My assistant reminded me I had five minutes before the meeting with Seo Yeon.
Like I needed the reminder.I'd been watching the clock all afternoon, pretending I wasn't.
There's something inherently dangerous about nostalgia—how it sneaks up in the quiet spaces between meetings and coffee runs. How it turns a perfectly structured day into a minefield of memories.
I wasn't ready to see her again.
But then again, I hadn't been ready to leave her either.
The creative wing of Damshing was mostly empty now, save for a few lingering designers clinging to their deadlines and snacks. I liked this time of day. It was quiet. Predictable. Efficient.
Or at least, it used to be.
Now I was sitting at a glass table in the brainstorming room, staring at the reflection of a face I barely recognized.
CEO Chin Gi Hei.Sleek. Sharp. Composed.
Exactly who I built myself to be.
But all it took was one look from her—Seo Yeon, with her sarcastic mouth and nervous energy—and suddenly I was seventeen again. And clumsy. And unfinished.
The door creaked open.She stepped in, holding a laptop and an energy drink the color of poor life choices.
"Sorry," she said breathlessly. "There was a printer situation."
I raised an eyebrow. "Printer situation?"
"It tried to eat my storyboard. I told it no. It disagreed."
She sat across from me, fingers already moving to open her files like this was just another meeting.
God, I hated how easy she made it look.Being near me. Acting like I hadn't disappeared from her life without a single goodbye.
Because the truth was—I thought about her. All the time.
And not in the abstract, "I wonder how she's doing" kind of way.
But in the way you think about the one person who made you feel like the world was worth laughing at.
We got into it fast.
She was good. Sharp. Observant. The kind of creative mind that didn't just throw out ideas but dissected the emotional intent behind every visual, every word. She challenged me on campaign tone, questioned the client brief, even told me one of my headline concepts felt "emotionally manipulative in a way that's impressive but also terrifying."
I should've been annoyed.
Instead, I felt alive.
Like someone had reached inside the carefully built fortress of my brain and flipped on all the lights.
"You've gotten better," I said, halfway through her pitch.
She paused. Blinked. "At what?"
"Everything."
There was a flicker in her eyes. Something unsure. Something hurt.
"Yeah, well," she said, "not everything gets better with time."
There it was.The crack in her voice.The thing we weren't saying.
I wanted to tell her the truth.
That the summer I left, everything fell apart. That I didn't have a choice. That I tried to call—but I didn't know how to explain the chaos I'd landed in, the mess my family had become.
That I didn't want her to see me broken.
But how do you say all that now? Six years later? In a fluorescent-lit office with brand mood boards on the wall and a whiteboard that still says "Q4 deliverables"?
You don't.
You swallow it. Like you've swallowed it every day since.
"So," she said, clearing her throat, "do you want me to draft the first three concepts, or are we—?"
"Seo Yeon."
I didn't mean to say her name like that.Quiet. Slow. Like I was testing it again on my tongue.
She looked up. Guarded.
"I never meant to hurt you," I said.
There it was.The thing I hadn't said in six years.
She blinked. Once. Twice.
"That's convenient timing," she said, standing up and closing her laptop with a soft click. "Let's stick to brand strategy, Gi Hei. It's safer that way."
And then she left.
And I sat there.With all my titles.All my power.And not a single word that could pull her back.