It was different from usual.

It was a lower tone, different from Joon’s usual playful voice. Tae Un now noticed his eyes, which were calm and coldly cooled, unlike usual.

“Manager Jang, what is it? Did something happen?”

“They say Cha Hi Ra just came by.”

It didn’t feel good.

She was a woman who grew up receiving overflowing love and feared nothing. Not long after confirming that evidence with his own eyes, an even clearer bad feeling engulfed him. Tae Un’s face hardened just hearing Hi Ra’s name.

If she had just come and gone without causing any trouble, he wouldn’t have spoken with that face, in that voice.

Tae Un waited for his next words, furrowing his brow more and more with each minute, each second, each moment his lips were about to part.

“Why did Cha Hi Ra?”

As if anticipating what he would say, Tae Un’s angry-sounding voice, furrowed brow, and hardened face. All of it urged the silent Joon.

“……”

Not knowing how to respond, he briefly delayed answering Tae Un’s question. Though he had been by Tae Un’s side for a long time, it had been a while since he’d seen that look in his eyes.

The look just before turning.

It really felt like a storm was about to hit.

Bang-!

It was uncontrollable.

Tae Un slammed his hand on the desk. The overflowing frustration was already beyond his control. He wished the other would say his prediction was wrong, but since no words came from his mouth, Tae Un vented that frustration with his hand.

“Manager… Jang. Tell me everything properly, without leaving anything out.”

Joon tightly shut his eyes at the loud sound of the desk being struck, but soon opened them straight and did not avoid his gaze. He too needed to know, so he tried to appear unshaken, correcting his posture even more.

“I just received word from the security team that Cha Hi Ra caused a disturbance in the lobby. They say she slapped a female employee’s cheek and acted out, yelling on the spot.”

“……”

“And the female employee Cha Hi Ra slapped has been confirmed to be Han Ba Ha.”

“Ha……”

Nothing else mattered.

The only face coming to mind now was Ba Ha’s. Tae Un muttered a low curse and rushed out of the office. He didn’t know what she might say to him later if he went down now, but that didn’t matter.

He couldn’t think of anything.

His only thought was that he had to see her with his own eyes.

“I’ll be away from my desk for a bit.”

It was the same.

Ba Ha sat in her chair, blankly staring at the turned-off computer screen. She tried to understand Hi Ra, but it seemed to have exceeded the limits of what could be understood.

“Are you okay?”

Doo Na asked worriedly, looking at Ba Ha sitting blankly, but received no answer to her question.

“Didn’t she say they weren’t anything to each other?”

Unfamiliar murmuring began, glancing at Ba Ha sitting without saying a word and Doo Na standing by her side.

“Did you believe that? How angry must Cha Hi Ra have been to do that? With her position and people watching.”

“I guess the saying not to trust people easily was meant for this situation.”

“Stop it. She said it wasn’t true before. I’m staying neutral for now.”

It was shameful.

Hurtful words flew and pierced Ba Ha’s ears. People who knew none of the facts drew conclusions in their own imaginations. This commotion made Ba Ha, who had done nothing wrong, unable to hold her head high.

If she confronted each of those meaningless words one by one, she would only look worse in their eyes.

So she kept her head down and just listened as each of their words pierced her.

“……”

Why wouldn’t it end?

She had spoken of breaking up, of ending things. What exactly was the problem? What was the reason? How long would this go on? She grew increasingly tired of this breakup that wouldn’t end even after ending it.

It felt like every step she tried to take forward made her take a step back.

It was getting harder and harder.

“Are you all starting again?”

Doo Na shouted towards them amidst the murmuring voices. She seemed to have a lot she wanted to say when Ba Ha was slapped by Cha Hi Ra too, but couldn’t, and now she shouted on behalf of Ba Ha who wasn’t making any excuses.

Not a single person asked if she was okay, and Doo Na was dumbfounded seeing people who just enjoyed gossiping about this situation.

Relationships were like fragile wine glasses.

“Senior, want to go home for the day? Take a half day off. Okay?”

Doo Na asked again seeing her in a daze without the slightest movement, but Ba Ha couldn’t hear her voice. She just stared ahead blankly, closing her ears.

“……”

She wanted to see him.

The person who came to mind most at this moment was none other than Tae Un. It felt like he would understand this injustice. It seemed like he would know that this awful situation made no sense. Ba Ha missed Tae Un so much and needed him desperately.

She wanted to escape into the warmth of his embrace from this cold reality.

“…Why is the vice chairman here again? What’s going on?”

After one round of murmuring passed, people started buzzing again. Tae Un was behind that murmuring. He didn’t greet anyone, nor did he receive any greetings, heading straight for Ba Ha.

“Ex…cuse me, could you move aside?”

He said to Doo Na who was standing next to Ba Ha. As Doo Na reflexively stepped back a bit at Tae Un’s words, he approached Ba Ha’s side, knelt down and turned the chair she was sitting in.

“……”

Ba Ha’s face, turned to face him, was still bright red and swollen, and her lips had scabbed over where blood had clotted. Tae Un looked at Ba Ha with sympathetic eyes, cradling and caressing her bright red cheek with his hand.

“Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

He really came.

When the one she had been thinking she wanted to see caressed her, Ba Ha’s scattered mind slowly returned. Tae Un was really there in front of her.

Seeing Tae Un caressing her with seemingly sad eyes, tears suddenly welled up in Ba Ha’s eyes. Her eyelids turned bright red as the tears that had built up burst forth along with her feelings of injustice.

“Tae… Un. Hic… sob.”

His heart ached.

Seeing her burst into tears that she seemed to have been holding back as soon as she saw him, Tae Un’s heart hurt. At first, it was just curiosity about her reminding him of someone. Though he couldn’t take his eyes off her crying pitifully like a child, it was different now.

Now, each and every one of her tears painfully squeezed his heart.

“Ha……”

Tae Un straightened his kneeling legs to meet Ba Ha’s eyes and embraced her in his arms.

“Hic……”

It was warm.

Feeling the warmth of his embrace once again, Ba Ha cried out loud, over and over, as much as she felt wronged. She wished the people who had pointed fingers at her would feel even more guilty.

So she cried even louder.

“It’s okay. Cry as much as you want.”

Tae Un didn’t care where they were as he held Ba Ha in his arms. He only cared about Ba Ha alone. He waited, stroking her head as she cried.

Until Ba Ha’s sobs subsided.

Until Ba Ha’s tears stopped.

“Sniff……”

How much time had passed?

Ba Ha poured out everything that had built up in her heart during that time. She couldn’t hold back the tears that welled up as soon as she saw his face. She didn’t want to hold them back.

So she cried and cried in Tae Un’s arms as he held her.

“What in the world is going on here?”

“Shh… be quiet. Let’s read the room, people.”

It gradually subsided.

Ba Ha’s rough breathing and heaving sobs as she cried in Tae Un’s arms gradually subsided, and the murmuring voices surrounding Ba Ha also gradually subsided as they watched Tae Un and Ba Ha.

Tae Un patted Ba Ha’s back as she leaned on him, waiting until she stopped crying and completely regained her composure.

“Are you alright?”

Tae Un knelt down again to meet the eyes of Ba Ha, who had left his embrace and was hanging her head. When their eyes met, Ba Ha’s eyelids bright red, she silently nodded slightly without saying a word.

It seemed her agitated feelings had calmed somewhat after crying and pouring out her heart once.

“I’m… okay.”

It was enough.

Having even just one person who believed in her by her side was enough. It was enough to have just one person believe her, even if no one else did.

Moreover, the fact that it was Tae Un somehow reassured Ba Ha, allowing her to bury her face in his chest and cry to her heart’s content.

“Ha… then that’s good. If you’re okay, that’s good.”

Tae Un smiled gently at Ba Ha. Though his smile was full of sadness and sympathy, Ba Ha responded by smiling gently back at him. Her tear-stained smile was full of gratitude and apology.

“Ow……”

Ba Ha’s brow furrowed involuntarily as a stinging pain shot through her torn lip from Hi Ra’s slap whenever she moved it.

“Don’t smile. You don’t have to force yourself to smile.”