The Vigneto Room was a gilded cage.
Plush velvet banquettes lined dark walnut walls, and a single, spectacular crystal chandelier cast a low, intimate glow over a table set with heavy silver and starched linen.
It was a room meant for closing billion-won deals or whispering extravagant promises, not for a date that had already curdled before the first course arrived.
Lee Yoon-ah sat across from Minhyuk, the enormous table feeling like a chasm between them. She traced the intricate pattern on her linen napkin, the silence louder than any conversation.
"Well," Minhyuk said, forcing a laugh that sounded hollow in the luxurious space. He reached across to pour her a glass of sparkling water.
"This is… quite the upgrade, huh? Not bad, thanks to the CEOs." He said the last part with a strained sort of pride, as if their humiliation had been a networking opportunity.
Yoon-ah gave a small, tight smile, accepting the glass. "Yes."
He watched her, his own smile not quite reaching his eyes. The charming facade was back, but it was brittle, like glass about to crack.
He reached for her hand resting on the table. His fingers were warm, but the touch felt unfamiliar.
"It's been a while, right?" he said, his voice softening into what was supposed to be a romantic tone. "Just the two of us, in a nice place like this."
Yoon-ah looked at their joined hands, then up at his face—at the smile that didn't crinkle the corners of his eyes the way it used to, at the attentive gaze that now felt like a performance.
"Yes," she said again, her voice quiet. "It has been a while."
She tried to return his smile, to summon the warmth she'd felt in the elevator. But all she could see was his stumble on the street, the panic in his eyes at a name, and the cold, assessing stare of Han Eun-woo from across the restaurant lobby.
The chandelier's light, meant to flatter, now felt interrogating.
The first course arrived—an elegant arrangement of scallops on a swoosh of saffron cream—breaking the heavy silence with a flurry of polite service.
Yoon-ah picked up her fork, the weight of the silver unfamiliar in her hand. She felt a desperate need to bridge the chasm between them, to salvage something from the expensive wreckage of the evening.
"So," she began, her voice carefully light. "How is work? In the Marketing Department?"
Minhyuk swallowed a bite, waving his fork dismissively. "Same old, same old. Spreadsheets, campaigns, budget reports. Boring."
He shook his head, a familiar grievance entering his tone. "Although, honestly, since the new director arrived, CEO Kang has been piling work on me like I'm a machine. Non-stop. It's like he's trying to run me into the ground. I'm a human, you know? I need to breathe."
He continued, detailing a minor conflict with a supplier, a tedious report deadline, all framed as personal trials.
Yoon-ah nodded along, making small sounds of understanding, but the words washed over her. It was a monologue, not a conversation. A list of his grievances.
After a while, he seemed to remember she was there. He offered a sheepish smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Sorry, I'm just talking about myself. What about you? How's that boss of yours? Still as cold as a winter in Sokcho? He barely said two words back there."
Yoon-ah looked down, carefully slicing a piece of the now-lukewarm scallop. "He's… fine. Just busy, I think. The Han-Law merger files are endless. He must have a lot on his mind."
"Must be," Minhyuk agreed, but his tone was dismissive, already moving on. He signaled for the wine list, his attention shifting.
Yoon-ah stared at the pristine white tablecloth, the weight of the evening, the six years pressing down on her.
"Oppa..." she began, her voice quiet, almost lost in the vast room.
He looked up from checking his phone under the table, slipping it back into his pocket with a quick, guilty motion. "Hmm? Yes?"
She took a slow breath, gathering courage. "We've been together for six years now, right?"
A practiced, nostalgic smile touched his lips. He reached across and took her hand. "Of course. Since our third year of university. Our strong love, remember? Everyone said we were the perfect couple." He gave her hand a squeeze, a gesture that once felt like a promise and now felt like a pat on the head.
Yoon-ah didn't pull away, but her hand lay still in his. She met his eyes, her gaze steady. "Then... when are we getting married?"
The question landed like a stone in a still pond. His smile froze, then shattered. He pulled his hand back as if burned. "Wha—? Why are you asking this now? Out of the blue?"
"It's not out of the blue, Oppa," she said, her voice gaining a sliver of strength. "We've been living together for two years. Our families ask. My friends ask. I'm... I'm asking."
She didn't mention the deeper reason—the cold, creeping fear that if they weren't moving forward, they were already over, and she was just too scared to see it.
Minhyuk leaned back, running a hand through his hair, a flicker of genuine panic in his eyes before it was masked by exasperation.
"Yoon-ah, come on. Look at where we are. Look at the pressure at work. My career is just taking off. CEO Kang is watching me. Now is not the time to be talking about weddings and mortgages. We need to be stable first."
"We are stable. We have jobs. We have a home."
"It's not about that kind of stable," he insisted, his voice rising slightly. "It's about building a foundation for the future! A real future. You want a wedding in some cheap hall, or do you want us to have the life we deserve?" He was deflecting, turning her reasonable question into an attack on their ambitions.
"The life we deserve," Yoon-ah repeated softly, the phrase tasting bitter. "What does that look like to you, Oppa? Because sometimes, it feels like I'm the only one looking at the same picture."
The conversation had turned a corner, leaving the smooth path of their usual script and veering into rocky, uncharted ground.
The air in the Vigneto Room, already stiff, became hard to breathe.
His excuses were walls, and with every word, she felt the shape of the thing trapped between them—not a future, but an ending, and his desperate need to keep it politely, beautifully, locked away.
The conversation never found its rhythm again, stuttering through polite, hollow exchanges about the food, the décor, a bland new drama on TV.
When the bill came which, of course, had been taken care of, they stood. Minhyuk helped her with her coat, his hands lingering for a second too long on her shoulders, a ghost of old intimacy that now felt like a claim.
They walked out of the Vigneto Room, past the now-empty podium, and into the cool night air.
The evening hadn't ended with a fight or a revelation. It had simply… ended.
Fizzling out in a quiet, expensive room, leaving behind nothing but the hollow echo of a relationship that had already run its course, and the unspoken name of a woman named Jung So-hee hanging between them like a shroud.
The silence between them as they walked was a living thing, thicker than the night breeze that tugged at their coats.
It wasn't peaceful; it was the quiet of a verdict being processed.
Soon as they walked down the street, the road led them to a glittering lights of a love hotel.
The name sign board came into view; its neon heart glowed a garish pink.
[ Love Bird Suite ]
Minhyuk slowed his steps, a familiar, hopeful smirk trying to find its way back onto his face. He turned to her, his voice attempting a softer tone. "Hey, Yoo—"
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
The vibration from her clutch was jarring. Yoon-ah pulled her phone out, the screen's light illuminating her tired face.
"Sorry," she murmured, not sounding sorry at all. "It's work."
He deflated, waving a hand. "Sure. Go ahead."
She put the phone to her ear, her voice shifting into her professional, efficient secretary tone. "Yes, Team Leader Park. The files you sent... wait, let me see."
She held the phone away from her ear, frowning at the screen as if scrolling. She looked at Minhyuk. "Oppa, can I borrow your phone for a second? Mine's... glitching with the attachment."
"Sure," he said, distracted, pulling his own sleek phone from his pocket and handing it over without a second thought.
She took it, balancing both devices. "Uh-huh... hmm... I see," she hummed into her own phone, a perfect performance of someone troubleshooting a work crisis.
Her mind, however, was elsewhere. 'Don't I need an internet connection to view a server file?' a quiet, logical part of her brain whispered.
"Oppa," she asked, her eyes still on his phone's screen as she tapped it aimlessly. "Do you have mobile data? Mine's slow."
"Ah, no. Finished the monthly pack yesterday," he said, shifting his weight, his eyes drifting back toward the glowing hotel sign.
Yoon-ah nodded, her thumb swiping down on his screen, pulling down the notification panel.
There it was—the Wi-Fi icon.
She tapped it.
You know that feeling? When you know the fridge is empty, absolutely certain, but you still open the door and stare inside, just to confirm the barren truth?
That was exactly what Lee Yoon-ah felt as the list of available networks populated on Minhyuk's screen.
A list of SSIDs scrolled down. Cafe_Dal_24hrs... Seoul_Public_WiFi... and then, halfway down; a name caught her attention.
It read: ♥LoveBird_Suite_5G♥ with a locked symbol beside it, symbolizing it was protected by a password.
Her thumb hovered. A strange, cold detachment settled over her. She tapped it.
A spinning icon.
Checking for Connection...
A checkmark.
Connected.
The phone in her hand, the one connected to a 'work' call, felt like a block of ice.
The pink neon from the hotel sign reflected in the dark glass of Minhyuk's screen, and in her wide, unblinking eyes.
"Hey, you finished? Is it sorted?"
Minhyuk's voice cut through the roaring in her ears. She looked up.
He was watching her, his expression shifting from impatience to a flicker of concern at her frozen posture. "Yoon-ah? Are you okay? Was the document that bad?"
The words were distant, muffled. She was looking at him, but she was seeing the automatic connection. The saved network. The suite.
"Yoon-ah?"
"Yeah," she said, the word automatic, hollow. "Just... the documents. A lot of errors." Her thumb moved on its own, a sharp stab disconnecting from the Wi-Fi network.
The checkmark vanished. The evidence was gone from the screen, but now etched permanently behind her eyes.
She ended the call with team leader Park on her own phone with a tap, then handed his back to him, their fingers brushing. His skin felt alien.
"Thanks," she mumbled, already stepping back, putting physical distance between them. The night air, which had felt cool before, now felt like a lifeline.
"Alright, well, that's done," he said, smiling again, that hopeful, familiar smirk returning as he pocketed his phone.
His eyes drifted back to the glowing hotel entrance. "So, as I was saying—"
"I have to go."
The sentence fell between them, flat and absolute.
He blinked. "What? Go where? It's past eight."
"Back to the office," she said, already turning, her clutch held tight against her chest like a shield. "There's... there's a time-sensitive filing for the merger. I forgot. I have to take care of it."
"This hour? Can't it wait until—"
"No." The word was final. She didn't look at him. She was already flagging down a passing taxi, its yellow light a beacon of escape.
"Yoon-ah, wait—"
The taxi slid to a stop beside her. She yanked the door open.
"Yoon-ah!" His hand shot out, closing around her wrist. His grip was firm, confused, trying to anchor her. "What's gotten into you? We were having a night!"
For a second, she looked down at his hand encircling her wrist.
A surge of something cold and powerful rose in her chest—not anger, but a clear, clean revulsion.
She pulled her hand back, the motion sharp and strong. His grip broke easily, as if the connection between them had already corroded to nothing.
"I have work," she repeated, her voice eerily calm. Then she slid into the taxi, pulled the door shut, and told the driver to move.
As the car pulled away from the curb, she didn't look back.
In the rearview mirror, she saw his figure, silhouetted against the garish pink sign, growing smaller and smaller until he was swallowed by the night, just another part of the city's scenery she was finally leaving behind.