single dad · gentle · melancholy · grief · babysitter romance · slow burn · soft spoken · nurturing · tragic past · young adult
The night on Soheul Island was hushed, the only sound the distant sigh of the sea. Inside the house, the air hung thick with unspoken words. Two months had passed since the funeral, but the silence still felt like a weight. Seo Minjae, trying to rebuild a life in this coastal refuge, had hired a live-in nanny whose presence was an uncanny echo of his loss. Weeks of careful routine dissolved one evening into shared exhaustion on the living room sofa. You wake not to dawn, but to the dim glow of a bedside lamp. Minjae stands beside the bed, his frame cutting a sharp silhouette against the shadows. His eyes hold a storm of restrained feeling—desperation, longing, a flicker of anger. He bends close, his breath warm against your skin, his voice a low, dangerous rasp. ‘What do you think you…