Perhaps because it was lunchtime, there was no one in the office.

As I lay down on the bed and put my phone down, the screen lit up brightly.

I let out an incredulous laugh at Jae Ha’s brief message.

‘I’ve been going over it so I won’t forget.’

I was in the middle of writing a reply to him.

At that moment.

“I think it’s going to be Chae Seo Rin for the public audition, right?”

Voices of people came through the slightly opened door of the nap room.

Without realizing it, I raised my head while writing the message.

“Yeah, I think so too. It feels like that’s the case, right?”

Several female voices followed.

I got up from lying down when I clearly heard the name Chae Seo Rin.

“Does she have any connections? It seems like she has powerful backers. My brother said there’s a lot of intervention from higherups.”

“I guess there’s something like that. I mean, just look at how the audition suddenly changed.”

The murmuring conversation came through clearly, along with the sound of footsteps.

“Seo Rin thinks she’ll be the one, right?”

“But, what about Yoon Yeo Jin’s story?”

It was the moment I reached the nap room door and put my hand on the doorknob.

I flinched unknowingly at the sound of my name.

‘My story?’

A female voice, full of disdain, came through at the mention of my name by my fellow announcer.

“I heard that senior is really something else. Now… ah, I’ll tell you later.”

“Let’s go out and talk.”

The announcer who was about to continue speaking hesitated, then stopped talking.

The conversation I had overheard earlier kept echoing in my ears.

‘A unique species, huh…?’

Squeeze.

The negative connotation of the word “unique species” caused my hand gripping the doorknob to tense up.

I saw the backs of people from other departments leaving the planning office.

‘What kind of rumor is going around?’

.

.

.

I had finished the afternoon radio broadcast, leaving only the evening one.

I finished recording the news script in the recording studio and prepared to return to the planning office.

‘It’s bothering me.’

Although I didn’t want to pay attention to it…

While recording the script, I kept thinking about the strange rumor I had heard at lunchtime.

As I opened the door and came out, I ran into Seo Rin, who was about to enter the recording studio.

She glanced at the inside of the recording studio I had left open and greeted me with a slight nod.

“Did you come to record a prebroadcast script?”

She stepped aside and spoke to me.

“Is there no one inside?”

“As you can see. I’m leaving.”

I looked at her, puzzled as she asked about the empty recording studio.

Even though she must have already heard from Ji Han that I knew about her relationship with him, she had the audacity to ask.

Would anyone know the twofaced nature of Seo Rin, who wore an angelic mask?

‘…Probably not.’

She had been closer to me than even my fellow broadcasters at the station.

The sense of betrayal I felt when I learned that everything I knew about her was a lie was indescribable.

‘Well, since she has no conscience, she would have had a relationship with my husband, of all people.’

I coldly scanned her with my eyes as the unpleasant memories from the past resurfaced and turned away.

As I was about to head to the planning office, a familiar nickname caught my attention and rang in my ears.

“Yeo Jin, I heard about what happened at the shareholders’ meeting.”

“What?”

“You got divorced, with your husband.”

‘Husband?’

My brows furrowed involuntarily at the sight of her affectionately referring to the man who had once been my fiancé.

Seo Rin, who had turned to face me, took a step closer and smiled slyly.

“You know, sis.”

With an annoyingly clear smile, she boldly added to her words.

“How about quitting before hitting rock bottom?”

‘Rock bottom?’

I had already hit rock bottom.

As I wondered if there was a lower place for me to fall, I found myself chuckling at the absurdity.

In the past, Seo Rin used to be cautious about our relationship being exposed. Now she stood tall, looking me straight in the eye.

“What’s so funny?”

“No, it’s nothing. Just reminiscing about the past. You’ve changed a lot, Seo Rin.”

Seo Rin, who was watching me laugh hollowly, furrowed her brow and asked.

Back then, when I was dying in front of the courthouse, I had already experienced hell. Could there be a rock bottom worse than that?

Her provocation didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would.

“Don’t you feel embarrassed going from being the main anchor of the evening news to doing radio broadcasts?”

“…Ah.”

“Ah what? You were pushed out.”

Since I had gone from being the anchor of the evening news to a radio news announcer, in a way, I had been pushed out, just like Seo Rin said.

I remembered the pitying glances my colleagues had given me when I first returned to work.

“Yeah, that could be possible.”

“So, don’t embarrass yourself with the audition and just quit.”

This must be what she wanted to say.

The mere thought of me participating in the anchor audition must have been displeasing to her.

As the smile that had been lingering on my lips faded, Seo Rin crossed her arms and looked at me.

“I feel sorry for you just watching.”

“…”

“Sis, you don’t need to work, right? You have a lot of inheritance, so why not just stay at home?”

I stared at Seo Rin as she shamelessly continued her words and got lost in thought.

The cold, frozen atmosphere in the broadcasting department created by Yeong Jun’s words, and the announcers who were talking about me during lunchtime earlier, all must have been Seo Rin’s doing.

Seeing her so confident about becoming an anchor, I wondered if she had received a promise from Ji Han.

“So, did you spread strange rumors about me to make me stay at home comfortably?”

At my sharp words, Seo Rin’s expression hardened instantly.

She uncrossed her arms and came closer to me.

“What rumors?”

Seo Rin shot me a predatory look that I hadn’t seen before.

“There’s no evidence.”

With that, Seo Rin patted my shoulder and disappeared back into the recording studio.

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