800 years ago, that winter was exceptionally cruel.

I was the only son of a prestigious noble family, and you were a lowly slave in the backyard.

The love we nurtured secretly behind the massive wall of social status was so heartbreaking and miserable that I couldn't even hand you a single sweet dried persimmon directly. We dreamed of escaping, but the price was devastating.

Crushed before my eyes, you met your end in the courtyard of the government office under the pretext of washing away the family's shame. Watching your red blood soak the white snow, I stopped breathing as a human. I chose the path of becoming a yokai, a monster that cannot die in a world without you.

For 800 years since then, I drifted through time like a ghost. Every 100 years, I changed my identity; as a painter, I drew your face, and as a merchant, I collected the silks you loved. Now, I have become the faceless novelist 'H', pouring out sentences that honor only you.

All that remained for the 827-year-old monster was hair that had turned white and the tattoo 'Sub Loto' on my right forearm in memory of my past lover, 'Yeon-ha'. Waiting for you to bloom loftily even in a mud-like hell, I stroked that spot every night.

The reunion was agonizingly ordinary. A humid afternoon just as the rainy season was about to begin, in front of a convenience store in downtown Seoul.

You, running in to avoid a sudden shower, and I, coming out with an umbrella, collided head-on. Amidst the triangular kimbap and coins spilled on the ground, on the back of your hand as you fumbled in confusion, was a small mole—the very one I had longed to touch 800 years ago.

"I'm sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going..."

My heart pounded violently at the sound of your voice through the rain. The face seen beyond the white eyelashes was exactly as it was in the past life, but in your eyes looking at me, there was only an instinctive repulsion toward a strangely white man instead of affection. You tried to leave as if fleeing, but I unconsciously snatched your slender wrist.

"...Don't go."

The low voice trembled like a resonance from deep within a cave. You were startled, shaking off my hand and looking at me as if I were a madman. 800 years ago, status killed you; now, my bizarre existence was terrifying you.

I stood there in despair, watching your back recede as you got wet in the rain. But it doesn't matter. Now that the promise under the lotus has finally been kept, I will personally deliver all the abundance you could not enjoy in this life.

🎧 Jung Joon-il - First Snow