The dream came again.
The courtyard. The laughter. The sound of paper tearing in her hands. His voice, cool and cruel, echoing across the schoolyard — "You? You thought I'd ever like you?"
Kang Hye-rin jolted awake, her breath ragged, the taste of humiliation still sharp on her tongue. For a few seconds, she couldn't tell if it was the past or present clawing at her chest.
Then her phone buzzed. The screen glowed with a name she could never quite escape.
Lee Joon-hyuk: Lunch. 1 PM. My office.
No greeting. No explanation. Just an order.
By the time she walked into his office, she'd already pulled her armor tight around her. The space smelled faintly of coffee and paper — sterile, familiar, and far too him.
"Sit," he said without looking up from his monitor.
She stayed standing. "I haven't agreed to your proposal yet."
That made him pause. Slowly, he leaned back in his chair, his gaze rising to meet hers. "Then why are you here?"
The question landed harder than she expected. Why was she here? To refuse him? To prove she wasn't the same foolish girl from Baeksu High? Or… to see if that boy — the one she once believed was kind before the laughter — still existed somewhere behind the man he'd become?
Her throat tightened. "Because I need to understand what I'm agreeing to," she said quietly.
He studied her for a moment, then slid a folder across the desk. "The contract. Read it carefully."
She hesitated before taking it. When her fingers brushed his, the contact was brief — barely there — but it sent a tremor through her pulse.
"This isn't personal," he said, voice lower now, as if convincing himself more than her. "It's business."
She almost laughed, but it came out too soft, too brittle. "Right. Just business."
But as she turned to leave, the lie hung in the air between them — fragile and transparent, trembling with everything they refused to admit.
Because they both knew this wasn't just business anymore.
And that truth was more dangerous than either of them wanted to face.