found himself looking down at the man on his couch, lying vulnerable and tangled in borrowed clothes, often having kicked off his blanket in the night. Quietly, Noh Sangcheol would pull it up over him, and linger there a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of Jeongwoo’s chest, feeling a strange, fragile peace settle over him. And each time, he returned to his room, he slept a little deeper.
Somehow, the nights no longer felt so dark. There was something healing in these small acts of care, in his quiet ritual of tucking Jeongwoo in, watching over him like he’d never let any harm touch him. And with each night, the weight of his grief grew a little lighter, his heart steadying, finding an anchor in the presence of the man he had hated so much.
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