When the Clock Strikes|Pi Han Ul x Reader|

(S02) Chapter 33

"I should go back in."

Han Wool nodded but didn't let go of my hand until I started walking. His fingers slid away slowly, like he didn't want to release me too quickly-as if even he could feel how fragile I was under the surface.

When I stepped back into the room, I saw many unfamiliar faces. The people dressed in black, the sobs muffled behind tissues, the scent of incense-everything was heavier now. The photo of Harin at the front of the altar caught my eye, surrounded by white chrysanthemums, her face forever captured in a still, smiling moment.
A moment she chose to leave behind.

Her mother was hunched in a chair near the altar, weeping openly. Her father stood by her, expression stone-cold, but his clenched fists gave him away. My aunt sat with them, her eyes swollen and red, fingers twisting a black handkerchief like it was the only thing holding her together.

They didn't look at me. Not directly.

Maybe they didn't need to.

I walked quietly to my seat. The whispers followed like shadows.

I drove her to this.

I stole her fiancé.

I ruined everything.

But-

Harin had always hated me-how she'd watched my life like it was something owed to her.

She'd made me the villain long before Han Wool ever entered the picture.

But it didn't matter. There is nothing I can do.

I sat down and folded my hands in my lap, trying not to tremble. I kept my face calm. Emotionless. Just like always.

The service dragged on. I didn't remember most of it. Just snippets.

The low chanting of the monk. The shuffle of feet. The sound of Harin's mother breaking down when the casket was finally closed.

And then came the part I hadn't prepared for.

The burial.
________________________

I stood alone, cold biting into my fingers as I clasped them in front of me.

The wind rushed past, carrying the muted sobs and soft murmurs from behind me, but I kept my eyes on the river-on the steady, ceaseless pull of it. As if it knew what it had swallowed. As if it remembered.

Behind me, people huddled in black. A sea of bowed heads and somber silence. The monk's voice continued in soft intonations, reciting prayers that barely reached my ears. The ground was ready. The hole already dug. The casket-lowered.

I didn't look back. I couldn't.

I felt him though.

Han Wool.

A few feet behind me, standing with his parents. I could feel his gaze like a thread stitched into my spine-quiet, unmoving. I didn't turn. I couldn't afford to. Not here. Not now.

No one knew about the message. About the storm brewing between us that never quite passed. About the years that stretched behind us like a chain-tied tight around both our throats.

No one knew she blamed me. That I'd read her final words before she ended everything.

You ruined my life.

I hadn't told the police. I hadn't told Han Wool. I hadn't told anyone.

Because I didn't know what to say.

Because even if I wasn't the one who pushed her, I might as well have been the weight that tipped her over the edge.

My body felt stiff, unmoving. I watched a leaf swirl on the river's surface-lost in the current, pulled beneath.

"Ye Na," someone murmured behind me. Seok Kyung. I didn't turn. Her voice faded again, like she understood I wasn't ready.

My gaze flickered to the casket as it began to lower into the earth. One slow, creaking inch at a time. Final.

I should've cried. I should've felt... something.

But all I felt was hollow.

Like Harin had taken something from me in the end. The final blow in a lifelong war I hadn't asked for.

And no one would ever know the truth.

No one would know she'd spent her life painting herself the victim and me the monster.

Because now she was gone.

And I was still breathing.

So that made me the villain.

Didn't it?

The sun was starting to dip behind the mountains when the last handful of dirt was thrown over the grave.

People left in slow clusters, whispers carried on the wind, black coats brushing together like shadows retreating from the day. I didn't move. Not until Seok Kyung slipped her arm through mine and tugged me gently toward the car.

They didn't speak until we were in the break room, lights dim, a kettle boiling quietly in the corner.

No one else was there. Just the three of us.

I sat on the worn couch, still in black, my hands folded in my lap like I hadn't yet stepped out of the funeral. Like I never would.

Seok Kyung knelt in front of me, holding a warm cup between her hands. She didn't offer it yet.

She just looked at me.

"Ye Na," she said softly. "You need to say something. Anything."

Ha Ya sat beside me, unusually quiet. Her eyes were red-rimmed too, though I didn't know if it was for Harin-or for me.

"I can't," I whispered.

"Then cry," Ha Ya said, her voice trembling. "Scream. Break something. I don't care. But you have to do something."

I looked at both of them-and suddenly I couldn't see them at all. Just the river. Just the weight of a body wrapped in white cloth. Just a message.

You ruined my life.

I broke.

The tears came fast, furious, like a dam had snapped open with no warning. I clutched my knees to my chest and sobbed. Not the soft, pretty kind. The kind that made your chest ache. That made your throat burn and your shoulders shake and the world blur into pieces.

"I didn't mean for any of this to happen," I choked. "I swear, I didn't."

"We know," Seok Kyung said, her hand on my back. "We know, Ye Na."

"She always hated me," I whispered. "Since we were little. She told people I was an orphan who is trying to ruin her life... And then she took Han Wool when I wasn't even there to fight for him. And now-now she's dead and it looks like I-"

"You didn't kill her," Ha Ya said firmly.

I looked up at her, my vision blurred. "Didn't I?"

"No," she said. "You were surviving her."

I covered my face, shaking. "She texted me before she jumped. Said it was my fault. She blamed me even then."

They both went still.

"You didn't tell the police?" Seok Kyung asked, stunned.

"I couldn't," I whispered. "What would I say? That her suicide note was just for me? That she wrote that before she died? That I pushed her over the edge without touching her?"

They didn't answer. They just sat with me. Letting me cry. Letting the grief pour out until there was nothing left but the raw truth:

Harin was gone.

And I was the one left behind to carry the guilt she wrapped around my neck like a noose.

"I'm scared," I whispered. "I feel like I'm going to fall apart."

"You won't," Seok Kyung said softly. "Because we're going to hold you together."