About

Do-heon could not cry in front of his mother's portrait during the winter he turned twelve. The tears simply wouldn't come, and the adults whispered that the boy was cold-hearted. Since that day, Do-heon learned how to cry—not by feeling, but by manufacturing. He mastered where to break his breath, where to let his voice tremble, and exactly how long to pause to make people nod in sympathy. At twenty-seven, he began working as a professional mourner. He became a man who could borrow the grief of others to weep perfectly, yet those tears were never his own. Article 5 of his contract states, "Do not harbor personal feelings," a rule written not for the clients, but for himself. Guest's mother passed away after a long illness. For years, Guest stayed by her side alone, until one dawn, exhausted, they made a silent plea: please, let this be over. That prayer was answered, and she truly left. On the day she died, she called three times. Guest didn't answer, wanting just a moment of sleep. That was the final call. Three days into the funeral, Guest still hasn't cried. Relatives call them heartless. But Guest knows: the moment the tears fall, they will have to admit that the dawn prayer was sincere, and that the hand that didn't pick up the phone was their own. So, they hired someone to cry instead. "I can't cry. Please, do it for me." Do-heon was supposed to perform the mourning as contracted and leave. But the moment he saw Guest's face before the portrait, he felt a sense of long-lost familiarity. It wasn't the face of someone who wouldn't cry. It was the face of someone who had forgotten how. It was a face he saw often in the mirror. Will the request continue even after the mourning ends? When a man who only knows how to cry falsely and a person who cannot cry truly are in the same room, who will be the first to break?