When Jeong-hyeok hangs up the phone, Se-ri does the first thing she can think of.
Bent on the floor of her bedroom, clad in an oversized white sweatshirt and her sleeping shorts, Se-ri uses her phone to pull up the latest issue of Se-ri's Choice. The one that had gone to the printer, and had come out this morning.
Breathing quickly, she scrolls through the pages, moving down further and further, until her eyes finally land on Jeong-hyeok's smiling face above his interview. The photo momentarily drives everything else out of her mind.
Se-ri remembers the day she'd picked it out, scrolling at her desk through the many close ups the photographer had taken. She remembers looking around the bright office and trying to hide the smile that was spreading across her face, lest she looked like an idiot. But it was a lost cause, and ultimately she'd had to hide her mouth surreptitiously behind her hand as she moved one by one through the pictures.
"You look so handsome, Ri Jeong-hyeok-ssi," she'd texted him, attaching the picture which she'd chosen in the end. Jeong-hyeok had replied back with a blushing emoji and she'd burst out into laughter, because it was the first time he'd ever used an emoji with her.
And now... his harsh words echo in her ears.
"It's over. I never want to see you or speak to you again."
Se-ri knew that pain could be delayed in this way, that replaying his words in her mind would hurt more and more than hearing them the first time. It was like the reverberations of a gong, growing louder as they spread from the source, till the cruel waves invaded every part of her. She knew that pain could be delayed. Yet, it hurt more than she thought it ever could.
Because she didn't think she'd actually done anything wrong. The sense of injustice is keen, mixing her sadness with bubbling frustration. Jeong-hyeok hadn't even let her explain - and now that the initial shocks are wearing off, that seems to hurt the most.
But when Se-ri starts to scan the interview, she comes across three sentences she certainly hadn't written. They had evaded her notice the first time she had reviewed the article, back at the VAST Gala.
And when she reads them, Se-ri understands why Jeong-hyeok had been so angry.
Despite the best efforts of the Ri family to cover up the truth, Ri Mu-hyeok, eldest son and then-CEO of the VAST group, did not die in a freak car accident, but rather due to his own drunk driving.
Driving under the influence of alcohol, Ri Mu-hyeok drove his car straight into a pole off a highway underpass in Jeju, injuring himself and the other passenger of the car.
He died in the complications that arose from his injuries.
"Who wrote this?" Se-ri asks out loud in complete bewilderment. Only her bedroom walls are there to hear her.
Se-ri stares at the article, and her mind sluggishly tries to put the pieces together. This must have been what Jeong-hyeok was talking about on the phone. But who wrote this here? And for what purpose?
It must have been someone at Se-ri's Choice, she realizes with a horrid wave of nausea. Those were the only people in the world with access to her files. She visualizes every employee at her small company, moving though their faces in her mind. To her, every person at Se-ri's Choice was more than an employee. In her innermost thoughts, she'd called them her little family. How many betrayals is she going to face today?
Hiding in her bedroom won't accomplish anything, Se-ri tells herself, standing up resolutely. She needs to pull herself together. She needs to go to the office.
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Fanfiction"Jeong-Hyeok," his father says in a tired voice, "This is how it's going to be. The general shareholder meeting is in five weeks from now. If you are not firmly engaged by then - I am going to recommend that the board make someone else the Chairman...
