POV NABI
The world no longer saw me through the foggy lens of my father's prejudices. Now, they saw me through my own words.
I was sitting on the blue velvet couch in my new office at Moon Mansion. The afternoon sun filtered through the window, illuminating the boxes of copies of my books that had arrived that morning. It had been a week since I decided that "Hayami" would cease to be a shadow and become a face. With the support of Yuseo and Jaehyun's marketing team, I had finally opened my official profile as a writer on social media.
In less than twenty-four hours, the follower count had surpassed one million.
My fingers caressed my phone screen. Seeing my profile picture—a photo taken by Yuseo where I didn't hide the scar near my collarbone, but rather integrated it into a "phoenix" aesthetic—made me feel a strange mixture of vertigo and empowerment.
"How does it feel to be the most searched woman on the internet?" Jaehyun asked, entering with two steaming cups of coffee.
He looked relaxed. He had stopped wearing a tie at home, and that small detail made me feel that the Moon mansion was truly our sanctuary. He sat down next to me and handed me the cup, kissing my temple with a naturalness that still made my stomach flutter.
"It feels... real," I replied, resting my head on his shoulder. "For years, I felt like if I screamed, no one would hear me. Now it seems like the whole world is holding its breath to hear what I'll say next."
"Tell them you're happy," he whispered, wrapping his arm around my waist. "Tell them that the dragon that guarded you has been replaced by a man who only wants to see you write your own ending."
I smiled, closing my eyes for a second. The peace was so sweet it almost hurt. I put my phone down on the couch to enjoy my coffee, but a constant vibration forced me to look at it again.
"Yuseo must be sending you celebratory memes," Jaehyun joked.
I picked up the device. It wasn't Yuseo. It was a direct message notification on my new Hayami account. At first, I thought it would be another excited fan or some international publishing proposal, but when I saw the user's name, the air froze in my lungs.
@SJaehwi_Official
The name hit my memory like a train wreck. The coffee in my hands shook, and I nearly spilled it on my silk dress.
Song Jaehwi.
"Nabi? What's wrong?" Jaehyun's voice instantly changed from playful to protective when he noticed how my face lost all color.
"It's nothing... just a notification," I lied, trying to block the screen. But my fingers were clumsy, and panic, that old tenant in my chest, reclaimed its space.
I got up with the excuse of leaving the cup on the table and walked a few steps away, just enough to open the message in the privacy of my anguish.
Song Jaehwi: "Nabi. I've spent hours looking at your photo. I can't believe it's been you all this time. The world calls you Hayami, but to me you will always be the girl who read poetry in the rain on campus four years ago. I've missed you every damn day since your father separated us. I know you're married, I know I have a legal commitment too... but my heart hasn't signed any papers. I still love you, Nabi. Please tell me there's still something left of us in that new life you're showing off."
I felt the ground shift beneath my feet. Four years. Four years ago, before my bipolar disorder was labeled "dangerous," before my father decided I was a defective asset, I had loved Song Jaehwi. He was my first love, my first rebellion. But when my father discovered our relationship, he used his power to send him abroad and had me committed for the first time, telling me that Jaehwi had left me because he didn't want to be with a "crazy person."
And now, he was coming back. Just when the Kwon name was sinking and mine was shining. Jaehwi, now a successful architect and heir to a construction firm, married for convenience to a Busan socialite, was sending me words of love that felt like sweet poison.
"Nabi, don't lie to me. You're having a crisis," Jaehyun said, appearing in front of me. He took me by the shoulders, forcing me to look at him. His eyes scanned my expression with terrifying intensity. "Is it Taehoon? Did someone threaten you because of Mrs. Shin's message?"
"It's not the mafia, Jaehyun," I said, lowering my head. My voice was a broken whisper. "It's... the past."
He didn't need to ask any more questions. With a quick but firm movement, he took the phone from my hand. I didn't try to get it back. I knew that in a marriage with Moon Jaehyun, there was no room for secrets, especially after he had accepted all my "dark truths."
I watched as his eyes scanned the message. His jaw tightened so much that I feared it would break. His aura changed; the warmth of the loving husband disappeared, giving way to the cold, lethal businessman who could destroy empires with a gesture.
"Song Jaehwi," he uttered the name as if he were spitting out ashes. "The son of Song Construction.
"It was a long time ago, Jaehyun," I said, trying to calm the storm I saw brewing inside him. "Before all the disaster. My father sent him away... he told me that Jaehwi despised me because of my illness. I spent years believing that he hated me.
"And now that you're famous, powerful, and under my protection, he decides he 'loves' you." Jaehyun let out a dry, bitter laugh. "How convenient for a man whose marriage contract with the heiress of Busan is about to be dissolved because of his gambling debts."
I froze. Jaehyun already knew about him. Of course he knew. Jaehyun knew every piece on the board.
"I'm not going to answer him," I assured him, moving closer to him. "He means nothing now. You are my life, Jaehyun. You are the one who saved me from the hospital and from Suyeon's shadow."
Jaehyun looked at me, and for the first time, I saw a crack of insecurity in his steel armor.
"Did you love him so much that he dared to send you this?" he asked, his voice laden with wounded possessiveness. "Was he the one who inspired your early stories as Hayami?"
"He was part of my naivety," I replied honestly. "But he doesn't know the woman I am now. He loves the girl he could control. You love the woman who set her father's world on fire. There's no comparison, Jaehyun."
He put the phone in his pocket and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against his chest with a force that almost took my breath away. It was an embrace of belonging, of war.
"He thinks he can enter this sanctuary with a few nostalgic words," Jaehyun whispered in my ear, his voice sending shivers down my spine. He doesn't know that we Moons don't give back what we consider ours. If he tries to get close to you, Nabi, I won't use my lawyers. I'll use all my family's influence to make sure his construction company can't lay another brick in this country.
"Jaehyun, don't dirty your hands for someone like him," I pleaded, searching his eyes. "He's not worth it."
"You're worth any price, Nabi. Even becoming the villain in your story if it keeps you by my side."
But as he hugged me, my mind couldn't stop processing the message. Why now? Why would Song Jaehwi risk contacting the wife of a Moon? I looked out the window and saw Yuseo in the garden, laughing with Raewon. Everything seemed perfect, but Jaehwi's arrival felt like the first thunderclap of a storm threatening to wet my new blank pages.
Nabi, the writer, knew that an "ex" who returns never comes with love alone; he comes with secrets. And if Jaehwi knew something about my diagnosis that my father had told him... or worse, if he had letters or photos from our college days, he could destroy the image of the "empowered queen" that we had worked so hard to build in front of the press.
"I'm going to block him," I said, reaching out to take my phone back.
"No," Jaehyun replied with a cold smile. "Leave it. I want to see how far he's willing to go. I want him to see with his own eyes that Nabi Kwon is no longer the girl who reads in the rain, but the woman who rules by my side. Tomorrow we have the Moon Foundation gala. Invite him."
"What? Jaehyun, that's crazy!" I exclaimed.
"No, it's strategy," he said, his eyes shining with a predatory light. "Nothing destroys a man who thinks he has a chance faster than seeing the woman he desires in the arms of a man who is ten times better than him. I want him to see you shine, Nabi. I want him to see that his love from four years ago is a shadow compared to the sun that you are now."
I fell silent, both admiring and fearing my husband's mind. Jaehyun didn't just want to protect me; he wanted to humiliate anyone who dared to think I was vulnerable.
That night, as Jaehyun slept beside me, I picked up my phone. I didn't reply to Jaehwi's message, but I looked at his profile picture. He looked just as handsome, just as charming... but I no longer felt that tug at my chest. However, something in his eyes told me he wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
"I still love you, Nabi." The words floated in my mind like a warning.
I curled up against Jaehyun's warmth, seeking refuge. The past had returned to claim a place in my present, but he didn't know that I no longer wrote romantic tragedies where the protagonist sacrificed herself for her first love. Now, I wrote power thrillers, and in my current story, there was only room for one king.
But the game of jealousy, power, and secrets was just beginning. And I knew that tomorrow's gala would not just be a party, but the battlefield where my past and present would collide, with Jaehwi as the intruder and Jaehyun as the relentless guardian of my heart.
Don't worry about the number! What matters is the intensity of the scene. This chapter is pure gunpowder: Nabi's confrontation with her past, the presence of her ex's "perfect" family, and a Jaehyun who is about to prove why no one should touch what belongs to him.