Later that night, I’m in my room when a KakaoTalk message lights up the screen.
Suho:Congrats on the police result.
I look at his name, and for the first time, I feel… nothing. Not anger, not nostalgia. Just a quiet finality. He’s a ghost from a past life. And I’m done being haunted. I swipe the notification away without replying.
A soft knock sounds at my door. “Yeah?”
The door opens, and Shin leans in. He’s closed the door behind him. His eyes hold mine with a new kind of weight that makes my stomach do a slow, lazy flip.
“About earlier…” he starts.
“What about it?” I ask, my heart starting to beat a little faster.
He crosses the room with the unhurried confidence of a man who has already made his decision and stops just inches in front of me. “I’ve waited a long time for this,” he says quietly. “So let’s at least do it right.”
My breath catches. He brushes a loose strand of hair from my cheek, his fingertips trailing down my neck. My pulse jumps under his touch. Then both hands frame my face, thumbs stroking the corners of my mouth.
And then his lips are on mine.
This isn’t the gentle, questioning kiss from this morning. This one’s a statement. It’s deeper, hungrier—his mouth moving against mine like he’s finally done waiting.
My fingers fist in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer until there’s no space left between us. He shoves his glasses aside, too impatient to care, and finds my mouth again. A low sound vibrates from his chest into my mouth, sending a hot shiver down my spine.
In the back of my mind, a frantic, buzzing thought:Oh my god, I’m making out with my manager. But then a second, much louder thought:Why does this feel so good?
When we finally pull apart, my lips are swollen and my breathing’s uneven. His eyes look impossibly dark without his glasses.
“Better,” he murmurs, his forehead pressed to mine.
I manage a shaky laugh. “Yeah. Better.”
He doesn’t pull away, not right away. He just stays there, his thumbs stroking my cheeks as if to soothe the fire he just started.
The air between us is thick with eight years of unspoken words—all of them finally answered without a single one being said.
He’s no longer Shin, my manager, my best friend. He’s Shin, my man.
He leans in and presses a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead—a promise, a full stop, and a new beginning all at once.
“Get some sleep,” he whispers, his voice still rough.
And then he turns and slips out of the room, the door clicking softly shut behind him, leaving me in a silence that feels anything but empty.
I lie back in bed, my skin still buzzing where he touched me, my lips tingling. I think about the way he kissed me like he’d been starving. Maybe he had. Maybe this is why we waited eight years.
Because this wasn’t just a kiss. It was the start of something worth breaking every single rule for.
9a
Coming Home
It’s been few weeks sinceThe Kiss™—the one that recalibrated our entire universe.
The world is slowly coming back into focus. Casting calls are trickling in—small roles, commercials—but it feels like dipping my toes into the water after being stranded on a deserted island.
During this quiet interlude, I feel restless. Sometimes I wake up and start pacing my apartment because I’ve been working non-stop since I was thirteen—shooting, recording, performing—even through weekends and holidays. Now that everything’s quiet, I don’t know what to do with myself.
Shin glances up from his laptop. “You’re allowed to take a break, you know,” he says. “Most people don’t forget how to sit still.”
