In just a single, cruel moment…
all of Jaemin's dreams shattered.
The world he had known—warm, loud, filled with love—collapsed into emptiness.
And Dahlia… no one understood his grief better than she did.
She never left his side. Not once.
At the funeral, arm in arm with Coach Insung, Jaemin met Seo Gwan, his father's half-brother—the closest relative capable of taking custody of him until he turned eighteen.
Gwan's eyes were sharp, calculating, too eager for a man who should have been grieving.
Unknown to Jaemin, this uncle was a member of the notorious loan shark syndicate Night Fang.
He knew Jaemin's martial ability.
He knew his potential.
And he planned to twist it for his own gain.
Coach Insung sensed the danger long before Jaemin could.
"Be careful around your uncle," Insung warned quietly.
"Your father kept distance from him for a reason."
But Jaemin, lost in grief, could barely process anything at all.
Seo Gwan, meanwhile, noticed something else—
the girl who never left Jaemin's side.
Young. Beautiful. Fairy-skinned.
A toxic glint flashed in his eyes.
"Find out everything about that girl," he ordered his men.
Dahlia felt none of it.
She stayed close, offering quiet warmth in the middle of his breaking world.
---
After the burial, Jaemin stepped inside the restaurant—
the lights off, tables cold, pans untouched.
Then their house.
Silence.
No aroma of fried chicken.
No soft humming of his mother.
No booming laugh of his father.
Just emptiness.
And it swallowed him whole.
---
Weeks passed.
And darkness grew.
Dahlia, walking home one evening, felt a strange presence behind her.
Shadows lingering… footsteps too close…
Then—
A hand covered her mouth.
The world spun.
Her scream swallowed.
The kidnapping had begun.
--
Jaemin discovered the truth too quickly—
it was his uncle.
Seo Gwan had ordered her taken.
Not only for ransom… but because he noticed her.
When Dahlia struggled, he ripped the necklace from her neck.
"So this is precious, huh?"
He smirked, pocketing it.
Jaemin's blood iced the moment he arrived at the hidden mountain hideout and saw Dahlia's necklace on Gwan's table.
He snatched it back silently, slipping it into his pocket.
Then he moved.
Quiet and deadly.
Nothing mattered except reaching her.
And finally—
he found her.
Bound. Terrified.
But alive.
"Dahlia!"
"Jaemin!"
They ran.
Through the forest.
Through darkness.
Through fear.
---
She stumbled—
her foot stabbing into a broken branch lying on jagged stone.
Blood pooled through her socks.
Without hesitation, Jaemin dropped to his knees, tearing the red scarf from his neck.
The one she made.
He wrapped her leg tightly.
"We have to keep moving," he whispered.
Then—
BANG.
Jaemin jerked forward.
"J-Jaemin!" she cried.
"Don't… worry about me," he forced out,
teeth clenched.
"We're almost there."
But when they reached the end of the forest,
they froze.
A cliff.
Below—raging ocean.
Men shouted behind them.
There was no choice.
Her shaking hand reached for his.
His fingers locked with hers.
They jumped.
---
The sea swallowed them whole.
They held each other desperately, but the violent current tore at their bodies.
Jaemin's wound bled into the water, painting it dark red.
Dahlia was pulled upward by the waves—
While Jaemin was dragged downward.
Her hand slipped.
"JAEMIN!"
He tried to reach her.
But the water was too strong, the pain too sharp.
He sank deeper and deeper, vision blurring, lungs burning.
The world dimmed—
Until something glowed above him.
Her necklace.
Slipping from his pocket, floating like a soft light beneath the moonlit water.
He reached for it.
And grabbed it.
Then everything went dark.
---
Morning came with crashing waves.
Villagers found a girl unconscious on the shore—barefoot, injured, wrapped in a torn red scarf stained with dried blood.
Dahlia woke in the hospital, panic filling her instantly.
"Where is he? Seo Jaemin—where is he?!"
Her father, Prosecutor Choi, held her trembling hand.
"Dahlia… you're safe now. Everything is being taken care of. Seo Gwan and his accomplices have been arrested."
"And Jaemin?!"
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"He was with me! I wasn't alone!"
At the same moment, Coach Insung filed a missing person report.
When Prosecutor Choi called the station, the answer struck him cold—
"Yes.
A teenage boy named Seo Jaemin was also reported missing."
Dahlia clutched her father's sleeve, sobbing.
"Please… please find him… please…"
Search teams were sent—
police, military divers, the marine rescue unit.
For days they searched.
No body.
No traces.
No clothes.
Nothing.
Just the endless sea.
---
Victoria Yoon made the decision.
"I'm taking Dahlia to Europe. She needs to recover."
Before leaving, Dahlia returned to the cliff one last time.
The red scarf—washed clean, repaired—wrapped around her neck.
She stood silently as the wind whipped through her hair.
Then she threw flowers into the sea.
Everyone else moved on.
Everyone else accepted that Seo Jaemin was gone—
lost to the waves just like his parents.
But Dahlia…
deep in her heart…
she knew.
He was not dead.
He was somewhere.
And someday…
their threads of fate would cross again.
---