try begging

Late at night, Leon sat at his desk in his office. It had been a long day. So long that the night before, when he had waited for Grace's call in this very spot, seemed like a distant memory. He was looking again at the wanted posters he had urgently printed out today.

 It was a pointless thing to do since they had already been distributed to police forces nationwide. But he had to do something. And all he could do was glare at the faces of the men who had kidnapped his daughter. As if doing so would somehow reveal their location. He was beginning to understand the fools who believed in con artists claiming to have superpowers. He should have killed Robert Fisher when he was down in that cellar.

 Fisher was only wanted by the police, not publicly. If he knew he was wanted, he wouldn't visit his wife. He had assigned people to monitor Hattie Fisher at Brayton State Hospital. There were still six days until Sunday. It would be the longest week of his life. As feelings of regret, anger, and powerlessness washed over him in turn, Leon flipped over Fisher's poster. It didn't make things any better.

Ellie... I wonder if she's safe.

Underneath was Ellie's missing person poster. He had only distributed Ellie's poster to the police as well. He was afraid that if the public saw it, the kidnappers, seeing the child's unique appearance, might impulsively kill her. For Ellie's poster, he had used the most recent photo of her. 

He never thought he would use a photo of her sitting happily on a white horse at the circus for a missing person poster. Why do I have to keep making these missing person posters for you? This time, there was a name and a photo. But that didn't make him happy. He just wished he didn't have to make anymore.

"If you truly love Ellie, shouldn't she be taken out of this pit of blood and revenge?"

Yes, you were right. I should have let you go. Instead of chasing you on that ferry, I should have waved goodbye. He was starting to go around in circles of regret again. At that late hour, someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."

The person who came to see him was Grace, in her pajamas.

"Why?"

"..."

The office was dark. The man sitting behind the desk, illuminated only by the desk lamp, was still wearing his shirt, even without a tie. I forced her into bed...

"Go back to sleep."

When Grace hesitated to bring up the matter, the man lowered his gaze back to his desk and issued a curt order. He must have thought she had come to ask if there was anything she could do. Grace turned her gaze to the grandfather clock in the corner of the wall. It was five minutes before midnight.

"Is today your birthday?"

When he pointed the gun at her that morning, he had said something like that. She thought it was just a meaningless taunt, but she realized it wasn't until she heard the date on the radio. 

The man sighed as if he were dealing with an unruly child.

As soon as he pushed himself up from the desk, Grace blurted out, "Birthday."

"..."

"Happy birthday."

It was difficult to say "Happy birthday" when she had come to deliver bad news. So, she ended up saying something irrelevant.

"...It's your birthday today."

"So?"

Leon stared at Grace with sunken eyes. To her, his birth must have been a curse. As he closed the file, he replied indifferently to the silent woman, "Yeah. I'm sorry I was born, honey."

"That's not what I meant..." Grace took a deep breath and exhaled, pouring out what she wanted to say.

"I'm sorry for bringing you bad news on your birthday."

The man's brow furrowed slowly and his head tilted slightly. It was the same expression he made countless times when Grace was imprisoned here. I don't understand you. It was the expression he made whenever he was suddenly kind or suddenly angry, not knowing what he was up to when he changed his attitude.

"I'm serious."

"No need to apologize. It's the best birthday present you've given me so far."

The man smiled playfully, but Grace couldn't smile. The only birthday presents she had given him so far were bad news. They had never been in a position to give each other gifts. So, she didn't have to apologize for the past, but she felt sorry today.

"There is some good news, though. If you can call it a gift..."

When the man raised an eyebrow, showing interest, Grace conveyed what she hadn't been able to say because things had gone awry.

"Ellie hasn't forgotten about you. She wants to see her father."

The faint smile on the man's face vanished instantly.

"I thought she'd forgotten, but I was foolish. I'm sorry."

She felt ashamed to try to retract the dagger she had plunged into his heart, claiming it was a mistake. How many times today had she apologized to this man, something she never thought she'd have to do?

"

At first..." When she honestly explained how she had come to misunderstand and how she had learned of Ellie's true feelings, she said, "And on my way to call you to come, the remnants..."

"Grace..." The man, who had been staring at her with a stiff expression, suddenly closed his eyes tightly and called her name in a voice that sounded like his throat was being strangled.

"Do you think those words will comfort me now?"

"..."

It would have been good news for the old Leon Winston. He could have used the child's desire for a father to tie Grace to him. But the man who had chased her relentlessly, who saw only hope even when she gave him despair, was no more.

I wonder if, foolishly, I had hoped that the Leon Winston who only cared about his desires still lived. Or perhaps it was just cruel to say such things when I couldn't even hold my child right away.

"Ellie will return to us alive."

"Yes, she certainly will. Now, go to sleep."

The man loosened his stiff expression, forced a smile, and sat back down at his desk. Why couldn't she leave even though there was nothing more to say? She watched the man, who didn't even glance at her as he rummaged through the drawer, for a long time, before finally turning around. Grace paused at the door, glancing back. The man was sitting with his head bowed, his forehead resting in his hands.

Click. 

She hesitated for a moment before closing the door again. She had expected him to tell her to leave, but he didn't open his mouth or lift his head until she sat down in the chair opposite him.

Grace tried to look directly at the man in front of her. She had always run away from him. Even a moment ago, she had secretly hoped he would tell her to leave, fearing this moment when he would reveal his emotions. It was partly because of her own cowardly nature, but also because whenever she touched his emotions and made them erupt, nothing good had ever happened to her.

But now, he wasn't going to strangle her.

However, despite her newfound determination to comfort him, Grace could only sit there, unable to do anything. She didn't know how to comfort him because she had never done so before.

The more she spoke, the more she felt like she was sinking into a quagmire, so she kept her mouth shut. But the suffocating silence felt like it was dragging her down into the abyss as well.

Unable to bear this bottomless abyss, she reached out her hand. But just before touching the man, she withdrew it.

"Ouch..."

Without realizing it, Grace had once again brought her nails to her teeth and quickly lowered her hand, glancing at him. But he still didn't look at her. She placed her hand on the desk. Just as she was about to delicately place the open inkwell on top of it, the man chuckled. Soon, the inkwell was removed, and a large hand took its place. They sat facing each other in the darkness, their hands clasped silently.

* * *

Two days later, on Wednesday, a letter arrived at the Western Command's First Special Operations Unit with no sender's name. Inside was, as expected, a message containing Nancy Wilkins' demands.

There were two demands:

Release David Wilkins.        Prepare a car with a full tank of gas and the necessary funds for escape, and release him in the forest near the Norden border.

It also stated that if they crossed the border safely, she would return the child.

There was something else in the envelope that they hadn't expected. Nancy Wilkins had cut off a piece of Ellie's hair, about the size of a little finger, and included it with a threat that the next gift would be a finger if they didn't meet the deadline. 

The deadline was midnight next Monday.

After receiving the letter, the first thing Leon did wasn't to discuss the release of David Wilkins but to place an advertisement. He left a coded message for Nancy Wilkins in the classified ads section of national daily newspapers.

[Cannot comply with demands without proof of life. Wish to speak with child at the number below.]

This was a strategy to increase the chances of the child's survival by giving the impression that they were willing to negotiate.

Even if they released David Wilkins, there was no guarantee that they would get Ellie back. So they had to find their daughter before the deadline. But now, all they could do was wait. Without anything to do, their minds began to crumble like rotten wood that had lost its support. Every sip of water, every bite of food, and every moment of sleep felt like a sin.

On Thursday, the advertisement was distributed nationwide. They waited from that morning, but the phone didn't ring. Grace picked up and put down the receiver dozens of times, saying that there might be a problem with the newly installed dedicated line.

Although the main purpose of placing the ad was to increase the chances of survival, both of them genuinely wanted proof that the child was alive.

The wait continued until night. Even though Leon told her to wait, Grace refused to go to sleep. Eventually, she moved the phone installed in the office to the bedroom. Even so, she couldn't sleep and lay down beside him. Then, when she suddenly opened her eyes, Leon was back in the past.

"Why can't I sleep?"

A woman sat alone on the edge of the bed in the darkness. Her white nightgown looked too big for her, revealing how gaunt she had become. He felt a strange, contradictory joy at the sight of her back.

She was back.

Leon reached out and placed his hand on Grace's belly. They were back to the time when no one could take their child away from them.

"Ellie..."

But the moment he heard the child's name, uttered with a sob, he was snapped back to reality.He slid his hand down from Grace's belly and stopped. His hand resting on his knee was weakly grasping something. It felt like a rope, but the texture was smoother. However, if he couldn't get the child back alive, this would become the rope with which Grace would hang herself.

What he was holding was Ellie's hair, braided and tied with a ribbon.

"Go to sleep."

Leon pulled Grace into his arms. She had been losing weight rapidly, no matter how much he fed her. Her light body weighed heavily on his heart.

"Be reasonable. Staying awake won't solve anything."

It was a message for himself as well as for Grace.

"I can't sleep."

Grace pushed him away, lifting her head from where he had forced it against his chest. He suddenly thought of the drugs he had stored in the basement. But the image of this woman becoming dependent on drugs like him made him dismiss the thought and tightened his arms around her.

"Try to sleep."

"I can't."

Leon gently stroked Grace's back. Her ragged breathing gradually turned into sobs.

"You're a child who can't sleep without Mommy. But you've had to sleep alone for five nights now."

Is she eating? Is she crying? Is she hurt? Every night, Grace poured out her worries along with her tears. But there was one question no one dared to ask.

Is she alive?

It was a question that would ignite the fuse.

Leon yearned for the night three years ago when they had both gone mad together. He wanted to go mad with the child, rather than without her.

When he opened his eyes again, it was early dawn. The sky outside the window was a pale blue. 

Grace was gone.

"Grace?"

Sleepiness vanished instantly. He searched the bedroom, and then the entire annex, looking for Grace.

She has a stronger will to live than anyone. And since she still has hope of getting her child back, there's no way she would do something drastic.

However, after witnessing her commit such a senseless act and then having no memory of it, he couldn't be sure of anything about Grace anymore.

With nowhere else to look, Leon reluctantly descended the stairs leading to the basement. It was the first place that came to mind, but he had put it off until the very last moment.

Standing in front of the torture chamber door, he took a deep breath and opened the heavy iron door, which felt as heavy as his heart.

"Grace?"

There was no sound from the dark torture chamber. Yet, he could faintly smell Grace's scent, though she had been gone for a long time. With his anxiety growing heavier, Leon turned on the wall switch.

At that moment, a woman sitting up against the headboard of the bed squinted.

She was alive.

Just as he felt relieved, his mind went completely blank. Grace looked too dazed.Barbital. Damn it.

Leon headed towards the bathroom inside the interrogation room. The pill bottle was still sitting on the edge of the sink.

That didn't mean he could relax. Grace might have touched it and put it back. There was no way he had counted how many pills were left.

"How many did you take?"

He shook the bottle so that it could be heard clearly from the other side of the room.

"None."

Her pronunciation was clear. It was proof that she hadn't taken the barbiturates as she claimed.Relief was accompanied by self-loathing. Knowing what he had done without even showing her the bottle meant that she had already seen it. It also meant that Grace knew he had been living on drugs.

The back of his neck burned.

Clink.

 When she heard something fall, Grace turned her gaze towards the bathroom. All the pills in the bottle had spilled out onto the sink. The empty bottle was thrown into the trash can.

Watching the man destroy evidence of his shameful behavior, Grace thought of a swan.She used to think of him as a swan before, but now the meaning had changed.She had heard that while a swan appears graceful and relaxed on the surface of the water, it paddles frantically beneath the surface.

When did you start taking them?

Grace thought of the pictures of him she had seen in magazines and newspapers. Were the smiles that made her grind her teeth because they seemed so happy just acting fueled by drugs?I know it was a trick to manipulate me. Beneath that noble act of trying to earn even my contempt, what kind of struggle were you going through?

He pretended not to notice her gaze, washed his hands as if nothing had happened, and approached her. But now, his once graceful gait, like a swan gliding across the water, seemed anything but leisurely.

As soon as she sat on this bed in the torture chamber, Grace had felt a strange sense of unease. How could she smell his cologne, cigars, and strong liquor so strongly on this bed that was meant to be only hers?

"What are you doing here?"

The man asked the question she was about to ask.

"What are you doing here?"

Staring at him intently, she turned her head and replied weakly,

"This is my place."

Asking what she was doing here was pointless. This was a torture chamber.

Grace knew better than anyone that the reason she had confined herself to the torture chamber was to torture herself. He had done this countless times.

"I should be here."

Grace hugged her knees and refused to leave. She would rather he mock her about the past than this. She was sincere. Whether he blamed her or not, the mere sight of Grace sitting in the torture chamber was torture for Leon.

When his attempts to coax and persuade her to leave failed, he pretended to give up and threw out a bait.

"Do as you please. I'll go to Ellie's room."

Grace, who had buried her face in her knees, looked up and blinked.

"A room full of memories"

When the housemaid could no longer fit all of Grace and Ellie's belongings into his bedroom, she decorated an empty room as a nursery and moved their things there.

He used to jokingly call it a memorial hall. However, he couldn't say that in front of Grace.

When he suggested it was Ellie's room, Grace readily followed him. The doorknob felt unusually cold, like opening a coffin filled with a rotting corpse teeming with maggots of regret.

The door opened, and the lights came on. A room as wide as his bedroom was brightly lit, revealing what lay within.

He had no intention of showing her everything he had collected: traces of their lives from Grace's boarding house in Blackburn, the apartment where Ellie was born, the ship's cabin, and the apartment near Prescott. He knew she would look at him like he was crazy.

"Why is this here...?"

As expected, Grace looked at him as if he were insane after looking around the room.

"I hope you realize I'm not the crazy one now."

Leon shrugged self-deprecatingly. As he hoped, Grace's shock didn't last long.

"That's Ellie's first crib."

She walked into the room and began to stroke the baby crib placed in one corner. A sad smile played on her lips, and her corners trembled slightly.

He knew better than anyone that facing the remnants of a child without the child was torture. But no matter how they spent it, this moment was torture for them both. If he couldn't sleep anyway, he thought he might as well spend it remembering the child.

"Oh? That's..."

Grace approached the stroller. She pulled out a suitcase from the bottom shelf and opened it. She exclaimed in surprise and laughed.

"Do you remember how much trouble we had buying new things after you lost all our stuff that day because of you?"

Grace sat down in front of the suitcase, took out a baby outfit, and scolded him. It was quite amusing for someone who had spoken of shootings and kicks.

"I sold or gave away all the clothes that had become too small when we were trying to reduce our luggage. I was so disappointed that we didn't have any baby clothes left..."

Grace held up a pale yellow nightgown in front of him.

"Ellie was this small. Can you believe it?"

Then she buried her nose in the baby clothes and took a deep breath.

"Oh my, it still smells like a baby."

She handed him the clothes, urging him to smell it. Leon, as if smelling the baby scent for the first time, sat down next to her.

"Do you know what Ellie was doing while we were chasing each other all that time?"

Leon couldn't help but laugh when she told him that Ellie had been eating scones the whole time, oblivious to everything.

"She's loved scones since she was a baby... no, even before she was born. And she's been picky and greedy from the very beginning."

Grace wrinkled her nose wryly, adding, "I wonder who she gets that from."

Listening to Grace's story from that day, the painful memories turned into fond recollections for Leon. He could even smile and talk about that day, just like Grace.

"Actually, I fell in love with Ellie from that day."

Grace, who was holding a pair of baby socks, tilted her head in confusion.

"Do you remember when you knelt down mockingly to say goodbye at the pier that day, and Ellie swung at you when she took off her bonnet?"

"Oh, right. I almost got hit."

"She was already throwing punches. Just like her mother."

Grace pouted her lips, then burst out laughing because she found it funny.

"She's still like that. It's a daily occurrence for me to wake up with a kick to the face."

Her laughter turned into a bitter smile, then quickly faded. "...Yes, she is."

Like Leon, Grace carefully folded the baby clothes as if preserving a relic and put them back in the bag. Then she looked around the room and took out an album from the top of the dresser, sitting down on the corner sofa.

"This is from last year's Easter, when we were hunting for eggs in the backyard of the village church."

"Look at her, so happy with all those eggs."

The man smiled at the photo of Ellie standing in front of a mountain of eggs. She was much smaller in this picture than he remembered her.

"She was only 23 months old at the time, but she was so persistent about finding them. When I told her to share with the other kids because there were too many, she burst into tears, saying they were all hers. Such a greedy little thing... So, for a while, we ate nothing but boiled eggs at home."

Leon looked through the photo album, listening to Grace recount moments of Ellie's life that he didn't know and would never know.

"She was so cute..."

He stared at Grace as she flipped through the album, a tender smile on her face, and brought up something he had always wondered about.

"I know you tried to give Ellie up for adoption. You almost left her at my townhouse. Why did you suddenly change your mind?"

Of course, it must have been because she loved the child. In truth, he wasn't so much curious about the 'why' as the 'how'. How had Ellie managed to break down her incredibly high walls and earn her love?

"She's the child of the man you hated so much."

"She's my child."

Grace gave a vague, almost trite reply and flipped the page. He thought that was the end of that topic, but as she turned the page for the third time, she suddenly sighed and confessed.

"At first, Ellie was a burden to me too."

"So how did you end up loving her?"

"I don't know... I can't believe it myself. To think that I would come to love so unconditionally someone I hated so much."

So, maybe you can love me unconditionally too, even though I'm a burden. That thought shook Leon again, giving him a glimmer of hope.

"At first, I raised her because I thought she couldn't survive without me, but now I can't live without her."

Grace smiled bitterly and muttered, "Isn't it strange? I wonder what I did to make her love me so much."

She looked at him intently. "I thought she had that blind devotion because she was like me. But now I think she might be more like you."

The question of what she had done to make him love her so much was reflected in her eyes. It was a question Leon had often wanted to ask Grace. They held each other's gaze for a long time. As always, Grace was the first to look away.

"Look at this. Isn't it cute?" In the photo Grace pointed to, Ellie had a ribbon tied around her head, as big as a bow for a present.

"It's cute."

Whether she was evading his question or simply teasing him, Leon couldn't help but smile at Grace's little game.

"This is a picture I took on my birthday last year. I remember, I told Ellie that morning it was my birthday. I meant I was going to have cake that evening, but Ellie searched through my handbag and took out a pencil and notebook. Do you know what she said?"

"What did she say?" Leon asked, his lips curving softly.

"She asked me to write down what I wanted. That was when she was just starting to understand about money. She said that since she was little and didn't have any money now, she would buy me everything when she grew up..."

Grace, who had been smiling as she boasted about her daughter's intelligence and resourcefulness, suddenly burst into tears.

"All I want is Ellie."

"I'll find her," Leon promised, wrapping his arms around Grace.

"I'll find her alive and bring her back to you."

"We need to bring Ellie here."

Grace looked around the empty room, filled with only objects, and burst into tears again.

"You're right. This is the safest place."

Although Grace finally agreed with what he always said, Leon couldn't be brazen about it.

"I really regret it. I should have just given you Ellie and left."

She meant that she should have just given him the child and left.

"Well, if you had, Ellie and I would have spent our lives missing the same person."

"What about me?" Grace pleaded with him desperately.

"If that had happened, could I have escaped from all this bondage?"

When Leon didn't answer, Grace distorted her face and answered for herself.

"No, right?"

She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, mimicking him, and tightened them like a noose. A bitter smile appeared on her wet face.

"You've succeeded in chaining me."

"What chains?"

Was it a child? Or was it him? Was the essence of it love? To Leon's cunning and foolish question, the clever woman didn't answer, but instead asked him.

"So, are you happy?"

"Do I look happy to you?"

"...No."

Chains come in pairs. The other end of the chain that bound Grace bound Leon.

"Grace, I promised to let you go. That promise still stands."

"Unless you revoke it."

You can take off this shackle called me whenever you want."

It's your fault that this shackle is still around your ankle. You're not unable to take it off, you're choosing not to. Can we even call it a shackle anymore?

As Leon wiped her tears, avoiding the bruised areas, Grace stared at him intently. Then she suddenly covered his face with her hands. She looked at him with pleading eyes, and when Leon unconsciously turned up the corners of his lips, she distorted her face and burst into tears.

"It hurts. I wish I hadn't loved you."

She might want it to be a message for him, but it probably wasn't. The shackle Grace was talking about was ultimately not him, but their child.

"... Ellie, I'm sorry for being your mother."

The fact that her daughter so resembled him was a curse for this woman now.

No, was I ever not a curse to you? Had you ever not been a curse to me? We were always a curse to each other.

When our eyes met for the first time on the sunset beach, I thought it was a blessing. But from the night we faced each other's nightmarish worlds at the end of a dreamlike day, the curse began.

Even as a human with a brain, I know. If that tragedy hadn't happened that night, we would have ended up as just a summer fling. As a boy and a girl who returned to their daily lives after a fling, we would have forgotten that day when we grew up. It would have been nothing more than a trivial memory, something we would laugh about when a hot summer came around, saying, 

"We used to do such foolish things." 

The tragedy had fueled the fire that could have been extinguished on its own, and the world had rekindled it just when it was about to die out. The world that threw us into the pain of burning alive will be reduced to ashes. Leon held Grace in his arms in the never-ending flames and reaffirmed his resolve. It was a night cursed with everything.

* * *

Late at night, Leon sat at his desk in his office. It had been a long day. So long that the night before, when he had waited for Grace's call in this very spot, seemed like a distant memory. He was looking again at the wanted posters he had urgently printed out today.

 It was a pointless thing to do since they had already been distributed to police forces nationwide. But he had to do something. And all he could do was glare at the faces of the men who had kidnapped his daughter. As if doing so would somehow reveal their location. He was beginning to understand the fools who believed in con artists claiming to have superpowers. He should have killed Robert Fisher when he was down in that cellar.

 Fisher was only wanted by the police, not publicly. If he knew he was wanted, he wouldn't visit his wife. He had assigned people to monitor Hattie Fisher at Brayton State Hospital. There were still six days until Sunday. It would be the longest week of his life. As feelings of regret, anger, and powerlessness washed over him in turn, Leon flipped over Fisher's poster. It didn't make things any better.

Ellie... I wonder if she's safe.

Underneath was Ellie's missing person poster. He had only distributed Ellie's poster to the police as well. He was afraid that if the public saw it, the kidnappers, seeing the child's unique appearance, might impulsively kill her. For Ellie's poster, he had used the most recent photo of her. 

He never thought he would use a photo of her sitting happily on a white horse at the circus for a missing person poster. Why do I have to keep making these missing person posters for you? This time, there was a name and a photo. But that didn't make him happy. He just wished he didn't have to make anymore.

"If you truly love Ellie, shouldn't she be taken out of this pit of blood and revenge?"

Yes, you were right. I should have let you go. Instead of chasing you on that ferry, I should have waved goodbye. He was starting to go around in circles of regret again. At that late hour, someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."

The person who came to see him was Grace, in her pajamas.

"Why?"

"..."

The office was dark. The man sitting behind the desk, illuminated only by the desk lamp, was still wearing his shirt, even without a tie. I forced her into bed...

"Go back to sleep."

When Grace hesitated to bring up the matter, the man lowered his gaze back to his desk and issued a curt order. He must have thought she had come to ask if there was anything she could do. Grace turned her gaze to the grandfather clock in the corner of the wall. It was five minutes before midnight.

"Is today your birthday?"

When he pointed the gun at her that morning, he had said something like that. She thought it was just a meaningless taunt, but she realized it wasn't until she heard the date on the radio. 

The man sighed as if he were dealing with an unruly child.

As soon as he pushed himself up from the desk, Grace blurted out, "Birthday."

"..."

"Happy birthday."

It was difficult to say "Happy birthday" when she had come to deliver bad news. So, she ended up saying something irrelevant.

"...It's your birthday today."

"So?"

Leon stared at Grace with sunken eyes. To her, his birth must have been a curse. As he closed the file, he replied indifferently to the silent woman, "Yeah. I'm sorry I was born, honey."

"That's not what I meant..." Grace took a deep breath and exhaled, pouring out what she wanted to say.

"I'm sorry for bringing you bad news on your birthday."

The man's brow furrowed slowly and his head tilted slightly. It was the same expression he made countless times when Grace was imprisoned here. I don't understand you. It was the expression he made whenever he was suddenly kind or suddenly angry, not knowing what he was up to when he changed his attitude.

"I'm serious."

"No need to apologize. It's the best birthday present you've given me so far."

The man smiled playfully, but Grace couldn't smile. The only birthday presents she had given him so far were bad news. They had never been in a position to give each other gifts. So, she didn't have to apologize for the past, but she felt sorry today.

"There is some good news, though. If you can call it a gift..."

When the man raised an eyebrow, showing interest, Grace conveyed what she hadn't been able to say because things had gone awry.

"Ellie hasn't forgotten about you. She wants to see her father."

The faint smile on the man's face vanished instantly.

"I thought she'd forgotten, but I was foolish. I'm sorry."

She felt ashamed to try to retract the dagger she had plunged into his heart, claiming it was a mistake. How many times today had she apologized to this man, something she never thought she'd have to do?

"

At first..." When she honestly explained how she had come to misunderstand and how she had learned of Ellie's true feelings, she said, "And on my way to call you to come, the remnants..."

"Grace..." The man, who had been staring at her with a stiff expression, suddenly closed his eyes tightly and called her name in a voice that sounded like his throat was being strangled.

"Do you think those words will comfort me now?"

"..."

It would have been good news for the old Leon Winston. He could have used the child's desire for a father to tie Grace to him. But the man who had chased her relentlessly, who saw only hope even when she gave him despair, was no more.

I wonder if, foolishly, I had hoped that the Leon Winston who only cared about his desires still lived. Or perhaps it was just cruel to say such things when I couldn't even hold my child right away.

"Ellie will return to us alive."

"Yes, she certainly will. Now, go to sleep."

The man loosened his stiff expression, forced a smile, and sat back down at his desk. Why couldn't she leave even though there was nothing more to say? She watched the man, who didn't even glance at her as he rummaged through the drawer, for a long time, before finally turning around. Grace paused at the door, glancing back. The man was sitting with his head bowed, his forehead resting in his hands.

Click. 

She hesitated for a moment before closing the door again. She had expected him to tell her to leave, but he didn't open his mouth or lift his head until she sat down in the chair opposite him.

Grace tried to look directly at the man in front of her. She had always run away from him. Even a moment ago, she had secretly hoped he would tell her to leave, fearing this moment when he would reveal his emotions. It was partly because of her own cowardly nature, but also because whenever she touched his emotions and made them erupt, nothing good had ever happened to her.

But now, he wasn't going to strangle her.

However, despite her newfound determination to comfort him, Grace could only sit there, unable to do anything. She didn't know how to comfort him because she had never done so before.

The more she spoke, the more she felt like she was sinking into a quagmire, so she kept her mouth shut. But the suffocating silence felt like it was dragging her down into the abyss as well.

Unable to bear this bottomless abyss, she reached out her hand. But just before touching the man, she withdrew it.

"Ouch..."

Without realizing it, Grace had once again brought her nails to her teeth and quickly lowered her hand, glancing at him. But he still didn't look at her. She placed her hand on the desk. Just as she was about to delicately place the open inkwell on top of it, the man chuckled. Soon, the inkwell was removed, and a large hand took its place. They sat facing each other in the darkness, their hands clasped silently.

* * *

Two days later, on Wednesday, a letter arrived at the Western Command's First Special Operations Unit with no sender's name. Inside was, as expected, a message containing Nancy Wilkins' demands.

There were two demands:

Release David Wilkins.        Prepare a car with a full tank of gas and the necessary funds for escape, and release him in the forest near the Norden border.

It also stated that if they crossed the border safely, she would return the child.

There was something else in the envelope that they hadn't expected. Nancy Wilkins had cut off a piece of Ellie's hair, about the size of a little finger, and included it with a threat that the next gift would be a finger if they didn't meet the deadline. 

The deadline was midnight next Monday.

After receiving the letter, the first thing Leon did wasn't to discuss the release of David Wilkins but to place an advertisement. He left a coded message for Nancy Wilkins in the classified ads section of national daily newspapers.

[Cannot comply with demands without proof of life. Wish to speak with child at the number below.]

This was a strategy to increase the chances of the child's survival by giving the impression that they were willing to negotiate.

Even if they released David Wilkins, there was no guarantee that they would get Ellie back. So they had to find their daughter before the deadline. But now, all they could do was wait. Without anything to do, their minds began to crumble like rotten wood that had lost its support. Every sip of water, every bite of food, and every moment of sleep felt like a sin.

On Thursday, the advertisement was distributed nationwide. They waited from that morning, but the phone didn't ring. Grace picked up and put down the receiver dozens of times, saying that there might be a problem with the newly installed dedicated line.

Although the main purpose of placing the ad was to increase the chances of survival, both of them genuinely wanted proof that the child was alive.

The wait continued until night. Even though Leon told her to wait, Grace refused to go to sleep. Eventually, she moved the phone installed in the office to the bedroom. Even so, she couldn't sleep and lay down beside him. Then, when she suddenly opened her eyes, Leon was back in the past.

"Why can't I sleep?"

A woman sat alone on the edge of the bed in the darkness. Her white nightgown looked too big for her, revealing how gaunt she had become. He felt a strange, contradictory joy at the sight of her back.

She was back.

Leon reached out and placed his hand on Grace's belly. They were back to the time when no one could take their child away from them.

"Ellie..."

But the moment he heard the child's name, uttered with a sob, he was snapped back to reality.He slid his hand down from Grace's belly and stopped. His hand resting on his knee was weakly grasping something. It felt like a rope, but the texture was smoother. However, if he couldn't get the child back alive, this would become the rope with which Grace would hang herself.

What he was holding was Ellie's hair, braided and tied with a ribbon.

"Go to sleep."

Leon pulled Grace into his arms. She had been losing weight rapidly, no matter how much he fed her. Her light body weighed heavily on his heart.

"Be reasonable. Staying awake won't solve anything."

It was a message for himself as well as for Grace.

"I can't sleep."

Grace pushed him away, lifting her head from where he had forced it against his chest. He suddenly thought of the drugs he had stored in the basement. But the image of this woman becoming dependent on drugs like him made him dismiss the thought and tightened his arms around her.

"Try to sleep."

"I can't."

Leon gently stroked Grace's back. Her ragged breathing gradually turned into sobs.

"You're a child who can't sleep without Mommy. But you've had to sleep alone for five nights now."

Is she eating? Is she crying? Is she hurt? Every night, Grace poured out her worries along with her tears. But there was one question no one dared to ask.

Is she alive?

It was a question that would ignite the fuse.

Leon yearned for the night three years ago when they had both gone mad together. He wanted to go mad with the child, rather than without her.

When he opened his eyes again, it was early dawn. The sky outside the window was a pale blue. 

Grace was gone.

"Grace?"

Sleepiness vanished instantly. He searched the bedroom, and then the entire annex, looking for Grace.

She has a stronger will to live than anyone. And since she still has hope of getting her child back, there's no way she would do something drastic.

However, after witnessing her commit such a senseless act and then having no memory of it, he couldn't be sure of anything about Grace anymore.

With nowhere else to look, Leon reluctantly descended the stairs leading to the basement. It was the first place that came to mind, but he had put it off until the very last moment.

Standing in front of the torture chamber door, he took a deep breath and opened the heavy iron door, which felt as heavy as his heart.

"Grace?"

There was no sound from the dark torture chamber. Yet, he could faintly smell Grace's scent, though she had been gone for a long time. With his anxiety growing heavier, Leon turned on the wall switch.

At that moment, a woman sitting up against the headboard of the bed squinted.

She was alive.

Just as he felt relieved, his mind went completely blank. Grace looked too dazed.Barbital. Damn it.

Leon headed towards the bathroom inside the interrogation room. The pill bottle was still sitting on the edge of the sink.

That didn't mean he could relax. Grace might have touched it and put it back. There was no way he had counted how many pills were left.

"How many did you take?"

He shook the bottle so that it could be heard clearly from the other side of the room.

"None."

Her pronunciation was clear. It was proof that she hadn't taken the barbiturates as she claimed.Relief was accompanied by self-loathing. Knowing what he had done without even showing her the bottle meant that she had already seen it. It also meant that Grace knew he had been living on drugs.

The back of his neck burned.

Clink.

 When she heard something fall, Grace turned her gaze towards the bathroom. All the pills in the bottle had spilled out onto the sink. The empty bottle was thrown into the trash can.

Watching the man destroy evidence of his shameful behavior, Grace thought of a swan.She used to think of him as a swan before, but now the meaning had changed.She had heard that while a swan appears graceful and relaxed on the surface of the water, it paddles frantically beneath the surface.

When did you start taking them?

Grace thought of the pictures of him she had seen in magazines and newspapers. Were the smiles that made her grind her teeth because they seemed so happy just acting fueled by drugs?I know it was a trick to manipulate me. Beneath that noble act of trying to earn even my contempt, what kind of struggle were you going through?

He pretended not to notice her gaze, washed his hands as if nothing had happened, and approached her. But now, his once graceful gait, like a swan gliding across the water, seemed anything but leisurely.

As soon as she sat on this bed in the torture chamber, Grace had felt a strange sense of unease. How could she smell his cologne, cigars, and strong liquor so strongly on this bed that was meant to be only hers?

"What are you doing here?"

The man asked the question she was about to ask.

"What are you doing here?"

Staring at him intently, she turned her head and replied weakly,

"This is my place."

Asking what she was doing here was pointless. This was a torture chamber.

Grace knew better than anyone that the reason she had confined herself to the torture chamber was to torture herself. He had done this countless times.

"I should be here."

Grace hugged her knees and refused to leave. She would rather he mock her about the past than this. She was sincere. Whether he blamed her or not, the mere sight of Grace sitting in the torture chamber was torture for Leon.

When his attempts to coax and persuade her to leave failed, he pretended to give up and threw out a bait.

"Do as you please. I'll go to Ellie's room."

Grace, who had buried her face in her knees, looked up and blinked.

"A room full of memories"

When the housemaid could no longer fit all of Grace and Ellie's belongings into his bedroom, she decorated an empty room as a nursery and moved their things there.

He used to jokingly call it a memorial hall. However, he couldn't say that in front of Grace.

When he suggested it was Ellie's room, Grace readily followed him. The doorknob felt unusually cold, like opening a coffin filled with a rotting corpse teeming with maggots of regret.

The door opened, and the lights came on. A room as wide as his bedroom was brightly lit, revealing what lay within.

He had no intention of showing her everything he had collected: traces of their lives from Grace's boarding house in Blackburn, the apartment where Ellie was born, the ship's cabin, and the apartment near Prescott. He knew she would look at him like he was crazy.

"Why is this here...?"

As expected, Grace looked at him as if he were insane after looking around the room.

"I hope you realize I'm not the crazy one now."

Leon shrugged self-deprecatingly. As he hoped, Grace's shock didn't last long.

"That's Ellie's first crib."

She walked into the room and began to stroke the baby crib placed in one corner. A sad smile played on her lips, and her corners trembled slightly.

He knew better than anyone that facing the remnants of a child without the child was torture. But no matter how they spent it, this moment was torture for them both. If he couldn't sleep anyway, he thought he might as well spend it remembering the child.

"Oh? That's..."

Grace approached the stroller. She pulled out a suitcase from the bottom shelf and opened it. She exclaimed in surprise and laughed.

"Do you remember how much trouble we had buying new things after you lost all our stuff that day because of you?"

Grace sat down in front of the suitcase, took out a baby outfit, and scolded him. It was quite amusing for someone who had spoken of shootings and kicks.

"I sold or gave away all the clothes that had become too small when we were trying to reduce our luggage. I was so disappointed that we didn't have any baby clothes left..."

Grace held up a pale yellow nightgown in front of him.

"Ellie was this small. Can you believe it?"

Then she buried her nose in the baby clothes and took a deep breath.

"Oh my, it still smells like a baby."

She handed him the clothes, urging him to smell it. Leon, as if smelling the baby scent for the first time, sat down next to her.

"Do you know what Ellie was doing while we were chasing each other all that time?"

Leon couldn't help but laugh when she told him that Ellie had been eating scones the whole time, oblivious to everything.

"She's loved scones since she was a baby... no, even before she was born. And she's been picky and greedy from the very beginning."

Grace wrinkled her nose wryly, adding, "I wonder who she gets that from."

Listening to Grace's story from that day, the painful memories turned into fond recollections for Leon. He could even smile and talk about that day, just like Grace.

"Actually, I fell in love with Ellie from that day."

Grace, who was holding a pair of baby socks, tilted her head in confusion.

"Do you remember when you knelt down mockingly to say goodbye at the pier that day, and Ellie swung at you when she took off her bonnet?"

"Oh, right. I almost got hit."

"She was already throwing punches. Just like her mother."

Grace pouted her lips, then burst out laughing because she found it funny.

"She's still like that. It's a daily occurrence for me to wake up with a kick to the face."

Her laughter turned into a bitter smile, then quickly faded. "...Yes, she is."

Like Leon, Grace carefully folded the baby clothes as if preserving a relic and put them back in the bag. Then she looked around the room and took out an album from the top of the dresser, sitting down on the corner sofa.

"This is from last year's Easter, when we were hunting for eggs in the backyard of the village church."

"Look at her, so happy with all those eggs."

The man smiled at the photo of Ellie standing in front of a mountain of eggs. She was much smaller in this picture than he remembered her.

"She was only 23 months old at the time, but she was so persistent about finding them. When I told her to share with the other kids because there were too many, she burst into tears, saying they were all hers. Such a greedy little thing... So, for a while, we ate nothing but boiled eggs at home."

Leon looked through the photo album, listening to Grace recount moments of Ellie's life that he didn't know and would never know.

"She was so cute..."

He stared at Grace as she flipped through the album, a tender smile on her face, and brought up something he had always wondered about.

"I know you tried to give Ellie up for adoption. You almost left her at my townhouse. Why did you suddenly change your mind?"

Of course, it must have been because she loved the child. In truth, he wasn't so much curious about the 'why' as the 'how'. How had Ellie managed to break down her incredibly high walls and earn her love?

"She's the child of the man you hated so much."

"She's my child."

Grace gave a vague, almost trite reply and flipped the page. He thought that was the end of that topic, but as she turned the page for the third time, she suddenly sighed and confessed.

"At first, Ellie was a burden to me too."

"So how did you end up loving her?"

"I don't know... I can't believe it myself. To think that I would come to love so unconditionally someone I hated so much."

So, maybe you can love me unconditionally too, even though I'm a burden. That thought shook Leon again, giving him a glimmer of hope.

"At first, I raised her because I thought she couldn't survive without me, but now I can't live without her."

Grace smiled bitterly and muttered, "Isn't it strange? I wonder what I did to make her love me so much."

She looked at him intently. "I thought she had that blind devotion because she was like me. But now I think she might be more like you."

The question of what she had done to make him love her so much was reflected in her eyes. It was a question Leon had often wanted to ask Grace. They held each other's gaze for a long time. As always, Grace was the first to look away.

"Look at this. Isn't it cute?" In the photo Grace pointed to, Ellie had a ribbon tied around her head, as big as a bow for a present.

"It's cute."

Whether she was evading his question or simply teasing him, Leon couldn't help but smile at Grace's little game.

"This is a picture I took on my birthday last year. I remember, I told Ellie that morning it was my birthday. I meant I was going to have cake that evening, but Ellie searched through my handbag and took out a pencil and notebook. Do you know what she said?"

"What did she say?" Leon asked, his lips curving softly.

"She asked me to write down what I wanted. That was when she was just starting to understand about money. She said that since she was little and didn't have any money now, she would buy me everything when she grew up..."

Grace, who had been smiling as she boasted about her daughter's intelligence and resourcefulness, suddenly burst into tears.

"All I want is Ellie."

"I'll find her," Leon promised, wrapping his arms around Grace.

"I'll find her alive and bring her back to you."

"We need to bring Ellie here."

Grace looked around the empty room, filled with only objects, and burst into tears again.

"You're right. This is the safest place."

Although Grace finally agreed with what he always said, Leon couldn't be brazen about it.

"I really regret it. I should have just given you Ellie and left."

She meant that she should have just given him the child and left.

"Well, if you had, Ellie and I would have spent our lives missing the same person."

"What about me?" Grace pleaded with him desperately.

"If that had happened, could I have escaped from all this bondage?"

When Leon didn't answer, Grace distorted her face and answered for herself.

"No, right?"

She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, mimicking him, and tightened them like a noose. A bitter smile appeared on her wet face.

"You've succeeded in chaining me."

"What chains?"

Was it a child? Or was it him? Was the essence of it love? To Leon's cunning and foolish question, the clever woman didn't answer, but instead asked him.

"So, are you happy?"

"Do I look happy to you?"

"...No."

Chains come in pairs. The other end of the chain that bound Grace bound Leon.

"Grace, I promised to let you go. That promise still stands."

"Unless you revoke it."

You can take off this shackle called me whenever you want."

It's your fault that this shackle is still around your ankle. You're not unable to take it off, you're choosing not to. Can we even call it a shackle anymore?

As Leon wiped her tears, avoiding the bruised areas, Grace stared at him intently. Then she suddenly covered his face with her hands. She looked at him with pleading eyes, and when Leon unconsciously turned up the corners of his lips, she distorted her face and burst into tears.

"It hurts. I wish I hadn't loved you."

She might want it to be a message for him, but it probably wasn't. The shackle Grace was talking about was ultimately not him, but their child.

"... Ellie, I'm sorry for being your mother."

The fact that her daughter so resembled him was a curse for this woman now.

No, was I ever not a curse to you? Had you ever not been a curse to me? We were always a curse to each other.

When our eyes met for the first time on the sunset beach, I thought it was a blessing. But from the night we faced each other's nightmarish worlds at the end of a dreamlike day, the curse began.

Even as a human with a brain, I know. If that tragedy hadn't happened that night, we would have ended up as just a summer fling. As a boy and a girl who returned to their daily lives after a fling, we would have forgotten that day when we grew up. It would have been nothing more than a trivial memory, something we would laugh about when a hot summer came around, saying, 

"We used to do such foolish things." 

The tragedy had fueled the fire that could have been extinguished on its own, and the world had rekindled it just when it was about to die out. The world that threw us into the pain of burning alive will be reduced to ashes. Leon held Grace in his arms in the never-ending flames and reaffirmed his resolve. It was a night cursed with everything.

* * *