Kyle Blake saw Baek Soo-hyun’s memories.
A black dog, lying down in the hallway of an old villa, had a brief dream. It was the reward promised by the system—a Memory Fragment.
The cold, detached young man was undoubtedly the Baek Soo-hyun Kyle knew, yet he felt like an entirely different person. He wore the same expression as the people of this city always did— exhausted and listless, a face that bore a striking resemblance to despair.
Within the fragment, Baek Soo-hyun barely spoke. He neither looked around nor searched for anyone. He always kept his shoulders slightly hunched and walked briskly toward his destination, never pausing.
Then, time reversed.
The young man became a boy, and the boy turned into a child. Yet, the chill that surrounded Baek Soo-hyun remained unchanged.
He did not long for others. He did not need them. He carried himself like someone who believed emotions were of no use for survival.
Kyle found that silence unbearably sorrowful. It pained him that this was merely a fleeting fragment of memory.
He wished—just once—to hold that young man, that boy, that child in his arms.
“I know you, Shu.”
I know how warm and kind you are, how deeply you feel, how vividly you express yourself. I know the way you laugh, cry, rejoice, grieve—what you love and what you fear.
“Even if this world feels cold to you, don’t be sad.”
When this freezing winter passes, we will meet again, as if by a miracle. And when we do, we will share a love so vivid, so burning, that it feels eternal.
So, if we could ask for each other’s lifetime in the name of love…
***
“Honestly, I was surprised. But at the same time, I was really happy. I guess I must have wanted this gift more than I realized.”
Shu looked genuinely happy. When their eyes met, he beamed brightly. After a brief moment of deliberation over what to do with the bouquet he had received, he decided not to place it in a vase but to carry it with him on a walk instead.
One hand held a bouquet of roses. The other, his lover’s hand.
With both hands full, Shu smiled endlessly. As if all the loneliness and coldness Kyle had seen in the memory fragment had been nothing but a lie.
“But, Your Highness.”
Shu, humming a tune while swinging their hands lightly, suddenly asked,
“You didn’t have any money, did you? How did you afford all this?”
“I had a few spare gold buttons sewn inside my armor for travel expenses. Never thought I’d use them like this… but they turned out to be useful.”
“And the ring? What, is it just silver? That wouldn’t have been enough.”
“……”
Kyle hesitated for a moment before deciding to answer honestly. After all, there was no such thing as an eternal secret in this world, and it was better to tell the truth now than to let misunderstandings arise later.
“I sold the pendant.”
Shu’s expression hardened.
It was Jane’s keepsake—Kyle’s birth mother’s only possession. A commoner who hadn’t even been acknowledged as a consort, she had spent her life as a mere handmaid. That pendant, which she had received when she and the Emperor had once shared a moment of understanding, was the last tangible memory Kyle had of her.
“You sold that? Why? You could have proposed after going back!”
Shu’s voice rose in frustration. He grabbed Kyle’s arm and pulled him along, deciding this wasn’t a conversation to be had standing in the middle of the street.
In the bustling winter city, where snowflakes slowly drifted down, the two men sat on a bench and bickered. Or rather, Shu lashed out while Kyle sat awkwardly, trying to explain himself.
“If you had at least sold it in Meinhardt, I wouldn’t have said anything! But doing it here? When we’re not even staying? You know we have to leave once the wish completion rate reaches 100%!”
“I do know. Right now, the completion rate is…”
[Current Wish Completion Rate: 95.0%]
“See? It’s almost full. If we’re lucky, we could be leaving as soon as today.”
“That’s exactly the problem! Once we go back, we’ll never return here! How could you just sell something like that because you were short on money?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, it matters to me! I never would’ve imagined that’s how you paid for this!”
Shu shot to his feet, his frustration boiling over. Kyle caught his reddened, frostbitten hands and gently pressed his thumb over Shu’s knuckles, trying to soothe him.
His voice was low and calming.
“I meant it doesn’t matter to me. I didn’t sell it expecting to get it back. And it was money I wanted that badly.”
“Your Highness—”
“I just… felt like it had to be now.”
Their joined hands shared warmth.
Shu’s face contorted, his sharp, almost cold features softening ever so slightly. Even if he wasn’t as unreadable as Kyle, his usual precision and sharpness dulled for a moment.
“This was my choice. And I don’t regret it.”
“… …”
“Even if the object is gone, the memories remain. And even if time erases them little by little… I have you, so I’ll be fine.”
Whenever Kyle touched that pendant, he would recall his mother’s frail hands—her thin fingers wrapped around his small ones as she whispered in a sorrowful voice.
I’m sorry, Kyle. I’m so sorry…
Maybe… just maybe, it was a relief that he could now put that painful image further behind him.
“…Christmas, huh.”
“Yes.”
“When we go back, should we start celebrating it every year too? The North is full of fir trees anyway, and decorating them a little for the mood doesn’t seem like a bad idea.”
Shu let out a low chuckle.
“You don’t even believe in Jesus, yet you pick up traditions like this so easily.”
“Jesus?”
“It’s a thing. Whatever, do as you like. As long as at least one of us understands the meaning, it should be fine.”
A faint rustling sound broke the moment. Shu, absentmindedly toying with the bouquet with his frostbitten fingers, seemed lost in thought.
His brown eyes lingered on the ring wrapped around his left ring finger for a long while. Then, all of a sudden, he set the bouquet down beside him and sprang to his feet.
“Wait here for a bit, will you?”
“…All of a sudden?”
“Something just came to mind.”
Kyle, taken aback, looked up at Shu with a slightly open mouth.
The sky had long since turned dark. The streets were bustling with people enjoying Christmas, and the storefronts glowed brightly, spilling warm light onto the pavement. But none of that had anything to do with Kyle and Shu, who had been lost in their own little world.
“I thought we were just going to walk a bit and head back.”
“I thought so too, but I changed my mind. Thirty minutes—no, an hour should be enough. Just stay put and behave. Got it?”
Shu curved his eyes into a smile and added playfully,
“If anyone asks for your number, just tell them you’re engaged. Show them the ring. You can handle that, right? You’ve done it plenty of times before.”
Kyle’s ears reddened slightly at Shu’s shameless teasing. Before he could say anything, Shu took off in a hurry, nearly sprinting through the freshly fallen snow. Within moments, he disappeared around the street corner.
“…I’ll never understand that guy.”
Kyle let out a deep sigh.
It might have been the dead of winter, but compared to the North’s brutal cold, this was nothing. Waiting for thirty minutes, even an hour, wouldn’t be a problem.
Resting the bouquet on his lap, he smoothed out the slightly crumpled wrapping paper and took in the glittering scenery of the city.
A few minutes passed.
“Excuse me.”
Instead of responding, Kyle simply turned his reddish eyes toward the voice’s owner.
It was a young woman, likely around Shu’s age. Though she looked more fatigued than the average passerby, there was something oddly bright, almost piercing, about her gaze.
In truth, Kyle had noticed her watching him for quite some time.
She had circled around him, casting him glances filled with disbelief. It was as if she had been trying to work up the courage to speak. Unlike the people from yesterday who had approached him at the restaurant asking for his contact information, her demeanor carried a different kind of weight.
Not that it mattered.
Kyle didn’t even bother to respond.
His silence carried the distinct indifference of someone who had no intention of engaging.
But the woman didn’t back down. As if she were seeing a hallucination, she pinched her own cheek before rambling on.
“I’m about to say something that will probably make me sound completely insane…”
Kyle still had no interest in her. If Shu had been here, he would have clicked his tongue and muttered something like, “Even if the neighborhood dog barked right in your face, you’d look at it with more warmth than this.”
“By any chance… Kyle Jane Meinhardt…”
“I—”
“I’m sorry. Just pretend I’m some lunatic and ignore me. Please don’t report me or anything. I just knew I’d regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t say something.”
But contrary to her request, Kyle looked at her. A fleeting trace of surprise crossed his composed face.
Suddenly, something came to mind.
This world had a novel based on his own— Heart of Winter.
And if there was a story, then there had to be an author.
The person who had written his life into the bleakest suffering. The one who had set up his most wretched, lonely death. The one who had crafted a tale that would go on just fine without him, as if he were nothing more than a disposable character.
“…Excuse me?”
When he first arrived in this world, he had considered the possibility. In a land this vast, that person must exist somewhere. But it hadn’t been important enough to dwell on.
More than anything, Kyle had never held any fondness for that person. It would have been bizarre to feel anything but resentment toward the one who had not only made his life miserable but also saw fit to end it early.
If they had remained unseen, it wouldn’t have mattered. But if they met in person? Surely, he would hate them.
That’s what he had believed.
“It’s a livable place.”
Kyle spoke indifferently.
“Even flowers bloom through the bitter cold. If flowers can make it, why shouldn’t people?”
Surprisingly, he felt no resentment. In fact, he felt… nothing at all. If anything, he was almost amused.
Because, in the end, what did it matter?
This world was no longer Heart of Winter. It was a real, tangible world. A world where he had survived. A world where a future with his partner awaited him.
“I didn’t die.”
The woman flinched.
“I found someone I love.”
A small snowflake landed on her trembling eyelids, fragile and warm—unlike the biting, merciless snow of the North.
“And I’m living happily.”
The woman sniffled, a quiet, choked sound, before asking in a tiny voice,
“…Are you really happy?”
Kyle shrugged.
“Yeah.”
“…I must sound completely insane, huh?”
Kyle didn’t bother denying it.
The woman grumbled to herself.
Well, it made sense. He was a character designed to be handsome but cold, and honestly, a bit of an asshole. If he had been carrying a sword at his hip, he probably would have drawn it and swung it by now.
That’s how he was created.
Exactly like that.
And yet, he was both the same and different from the person she knew. For a fleeting moment, warmth flickered across his cold expression before vanishing again—perhaps at the thought of someone.
But he no longer looked even the slightest bit lonely.
For some reason, that realization made her chest ache.
“You do look like someone who’s met a miracle.”
Kyle started to rise but sat back down. He had intended to leave, exhausted by the conversation, but then he remembered—he was waiting for Shu.
He could move to another spot; Shu would find him no matter where he went. But he didn’t want to.
A well-behaved, obedient lover. Someone who made him want to get married without a second thought.
Suppressing the smile that threatened to creep up, Kyle responded with utmost seriousness.
“Then, be on your way.”
A blatant dismissal.
The woman let out a short, incredulous laugh but eventually nodded.
“Yeah, sure.”
This was enough.
She had confirmed what she needed to. More than enough.
With a bright smile, she spoke to the loneliest creation who had defied his world and survived.
“Merry Christmas.”
…
“And good luck.”
