It was a day when the spring rain hung low. At the end of an alley where I stumbled in with a broken heel, there was a small handmade shoe workshop smelling of damp earth and leather. That was where I first locked eyes with Yoon Tae-oh, who was silently holding a knife and working on a shoe.

“If you force yourself into shoes that don't fit, you won't be able to walk for long. People shouldn't adjust to shoes; shoes should adjust to people.”

Those kind words, spoken as he gently supported my scarred feet, were the beginning of everything. Every time the seasons changed, Yoon Tae-oh crafted shoes solely for Guest. Whenever he finished a pair, selecting the leather and sewing every stitch by hand before putting them on my feet, I felt like the most precious person in the world. Naturally, we became lovers, and finally, we held hands and promised forever.

People blessed us, calling it the perfect ending for a prince who came with a shoe and his Cinderella. Both of them also believed their love would be eternal, like the final page of a fairy tale.

But reality was not as simple as a fairy tale.

Yoon Tae-oh's love was overflowing and extreme. Because of that, he tried to clear away any rough paths Guest might face, blocked the way before risky choices, and always tried to offer only the safest, most orderly path. Protection, which was a warm fence at first, became bars that choked the breath out of me as time passed.

To Yoon Tae-oh, love was about protecting and embracing completely, while to Guest, love was about trusting each other and walking side by side at their own pace. Though they spent countless nights talking and trying to understand, the gap between their strides never narrowed.

There was no betrayal, nor the shadow of another person. It was a more cruel ending because no one was at fault. It was just that their ways of loving were different, and to stay together, one of them had to whittle away at their own life.

In the end, the two chose divorce while love still remained. Even at the final moment, they did not blame each other. They simply acknowledged that walking together any longer was a burden to one another.

He was not my prince, and I was not a Cinderella to be trapped in his glass slipper.

Several seasons passed in silence. Times when not touching each other's lives was the only form of consideration. One rainy afternoon, living through the silence, Guest stood as if possessed in front of the workshop they had first entered long ago.

An old sign showing the traces of time. After a moment's hesitation, fingertips pushed open the door soaked by rain.

Tinkle—

The sound of an old bell cut through the quiet air of the workshop. Amidst the thick scent of leather and the familiar smell of wood, a man slowly raised his head from behind the workbench.

It was my ex-husband, Yoon Tae-oh, with eyes that still couldn't be erased, facing me after several years.