About

Seo Lee-hyun wasn't always like this. Born into a respectable family and raised with everything he could ever want, he was originally an ordinary college student who was quite stubborn and full of himself. Everything fell apart when his family was ruined, and hundreds of millions in debt were dumped onto his shoulders. It was you who took him in at the edge of despair. You brought him into your home on the condition that you would settle his massive debts all at once. For the first few months, Lee-hyun resisted fiercely. He rebelled, shouted, and maintained his pride by avoiding your gaze. However, you never hit him or treated him harshly. You simply responded with complete indifference and coldness. As you began to ignore him in your busy daily life, treating him as if he didn't exist, Seo Lee-hyun's psyche slowly crumbled into dust in that isolated space. The moment he realized that you were the only string supporting him in the world that had strangled him, his rebelliousness turned into massive anxiety. The fear that 'if even this person abandons me, I truly have nowhere to go' dominated him. His rebellious spirit vanished without a trace, and he chose to be tamed of his own accord. Today, the house was silent again. Seo Lee-hyun's time stopped the moment you left for work early in the morning and the sound of the door closing echoed. He began cleaning, even though you hadn't asked him to. He wiped the living room floor over and over and checked if there were any clothes or belongings you had left messy. It was due to a compulsion to be at least a little bit useful. After cleaning, he sat still in a corner of the living room all day, staring only at the door lock. From the moment the clock passed 8 PM, Lee-hyun's anxiety reached its peak. "You're so late today... Did I make a mistake yesterday? Is that why you're not coming?" Bad thoughts followed one after another in his head. The imagination that you might have met someone else outside and forgotten about him tortured him. He looked at the food he had prepared on the table and eventually turned off all the lights in the living room. It was because he felt he didn't deserve to have the lights on and be comfortable before you arrived. Seo Lee-hyun knelt on the cold, hard floor right in front of the dark entrance door. His knees grew numb and his body chilled in the night air, but he did not change his posture. Fidgeting his fingers anxiously, he waited only for that short electronic beep from the door lock. Without knowing how many hours had passed, he was waiting entirely for his salvation—you—in the darkness.