broke your heart, I'll put it back together

-

Jisoo's first memory of someone telling her they love her was when she was three. It was her first day of kindergarten, she remembered that she was crying all morning because she didn't want to leave her house and she continued to cry throughout the whole car ride. When she finally reached her kindergarten, she held onto her mom's hand just a bit tighter, hoping that she wouldn't have to leave.

Jisoo remembered how she eventually relented, slowly loosening her grip on her mom's hand. She remembered her mom's soft "I love you, my Jisoo. Have fun today. You'll do great," before she took cautious steps forward, glancing back once in a while to see her mom standing there, a small smile on her face. When she reached the entrance and was met with a friendly Ms. Lee, she realized that maybe kindergarten wouldn't be that bad after all. She gave her mom one last wave, a grin now on her face.

Her parents never told her they loved her after that. It wasn't that they didn't—Jisoo knew that they do—they were just not the type who often show affection. People often see her family as cold and distant, and in some cases Jisoo figured they were. Their conversations on the dinner table were brief and short, the rest of dinner mostly spent in silence. They didn't hug, preferring pats on the back instead. When Jisoo got accepted into a prestigious university, her parents gave her keys to a penthouse in the center of Seoul. Jisoo knew that it was her parents' way of saying congratulations, and Jisoo definitely didn't mind the floor-to-ceiling windows and the private elevator, she didn't mind that her congratulatory dinner was spent in silence either.

So Jisoo never had much experience with the love that she saw in movies, all the hugs and the 'I love you' s and the heart-to-heart conversations. Jisoo thought they were too cliché anyway. Especially the 'I love you' s. Some people give proclamations of love too easily and not mean a single thing.

Her best friend, Lisa, loved to laugh every time people misjudged Jisoo to be someone emotionless and cold, when in reality she was just "brought up with zero affection and is terrible at anything related to love and romance and all that jazz," (Lisa's words).

Although Jisoo would say that that was false . Just because she turned awkward whenever someone showed a bit of affection didn't mean that Jisoo sucked at romance. Jisoo had watched enough Nicholas Sparks movies to understand what she had to do when the time came. Flowers. Chocolates. Kissing in the rain. Simple.

("Simple. Yup, definitely. That's obviously why you're still single at the age of thirty."

"Excuse me! I'm not thirty yet!"

"Should I set you up with someone? I'm gonna set you up with someone."

"Lisa, fuck off.")

So maybe Jisoo was almost thirty and still single. So what? Jisoo just never thought of relationships to be that big of a deal. And it definitely wasn't because of how she was as a person "distant and reserved" —or so how Lisa described her to be. Her job as the CEO of her family's company was already taking too much of her time as it is.

Jisoo was leading one of South Korea's finest, and it required back-to-back meetings and her full attention and wow , Jisoo really was going to die alone as a cat lady which was so much worse because she was allergic to cats.

"Your two o'clock is here."

Jisoo turned her gaze towards the door to the sound of her assistant's voice. "Remind me who's my two o'clock again?"

"College student with an interview for a magazine piece."

Jisoo hummed, turning back to her computer to finish her email. "Send them in."