POV: Ha Jun-woo
I always knew she'd try to forget me.
Even before she told me.
She forgets things too cleanly—like deleting files from a hard drive and assuming they vanish just because the screen says so.
But nothing's ever really deleted.
Ask anyone who works in post-production.
Ask me.
You can always recover the old version.
If you know where to look.
If you remember the filename.
If you watched closely enough.
The footage playing on my monitor is timestamped.
Two nights ago.
Shot from a listening unit disguised as a speaker.
Inside his apartment.
Her voice, stripped of filters.
His, lower than I expected. Warmer. Too trusting.
They sit in silence before speaking—too close, knees almost touching. When she finally speaks, it's not rehearsed. Not like she used to be.
> "I don't want to be alone."
That line. That line.
She said it to me once. Not in a moment of weakness. In a moment of calculation. On a balcony after a rehearsal, when she knew I was recording, and knew exactly what it would do to me.
> "You make me feel like I can be quiet," she'd whispered. "Like I don't have to pose."
Back then, I believed her.
Back then, I still believed she was mine.
Now?
Now she belongs to the story.
And I'm the one writing it.
The edits are clean—tight, surgical. I remove ambient hum, boost her inhale on the third syllable. It adds intimacy. Sounds accidental. It isn't. Nothing is.
You'd be amazed what you can shape with a little EQ and time.
The scene she never wanted the public to see?
I've cut it into three versions.
One where she sounds in love.
One where she sounds manipulative.
And one where she sounds like she's already mourning something she hasn't lost yet.
I haven't decided which one to leak first.
Because this time, I get to choose the tone.
I sit back in the chair I haven't left in hours—spine aching, fingers stained from instant coffee and ink. The room smells like wires and old ramen. The blinds haven't been open in a week.
I don't need daylight.
She is the daylight.
And I've already watched her eclipse.
They don't know I'm inside yet.
Not really.
They know someone's watching.
They don't know how many devices. How many accounts. How many draft files I've saved under aliases she once helped me make for "creative exercises."
Ji-eun was always good at pretending things were just for practice.
She never noticed when the fiction stopped being fiction.
Or maybe she did.
Maybe she just hoped I wouldn't.
My phone buzzes.
Not the public one.
The private burner.
The one I haven't used in two years—not since she blocked me the last time and told her manager I was "becoming a problem."
The message is a single sentence:
> "They're leaving the city tonight."
Of course they are.
That's the next scene in the story, isn't it?
The part where the doomed lovers run.
Where the liar finally admits something almost true.
And the boy, poor boy, thinks he can protect her.
Even when she's the one holding the knife.
I open the drawer beside my desk.
Inside: her first printed script.
Not the official draft.
The raw one.
The one she gave me.
The one that was ours, before she changed it and signed her name alone.
I unfold the final page. Reread the ending.
The protagonist—the "idol"—lies beside her contract husband and whispers something heartbreaking. She confesses her fear of cameras, of fans, of herself. Then she stands. Leaves. Alone. The final shot is her walking offscreen, never looking back.
But in my version?
He follows her.
And dies.
Why?
Because he believed in her.
Because he loved the image, not the girl.
And because she let him.
I scroll to the folder marked:
> "Alternate endings: unreleased cuts."
And I smile.
Because I have one she never saw.
One where the story turns.
Where the fake husband fights back.
Where the lie becomes louder than the music ever was.
And the audience doesn't applaud.
They riot.
Not because they hate her.
But because they realize—too late—that she was never the victim.
And now?
Now they'll get to decide for themselves.
I queue the files.
I schedule the drop.
I click save.
Then I sit back.
And wait for Act Three.
POV: Yoon Jae
I didn't pack much.
Not because I didn't care—but because I didn't know what mattered anymore.
Phone charger. USB with the last four years of my scripts. A notebook I haven't written in since I met her. A sweatshirt. A toothbrush. That was it.
The rest could burn, for all I cared.
The rest of my life—my pre-Ji-eun life—wasn't worth loading into a bag.
She moved quieter than usual that night. No dramatic zipping, no click-clack of heels. Just the soft sound of drawer handles and the rustle of fabric. She packed like someone who's done this before. Like someone who's had to leave a place in a hurry.
We didn't talk much.
The words we needed had already been said—or weaponized.
She emerged from the bedroom in a hoodie three sizes too big and jeans that looked like they hadn't seen a stylist in years. Her hair was tied back in a low braid, and her face was bare. Not undone—bare.
She looked… human.
Tired. Thin. Frayed around the edges.
Like a woman who had learned how to be famous and was finally trying to forget.
"You good?" I asked.
She nodded once, backpack over one shoulder. "Yeah."
A lie.
But one I didn't challenge.
We walked down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Ji-eun kept her hood up. I kept my head low. The lobby was empty. The doorman—usually half-asleep with a late-night drama blaring from his phone—was nowhere to be seen.
Ji-eun noticed it too.
She tensed for half a breath, then kept walking.
We hit the sidewalk without saying a word.
The air was sharp with the kind of cold that crept up your spine, not your skin. There weren't many people out—just a few taxi drivers, blinking neon, a group of drunk college students yelling about chicken.
Normal, but not.
I hailed a car.
It pulled up slower than it should have.
Driver didn't speak.
Didn't ask where we were going until we were inside.
I gave him an address on the outskirts of Incheon—far enough to feel like disappearing, but close enough not to raise questions.
The engine rumbled.
Ji-eun exhaled slowly beside me.
I could feel her pulse without touching her.
Halfway through the drive, she finally spoke.
"I left something."
My stomach dropped. "What?"
"In your apartment. I meant to grab it."
"What was it?"
She hesitated.
Then, softly: "A letter. I wrote it the night before we got married. I didn't know where to put it, so I left it inside the script draft."
"The one I read?"
She nodded.
"The one Jun-woo leaked?"
She nodded again.
I stared out the window.
"So he has it."
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"I don't remember if I deleted it. I meant to. I think I was scared to."
I looked at her.
Really looked.
And I realized something terrifying:
She hadn't written that letter for me.
She'd written it for herself.
To preserve something real in a decision built on lies.
And now that letter—whatever it said—was out there.
With him.
I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out my phone, checked for new messages.
Nothing.
No new threats.
No more videos.
Just… waiting.
Which was worse.
"You okay?" she asked suddenly.
I laughed under my breath. "You really want the answer to that?"
"I don't know."
We fell quiet again.
The car turned down a darker street, no traffic lights, no storefronts. Just trees and wet pavement.
She spoke again. "What do you think they'll say?"
"Who?"
"The public. The fans. The agency. My members."
I exhaled. "They'll say whatever they're told."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"No," I said. "What you're afraid of is that they'll believe it."
She didn't deny it.
She didn't have to.
I thought about everything she hadn't said yet. The files she hadn't shown me. The parts of herself she kept buried, even now.
And I realized I didn't want all of her secrets.
Just one.
The real one.
The one that started all of this.
"You said Jun-woo thinks you stole his story," I said. "That you rewrote his script."
She flinched.
"I want to read that version," I said. "The one before the fix. The one that wasn't safe."
She didn't look at me.
But I saw the answer in her face.
She didn't have it.
Because she'd deleted it.
Because that girl—the one who didn't know how to lie yet—was gone.
And now all we had left were edits.
The car pulled into a narrow motel lot at the edge of a hill. One of those roadside stops with flickering vacancy signs and rooms that came with whispers in the wallpaper.
Ji-eun paid in cash.
Didn't ask for a receipt.
The woman behind the desk didn't even look up.
We walked into the room. Two twin beds. One window. One lamp that buzzed when you touched the base.
She threw her bag onto the floor.
Then stood in the middle of the room like she didn't know what to do next.
"What now?" I asked.
She didn't answer.
She walked to the window, peeled the curtain back two inches, and stared outside.
I watched her.
And for the first time since we left Seoul…
She looked afraid.
Really afraid.
I crossed the room, stood beside her.
She didn't move away.
"You see something?"
"No," she whispered. "But I think someone sees us."
I moved before I thought.
Not out of courage.
Out of instinct.
Ji-eun stayed by the window. Her body was still, but her breathing wasn't. That told me everything I needed to know—she was spiraling. But this time, she wasn't crying. She wasn't flinching.
She was waiting.
For me to do something.
I stepped out into the hallway.
Cold air. Dim lights. Carpet that hadn't been cleaned in at least a decade.
The door across the hall stood slightly ajar.
Barely noticeable.
But open.
And that—that was the mistake.
A predator doesn't leave their den unlocked.
Unless they want you to come in.
I stood there for half a breath, listening.
No voices.
No music.
No TV.
But something was humming.
A soft, mechanical vibration just under the silence.
I pushed the door open an inch more.
It creaked.
Low and long, like a breath being held.
Inside: dark.
Curtains drawn.
Single overhead light left on, the yellow kind that makes everything look like it's from a dream or a memory you shouldn't trust.
And then I saw it.
A table.
No food. No bags.
Just… screens.
Three of them.
All powered on.
All paused on still images of us.
One in my apartment.
One outside a café.
One from the rooftop bar, mid-laugh, her hand halfway to my face like she might've been about to touch me.
And in front of those screens—laid out like a gallery—was a wall of photos.
Printouts.
Not just candid shots.
But tabloid clippings.
Forum screenshots.
Tweets, DMs, old fan rumors cross-referenced with timestamps and user IDs.
Our lives dissected.
Labeled.
Dated.
The entire wall was organized by "acts."
ACT I: THE CONTRACT
ACT II: THE LIE
ACT III: THE FALL
My mouth went dry.
Because in the corner of the table… was a script.
Real paper. Bound. Black cover.
The title, in gold-stamped font:
> Final Draft
Subtitle, handwritten:
> "Based on actual events."
I stepped inside.
Closed the door behind me.
Careful. Quiet.
I moved to the table.
Hands trembling, I flipped open the first page.
INT. SEOUL FAMILY COURT – DAY
> A girl in sunglasses. A boy with a notebook. A pen held between them like a shared sin.
And the stage directions…
They weren't written like fiction.
They were written like notes. Observations. Transcriptions.
I flipped to the next scene.
EXT. HAN RIVER – NIGHT
> He says he's not afraid. She says she doesn't remember how to be anything else. They don't touch. But they could. If this were real.
This wasn't imagination.
This was surveillance rewritten as story.
The kind of story that gets picked up, optioned, sold.
And then I saw it:
A name on the last page.
Written by: Ha Jun-woo
He wasn't hiding anymore.
He wanted me to see this.
He wanted me to read it.
And then he wanted me to realize:
He'd already written the ending.
The lights in the hallway flickered.
I froze.
Turned slowly.
No one there.
But on the wall, next to the monitors, a sticky note fluttered loose.
I moved closer, squinting.
Scrawled in red ink:
> If you're reading this, you're already too late.
I didn't breathe.
I didn't blink.
Then I turned back to the table and saw something I hadn't noticed before.
A small envelope, unsealed, resting beneath the corner of the script.
I picked it up.
My name was on the front.
Not typed.
Not printed.
Handwritten.
In her handwriting.
Ji-eun's.
Inside: one page.
No greeting.
No signature.
Just a single line.
> I was going to give this to you the night we signed the contract. I just didn't know how to say it out loud—
That was it.
No punctuation.
No second line.
Just a torn edge.
It had been ripped in half.
I stared at it.
Tried to imagine the rest of the sentence.
I love you?
I used you?
I'm sorry?
Then I heard the door creak behind me.
I turned fast—too fast—nearly knocking over the chair.
But it wasn't Jun-woo.
It was her.
Ji-eun.
She stood in the doorway, eyes wide, face pale.
And she didn't speak.
She didn't need to.
Because she saw what I saw.
And then her voice broke into a whisper:
"He wrote the ending before we ever started."