THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE
Kei didn't stop walking until she reached the parking lot. The cold night air hit her face, but she didn't feel the chill. She reached her car, sat in the driver's seat and finally let go.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The tears she had held back in front of Fay came pouring out jagged, messy and silent.
She looked at her hands, which were still stained with a bit of chocolate frosting from the shattered cake. She had tried everything. She had tried humor, persistence, kindness and even bribery, but none of it could destroy the wall Fay had built.
"I really messed up," Kei whispered to the empty car, her voice thick with exhaustion. "I thought I could force the sun to rise, but it's still midnight for her."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, took a deep breath and started the engine.
For the next two weeks, the "Beautiful Ghost" disappeared from Sterling Hospital.
There were no more barbecue skewers, no more coffee deliveries and no more teasing waves at the elevator. The lobby felt strangely empty. Even the security guards noticed the lack of the woman with the black hair and the bright smile.
Kei threw herself into her work. She wasn't just a consultant; she was a woman with an empire to run. As the owner of the Luz Group, a major car company and the founder of K-Street, a street-food restaurant chain with fifteen booming branches, her schedule was normally packed. Now, she made it impossible.
She spent her mornings at the Luz Group headquarters, reviewing engine designs and global sales reports. Her employees noticed she was colder, sharper and worked until her eyes were bloodshot.
In the afternoons, she would drive herself to various K-Street branches, personally checking the quality of the food. She stood in the back of the kitchens, the steam from the fryers masking the tiredness on her face. She was building more branches, opening more factories and signing more contracts just to keep her mind from drifting back to that dark library.
"Ms. Kei, you haven't slept in weeks," her secretary at Luz Group whispered, placing a folder on her desk. "You're running yourself into the ground."
"I'm fine," Kei said, her voice sounding like a recording. "Is the report for the new electric model ready? If not, get back to work."
Back at Sterling Hospital, Fay was miserable.
She had gotten exactly what she asked for, peace. No one bothered her. No one left notes on her desk. Nina was strictly professional, speaking only when spoken to and refusing to mention Kei's name.
But the peace felt like a tomb.
Fay found herself checking the elevators every time she passed them. She found herself looking at the reception desk, hoping to see a container of food. She even caught herself looking at her own feet, thinking about the surgical insoles she had rejected so cruelly.
One afternoon, Fay passed Nina's desk and saw a small, dried-up succulent in the corner.
"Why haven't you watered that?" Fay asked, her voice sharper than intended.
Nina looked up, her expression tired. "Oh. That was the one Kei gave me. I guess… I forgot about it. Just like she forgot about us."
Fay felt a sharp, stinging pain in her chest. She realized she had been so focused on her own ten years of suffering that she hadn't noticed who Kei had become. She hadn't realized that the woman she called a "ghost" was actually a powerhouse running two massive businesses.
Fay walked into her office and sat in the dark. She opened her laptop and searched for the Luz Group. There she was Kei, in a professional suit, looking powerful and distant in a business magazine.
Fay realized that Kei didn't need to be at the hospital. She didn't need to bring skewers. She was doing it because she wanted to and Fay had thrown it all back in her face. For the first time, Fay felt a different kind of pain not the pain of being left, but the pain of being the one who drove the person she loved away.