I blink, pulled back from the fog. “Sorry, could you repeat that? I… zoned out.”
Beside me, Shin lets out a quiet, barely perceptible sigh. He knows exactly what I was doing.
By the end, my head is pounding. I’ve signed papers I barely read and promised to remain available. Translation: my life, my career, everything I’ve built, is officially on hold.
After wading through another media feeding frenzy, we finally make it into the car. Shin and the legal team murmur in low, careful voices.
My phone vibrates in my hand like a revving engine.
Suho.
My heart leaps into my throat. Hearing his voice now, in this car with Shin and two stone-faced lawyers, feels like a reckless risk. It could trigger crying, or yelling, or both.
But I answer anyway.
“Hello,” I say, my voice sounding foreign even to me.
“You survived,” he says. There’s a strained attempt at lightness in his tone.
“Just barely,” I whisper, instinctively cupping my hand over the phone, trying to shield the conversation from the silent, disapproving presence of Shin just a few feet away. “It was a spectacle.”
A short, sharp laugh crackles through the line. “I can imagine.” There’s a pause, and his voice drops, becoming softer. “I wish I could’ve been there.”
I lean my head back against the leather seat, closing my eyes. My first instinct is to say something sharp, something bitter.Yeah, well, a phone call isn’t quite the same as having you here instead of two lawyers who were probably programmed to say ‘no comment’ in their sleep.
But the words die on my tongue. The last thing I need is to antagonize my own legal team. So I just swallow, the bitterness a familiar taste in the back of my throat.
“It’s fine,” I say into the phone, my voice colder than I intend. “I’m handling it.”
He catches the chill in my voice immediately. That quiet, professional dismissal is a language we both speak fluently. There’s a beat of silence on his end, and I brace myself for the familiar, bitter script to begin: the sarcastic comeback, the frustratedsigh, or the quiet, definitive sound of him setting the phone down—not hanging up, but simply ending the conversation on his terms.
Instead, his voice comes back, practical and laced with a new, specific concern.
“Where will you go after?” he asks.
The question catches me off guard. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. My own apartment, a space now contaminated by the memory of Shin’s quiet disappointment, feels impossible. He’s not asking to be romantic; he’s asking a logistical question, because he knows I have nowhere safe to land.
The cold, calculated celebrity math doesn’t do a damn thing to quiet the fact that I’m running out of safe places to stand, and he’s the only one who seems to have realized it.
“How’s the shoot?” I ask, because it’s easier than admitting that.
“Chaotic. Half the cast has food poisoning, so I’m running back-to-back scenes. Doctor costume, the whole deal. Already downed two energy drinks just to stay upright.”
“Romantic,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Maybe next time you can serenade me with your caffeine-induced heart palpitations.”
He lets out a short, tired laugh. “Come to my place tonight. I’ll order you food. Promise.”
He thinks food is the answer. A promise. Like that fixes everything. A dry laugh escapes me.
“Promises are easy to break,” I mutter, the bitterness in my own voice surprising me.
“Min-hee…” His voice trails off as someone calls his name in the background. He sighs, a sound of pure exhaustion. “I have to go. Please… just hang in there.”
The line clicks dead, and the car is plunged into a new kind of silence—heavy and judgmental. I stare out the window as the world becomes a smear of colored lights, feeling completely detached.
Beside me, the lawyers and Shin are still whispering, their hushed tones a low hum I can almost ignore. Almost.
The anger starts to boil then, a hot, familiar acid in my chest, sweeping away the brief comfort I’d found in Suho’s words. It wasn’t about the promise of food. It was about the whiplash. The same old script, performed with devastating precision: a single, perfect moment of raw, unguarded connection, immediately followed by the inevitable, pragmatic dismissal.I have to go.
