The sound of splashing water was suddenly terrifying. This is insane, she thought. Absolutely insane. After stepping into the tub, Ji-woo had turned her back to the door, her gaze fixed on the tiled wall. She was supposed to be the one deceiving him, yet she felt all the control slipping away.
Knock, knock.
The rap on the bathroom door was sharp and final.
“C-come in.” Her heart hammered against her ribs. This was the man she had seen burying someone alive in the mountains two years ago. The man who had tried to kill her.
Was this really okay? She wanted to rewind time, to erase this entire moment. The steam filling the air made her head spin.
“Ji-woo.”
The sound of his voice calling her name had become disturbingly familiar. She was surrounded by warm air and hot water, but a chill crept deep into her bones. Seo Tae-joon dragged a chair closer to the tub.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Is it just your back you want me to wash?”
“Y-yes!” Ji-woo deliberately churned the water with her hands, raising a thick cloud of bubbles around her.
From the moment he entered, she kept her eyes locked on the wall. It was infinitely better than facing him, better than letting him see the front of her body.
“Are you wearing your panties?” A faint laugh colored his voice.
“What?! You can see them?” Ji-woo flinched, frantically agitating the water again to obscure herself in a froth of white. She could feel his gaze on her like a physical touch.
“Are you wearing them because you’re embarrassed?”
“Shouldn’t you be more embarrassed than me? You don’t have any memory of this. I-I’m quite used to it, but I was worried it might be uncomfortable for you…”
“Is that so?” Seo Tae-joon plunged a hand into the bathwater. Ji-woo went rigid, her back stiffening instantly. Her denial was betrayed by every tense line of her body.
“Why are you acting so cute, Ji-woo?”
She had to guess his movements based on sound alone, and it was fraying her nerves.
“Why the needless consideration?” He chuckled, a low, playful sound. His hand remained submerged in the warm water. Ji-woo fought the urge to turn and look, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t show him her front.
Seo Tae-joon was not nearly as calm as he appeared. The sight of her slender back sparked an urge to touch her skin, to caress the graceful line of her spine. Every part of her held his attention. If he gave in to his greed, to the desire consuming him, would she run? His eyes traced the delicate nape of her neck, her fragile shoulders, the impossibly thin waist.
He felt himself stir, a familiar heat coiling low in his gut. He was already hard. He cursed his missing memories. Perhaps before, he’d had permission to touch every part of her. Perhaps he would have parted her legs and kissed her until she was breathless.
Seo Tae-joon’s brow furrowed. He wanted his memory back. She had claimed they weren’t sexually compatible, but his body told a different story. He’d never wanted his memories back more desperately than in this moment.
“Ji-woo, what is this?” he blurted out. His fingers had slid down her wet skin, tracing the faint, raised lines on her back.
“A towel! Get me a towel!” she exclaimed, her voice trembling at his touch.
But Seo Tae-joon only stroked the old scars, one by one, his touch unnervingly gentle. He let his fingers linger over each mark as if he could absorb the history of them into his own skin. “Were you abused?”
“It’s nothing.” She shivered, turning her head just enough to look at him over her shoulder.
“That’s not an answer.”
She lowered her head, resting her forehead on her knees. The sight of her slumped figure filled him with a strange, aching sadness. An urge to bite her nape warred with a chaotic storm of other emotions. Overwhelmed by an unbearable desire, he pushed his chair back and stood. “Who did this to you?”
A scar was a sign of violence. He didn’t need his memories to understand that. The marks looked as though she’d been jabbed repeatedly with something sharp—the tip of a pen, perhaps, or a pair of scissors. He frowned, his jaw tight.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Ji-woo shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk about it; she was just confused. No one had ever asked. No one had ever shown the slightest interest in her life or her pain. She simply didn’t know how to answer.
She’d always been blamed for it. Everyone had assumed she was a troubled, worthless child and that her family were the ones who had it hard, dealing with her. For a long time, she had believed she deserved the abuse, the neglect.
Ji-woo splashed water on her face, hoping to cool the stinging in her eyes. “My family.”
Seo Tae-joon remained silent. A chilling suspicion about his past self began to form. What if the ‘gentle and kind’ man she described had done this, too? It wasn’t just the scars; he could see faint, dark spots where old bruises had faded on her skin.
“It’s okay,” Ji-woo said with a tone of quiet resignation. “You don’t have to believe me.”
“I believe you,” Seo Tae-joon said at once. Ji-woo’s shoulders flinched. “Your family must have been absolute trash to do this to you.”
“I don’t know. There must have been a reason.”
“There is no reason on earth to hit a child until she scars,” he said, clenching his teeth to suppress a wave of fury.
“It can happen, even when you love your child too much.”
From the moment he’d woken up without his memories, he had pursued her, trying to get close to her like an animal in heat. Guilt washed over Seo Tae-joon, cold and heavy. He could suddenly guess the reason for her aversion to touch, her fear of any kind of intimacy. He froze, as if struck by a physical blow.
“Love can turn to anger so quickly,” Ji-woo said, her voice distant. “Humans aren’t like trees. They claim to love unconditionally, but they don’t. When something bears bad fruit, people can’t stand it.”
Seo Tae-joon squeezed his eyes shut. It all made sense. Her constant flinching, her guardedness, her terror—he could finally understand it. And he couldn’t brush aside the horrifying thought that he might have been part of the problem. The sheer terror she held for him… could it be that their marriage had been just one more of her torments?