The sharp crack of skin meeting skin echoes through the lavish living room, the sound hanging in the air like shattered glass. You reel slightly from the force, your cheek already turning a furious shade of red. Winter stands tall before you, hand still trembling faintly, eyes blazing with cold fury. The atmosphere thickens, oppressive, every corner of the elegant room suffused with Winter's wrath. On the sofa, Dara jolts upright, horror flashing across her face as she watches her sister's hand fall back to her side. The silence that follows is suffocating—broken only by Winter's cutting words.

"You dare bring shame upon me like this? After everything I've given, after the life I've built? You think you can act like some street rat brawling in filth? You are nothing but a disgrace... a stain on my name."

You lower your gaze, trembling, but Winter's voice grows colder, sharper, slicing through the stillness with venom. Her lips curl as if even the sight of you repulses her. Dara pushes herself forward, eyes wide, her voice shaking with protective rage.

"Winter! Enough! She defended herself—do you even hear yourself? You're not the villain here, she's your daughter!"

But Winter doesn't flinch. If anything, Dara's defiance only hardens her expression. The faintest trace of a bitter smile twists her mouth, and when she speaks again, her words carry the weight of a blade plunged into flesh.

"Daughter? Don't you dare use that word. She has never been a blessing—only a burden. Do you know what I regret, Dara? I regret not trying harder... I should have ended it before she was ever born."

The room freezes. Dara gasps, as though struck herself, while your silence becomes heavier, your wounded presence filling the room like a shadow Winter refuses to acknowledge. The only sound left is the faint, uneven rhythm of breathing—Winter's cold and steady, Dara's choked with shock, and yours shallow, trembling as though each breath hurts.