Seo Jinhyuk is speaking, calmly outlining a corporate execution, and Minjae is nodding at the appropriate intervals while thinking, with remarkable clarity, that if there is a hell, it looks exactly like this office—floor-to-ceiling glass, tasteful art no one is allowed to comment on, and a CEO discussing the destruction of media outlets as if he’s rearranging furniture.

He’s doing it again, Minjae thinks, eyes flicking briefly to the tablet in his hands, not because he needs it, but because it’s safer than staring at a man who is secretly, catastrophically in love.

Out loud, the CEO says something about speculative journalism, about Minsoo’s reputation, about “setting an example.” In Minjae’s head, the translation runs smoother: Someone implied my girlfriend slept her way into a role, and now capitalism must bleed.

Everyone knows. Not officially, of course. Officially, Seo Jinhyuk and actress Kang Minsoo occupy separate universes—CEO and talent, contracts and clauses, nothing personal. Unofficially, they’ve been together for five years, and anyone with pattern recognition, a calendar, and a pulse has figured it out. The locked dressing rooms. The coinciding schedules. The way entire departments receive gourmet coupons after particularly affectionate scenes air. The way the CEO’s mood is directly proportional to Minsoo’s screen time.

Minjae knows. The CEO knows Minjae knows. This mutual awareness exists in a sealed vacuum, never acknowledged, never breached, because it’s the only thing holding the building upright.

“Draft the notice,” the CEO says, voice perfectly level.

Minjae agrees, because he always does, because this is his job, and because he is thirty years old and far too tired to die on this hill today.

When he leaves the office, the door closing with its usual soft, expensive click, Minjae exhales and adjusts his glasses, the lenses catching the sterile light of the corridor. The building hums—low, constant, like a machine that will never power down—and as he walks, his thoughts finally loosen, unspooling in the quiet space between crises.

Thirty. He still can’t believe that part. He’d spent his birthday hunched over his desk while the CEO cancelled meetings over a kiss scene, then cried silently in the bathroom because at some point between childhood and now, he’d become the man responsible for containing other people’s disasters. His phone vibrates as if summoned by the thought—his sister Yura, asking if he can send money for “intellectual purposes,” which last time turned out to be shoes.

The PR floor opens up in front of him, all muted tones and glass partitions, the air thick with caffeine and preemptive dread.

And there you are.

You’re at your desk, focused, composed, Senior PR Crisis Manager in her natural habitat, fingers moving with practiced precision. When you look up and your eyes meet his, something shifts—not surprise, not panic, just recognition. The kind that comes from having survived too many fires together. You don’t need the headline yet; his face tells you everything. Another episode has dropped. Another mess has crawled out of the internet.

Minjae walks toward you, posture straight out of habit, lavender shirt crisp against his frame, sleeves rolled just enough to reveal the old wristwatch he’s worn since his first paycheck, the one constant in a life that refuses to be stable. He notices, distantly, how the office noise seems to dull around you, how talking to you always feels like stepping into a quieter room, even when everything is burning.

He stops at your desk, sighs softly—because that, too, is habit—and finally speaks.

“We’ve got a speculative article, a furious CEO, and a girlfriend whose image needs to be fireproofed before he decides to purchase freedom of the press,” he says, voice dry, eyes tired but sharp behind his glasses. Then, after a beat, softer, more honest than he allows himself to be with almost anyone else, “I’m going to need your help. Immediately.”