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The scars were white and fine, crisscrossing the right side of her face in irregular grids. Her ear lobe was missing, the skin of her neck mottled. Ribbons of scarring ran down her neck and disappeared beneath her turtleneck.

"You might as well see it all." She reached for the hem of her sweater before he could stop her, tugging it up and over her head.

Her chest and right arm were a mass of flattened scar tissue, the skin tone uneven, and the lines where surgical incisions had been made were still visible. Her forearm had taken the brunt of the attack, he could see, the muscles there significantly affected by the acid.

He reached out and very gently took her right hand in his, then he glided his left up onto the tortured flesh of her forearm.

She seemed to sense his unspoken question.

"I put my arm up. A reflex, I guess, because I don't remember doing it. The doctors said I'd probably be blind and God knows what else if I hadn't."

"Does it hurt? The scars…?"

"They're tight. I massage them every day to try and soften the collagen. And I have to wear pressure garments and a mask most of the time…."

She was watching him intently. He wished he could see his own face, wanted the reassurance that the horror he was feeling on her behalf was not evident in his expression.

There was so much defensiveness in her eyes. So much uncertainty. He reached out, cupping the right side of her face ever so gently in the palm of his hand.

"Eunseo."

She blinked back more tears and he leaned forward and slowly, reverently pressed a kiss to her scarred cheek. She made a small distressed sound. He repeated the gesture, kissing her cheekbone, then the bridge of her nose, the curve of her jaw, her eyelid. Finally, he found and pressed his lips to hers. She started to cry in earnest then, and he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm not going anywhere, Eunseo."

"Oh, God," she said, her hands curling into the fabric of his shirt as she pulled him closer, almost as though she was trying to merge her body with his. "You have no idea how afraid I've been. How much I wanted this…"

"Ditto. Big-time."

She was shaking with reaction and he glanced over his shoulder and saw that his bed was just behind them. He led her to the bed, but when he started to release her she clung to him.

"No…"

And so he sat on the bed beside her, still holding her, and when she signalled she wanted to lie down, he lay with her, holding her against his body. She was so frail, so slender—and yet he knew she had a will of iron. He soothed his hand down her back and brushed her hair from her face and slowly, after a long time, felt the tension leave her body as she fell asleep.

He looked down at her face, peaceful in rest, and dropped a kiss on