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Seok Hoon’s office was quieter than usual. It was late, but not unusually so for Yulim. Files still sat stacked high on desks, and the glow of city lights stretched through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He was packing. His desk always neat, precise now looked stripped bare. A few pens, his planner were on it. It was too calm. Too final. He had received an offer from an overseas firm, and he had decided to uptake it. It was a great opportunity for his career; there was no reason to say no to it. And it being so great was the only reason he was accepting it. There was no other reason it to. Or so he told himself.
But not everything was as calm as his office because there was someone who was fighting a havoc inside herself. Her. Kang Hyo Min.
Hyo Min had her bent in files, pretending she didn’t care. Didn’t care that he was packing his things upstairs in his office.
If he didn’t care to tell her, why should she care about it?
She had heard it during the associate’s lunch today that he was leaving. And that it was a sudden decision. He had resigned, would pack his things and fly after two days. He hadn’t bothered to tell her. She was hearing it from other people. Is this how little she meant to him?
But then again Hyo Min was not someone who avoided things. She was someone who needed answers, and she needed them right now.
She went upstairs and knocked once on his door and then without hesitation went inside and was shocked to see the sight. He was really packing. Leaving the firm. Leaving her.
He didn’t acknowledge her or even look at her right away. That was worse than if he had.
When moments passed and none of them spoke, his voice almost echoed in the quiet room.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he said, evenly, the way he said everything, as though this wasn’t something big. “There’s a firm overseas that...”
“No.” The word ripped from her throat, harsh and unpolished. She marched to his desk, placing her hands on it. “And you didn’t feel it important enough to tell it to me?”
He finally met her eyes, and damn him, he looked steady, resolute. “Hyo Min, it’s not about you. It’s about me. My career. My future.”
Her chest tightened. She wanted to scream that of course it was about her. About them. Everything was. Every late-night case prep, every shared coffee, every time when their eyes met across piles of files, every stupid argument that left both of them fuming and every rooftop conversation. It was about them.
Something flickered across his face then, a hesitation, a softening. But he masked it quickly, slipping the professional calm back over himself.
“You’ll be fine without me Attorney Kang.”
‘’NO! I won’t be and we both know it.’’ She tried to hold her composure, but her voice betrayed her.
For the first time, his composure cracked. His jaw clenched, and his hands stilled mid-pack.
Silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, before she whispered, raw and trembling, “you’re not leaving this job. You’re leaving me.”
And there it was the admission neither of them had dared to make until now.
For the first time, Seok Hoon faltered. His hands froze mid-pack, his shoulders stiff, the steady mask of professionalism slipping for just a fraction. He forced himself to shut the box with a quiet thud, as if the sound could erase the crack in his composure.
“Don’t do this, Attorney Kang,” he said, his voice low, but his throat worked hard around the words. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Her laugh came out sharp, bitter. “Harder? You call this harder? You’ve been planning to disappear, without a word to me, like I’m some junior who doesn’t matter.” She stepped closer, her heels clicking against the polished floor, her eyes burning into him.
He looked away. That was all the confirmation she needed.
She stalked around the desk, standing in front of him, her voice shaking but unrelenting. “Fine then. Look me in the eyes and tell me this has nothing to do with me. That I never mattered to you. That I’m not the reason you’re running halfway across the world just to breathe.”
His jaw clenched. His hands curled into fists at his sides. “Attorney...
“Say the truth Attorney Yoon.’’ Her voice cracked, ragged and trembling, but she didn’t back down. “Tell me that nothing ever mattered to you. Nothing that transpired between us affected you ever!”
The silence that followed was deafening. He finally looked at her, really looked, and the calm veneer he had been clinging to cracked under the weight of her demand. His eyes were raw, conflicted, his chest rising and falling too fast for a man who always controlled everything.
But the words wouldn’t come. Because he couldn’t say them. And she knew why.
Seok Hoon slowly stood up avoiding her gaze. ‘’I don’t have anything to say Attorney Kang. You may leave now.’’
‘’Leave? Like you are? Forever?’’ Her voice was almost trembling now with tears and anger.
The pain in her voice made him flinch and his hands almost almost came up to cup her cheeks and hold her.
The night pressed in around them, wrapping the office in a heavy, suspended stillness. Beyond the glass walls, the city stretched endlessly, alive with lights and noise, but none of it reached them here. Everything else disappeared. Every case file, every clock tick, every thought, until there was nothing but the shallow, uneven rhythm of their breaths, weaving together in the silence, louder than any words they could bring themselves to speak.
“Hyo Min please...” Seok Hoon’s voice coming out more pleading than he had intended to.
“You don’t get to say my name like that. Not when you won’t say anything after it.’’ Hyo min challenged him despite her uneven state.
“This is why I have to go! His voice came loud but hoarse to her response.
‘’When you are here, I can’t talk, think or even breathe. Do you think this is easy for me? That leaving you feels like nothing. I am changing Hyo Min. And I don’t know if I should or If I even can change.’’
Both of them went silent again under the charge of his voice and confession.
Her breath hitched at his words, the rawness of them slicing through her anger and sinking straight into her chest. For a moment she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, because this was the part of him no one else saw, the one stripped of armour and control, trembling at the edges.
Her hands curled into fists at her sides as she fought the burn in her throat. Slowly, she shook her head, her voice breaking when it finally came. “And you think running away will stop it? She stepped closer, close enough that his sleeve brushed her arm, her gaze fierce even through the tears. “You are running away from something that is inevitable. You are running away from me.”
‘’ No... Hyo Min. I am running away from myself. Because I am unable to control myself, my sanity and my heart. And if I lose control I don’t what will I do.” His hands came up to cup her cheeks but stopped an inch from them. He couldn’t let himself lose his last bit of restraint. But before he could pull back, Hyo Min held his one hand and kept it on her cheek.
Seok Hoon’s breath hitched. He felt as if every fibre of his being was on fire. His other clenched on it own by his side. As if trying to grip an invisible anchor to hold his emotions. Looking into her eyes he could clearly see every word that had spoken yet to each other.
Her eyes glistened, voice trembling yet steady with resolve as she whispered, “Then don’t go. Don’t run…not from me, not from yourself.”
The warmth of her skin against his palm was both an anchor and a spark, burning through the walls he had built around himself. Every plea she hadn’t spoken out loud was in her gaze, every unspoken ache woven into the way she leaned into his touch as if it was the only truth she needed. His chest rose and fell in uneven breaths, his restraint crumbling with every second. The fist by his side loosened, helpless against the pull of her presence, and before he could talk himself out of it, his other hand lifted, slow, trembling, coming to rest against her cheek as well. The dam broke in him, sanity unravelling, and all that was left was her; her nearness, her warmth, her plea echoing in his veins louder than reason.
His resolve shattered the moment her words sank in, tearing through every fragile defense he had clung to. “Hyo Min…” her name slipped past his lips like a broken prayer, his voice rough and uneven. His thumb brushed against her cheek without him realizing, the softness of her skin undoing him in ways he couldn’t fight.
The world outside ceased to exist. There were only the desperate thundering of his heart and the way she looked at him as though she saw right through the chaos he was drowning in.
“I can’t…” his voice faltered, but the truth spilled out before he could stop it, raw and unfiltered, “I can’t stay away from you anymore. I can’t pretend to be sane when every part of me is already yours.”
His forehead dropped to hers, the tremor in his body betraying the war inside him, and his breath came ragged, mixing with hers. His last thread of restraint snapped under the weight of her closeness, and in that fragile space between sanity and surrender, he realized there was no turning back.
His words poured out like a dam finally giving way. “I tried to fight it, Hyo Min. I tried to bury it under reason, under duty, under every excuse I could find but none of it mattered. Because at the end of the day, it’s you. It’s always been you. You’re the only thing I can’t run from.” His voice cracked, eyes burning, and before she could answer, his restraint dissolved completely.
He closed the distance, his lips crashing onto hers with all the desperation of the nights he’d held himself back. The kiss was filled with the weight of every moment he had denied himself. Her hand tightened around his, the other sliding up to clutch his shirt as though anchoring him to the ground. The kiss deepened, their breaths tangled, and time seemed to collapse until all that existed was them. Two people finding their only sense of sanity in each other.
When they finally broke apart, both gasping, his forehead rested against hers, lips still brushing as he whispered, hoarse and almost disbelieving, “God, I love you Hyo Min.’’
Hyo Min gave a watery laugh, her tears glinting like stars. “This is such a dramatic confession. You sound like you’re auditioning for a tragic romance film.”
Despite the storm still raging in him, his lips curved faintly. “If this were a movie, you’d have rejected me by now.”
“Please,” she scoffed softly, brushing her thumb across his jaw. “If this were a movie, you wouldn’t have waited this long to kiss me.”
He let out a breathless chuckle, the kind that carried both relief and disbelief, before kissing her again slower this time, tender, like he finally understood he was allowed to. Like he finally allowed to breathe. Like he finally didn’t have to run.
- THE END -