His words-
"Your honesty. And a chance."
-echoed through me like a bruise being pressed.
I couldn't breathe.
For years, I had imagined this moment in a hundred different ways-
He would be angry.
He would be cold.
He would resent me.
But this?
This quiet, patient version of him?
The man who still loved thoughtfully, who spoke gently even when he was hurting?
I wasn't prepared for this one.
My mouth opened, but nothing came out. The studio felt suddenly too small, too bright, too sharp. I looked away, pretending to study the rows of manuscripts and drafts on the table beside me.
Jun-seo's presence was too close. Too familiar. Too dangerous.
"Ajin," he said softly, "look at me."
I didn't.
He stepped closer until his shadow blended with mine.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness," he said. "I know I don't deserve that yet."
His voice wavered, just barely.
"But I am asking you to stop running."
My fingers tightened around the edge of the table until my knuckles turned pale.
"You don't know why I left," I whispered.
"I don't," he admitted. "But I want to."
I shook my head, bitterness rising in my throat.
"No, you don't. If you knew... if you really knew... you would hate me."
He didn't even pause.
"I tried that," he said quietly. "I failed."
I looked at him then, truly looked.
He wasn't lying.
His eyes-older now, sharper, wearier-still burned with the same warmth that used to terrify me with how much he could give.
How much he did give.
How much I broke.
"You knew she was your daughter," I said, my voice barely more than air. "And still... still you didn't resent me?"
He smiled, sad and small.
"How could I hate the woman who brought her into the world?"
Something hot stung behind my eyes.
He continued, voice gentle but firm:
"I saw her face today."
A beat.
"I saw myself in her."
I swallowed hard.
"So you really knew."
"Of course I knew."
He exhaled shakily.
"That's why it hurt so damn much when you didn't trust me to stay."
My breath shattered.
The truth-the heavy, ugly, sharp truth-pushed against my throat.
"I trusted you..."
A tear slipped down.
"I just didn't trust what would happen to you if you stayed."
"What do you mean?"
"My family," I whispered. "Your mother. The company. Everything that destroyed us the first time."
His jaw tightened.
"Ajin."
He stepped forward again.
"My mother can't hurt you anymore. The company can't control me anymore. Your family..."
I stiffened.
He noticed.
He understood.
His fists slowly unfurled.
"Did they hurt you?" he asked, voice dangerously steady.
"When you disappeared... did something happen?"
My lips quivered.
"I can't talk about that."
"Because you're scared?"
"Because I survived it."
He went still.
Not in shock-
but in fury.
Not anger at me-
anger for me.
He whispered, barely containing it, "Tell me who hurt you."
"No," I said immediately.
"Ajin-"
"No."
We stared at each other, tension vibrating like a plucked string.
His chest rose and fell in sharp breaths-he was fighting rage, grief, helplessness.
I was fighting the urge to collapse.
Then, with trembling hands, he asked the question I'd been terrified of since the moment I walked in:
"Ajin... can I see her again?"
The world slipped sideways.
My heartbeat roared in my ears.
"I-"
My voice cracked.
"I don't know."
"You don't know," he repeated softly-not accusingly, just wounded.
"I need time," I breathed. "I need to think. I need to figure out what's safe. What's right. I can't let anything-anyone-hurt her."
He stepped back then.
Just one tiny step.
But it felt like an earthquake.
"I understand," he said.
But his voice trembled.
"I'll wait."
He always waited.
That was the problem.
He stepped aside, allowing me to leave.
A gentleman.
A father.
A man still in love.
And as I walked past him toward the door, my shoulder brushed his arm-
just barely,
but it was enough to make my entire body remember him.
His warmth.
His scent.
His steadiness.
"Ajin," he said one last time, barely above a whisper.
I froze.
He didn't move closer, didn't touch me, didn't force anything.
He simply said:
"Next time... please don't disappear."
My breath caught.
Then I walked out.
And for the first time in years-
I wasn't sure I wanted to run.
The hallway outside his studio felt colder than it should.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
My footsteps echoed in a shaky rhythm-tap, tap, tap-as if even the floor wasn't sure I should be walking away from him.
My chest hurt.
My palms were damp.
My throat burned from holding back tears I didn't want to show him.
For a moment, I leaned against the elevator wall, closing my eyes.
His voice haunted me.
"Next time... please don't disappear."
God.
He had no idea how much I wanted that-
to stop disappearing,
to stop hiding,
to stop punishing myself for a past I couldn't control.
The elevator doors closed with a soft hum, sealing me inside my own guilt.
I took out my phone, staring at the wallpaper-
Mina holding a strawberry ice cream, face messy, eyes sparkling like the sun belonged to her alone.
She looked nothing like the lies I'd told.
"Mommy?"
Her faint voice echoed in my memory.
"You should smile too... Daddy sounded happy."
My vision blurred.
I tried to breathe.
Failed.
Tried again.
The elevator descended slowly, almost painfully slow, as though the universe wanted me to sit with everything I'd avoided for years.
By the time I stepped into the lobby, my mask was barely holding.
But I needed it.
Because trouble was waiting for me the moment I walked outside.
-
They were leaning against a black car: Jao, Mira, and Eun-hee.
Three faces I had once trusted.
Three faces that now twisted with resentment.
Mira spotted me first.
"Well, well... look who crawled out of hiding," she snapped, arms crossed.
Eun-hee scoffed.
"Did you run back to him already? Or were you hoping to manipulate him again?"
I froze.
The air tightened around me.
Jao walked closer, expression flat-too flat.
"Long time no see, Ajin," he said quietly.
"Looks like someone finally decided to show her face."
"Don't," I whispered.
"I'm not doing this today."
"Oh, you will do this today," Mira hissed. "We deserve explanations."
"And apologies," Eun-hee added sharply. "Real ones. Not the fake nonsense you always used to hide behind."
My pulse throbbed painfully in my temples.
I knew this would happen someday.
I knew my reckoning would come.
But today?
Today of all days-
when old wounds were already gaping open-
was too much.
"I'm not the person I was back then," I forced out.
"I made mistakes. But you don't know everything."
"Oh, we know enough," Mira said coldly.
"You lied. You used people. You disappeared when things got ugly. And now you're back-acting like you're the victim."
Something in me snapped.
"I am a victim," I said quietly.
"Just not of the things you think."
Jao's eyes narrowed-not in anger, but in something more dangerous:
Curiosity.
"Victim?" he repeated.
"Of who? Of what?"
My breath hitched.
I couldn't say the name.
Not here.
Not now.
Not with Mina waiting at home, unaware of how closely shadows followed us.
So I said nothing.
Silence hung thick between us.
Eun-hee scoffed again.
"Look. She's doing it again-playing helpless so someone else takes pity on her."
Mira leaned forward, eyes sharp.
"You're not getting away with it this time, Ajin. We're going to expose everything."
I lifted my chin slowly, even though my knees trembled.
"Expose me then," I whispered.
"Do whatever you need to do."
They all flinched-
not because I yelled,
but because my voice was finally empty.
No manipulation.
No excuses.
Just exhaustion.
Jao stared at me for a long moment.
His expression softened-barely-a flicker of the old friendship we used to have.
"You look tired," he said quietly.
"I am."
My voice cracked.
"I'm so tired."
For a moment...
just a moment...
no one spoke.
Then Jao stepped aside, giving me space to walk past.
Mira and Eun-hee looked ready to argue-
but something in my eyes must have stopped them.
I didn't run.
I didn't apologize.
I just walked.
One step.
Then another.
Then another.
Until their voices faded.
Until the city swallowed me again.
Until I could finally breathe.
But even as I walked farther and farther away...
One truth pressed heavier than all the accusations thrown at me:
I didn't fear Jao or Mira or Eun-hee.
I feared something else entirely-
someone else.
The person who destroyed my life once.
The reason I ran.
The reason I kept Jun-seo away.
The reason I raised my daughter in hiding.
And that person...
would not stay silent for long.
By the time I turned the corner, my legs felt like they were made of glass.
Any wrong step and they would shatter.
The city lights blurred past me-white, blue, red-melting together like a smear on a wet canvas.
But I just kept walking.
Away from the studio.
Away from the people who still hated me.
Away from the past I wished I could bury.
My phone buzzed twice in my bag.
I ignored it.
Then it buzzed a third time.
I stopped.
My heartbeat stuttered.
Mina's school would never call this late.
My stomach twisted as I pulled out the phone.
Unknown Number
1 new message
I hesitated, thumb hovering.
Then I opened it.
The picture nearly made me drop the phone.
It was my daughter.
In her classroom.
Sitting by the window.
But the picture wasn't taken by the teacher.
Or from inside the room.
It was taken from outside the school, through the glass-
like a hunter watching prey.
My blood froze.
Then another message arrived.
"You thought you could hide her."
A second photo.
This time of me leaving Jun-seo's studio earlier.
Followed by-
"You owe me, Ajin."
My breath hitched painfully.
The world tilted.
My fingers trembled.
No.
No, no, no.
Not again.
It couldn't be him.
He was gone.
He should be gone.
But the next message erased that illusion:
"If you don't want her to disappear like you did-
meet me."
My knees buckled.
I pressed my back against a wall, clutching my phone like a lifeline.
My lungs refused to work, panic clawing up my throat.
I typed with shaking hands:
Who are you?
The reply came instantly.
"The one you betrayed first."
My heart stopped.
Only one person would say that.
Only one person believed I "betrayed" him.
Only one person had once controlled every step I took.
A person I thought had died in that final confrontation years ago...
But the next image proved I'd been wrong-
Because it was a picture of him.
Alive.
Smirking.
Holding a lighter in one hand and my daughter's pink hair clip in the other.
The clipped message below chilled me to the bone:
"Long time no see... Ajin."
My entire body went cold.
I wasn't being punished for my manipulations.
I was being hunted for surviving him.
A shadow I thought was buried in the past was alive-
and he had found my daughter.
Before I could breathe, another message arrived:
"Come alone.
Don't tell the father."
My grip tightened.
The father...
Jun-seo.
He didn't even say Jun-seo's name.
He said "the father."
As if acknowledging the truth he'd once tried to destroy between us.
My tears blurred the screen.
Not from guilt.
Not from fear of consequences.
But from one single truth:
If Jun-seo finds out, he'll walk into hell for us.
And this man-the one who tried to own my life once-
would burn him alive for it.
I swallowed hard, trembling.
The last message came like a knife:
"Tonight.
Midnight.
Or she disappears."
The choice wasn't a choice at all.
I would go.
Even if it killed me.
Because if there's one thing I learned from loving Jun-seo...
It's that you don't need to be brave to protect someone.
You just need to be willing to break.
And I was already broken.