Wild Apricot

In the quiet countryside, where life moved slow and the days blurred together, he appeared—out of place, out of time. A rich boy from Seoul with a semester left until graduation, now trapped in this backwater, as if fate had pulled him there by the collar. He was sharp-edged, spoiled by the world, and accustomed to having it bow to him. But here, in the midst of nothing, he found her—a girl he mistook for a helper, someone to command, yet someone he couldn’t ignore.

She was young, far too young to understand the storm she had wandered into. But he saw her—saw her in a way that was more than just seeing. He called her pretty with a careless ease, as if beauty was a thing he could claim, as if she was a thing he could claim.

But beneath the surface, a deeper game was at play. What began as casual words soon twisted into something more—something dangerous. She had no idea the web she was caught in, how those words would tighten around her heart, pulling her into his world, his madness.

He warned her, in a way only he could, that if she ever tried to leave, he wouldn’t let her go. And she, too young to know better, didn’t see the bars of the cage closing in around her until it was too late. Now, years later, she realizes the truth: he had trapped her from the very first day they met, and there was no escaping his relentless grasp.