The words on the screen didn't just surprise her; they sent a jolt of pure, cold adrenaline straight to her heart.
[ I'm near your workplace. ]
She didn't think. She didn't log out, didn't inform CEO Han, didn't even grab her coat. She just turned and was moving, her sensible heels clicking a frantic, staccato rhythm on the polished floor.
She pushed through the heavy door to the executive hallway and broke into a run. Past the serene portraits of past executives, past the silent, expensive artwork.
The door to the general office floor hissed open, and she was among the cubicles, a blur of professional navy in a sea of partitioned workstations.
She didn't see them. Her vision was tunneled on the elevator bank at the far end of the floor.
'What's he doing here? Now? Of all times?' she thought. The elevator doors slid open mercifully fast.
She slipped inside, jabbing the button for the ground floor repeatedly until the doors closed, sealing her in a mirrored box descending too slowly.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection—hair slightly disheveled from the run, eyes wide with a panic she never allowed at her desk. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, the sound of her own ragged breath loud in the silent compartment.
'Why? Did something happen? Does he need… again?'
The numbers above the door ticked down with agonizing slowness. 30… 25… 18…
Finally, with a soft, maddeningly calm ding, the doors opened on the bustling main lobby. She burst out, weaving through the afternoon crowd of visitors and employees. In her haste, she brushed hard against a woman carrying a stack of folders.
"Omo—!"
Papers fluttered to the marble floor. "I'm so sorry!" Yoon-ah gasped, barely pausing to bow before she was running again, leaving the startled woman to gather her documents. "Excuse me! Pardon me!"
The grand revolving doors were ahead. She pushed through them, the cool afternoon air hitting her flushed face as she spilled out onto the busy Seoul sidewalk.
She skidded to a halt, her head whipping left, then right, scanning the stream of suits and pedestrians.
There.
Leaned against the grey stone wall of the building's perimeter, just out of the stream of foot traffic, was a man.
He was middle-aged, maybe in his late fifties, but life had aged him harder.
A salt-and-pepper beard, unkempt and patchy, covered the lower half of a weary face. Dark, bruise-like circles hung under his eyes. He wore a worn-out coat that had seen too many seasons.
In the shadow of the gleaming Han Group tower, he looked like a ghost from another, shabbier world.
He saw her, and a slow, familiar smile spread across his face. It didn't reach his tired eyes.
"Hey, my daughter," he called out, his voice a gravelly rasp that carried over the city hum. "Long time, no see. Miss me?"
* * *
A Min Earlier...
Click-clunk.
The sound was deeply satisfying. A small, mechanical victory.
I reached into the vending machine's belly and pulled out the cold, sweating bottle of soda. I twisted the cap, the seal breaking with a crisp pssht of carbonation.
I took a long sip, the sweet, citrusy fizz burning pleasantly down my throat.
I leaned against the machine with a sigh. "Okay, I get it now," I muttered to myself.
"This stuff is good. No wonder the actors in the drama had to pretend it's the nectar of the gods during those cringe product placement scenes. They're probably actually thrilled."
Fueled by caffeine and sugar, I pushed off and started walking back down the marble-floored hallway towards my office, the Hanyang Line launch schedules and inventory manifests a dull sheaf of papers in my other hand.
I skimmed the top page as I walked. 'Initial stock delivery to Han Department Stores warehouse… tomorrow, 9 AM. Great. So the actual, tangible, multi-billion-won trap components are rolling in. No pressure.'
I was just recapping my bottle, my brain half on supply chain logistics and half on whether the actress, Hong Soo-jin, preferred iced or hot tea during contract meetings, when—
Thump.
I walked straight into someone. My papers went flying, a flurry of white against the pale marble.
"Omo—! I'm so sorry!" I blurted out automatically, looking up. "I wasn't watching where I was—"
The apology died in my throat.
It was her.
Lee Yoon-ah. Her face was pale, her usually perfect ponytail slightly askew, and her eyes… her eyes were wide, glazed with a panic I'd never seen on her, not even when I'd thrown water in her face. She looked right through me.
"S-sorry," she stammered, the word a hollow, automatic reflex. And then, before I could even form her name, she was gone, moving past me in a rush, her footsteps echoing sharply as she practically sprinted down the hall toward the main lobby.
I stood frozen for a second, surrounded by my scattered papers, my soda bottle dangling forgotten from my fingers.
"What… what was that?"
That wasn't the calm, resilient Secretary Lee. That was a woman running from a fire. Or towards one.
Something was very, very wrong.
All thoughts of inventory manifests vanished. I crouched, scrambling to gather my papers into a messy pile, not caring about order.
My heart was suddenly pounding for a completely different reason. I shoved the stack under my arm, clutched my soda, and took off after her.
I followed the path of disturbed air, the lingering sense of urgency. I pushed through the grand lobby doors just in time to see a flash of navy fabric disappear around the corner of the building's main entrance onto the street.
I hurried after her, slowing as I reached the corner, peering around carefully.
And there she was, standing on the sidewalk. And she wasn't alone.
A middle-aged man stood facing her. He was lean, with a tired face and unkempt stubble, wearing a coat that had seen better days. He looked utterly out of place against the gleaming backdrop of the Han Group headquarters.
Yoon-ah's posture was rigid, her hands clenched at her sides. The man was talking, a loose, casual gesture with his hand that made her flinch back almost imperceptibly.
I couldn't see him well, so I looked up closely until his unmistakable face came into view. My fangirl database whirred, cross-referencing.
The pieces snapped together with a sickening clarity.
"Is that… Yoon-ah's father?"
I ducked back behind the wall, my back pressed to the cool stone. The sweet soda tasted suddenly sour in my mouth.
'Of course, I knew him. Lee Min-Ho. The 'father' who, instead of giving, had spent years taking from Yoon-ah. And she was meeting him… now?
This was a scene I knew in the script. But...
Right now? This was raw, real-life drama of the worst kind. And my Female Lead was right in the middle of it, looking more terrified than I'd ever seen her.
I didn't know what to do. But I knew I couldn't just walk away.
I followed at a distance as they moved down the street and ducked into a modest café a block away from the Han Group's glittering shadow.
Taking a steadying breath, I pushed the door open and entered the warm, coffee-scented air.
They were sliding into a booth on the left side, near a window.
Perfect. I moved to a booth just ahead of theirs, turning my back to Yoon-ah to avoid being recognized.
If I sat perfectly still, I could just hear the low murmur of their voices over the soft café music.
'I really should stop invading my FL's privacy like this,' I thought, guilt warring with a fierce, protective instinct. 'This is straight-up stalker behavior, Austra! Bad fangirl.'
Before I could properly tune into their conversation, a young waiter appeared at my side with a menu. "Welcome! What can I get for you?"
"Ah!" I jumped slightly, forcing a smile. "Let me choose for a bit. Could you come back later, please?" I took the proffered menu, a hefty booklet filled with glossy photos of pasta and artisanal lattes.
"Of course. Take your time," he said with a nod before retreating.
I pretended to study a page about single-origin pour-overs, my entire being focused on the booth behind me. A tense silence had stretched, then broken with the sharp clink of a glass being set down too hard on a table.
"Money?.." Yoon-ah's voice, not angry, but hollow with a deep, weary disappointment that was worse than any shout.
My spine straightened. I stared unseeingly at a description of 'nutty undertones.'
Lee Min-Ho's voice, wheedling and casual, cut through. "Come on, I heard you're working a better job now, right? At that fancy conglomerate! Help your father out a little! A daughter should take care of her family."
'Help you out? You parasitic leech!' I screamed in my head, my fingers curling into the menu. 'She's been taking care of the mess you left since ago!'
"Do you even hear yourself?" Yoon-ah's voice was gaining a sharp, brittle edge. "After the last time you left? Do you even remember it?"
A sullen silence from him.
"Let me remind you," she continued, each word dropping like a stone. "You left your twenty-year-old daughter with a loan you made her co-sign for. You sold the house—our house—without even telling me. I came home to a locksmith and strangers moving in. And now? Now you show up and ask for money?"
The white-hot coal of rage in my chest flared. 'That's right. That's the whole damn tragedy. The debt, the exhaustion, the reason she stays in a dead-end relationship—she's financially chained to the past because of him.'
I wanted to turn and pour my untouched ice water over his head. But I couldn't.
Disrupting this… it felt like crossing a line the 'script' wouldn't allow. What if my interference made it worse for her?
Lee Min-Ho made a dismissive sound. "That's all in the past, Yoon-ah. Water under the bridge! You're too hung up on old things."
His tone shifted, turning sly, almost joking. "I heard you're working for that rich CEO, right? The handsome one from the news. You should help your father. Don't be so stingy. Who knows, maybe you can even… ask him for a favor. A pretty girl like you, he might want to—"
"Do not finish your sentence...!"
Yoon-ah's voice finally cracked, loud enough that a few other patrons glanced over. It was laced with a revulsion so profound it vibrated in the air. "I am ashamed to say I was born from you."
I heard the shuffle of fabric as she stood to leave.
Then, a scrape of a chair. "Where are you going you lil'. You ungrateful—!" His voice, suddenly venomous, rose. I heard the sharp intake of Yoon-ah's breath, a sound of pure fear.
My body moved before my brain could finish the thought, before any worry about 'the script' could register.
I was spinning out of my booth. I saw him, half-standing, his face contorted with drunken spite, his arm pulled back, hand flying in a wide, clumsy arc towards Yoon-ah's face as she flinched back.
And then my hand was there.
My fingers closed around his bony wrist, stopping the blow cold, an inch from its target. The impact jolted up my arm.
The world in the café seemed to freeze. The soft music, the chatter, all of it faded into a dull hum.
Lee Min-Ho stared, shocked and confused, at the well-dressed stranger now holding him back. Yoon-ah's wide, terrified eyes flicked from her father's trapped hand to my face, and her expression morphed into one of pure, uncomprehending shock.
"Austra…?" she breathed.
I stood between them, my grip tightening on the wrist of the man who dared raise a hand to her. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic drum solo of fear and fury.
So much for not disrupting the script.