Fall For Me Again

You Left Me In The Cold

"Isn't Tae-hyung back from the conference yet?"

Jiwoo looked up from her computer to see Somin stroll calmly into their department, looking stylish in the dress and heels she was wearing.

"No," Yena answered, putting down the book she was reading. "He's due back tomorrow."

Somin sighed prettily. "Eight days without seeing Tae-hyung is already too much to bear. Now you're telling me I have to wait for one more day?"

Yena scrunched her face up when Somin turned her back to her. Her co-editor then gave Jiwoo a can-you-believe-this-girl? look before she returned to her book. Somin, on the other hand, went to sit behind Tae-hyung's desk and on Tae-hyung's chair, looking like she belonged there.

Jiwoo noted all of this with irritation. Then her irritation worsened when she noted herself noting all of this.

Hasn't she learned her lesson yet?

Somin caught her looking and her perfectly arched brows lifted. "Don't you feel sorry for me, Jiwoo?" she asked.

Jiwoo pursed her lips.

Then she unpursed them to murmur, "It'll be alright."

Somin stared at her and her expression could only be described as smug.

"Of course it will be," she drawled with saccharine sweetness. "Tae-hyung will make sure of that."

Her nails digging painfully into her palm, Jiwoo slid her gaze back to her computer.

***************

Jiwoo knew there was no escape. She couldn't lie to Tae-hyung, not with him this close to her. She needed him to move away. She couldn't think with his face just inches away from her face.

She ducked under his arm and whirled around to face him from a safe distance. Tae-hyung let his arm fall and straightened his body, staring at her impassively the whole time. She let out a shaky breath and tried to play it cool. But the emotions that she felt for him for almost the year welled up inside of her, threatening to spill out.

She closed her eyes.

It was time.

Then she opened her eyes and let it spill.

"I love you," she blurted out before she lost her courage, wringing her hands together.

Tae-hyung stared down at her, his expression turned stunned.

"I..." she swallowed and tried again. "I love you, Tae-hyung."

For a long while, Tae-hyung stared at her and she wished he knew what he was thinking. Then suddenly, he threw his head back and burst out laughing. The moment he did, Jiwoo felt her heart break into tiny pieces.

"What the hell?" he muttered to the ceiling in a pissed tone when he stopped laughing.

And Jiwoo couldn't take the pain anymore.

So she ran.

  ***************  

"Hey, you," Woo-jin called out from the door and everyone, including Jiwoo, turned to look at him. But Woo-jin only had eyes for Somin. "Get your pretty ass over here. The people from Finance are looking for you."

Somin stood, giving him a glare as she moved her way to him. "I was on a break. They know that."

Woo-jin's gaze moved to Jiwoo. Jiwoo instantly looked away and acted as if she found the numbers and percentages on her monitor titillating.

"Are you causing a ruckus here again?" she heard Woo-jin ask Somin.

"You know, it actually pains me to know that you think that low of me," Somin told him crossly.

"You'll recover, sweetheart."

"You are the worst. And don't call me sweetheart."

"Whatever you say, sweetheart."

Their voices trailed away as they walked down the hall. Jiwoo closed her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. Then she opened them and let her gaze fall on her desk drawer. Pulling it open, she saw the white envelope she'd kept there. Inside was a letter, a letter she'd written the day after her confrontation with Tae-hyung, the day he left.

Her chest tightened. Swallowing the painful knot in her throat with difficulty, she closed the drawer.

She had to leave, she thought.

She had to leave the company before Tae-hyung returned because she was so stupid.

She'd actually fallen in love with him again.

The reprieve was almost over and she couldn't take it no longer. She couldn't see him again. She didn't know what she'd do, what she'd say, what she'd wind up becoming in his eyes when she saw him again because it was either she'd rage at him and curse him for his cruelty or beg him to be with her.

It would cost her to see him again. And the heartache was just too much to bear anymore.

So she had to disappear from his life.

Again.