The air was heavy, not with humidity, but with an invisible pressure that pressed down on my lungs. It was thick with the scent of expensive wood, starched collars, and the chilling, undeniable aura of power. I stood in the traditional, flawlessly maintained hallway, a long, polished expanse that seemed to stretch into an unknown world I'd never stepped foot in.
My eyes involuntarily scanned the faces of the two men nearby—one with an unsettling calm, the other, in his ridiculous, luxury-brand shirt and glasses, a picture of arrogant status. They were people of status that I'd only ever gazed up at from below. They moved in this atmosphere as if it were natural, a breathable element.
How do people breathe here?
The silence was a palpable thing, a soundless scream that only I could hear. Being with them even for a short time makes me so sick and nauseous... I feel like I'm going to throw up. The sensation was physical, a churning distress that had nothing to do with my stomach and everything to do with the suffocating realization of my own insignificance in this space. I sank to the floor, my hands instinctively gripping the expensive tiles.
"DROP," a voice commanded, sharp and indifferent. "HERE. READ IT."
A binder or folder landed beside me with a light thud. I saw the sheet, the words blurring as the nausea peaked, accompanied by a frantic, internal gasp. I can't feel the air around me.
Another command followed, devoid of warmth or empathy: "READ IT AND TRY TO COME UP WITH A TITLE."
I was hyperventilating, the shallow, frantic breaths feeling useless. My eyes, wide and stinging, captured my reflection in the polished floor—a desperate, tear-streaked face. I feel like I could suffocate at any moment. Every particle of oxygen felt denied to me, stolen by the sheer weight of their presence.
The one who had commanded me, the man with the long, dark hair, looked down, his expression unreadable, before speaking a final, cold dismissal. "LET'S TALK SOON."
He walked away, leaving me alone with the other man, who just watched. As he turned his back, the last fragments of my despair solidified into a single, defiant, internal thought.
"STOP," I thought, the word silent but blazing inside me as the man in the white shirt paused at the exit. The pressure remained, the room still wanted to crush me, but the sheer force of my will had stopped the retreat, if only for a second.
A small, bitter grin touched my lips despite the tears. "BUT..." The air was still poison, the world still against me. I was shaking, on the verge of collapsing, yet I had endured. "...I guess in the end, I won."
When will I get used to this atmosphere? Never, I realized. Getting used to it would mean losing the fight, losing myself. But surviving it... that was a victory.
I had been defeated. The brief, fiery thought that "I guess in the end, I won" was instantly extinguished the moment the men left the room. Survival wasn't victory; it was just delaying the inevitable collapse.
After barely hanging onto my sanity, I walked out of that space. The click of my own cheap shoes on the stone floor sounded pathetic compared to the silence that had swallowed their expensive leather. Every step was a battle against the overwhelming dread the "unknown world" had instilled in me.
When will I get used to this atmosphere? Never, I silently reiterated, but the question was losing its force. All I wanted was out.
I stumbled onto what looked like a rooftop or an elevated terrace. The transition from the oppressive, traditional interior to the open air should have been a relief, but the tension in my body had coiled too tight to simply unwind.
Then I saw him.
The silhouette against the twilight sky, bathed in an unreal, cool blue light. ...to find him there. He was tall, dressed in a sleek, dark suit, his silver hair a stark contrast to the deepening blue.
He called my name. "Myeong..."
The sound was a lifeline, a sudden, unexpected release. It was the name of a person who belonged in a world where I could still breathe, a world that wasn't trying to suffocate me with its status and demands.
I felt sudden relief, and when all the tension left my body... It wasn't a slow exhale; it was a catastrophic failure of the muscles that had been holding me together. The realization that I was safe, if only for a moment, was too much.
"...Mana Eun," I whispered back, my voice catching on the name, barely a sound. The light caught the tears that finally overflowed my eyes, the true sign of how scared I had been.
...THAT'S WHEN I COLLAPSED.
My knees buckled. A sharp, loud sound, THUD, echoed in the quiet space as my body hit the ground. Mana Eun's face above me was a mask of alarm, his eyes wide and dark-ringed with worry.
He was instantly by my side, his arms catching me, lifting me. I clung to him blindly, my fingers gripping the folder I had been ordered to read. Even in my near-faint state, the object was important. It was a dark gray folder, stamped with a furious red "TOP SECRET" label and the stark declaration: "PROPERTY OF JIN CHEON."
Even amidst all that... I was still holding onto my ticket back to that place. The file was the burden and the key, the symbol of the unbearable pressure I had just survived.
His voice was frantic. "MYEONG!" He shook me gently. "MYEONG!!"
But all I could feel was the blessed, complete cessation of that suffocating pressure. I had crashed, but I had crashed into safe harbor. For now.
After that, I had a fever for a long time. It wasn't just a physical ailment; it was my body's delayed reaction to the trauma of that room, that suffocating atmosphere. The pressure, the fear of power, and the sheer mental exertion of trying to survive the encounter had exacted a heavy toll.
With my fever and elevated heart rate... there were several days where I couldn't eat or drink anything. I was stuck in a haze, the memory of that oppressive hallway and the faces of those men—people of status that I'd only ever gazed up at from below—flashing behind my eyelids. The victory I had claimed in my mind—"I guess in the end, I won"—felt hollow when faced with the actual, debilitating cost of that survival.
We were at a clinic or a hospital, a clean, white space that mercifully smelled of antiseptic, not luxury and dread. The doctor, a woman with a kind but serious expression, looked at me.
"I don't see anything out of the ordinary. You must have overexerted yourself lately," she said, signing a chart. "Try to take it easy for a while."
Easy. A word that had no place in the "unknown world I'd never stepped foot in" or in the life I now had to lead because of it.
Since then, Manager Eun has been staying over and taking care of me. He was the calm anchor in this storm, the one who had caught me when I finally broke. His presence was a quiet, constant comfort that allowed me to properly recover.
One evening, I was lying down, my head resting on his lap as he gently stroked my hair. He looked down at me, his eyes full of concern.
"Did something happen at the meeting?" he asked, his voice low.
I stared at the ceiling, thinking back to the moment I had sunk to the floor. "I can't feel the air around me. I feel like I could suffocate at any moment." The nausea, the sheer, paralyzing fear—"I feel like I'm going to throw up." I thought of the folder, still held tight in my hand when I collapsed, the one that was my ticket back to that place.
The memory was too heavy to articulate. Instead, a random, self-conscious thought, likely spurred by the trauma or my weakened state, slipped out.
"...Should I get a boob job?"
Mana Eun blinked, looking surprised. "…What?"
I sighed, shaking my head and letting my cheek rest against his leg. The idea was foolish, a fleeting, desperate impulse to change something, anything, about the person who had been so easily crushed by a meeting.
"Don't worry, I'm just thinking out loud," I reassured him. I closed my eyes, a final thought settling the matter. "...I'm never gonna do that."
The path forward wasn't about changing my appearance; it was about fortifying the core that had cracked. I had survived. Now I had to get strong enough so that next time I walked into that luxurious, terrifying hallway, I wouldn't just manage to stop a retreat—I would be able to stand, look them in the eye, and truly win.
I was still draped across Mana Eun's lap, the warmth of his presence a solid barrier against the cold world I had just returned from. He gently ran his hand through my hair. SLIDE.
"Thank you," I mumbled, my voice still weak.
His touch was comforting. "Thankfully, it looks like your fever's gone down."
"Can I stay like this a little longer?"
"Of course," he replied simply, without hesitation. His reliability was a rare thing, and I clung to it.
The earlier, stupid thought about cosmetic surgery faded, replaced by the deeper, more painful truth that fueled it. The memory of the meeting, where I was forced to sit on the floor while those two men—people of status that I'd only ever gazed up at from below—stood over me in that grand hallway—an unknown world I'd never stepped foot in—was still raw.
It was more than just the meeting. It was the feeling of being left behind.
"...Wanna know why I don't have any friends?" I asked him suddenly, keeping my eyes closed.
He stiffened slightly, then asked, genuinely surprised, "You don't have any friends?"
"Don't act like you didn't know," I retorted, a flicker of my usual sharpness returning, though it was hollow now.
I let out a shaky breath, the full weight of my confession pressing down on me. "...Nothing was working out for me for a long time." Everything felt stagnant. I saw my peers thriving. "Everyone looked so happy but me... They were all confidently forging their own path."
I felt like I was running a race in place. "It felt like I was the only one standing still." And the worst part? The deepest cut of my insecurity: "I probably even had a head start." I had talent, opportunities, resources that others didn't, yet I felt paralyzed by self-doubt while they soared.
"So why was I the only one falling behind? Pathetic, huh?" I finished, unable to keep the self-loathing out of my tone.
Mana Eun was silent for a moment, his hand resting reassuringly on my shoulder.
"You made the right choice," he finally said.
I opened my eyes, looking up at him, confused. What choice? To isolate myself?
He squeezed my shoulder gently. "The one you made. To endure what you had to today. You got out of that place, and you held on to the key. You said it yourself: '...I guess in the end, I won.'"
He understood. He knew that the fight wasn't against the men, but against the feeling of suffocation—"I can't feel the air around me. I feel like I could suffocate at any moment," and the revulsion—"Being with them even for a short time makes me so sick and nauseous... I feel like I'm going to throw up."
My friends had been a casualty of my spiraling inferiority complex, but the battle to survive this new world of power was more important. And for now, I had him.
I shifted slightly, still nestled comfortably against Mana Eun, but my mind was far away, replaying the endless loop of my past insecurities.
"...Wanna know why I don't have any friends?" I had asked him, the words still tasting bitter on my tongue. He had seemed surprised, but I knew he couldn't have been entirely unaware. "Don't act like you didn't know."
The truth was, the world had felt like a relentless uphill battle, and I was perpetually exhausted. "...Nothing was working out for me for a long time." My inner critic was a monstrous thing, feeding on every perceived failure. "My inferiority complex kept growing, so I let them all go." I pushed everyone away, convinced I was unworthy, too broken to be loved or even liked.
Looking back, it was a dark period. "It felt like I was the only one standing still." While everyone else seemed to sprint forward, building careers, relationships, and lives, I remained frozen. "I probably even had a head start," I admitted, the irony stinging. I had opportunities, privileges others didn't, yet I squandered them, consumed by my own perceived inadequacies. "So why was I the only one falling behind? Pathetic, huh?"
I envisioned my old friends, their faces blurred by time and distance, yet in my memory, they were perpetually smiling, seemingly untouched by the struggles I faced. "Everyone looked so happy but me... They were all confidently forging their own path." I used to observe them from a distance, watching their social media, their lives, believing in an illusion of effortless joy.
When I thought of it then, I was filled with resentment and self-pity. "I thought I was the only one struggling." The world felt inherently unfair, designed to highlight my failures while rewarding everyone else. "I had no idea, so I was filled with self-pity, wallowing in my inferiority complex."
But now, lying here, the events of the day having stripped away some of my naiveté, a new, starker image came to mind. I pictured one of my old acquaintances, impeccably dressed, adorned with expensive jewelry—a Cartier bracelet glinting on her wrist. She smiled for the camera, the picture of success.
Yet, a new thought, colder and clearer, pierced through the old illusion. "Despite the turbulent path, they were still smiling." They were. But it wasn't genuine happiness. "They were pretending to be happy."
A wry, painful realization dawned on me. "Looking back, I was such a fool." I had been so caught up in my own despair that I couldn't see the struggles of others. I had projected my own feelings of inadequacy onto their carefully constructed facades of success.
"But now I know," I whispered, more to myself than to Mana Eun. "They weren't getting ahead because their paths were easy and convenient." The shiny exteriors, the confident strides—they were just that, exteriors. "It must have been a rough journey, most of the time." Everyone was fighting their own battles, enduring their own suffocating pressures, just like I had today. The only difference was that they had learned to hide it, to perform the illusion of effortless success.
The fundamental question of my past still echoed in my mind, but with a different inflection, less self-pity, more weary understanding: "Why do we all have to live like this?" Why did we have to pretend? Why did we have to constantly fight for air in these invisible, suffocating atmospheres?
The answer remained elusive, but at least now, I knew I wasn't alone in the struggle. And that, in itself, felt like a victory.
Mana Eun listened patiently as I bared my soul, the silence in the room filled only with the soft hum of the air conditioner and the quiet beat of my own heart. He didn't interrupt, didn't offer platitudes, just listened.
Finally, he spoke, his voice gentle, laced with concern. He looked down at me, his gaze earnest. "ARE YOU HAVING A HARD TIME?"
My breath hitched. The simple question, so direct and empathetic, was almost harder to bear than the silence. All the pent-up fear and exhaustion from the past few days welled up.
"...I'm cold," I finally managed to whisper, my voice barely audible, a fragile admission of vulnerability. It wasn't just the chill in the air; it was a profound, bone-deep coldness from the isolation and the terrifying encounter.
Mana Eun didn't hesitate. "Do you want me to hold you?"
I looked up at him, my eyes wide. My heart, still racing from the fever, thumped erratically. Would he truly understand?
"IF I SAY YES... ARE YOU GOING TO TELL ME IT'S OKAY TO STOP? THAT THIS IS ENOUGH?" The words were a desperate plea, a test. Could I truly lean on him? Could I surrender even for a moment, without feeling like a failure?
He simply pulled me closer. HUG. My head rested against his chest, and I could feel the steady beat of his heart, a stark contrast to my own tumultuous rhythm. His arms wrapped around me, a strong, comforting presence. LEAN. I melted into his embrace, letting the warmth slowly seep into my chilled bones.
But even in his arms, the battle wasn't over. "THE FEVER PERSISTED." It was a physical manifestation of the lingering psychological trauma.
For days, I remained in a haze, the world outside blurred and distant. My focus narrowed to the small, intimate space Mana Eun had created for my recovery. I remember glimpses: a mug of water on the nightstand, beside a blister pack of pills. He meticulously gave me my medication, making sure I rested.
In my feverish state, driven by the lingering presence of Jin Cheon's file, a strange compulsion took hold. "DELIRIOUS FROM THE FEVER, I SAT STILL... AND WATCHED JIN CHEON'S MOVIES, ONE BY ONE."
I sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, my eyes heavy but glued to the screen. The movies were unsettling, brilliant, and deeply disturbing. "THE MOVIE WAS DRY YET PASSIONATE, LOATHESOME, YET BIZARRELY BEAUTIFUL." It was a twisted paradox, a reflection of the man himself, and perhaps, of the world he inhabited. The world I was now entangled in.
I sat there, watching, trying to understand, trying to find a pattern, a weakness, a truth in the art of the man who held my future in his hands. It was a bizarre form of immersion therapy, a way to conquer the fear by dissecting its source, even through the fog of my illness.
I knew this was far from over. But for now, held close by Mana Eun, watching the dark brilliance of my new adversary, I felt a fragile sense of purpose returning. I was still scared, still weak, but I was also observing, learning, and slowly, surely, fighting back in my own way.
The movies of Jin Cheon ran on a loop, a dark, consuming stream of narrative that mirrored the turmoil in my own head. THE MOVIE WAS DRY YET PASSIONATE, LOATHSOME, YET BIZARRELY BEAUTIFUL. I studied his work like a war map, trying to understand the mind of the man who now controlled my fate.
Eventually, the fever broke. I was weak but clear-headed. I stood in the kitchen, drinking water, the simple action feeling like a monumental victory after days of delirium.
My gaze fell on the file I had been clutching when I collapsed, the one marked "PROPERTY OF JIN CHEON." I picked it up.
"IF I COULDN'T BEAT THEM WITH BEAUTY OR MONEY, THEN I HAD TO BEAT THEM WITH TALENT," I thought, the resolve hardening inside me. That file, containing the script or proposal they demanded, was my only weapon. My survival depended on proving my worth, forcing them to need me.
I looked down at the documents, my eyes tracing the lines of the text. I was calm now, my racing heart finally steady. "I WASN'T GOING TO GIVE UP."
A small, crucial detail caught my eye. It was a sentence, seemingly innocuous, hidden deep in the script's notes or concept pages. It was something about the central conflict of the project.
"IF THIS WAS MY WORLD, IF I WAS THE ONE WRITING THE STORY..." I wondered, my mind buzzing with the possibilities of counter-strategy. I had to assume that the world I'd been thrown into was just as structured, as meticulously planned, as one of Jin Cheon's films.
I looked at the document again, and a cold certainty settled over me. "THE ONLY WAY TO SURVIVE IN THIS WORLD WAS TO BE THE ONE WHO WROTE THE SCENARIO." I wouldn't be a character forced to improvise; I would become the unseen director of my own fate.
I began to pore over the details, the plot points, the proposed casting, the budget. My focus sharpened with a desperate clarity I hadn't possessed before.
Then, I saw it.
It wasn't a plot point or a financial detail, but a reference. A character's name, a location, a subtle theme that echoed the words I had heard Mana Eun whisper to me after my collapse. I realized that Jin Cheon's project wasn't just abstract; it was deeply personal, perhaps even about the people I was now involved with.
My eyes widened in a terrifying realization. "...IT WAS A PREDICTION."
The lines I was reading—the structure of the conflict, the fate of the central character—they weren't just fiction. They seemed to be mirroring, or perhaps even outlining, the path of events in my own life and the lives of those around me.
"IT FELT LIKE I WAS BEING CONTROLLED BY A HAND I COULDN'T SEE," I thought, a fresh wave of horror washing over the lingering exhaustion. Jin Cheon wasn't just a boss or a powerful figure; he was an author, writing our lives as if they were one of his cinematic masterpieces.
I felt a sudden, fierce protectiveness rise up. I thought of Mana Eun, my anchor, the one person who offered genuine comfort in this engineered chaos.
"IT'S FINE. I'M FINE," I told myself, trying to calm the frantic thrumming in my veins. I gripped the file tighter. "I'M NOT GOING TO LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THIS. I'M NOT GOING TO BE A CHARACTER IN HIS SCRIPT."
Yena ban pov
The script, the truth of Jin Cheon's predictive machinations, was a cold weight in my hands. The realization that I was a pawn in his elaborate, horrifying game had jolted me to my core. I clutched my head, the insidious nature of his control sickening me more than any fever.
A profound and terrifying despair began to set in. My breath hitched, a choked "SNIFFLE" escaping my lips. Then another, a raw, ragged sound of agony. My vision blurred through a fresh flood of tears, and my chest seized with a desperate sob. "SOP."
"F..." The word was a broken whisper, a futile curse against the invisible strings that seemed to pull at my very existence. The anger, the fear, the helplessness converged into a single, explosive realization. This wasn't just a tough challenge; it was a trap. A carefully laid, inescapable trap.
"F*CK..." The word ripped through me, louder this time, a scream that tore from my soul even as I tried to muffle it. My hands instinctively flew to my face, scrubbing at the tears, trying to wipe away the horrifying reality that was closing in.
My mind raced, trapped in the nightmare of his design. The thought of being a character in his cruel story, her fate dictated by his twisted artistic vision, was unbearable. My eyes, wide with horror, stared at the wall, seeing nothing but the terror that awaited me. My jaw dropped, a silent scream building in my throat.
"F*CK!!" It was a full-blown roar now, a desperate, defiant cry against the unseen hand that sought to control me. The sound tore through the quiet apartment, a primal protest against my impending doom. "F*CKING HELL!!!!"
In that moment of absolute panic, a jarring sound ripped through the air, piercing my frantic thoughts like a knife. A sharp, piercing SCREECH of tires, violently braking. It was a sound of metal on asphalt, agonizingly close, followed immediately by an incredibly loud, insistent HONK.
I stumbled back, my head snapping towards the window, my heart leaping into my throat. The sounds were outside, right outside my building. Had Jin Cheon's script already begun to unfold? Was this the beginning of his cruel design?
A terrifying image flashed in my mind: a blurred, indistinct figure, violently thrown against the windshield of a vehicle. The honk blared again, a prolonged, deafening blast of alarm that signaled disaster.
Someone was hurt. Someone was in danger.
And a cold, terrifying thought solidified in my mind, cutting through the panic: Was it Mana Eun? Was this his part in the prediction?
The world I had just vowed to rewrite was already pulling me into its most violent, terrifying chapter.
This is a very dramatic and impactful ending! It leaves the reader on a huge cliffhanger, strongly suggesting that Jin Cheon's "prediction" or "scenario" has begun to play out in a very real and dangerous way.