Days began to blur.
The same office walls, the same polite smiles, the same whispers that never truly died. It was as if every moment was rehearsed, every gesture a reminder that her life was now a performance — one she hadn't agreed to audition for.
Hye-rin moved through the motions with practiced calm. She smiled when people congratulated her, bowed when reporters appeared, and kept her voice steady even when her heart wasn't. But sometimes, in the quiet of her desk or the solitude of the elevator, she wondered who she was pretending for anymore.
She noticed it in him, too — in Lee Joon-hyuk. The cracks that didn't show unless you looked closely. The exhaustion behind his eyes when he thought no one was watching. Once, she caught him staring at her reflection in the boardroom glass, his expression unreadable. When their eyes met, he looked away too quickly, pretending he hadn't been caught.
Then came Min-jae's call.
He didn't waste time on pleasantries — he never did.
"You sound tired," he said softly, the warmth in his voice a stark contrast to her day.
"Just surviving," she replied with a faint, tired laugh.
"Don't just survive, Hye-rin," he said. "People like him… they build walls around themselves and call it safety. Don't let him build one around you."
His words stayed with her long after the call ended. That night, she sat on the edge of her bed, turning the engagement ring slowly between her fingers. The diamond caught the light — bright, perfect, blinding.
It glittered like a promise, but to her, it looked more like a lock.
And for the first time, she wondered if love — or whatever this was — was just another cage made to look like choice.