By the time I left the office, my heels were killing me, my brain was fried, and my heart was doing that annoying thing where it pretends not to care but beats way too fast anyway.
I told myself I wouldn't think about Chin Gi Hei on the subway ride home.
So naturally, I thought about nothing else.
"Okay," Jiwoo said, placing a glass of wine in front of me the moment I walked into her apartment. "Talk. Start from the top. Did he grow a villain goatee? Are you afraid of his stares yet? Did he speak?"
I flopped dramatically onto her couch. "He spoke."
"And?"
"And I want to throw myself into a recycling bin."
"Is that a metaphor for feelings or a comment on your outfit?"
"Both."
Jiwoo was my oldest friend. The kind of person who would bail me out of jail and also yell at me the entire car ride home. We met in university, bonded over bad boyfriends and worse professors, and never looked back.
She had perfect skin, a therapist's instincts, and the sense of humor of a 2003 internet forum. I loved her and hated that she was always right.
I took a long sip of wine and said, "He said he never meant to hurt me."
Her eyebrows shot up. "Wow. Did he also invent time travel and undo it?"
"I know."
"Did you slap him?"
"No."
"Did you cry?"
"No."
She stared. "Did you feel anything?"
I looked at her. "Too many things. All at once."
"I spent six years convincing myself he didn't matter," I said quietly. "That he was a stupid, selfish kid who didn't know how to say goodbye. And then tonight, he looked at me like I was still… something."
Jiwoo's face softened. "You were something. You were everything. That doesn't just vanish."
"Well, it did. For him."
"You don't know that."
"He left, Ji. He didn't call. He didn't explain. He just vanished. And now he's sitting across from me in a boardroom acting like we're old colleagues catching up over coffee instead of… whatever we were."
She gave me a long look. "You still love him."
I didn't answer.
"I'm not saying forgive him," Jiwoo continued. "I'm saying: maybe it's time to stop pretending it didn't hurt. Because it did. And it still does. And maybe if you stopped hiding it behind sarcasm and fake confidence, you could actually heal."
"Rude," I muttered.
"True," she replied.
I set the wine down and stared at the ceiling. "This job was supposed to be a stepping stone. A quiet contract, a paycheck, maybe a new portfolio piece. And now I'm trapped in some twisted nostalgia drama with a CEO who looks like a heartbreak dressed in Armani."
Jiwoo snorted. "Honestly, that should be the company slogan."
After a long silence, she said, "What are you going to do?"
I shrugged. "Work. Pretend I'm fine. Try not to make eye contact with his cheekbones."
"Yeon."
"I know."
"You can't avoid this forever."
"Watch me."
But even as I said it, I knew she was right.
Because I could handle the job.I could handle the pressure.But I wasn't sure I could handle the truth about why he really left.
And worse—
I wasn't sure I wanted to know.