Holiday Ruse

One Day

"Stupid mouth. Stupid, stupid mouth, Yoo Jin Woo. Just do that. Keep confusing her," Jin Woo grumbles as he makes his bed for the night. He throws the pillow to the bed and stands there annoyed with himself.

He really didn't mean to confuse her, but he also couldn't stop the word 'I miss you' to leap out of his mouth. He was so fortunate he stopped only at saying that and didn't turn to kiss her good night. Almost. He almost did just that. And guaranteed himself a slap.

Jin Woo takes out his phone to set his alarm to 6:30 tomorrow morning. His family can be— a little intense, so she will definitely need his support come morning. He settles himself on the bed and stares at the ceiling, trying to slow down his mind and making sense about today.

What are the odds of an ex couple that haven't met in a year, give and take, flying over to the same destination in a holiday? Too strange to call it coincidence. This is all too good to be true.

Seeing Mi Jo— feels so good. One year of not seeing her in person doesn't even feel real now. Did they really break up? Did he really took that coward way and broke up with her over the phone?

Even if they did, having her here feels so much like a second chance given to him. Is that what is happening here? Is this second chance for them?

"Are you sure you are ready to be honest, Yoo Jin Woo?" He thinks out loud.

His thought is dissolved as soon as it comes to mind by the loud ringing of his phone. And upon seeing his Chief Technical Officer on the phone, he is instantly on alert.

Choi Yang Ju never called him in the middle of the night, except when their game server crashed, or when they got hacked, or when they found bugs that could jeopardize the entire frameworks.

"Speak, Choi Yang Ju." Jin Woo orders without greeting.

"We have a problem, Boss."

Jin Woo breathes deeply then listens to his subordinate telling him they lost almost a thousand users overnight due to some technical issues on the servers. He changes the call to video conference and shouts orders to Yang Ju as they work together along with the team long into the night.

When they finally conclude their conference call, the sunlight already peeks in and Jin Woo is tired as hell. "I'm glad that the servers are all back to normal, but this is fishy. It's impossible to have all of our servers crashed at the same time. Dig deeper, Choi Yang Ju. Check the Sequence of Event, the failure mode, everything."

"Will do, Daepyo-nim. As for the users we lost—"

"We probably can't get back the thousand users we've lost, but we'll work on marketing side to gain users again. I'll talk to CFO Park for this. Keep me up to date with the investigation progress."

"Thank you and sorry to bother you during holiday, Daepyo-nim."

"Please refrain from doing it again for the remainder of this holiday, Choi Yang Ju. I'm off. Thank you, guys."

Jin Woo ends the call with the technical team then places a call to his CFO ordering him to arrange a meeting for recovery action. "Not now though, Hyung. My head hurts, but I need to stay awake. Or Mi Jo will kill me."

"Mi Jo? I thought you broke up with her."

"Err— yeah, you won't believe it. In some strange fate, we encountered each other yesterday. At the airport. And you know how I haven't told my family about our break up, right?"

"I've told you to just tell them the truth. So, what now? The truth finally revealed?"

"Ummm– not necessarily."