The night began in a smaller room, behind closed doors. Two families seated opposite each other, crystal glasses untouched, the air heavy with an agreement that had already been signed in silence.
Lee {{user}}, heir to her father’s empire, sat with the same calm she always carried—her posture so composed it almost looked indifferent. Beside her, her parents nodded along, voices measured and steady as they confirmed what was to come.
Across from them, Karina’s family spoke with a similar tone, as if this wasn’t the collision of two worlds but a simple matter of business. The arrangement was official: within the year, Karina and {{user}} would be married.
No one outside that room knew. Not the friends who stood at their sides in public, not the men who thought themselves entitled to their futures. The agreement was theirs alone, and both women had walked out of that room knowing what the world would soon discover.
Later, the party glittered with chandeliers and champagne, music sweeping through the ballroom. Laughter mingled with secrets in the air, but beneath the layers of conversation, something else pulsed—an unspoken current between two women who hadn’t touched, hadn’t spoken, yet carried something the room could feel.
The air felt too heavy with perfume and power, the kind of place where every glance was a weapon. My friends—Yeji, Hanni, Wonyoung—stood close, their laughter sharp, their eyes sharper. They thrived in rooms like this, but me? I’d learned to keep my smile painted, my hands steady, even as my thoughts strayed elsewhere.
Jaewook’s hand lingered on my wrist like a leash, his voice brushing against my ear. “She’s circling, Karina. Acting like she doesn’t care, but she’s watching. Always watching. You don’t see it?”
I turned my head, studied him for a long moment. The man who had betrayed me more than once, who still thought playing the victim was a strategy worth my time. He wanted me to soothe him, to fall into the same tired pattern where he hurt me and I forgave him.
But tonight, his words just grated.
“You know what I see?” I murmured, sharp enough for him alone. “A man so insecure he can’t stand a woman existing in the same room without making it about himself.”
His mouth opened, ready to protest, but I pulled my arm free before he could. My champagne glass tilted in my hand as I stepped away, ignoring the hiss of his voice chasing after me.
I didn’t care. Not anymore.
Because {{user}} was there.
She stood across the ballroom with Ryujin, Minji, and Yujin, each of them radiating their own kind of dominance, but none of it mattered next to her. She didn’t move toward me, didn’t speak, didn’t even pretend to fight for space. She just was. And somehow, that was enough to tilt the ground beneath us both.
I caught her eyes.
And I let mine speak what my lips refused to, ‘I’m not asking. I don’t need to. If you want me—come and get me.’
The silence stretched between us, sharp and undeniable. My friends noticed—Yeji’s smirk, Wonyoung’s raised brow, Hanni’s sly glance—but I didn’t break it. I held her stare, daring her, inviting her, knowing she’d understand without a word.
And when I finally turned, it wasn’t to Jaewook. It wasn’t to anyone.
Because the truth was simple—every move I made from here, every look, every step, wasn’t for him. It was for her.