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the space between walls. | park jongseong (part one)

pairing: lawyer! jay x architect! reader

genre: fluff, angst

au: divorce trope, exes to lovers, second chances

warnings: aged up characters; both reader and jay are in their late twenties, slow burn, emotional torment, main leads are both equally ambitious and stubborn, suggestive themes, some expletives here and there, jay is manipulative – but not in a toxic way (?), jay’s extended fam are a Concern

wc: 20.6k+ (part 1)

a/n: well here she is, part one ! wow my brain is literally aching, redemption and reconciliation arc is crazyyyyy, idk how i’m gonna do this :’D just know this one for sure is going to be a long ass ride :’> feedback and rbs much appreciated !! also i tried to keep the reader gender neutral, lmk if i messed up somewhere ;-;

MASTERLIST | PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

one.

you’ve always been taught since your first year of architecture school that a house reveals its truths in the places people forget to look.

there was a lecture in your junior year, an unexpected gospel that stuck with you more than any textbook ever did. your professor insisted that the story of a home doesn’t live in its grand façades or pristine lines; those are the things people perform. the real honesty hides elsewhere: in the corners where dust settles untouched, in the haphazard cushion someone tossed onto the couch and never bothered to fix, in the faint ring left by a mug on a wooden table because someone once sat there long enough to finish their thoughts.

he said a house’s truth is always found accidentally at the edge of a doorway where shoes scrape the same spot every morning, in the way sunlight chooses one patch of floor over another, in the barely-there draft that sighs through a hallway at night. those small, forgotten details are what make a space feel lived in, loved in, abandoned in, mourned in.

you hadn’t thought about that lecture in years.

there was a time you cared about the poetry of spaces, about the way a house inhaled and exhaled around the people who lived in it. but deadlines and demanding clients and the slow grind of turning creativity into income sanded down your romanticism. you learned to speak in budgets and timelines, in deliverables and revisions. you learned to anticipate what people claimed they wanted, not what their homes were quietly begging for.

tonight, as you stand in your studio with a lukewarm cup of coffee and a blueprint half-unrolled across your drafting table, you feel like the industry itself shaped you into something that could care less about those things.

the room is dim, lit only by the small desk lamp you’ve had since college. it casts a warm circle of light, and everything else dissolves into a kind of soft shadow. there’s a stack of old portfolios leaning against the wall, sketchbooks filled with old projects that somehow feel like past lives. and on your table, right beside the blueprint, there’s a ring-shaped watermark staining the wood.

coffee rings; your mother used to say they were the natural enemy of architects everywhere.

“they ruin clean surfaces,” she’d announce, lifting your childhood mug from a homework sheet covered in your shaky handwriting. “and you, my dear, should never marry someone who forgets coasters. if they don’t care about the small things, they’ll be terrible with the big ones.”

you smile despite yourself. the kind of rueful, exhausted smile that belongs to people who have survived heartbreak and still remember how to laugh at the wrong parts of it.

your mother had strong opinions about everything, especially marriage – opinions that clung to you long after she was gone. you learned to recite them like architectural codes: don’t marry someone in your field. don’t marry someone who works hours longer than you do. don’t marry someone who shares your obsessions because you’ll never stop competing.

and don’t, under any circumstances, marry someone who doesn’t understand the way your mind moves.

you didn’t break all her rules; just the last one. the most important one.

a soft chime breaks the quiet, the gentle sound of your email inbox updating – but you don’t look immediately. there’s a heaviness in your wrists tonight, that bone-deep tiredness that comes from days spent designing spaces you don’t live in and nights spent wondering if maybe that’s metaphorical.

your phone buzzes again – a second notification, then a third – and you ultimately resign yourself to a deep sigh and drag your feet over to your desk. it’s probably some overly enthusiastic client with no respect for work-life boundaries… or sunghoon, spiraling yet again about the interior concept he’s been obsessing over all day.

with a sigh, you set your coffee down and reach for your phone.

you’ve got a few notifications. one from your firm’s automated system about a meeting reschedule. one from a vendor confirming fabric samples. one from (expectedly) sunghoon asking you whether the angle of lighting in his render should be more “inclined”. whatever crisis that means this time. and one – from a name you haven’t seen on a glowing screen in a long, long time.

park jongseong.

you freeze. no like, physically your whole body decides to lock into place, as if stillness might protect you in this tiny studio.

for a moment you genuinely consider the possibility that your phone is malfunctioning. maybe sunghoon finally broke the company server with his “inclined lighting angle” meltdown and this is just digital debris.

but no. the name is crisp and your pulse does the architectural equivalent of a load-bearing wall giving out.

you blink once. twice. a third time, just in case the universe is offering you a redo – but jongseong’s name remains right where it is, sitting in your inbox like it owns the deed to your nervous system.

you stare at it for so long the screen dims, and you have to tap it awake again like some tragic ghost who haunts their own notifications. then there’s a moment, an absolutely undignified one, where you whisper to your empty studio:

“…you’ve got to be kidding me.”

because out of every client in the city, every project your firm could’ve assigned, every person who could’ve reached out to you at 10:47 p.m. on a thursday – it had to be him.

the man whose signature you once practiced writing next to yours, just to see how it looked. the man who labeled his kitchen drawers like a psychopath but kissed you like he had nothing in his life neatly organized at all. the man you married against your mother’s strict architectural blueprint for compatible personalities, and divorced with absolutely no blueprint at all.

finally, because there is no universe where you can pretend you never saw it, you click.

subject: design consultation request sender: park jongseong <park.jongseong@…> to: me, <arch.atelier@...>

either you’re losing your ability to read or you’ve had too much coffee in your system. design consultation request?

you huff out the softest, most humorless laugh. this has to be a mistake. a wrong click. a mis-send. an accident involving search history or autofill or maybe the universe having a particularly unhinged sense of humor.

his message is short and straightforward. professional in the way all lawyers are trained to be.

i’m reaching out regarding a residential property i recently purchased. i would like to explore design options with an architect i trust. if you’re available, please let me know your earliest consultation slot.

you almost drop the phone.

because here’s the thing about jongseong: he doesn’t use words carelessly. not in his work, not in life, not in the way he once held your face between his hands as if memorizing your features required careful phrasing.

trust is not a word he throws around. and trust was not something the two of you ended with.

your heart beats once, hard. then again.

this is ridiculous. you should delete the email, laugh about it, send it into a group chat with your coworkers and let them piece together some sarcastic commentary. you should mark it as spam. or send back a polite decline. or pretend your schedule is full until 2078.

you haven’t spoken to him since the divorce. haven’t seen him since you signed the last document in a room that only resounded with the loud ticking of a grandfather clock somewhere. he didn’t look at you then and you didn’t look at him, because looking meant acknowledging that two smart, capable people had managed to fail spectacularly at the one thing they tried to build side by side.

so why is he reaching out now? why you? why this?

you rub your thumb across your forehead, letting out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. the studio feels too warm, the lamp too bright. the city noise outside is too soft to drown out the rush in your ears.

you pull the phone back toward you, as if proximity might somehow make the situation less absurd. it doesn’t. if anything, the sender name looks even more offensive up close.

you pace, well its more like the pathetic shuffle of someone trying to outrun their own bloodstream. you stop by your drafting table, stare at the coffee ring your mother would’ve scolded you for, then wander back to your desk like you’re stuck in an extremely underfunded stage play.

you try logic, but logic does not try back.

“maybe he meant to send it to someone else,” you mumble, because desperation makes people stupid. “maybe… maybe there’s another architect he trusts.”

you immediately snort – out loud. because no, there is not another architect he “trusts.” when jongseong trusted someone, he trusted with his whole chest, in that annoyingly earnest way that made you both weak and infuriated. he never half-trusted anything – people, arguments, furniture placement. which meant if he wrote that word, if he chose it, he meant it.

which leaves only one horrifying possibility: he wrote to you on purpose.

you scroll through the email again, hunting for hidden subtext like a deranged cryptographer. scanning those three lines for any insults, or passive-aggressive punctuation. or an underlying clause that says haha just kidding, please ignore this accidental plunge into our shared traumatic history.

nope, nothing. just clean and precise professionalism. and that’s somehow… worse.

because if he were angry, if he were bitter, if he were even slightly nostalgic – it would be easier. but this? this polished, distant, functional tone?

this is the tone he used with opposing counsel. not with you. well he did, towards the ending of your shared time together cut short too quick for your own liking. and that rolls a slow, nauseous ache into your lungs.

your brain tries to protect you the way architects protect clients from poor decisions: by overexplaining. maybe he wants efficiency. maybe he has no emotional attachment left. maybe this is simply about talent and you’re being ridiculously dramatic.

but then you remember the last time the two of you talked – really talked. the way his voice cracked on the word stay. the way yours cracked on the word can’t.

you shut your eyes, which is a big mistake in itself because now you’ve invited memories that you had pressed hard upon to keep them suppressed in the depths of your soul, hoping to never have to relive them.

jongseong at the kitchen counter at 2 a.m., hair a mess, sleeves rolled up, explaining a case with a fork as if it were a laser pointer. jongseong leaving sticky notes on your lunch: eat properly or i’ll sue you. jongseong lying beside you in bed, tracing the outline of your shoulder blades, whispering…

you open your eyes so fast you get dizzy.

nope. absolutely not. you refuse to drown in nostalgia on a thursday night surrounded by fabric sample invoices and a mug that still smells like your worst trip down acid reflux town.

your phone buzzes suddenly, making you fling it onto the couch like it’s a venomous animal. when you retrieve it with the caution of someone defusing a bomb, you realize it’s just sunghoon sending a photo of two lighting renders captioned:

which one looks more emotionally available?

you ignore him. you cannot be emotionally available to sunghoon’s lighting crisis and the avalanche that is park jongseong in your inbox at the same time.

this is stupid. it’s late and you’re tired. and jongseong has always been good at crafting messages that feel like doorways – open just enough for you to step through if you dare.

you stand, pacing a slow circle around your drafting table. what does he really want? a house? a professional boundary to be respected? a polite solution to a problem that could have been handled by literally any other qualified architect?

or – and this is the thought you try your hardest to banish – does he want something else? something harder to name?

you press your palms onto the edge of the table, grounding yourself.

focus. you’re an adult. you are no longer twenty-six and dizzy on love and idealism. you survive on deadlines and caffeine and the ability to compartmentalize.

jongseong’s world is built from logic and precision. if he has reached out to you – you, specifically – then he has a reason. there has to be.

you tap your fingers on the table, once, twice, five times like a metronome you can’t quite stop. then you turn and walk to the window.

your studio overlooks the street – a narrow slice of the city lit by the glow of convenience stores and the neon sign of a late-night bakery. people move below in easy patterns, their bodies slipping between shadow and light like they know exactly where they’re going.

you envy them. you envy anyone who moves forward without hesitation.

because right now, you are standing in that exact threshold your mother used to warn you about: the space between knowing better and wanting anyway.

you return to the table and pick up your phone. hover your thumb over the keyboard.there isn’t a script for this, no manual. no design plan for handling the reappearance of a man who once kissed you like he was rewriting your spine but argued like every tender moment was evidence in a trial.

finally, finally, you settle on something neutral:

hello mr. park,

we are glad to be of counsel on your project. we can arrange a consultation slot – please share your availability for next week, and it shall be scheduled accordingly.

looking forward to the project details.

regards,team arch.atelier

good, even though you’re replying from your personal work email, you’re replying on behalf of the team. not as you as in an individual. at least, that’s the explanation that calms your heart down the tiniest bit. it’s professional and detached to the point of emotional taxidermy. you don’t sign your name. you don’t give him a single sliver of the past to hook himself onto.

it’s perfect. it’s awful. your thumb hovers, trembles, then with the fatalism of someone stepping off a cliff they pretended was a sidewalk, you hit send.

for a beat, you simply stand there, the phone still raised in your hand, your body refusing to acknowledge what you have just done – what door you have just cracked open.

this is fine. you are calm. you are in control. you definitely did not just respond to your ex-husband like he’s a normal client and not the man whose existence once rearranged your internal architecture.

except the moment your phone buzzes and that logic caves in on itself like a building with a forgotten structural flaw.

even though you don’t look at the notification yet, you already know. you rest your forehead in your hand and whisper into the dim quiet –

“shit.”

two.

the morning sunlight hit jay’s office windows in thin, disciplined stripes – perfectly spaced, the way he liked them. a small mercy in a day that already felt unsteady. he should have been reviewing the draft for the arbitration case, something he could usually navigate in his sleep, but the document sat untouched on his desk, cursor blinking accusingly on page four.

he exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose as he leaned back in his leather chair. his inbox was open on the second monitor. he wasn’t even trying to hide it from himself at this point. he had already checked it five times in the past twenty minutes. ridiculous, irrational, undisciplined… words he hated, especially when applied to himself.

he wasn’t like this. he had trained himself – through law school, through brutal internships, through the relentless pace of corporate litigation – to compartmentalize. feelings in one box, work in another. he was good at it and people said he was built for it.

now, he had definitely expected a reply last night, except he hadn’t expected one within a span of twenty minutes and definitely not one from your personal work email directly.

that inconsequential detail lodged itself under his skin and he didn’t know what to do with it.

jay did not like to linger on the fact that he had purposefully sent that email last night. in fact, he had done it just so he could have a peaceful night – he could safely assume that a reply wouldn’t come in before your office hours started but alas, it had been a false sense of safety.

because twenty minutes later, not even enough time for him to pretend he wasn’t waiting – your reply slid into his inbox with the quiet efficiency of someone who didn’t think twice about it.

he remembered the moment too vividly for his liking.

he’d been in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water, convincing himself that sending the consultation slot so late meant he could mentally shelve the entire situation until morning. he had a rule about work: once he shut down, he shut down. he had built that boundary with stubborn discipline.

but then his phone lit up on the counter and his body reacted before logic caught up. a message he was absolutely not anticipating until at least 9:30 a.m. the next day.

he had stopped halfway through setting the glass down, fingers tightening around the rim. the water stilled, surface tension trembling like a held breath. and jay – a man who prided himself on not startling – felt his pulse notch up sharply.

now, sitting in his office with sunlight slicing the room into neat geometry, jay felt the memory crawl back under his skin. he leaned forward, elbows on the desk, pressing his fingertips briefly against his temples to will his focus back into place.

he was a lawyer – he was trained to prioritize. emotions could be filed, flattened, tucked neatly away for revisiting later or never at all. but he couldn’t seem to file you.

he dragged a hand down his face, exhaling through his teeth. he could feel the dissonance in him – the internal tug-of-war between instinct and discipline, between curiosity and restraint. between the version of himself he maintained so meticulously and the version of himself that existed only in the privacy of his thoughts.

and that version was thinking about you far too much.

oh you pathetic, pathetic man.

three years, that’s how long it had been since the divorce. three years and not a single day he has not thought of you at least once. people would say that’s absurd – that memories fade and so do feelings. and once that happens, the person in those memories naturally dissolves with time too. but now, you had remained etched into his mind, plaguing the natural constructs of life itself like some sort of karma he deserved.

jay leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling as if the plaster had answers written between the lines. he knew why you lingered in the crevices of his mind, or rather, he knew in the way a person knows something they spend years trying not to articulate. the mind was generous like that, creating a haze around truths that were too sharp to hold directly.

why you? why this project? why now?

the questions sat neatly in his chest, ordered like files but never opened, never examined. because opening them meant acknowledging intent, and intent… intent was a courtroom he wasn’t prepared to walk into yet.

still, the truth pressed against him in quiet ways.

he could have hired anyone. hell, he could have asked his assistant for recommendations and within an hour he’d have a shortlist curated meticulously to his tastes – minimalism, precision, control disguised as aesthetic preference.

but he hadn’t. because he had typed your name without hesitation, drafted the inquiry with the kind of composed professionalism he wielded like a sword, and hit send before he could think better of it.

and then, like the universe was determined to embarrass him, he’d sat back and felt something in him unclench. something he refused to examine too closely: choosing you as a conscious decision.

he had known what he was doing. his fingers hadn’t trembled; his breath hadn’t hitched; there had been no question of deliberation. he had simply typed your name, and the rest followed as naturally as muscle memory.

his eyes drifted back to the lower right corner of his email screen, where your name still lingered in the most recent messages. and his pulse responded as if it recognized something far beyond pixels and fonts. god, he hated that.

he drew in a slow breath, letting his fingers hover over the keyboard before pulling them back. he had work to do – real, urgent work – and not a single line of the arbitration draft would write itself. this entire spiral was inconvenient at best, intolerable at worst.

still… still. his gaze drifted again, unbidden, toward the timestamp of your reply: 11:02 p.m.

he knew your habits. he shouldn’t still, but he did. you weren’t the type to reply late unless it mattered. unless you wanted to get something off your plate quickly. unless the name in your inbox startled you enough to answer it before logic or caution kicked in.

he returned to the monitor, forcing his attention back to the draft. he even managed to read the heading again, the bold title glaring at him in its usual self-importance. but the words blurred almost instantly, dissolving into meaningless shapes.

somewhere in the back of his mind a voice quietly tells him that his scheming was not going to work. that it was a cruel plan. but his heart conceded in its own heaviness, with a soft confession of his wrongdoings but with an equally stubborn resolve to go through with this and see it till the end.

it had to be you. this was always meant to be your project – your house. the one that you had specifically wanted to design from scratch. the one you had wanted to live in.

and now, he had bought that piece of land. it had taken him the better part of two years to do so and even more to make up his mind to finally contact you.

he remembered the night it first came up – you sitting cross-legged on the old couch, sketchbook on your lap, hair falling into your eyes as you scribbled with the furious confidence of someone who believed in possibility more than reality.

“if i ever design our home from scratch,” you’d said, tapping the tip of your pencil against the page, “it will be full of colours. and have plenty of natural light. oh and! i’ll totally get mismatched pillow covers.”

jay had pretended to be scandalised at the very thought of ‘mismatched pillow covers’, but he’d smiled anyway, the corner of his mouth betraying him before he could school it away.

“you have a way of driving a person insane, you know?” he’d said, dry, folding his newspaper with deliberate precision. “i thought harmony and colour balance were like the basics to architecture."

you’d stuck your tongue out at him then, knowing he had said it jokingly. “homes aren’t courtrooms, jay.”

he remembered the way that landed. and even then, he’d known it wasn’t a house meant for someone like him.

and still, impossibly, he’d wanted to live in it.

and now here he was, years later, with the land in his name and the ghost of that sketch still imprinted behind his eyelids.

he rubbed at his eyes. he shouldn’t think of it like that – like fate or inevitability or some grand unfinished sentence between the two of you. it wasn’t that. it couldn’t be that.

jay let his hands fall from his face, palms coming to rest flat on the desk as if grounding himself might steady the spinning inside his chest. it wasn’t fate. it wasn’t some cosmic thread tugging him back toward you. he refused to let his mind frame it that way – refused to give sentimentality that kind of power over him again.

and yet, the more he tried to reason it out, the more tangled it became.

was he doing the right thing?

professionally, it was defensible. you were good – better than good. he had eyes, he had reputation, he had the industry’s whispers to back that up. no one would question his choice. no one would call it irrational.

but his intentions weren’t so straightforward, not by a long shot. this was a house you had dreamt aloud in front of him before either of you knew enough about life to understand what dreaming together really meant.

and involving you… god. that was where the real fault line ran.

today it sat quietly beneath him, like something dormant, but his instincts warned him that it wouldn’t stay that way.

you deserved clean lines and clean intentions – no hidden motives buried beneath contracts and consultation slots. you deserved a project untouched by history, unclouded by everything that had unraveled between you.

was this cruel? was this selfish? was this something he was only pretending was justifiable so he didn’t have to name what it really was?

he wasn’t sure. and that uncertainty was what unsettled him most.

for a man who prided himself on precision, this entire situation felt like shaping glass with bare hands. someone was bound to get cut or burned or worse – all of it.

he pushed himself away from the desk, rolling his tense shoulders as if movement might wipe the indecision from his skin. it didn’t, but he stood anyway, straightening his tie, reaching for the arbitration draft like muscle memory could force the day into order.

the hours slipped by in a blur of meetings and signatures, phone calls and cross-checks, interruptions and the steady hum of a workplace that demanded sharpness he only half-possessed today. he moved through it with the practiced ease of someone who could run on autopilot when he needed to – though every now and then, his attention snagged on the corner of his monitor, where his inbox waited too quietly.

by the time the clock on his wall blinked past four, he finally returned to his office, door clicking shut behind him like a breath of relief. the building was quieter now, the post-lunch rush settled into a calmer rhythm. he let himself sink back into his chair, loosening the knot of his tie with one slow tug.

his inbox blinked with a new email. for a moment he only stared, weighing the heaviness in his chest against the inevitability of opening it.

“dear mr. park

thank you for letting us know your availability. our team will be happy to accommodate your preferred consultation slot. monday, 11:00 a.m., has been confirmed. we look forward to meeting with you to discuss the preliminary outline and potential direction of the project. please let us know if you require any additional documents or preparatory materials beforehand.”

monday, 11 a.m.

you in the same room as him for the first time in years.

he could already predict the panic rising along his chest: the too-quick heartbeat, the brief loss of composure disguised under his neutrality, the way he’d school his expression because he had no right – absolutely none – to show anything else.

fuck, there was no turning back now.

three.

you wake up before your alarm, which is the first sign something is wrong. or… maybe not wrong, exactly. just inevitable.

you push through your morning routine with the urgency of someone not ready for the day but also incapable of slowing down. shower, clothes, hair… it all blurs, a mechanical procedure that is somehow conclusive in numbing down the gurgling feeling in your chest. the commute to the firm feels shorter than usual, which is deeply inconvenient – your nerves would’ve appreciated the extra time to brace themselves.

sunghoon finds you before you find any form of stability.

he spots you the moment you round the corner toward your desk, his brows lifting with a kind of knowing that’s entirely too premature for this hour. he slides into step beside you with the ease of someone who’s been waiting specifically to bother you.

“you look like shit,” he says lightly.

you drop your bag onto your chair. “morning to you too.”

“mm-hm.” he takes a slow sip of his iced coffee, eyes narrowing over the lid. “so. big day.”

you busy your hands with your laptop, trying to look unimpressed. “it’s a client meeting.”

sunghoon lets out a low whistle. “yeah. the client. the one with the unfortunate coincidence of sharing a legal history with you.”

you stop briefly in your actions, just enough to throw him the most deadpan expression you could muster. “you’re really doing this at nine a.m.?”

he grins, unfazed. “whatever helps you sleep at night. anyway, sunoo’s printing out the final drafts for the briefing. he’s also vibrating with gossip, so… prepare yourself.”

you don’t get the chance to respond, because sunoo materializes exactly on cue, clutching a neat stack of papers and looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“there you are,” he says, beaming as if he didn’t look like the personification of chaos. “perfect timing.”

“that’s debatable,” you mutter, reaching for the documents he’s taken to waving around in his hands. it’s a small grace that he also places a cup of warm tea on your table, but that grace is soon forgotten when he leans across said desk, lips stretching slowly into a smile you’ve come to love but have realised you do not want to be at the receiving end of. because when sunoo smiles like that, his eyes all crinkled up and twinkling, it only means that either the pantry was stocked up with mint chocolate desserts again or he has some news.

news that is most likely an emotional arsenal.

you narrow your eyes., taking a cautionary sip out of your mug. “what.”

sunoo doesn’t say anything at first – he just blinks theatrically, tilts his head, and taps the stack of papers against your desk like he’s preparing an opening statement in court. sunghoon, useless as always, just leans his hip against the corner of your workstation and sips his iced coffee with all the smug anticipation of someone settling in to watch a drama unfold.

“spit it out,” you warn.

sunoo inhales like he’s about to deliver a eulogy. or drop a bomb. both feel possible.

“so,” he begins, almost sing-songy, “you know how mr. park is the one doing the preliminary briefing today?”

you stare at him. “yes, sunoo. i have been very aware of that knowledge every waking moment for the past three days.”

sunoo nods sympathetically, as if you’re the unreasonable one here. “right. perfect. good to know you’re mentally present.” you are very much not mentally present, but this is hardly the time to debate semantics.

“i found out something about today’s client,” he says, leaning in slightly. his tone is casual, friendly, and entirely unaware of the small earthquake it’s about to trigger inside you.

your heart drops. a free-falling elevator kind of drop, the one that makes your mouth suddenly dry and your tea taste metallic and your gaze immediately slices over to sunghoon, who understandably chokes on his drink.

here’s the thing, people know that you’re divorced. and it seems almost like some sort of hot gossip (a three year old gossip) for the new interns or employees. but it’s never gained traction because you’ve always maintained a ruthless grasp on your personal life – keeping it private to the point of obsession. nothing slips, no anecdotes, no throwaway comments, no glimpses into who you used to be. your office life has always been a clean line, a rigid compartmentalization of work and self, and anyone who tries to blur it quickly learns that you don’t suffer breaches lightly.

okay, you’re not that anal, but you’ve quickly realised that your life is of no significance to anyone if they don’t have the details to it. so yes, people know you’re divorced, but the details of your ex – who he was, what he did – are private. sunghoon, of course, has always known, and has always respected that boundary. but sunoo is new, and you have deliberately kept your personal history off his radar. naturally, sunghoon never brought it up, and so far, the strategy has worked.

so when sunoo looks at you all twinkly eyed and grinning, you fear the worst: he’s found out who the client is. he knows your personal history with him.

sunghoon’s reaction is almost funny in its subtlety. his throat clicks as he swallows, eyes widening just enough that you know he’s caught between amusement and concern. he’s never seen you this… exposed, even slightly, and it unnerves him more than it should.

sunoo, on the other hand, is blissfully unaware. he leans forward, eyes bright, clearly pleased with himself for being the bearer of what he assumes is good news. “your team,” he says slowly, as if weighing his words carefully for maximum impact, “was requested specifically. the client wanted you.”

the words hit harder than he could possibly imagine. your fingers tighten around the edge of your mug, and you can feel a pulse in your temple, your mind racing in a chaotic spiral. requested. you. specifically. by him.

“wait,” you manage to say, though your voice is flat, trying to anchor yourself to something rational, anything. “he…the client requested me?”

sunoo nods with the enthusiasm of a child. your eyes again flit towards sunghoon who looks like he’s churning this piece of information, but apparently that was the wrong move on your part because the minute your eyes meet, his lips are trembling to bite back the teasing grin threatening to break out.

well, on one hand, at least sunoo doesn’t know the extent of your… history with the client. you think it's ridiculous how you keep referring to your ex husband as a client in your head.

sunoo leans back, completely satisfied with the way he’s delivered his little revelation. “yeah,” he says, tapping the stack of papers against the desk again, as if that somehow punctuates the news. “pretty big deal, right? i mean, it’s not every day a client asks for a specific person. shows a lot of trust in your judgment.”

your mug tilts slightly in your hands, the tea sloshing dangerously close to the rim. you blink, trying to process. the words loop around in your mind, but you can’t yet attach them to the face, the history, the memory of the man behind them.

sunghoon, still leaning against the corner of your workstation, can’t hold it in anymore. his smirk breaks free, subtle but sharp. “so… let me get this straight. the client, mr. park, right?” he pauses for effect, just enough to make your stomach drop. “he actually asked for you? out of everyone in the studio?”

you snap your gaze to him, startled. “shut up.” the words are harsher than you intended, but your pulse has gone rogue, hammering in your chest.

sunghoon chuckles, undeterred. “i mean, wow. i knew you were good, but damn, y/n. didn’t expect your past… connections to be so… professionally convenient.”

your fingers tighten on your mug again, and you force a slow exhale. sunoo’s cheerful oblivion now feels almost cruel in its timing. two hours. that’s all the time you have before the meeting, before he walks into that room. two hours to brace yourself for a client who is, simultaneously, the man you used to share a life with.

sunoo continues talking, oblivious. “seriously, though, y/n. this is a compliment. a really good one. you’re the point person. your team’s just lucky enough to follow along. makes sense, right? your reputation precedes you.”

you nod mutely, aware that your expression must look completely blank, but inside, your mind is tearing itself apart. the “reputation” sunoo praises – what he doesn’t know about, is intertwined with history, with late nights, with arguments and laughter and broken promises that still echo in your memory.

sunghoon leans in, lowering his voice just enough for you. “better be ready,” he murmurs, smirk threading through his words.

you bite the inside of your cheek to keep from replying. that thought alone is dizzying. how do you meet a man who once shared your life, who knows your history, who requested you specifically, without it turning into something you’re not ready to confront?

the next two hours stretch longer than any day in recent memory. you fumble through your notes, rehearse introductions, pretend to sketch out preliminary ideas, but none of it sticks. your pen hovers above the paper, mind elsewhere, fingers tapping against the tabletop in a nervous rhythm.

every glance at the clock tightens the knot in your chest. you’re running through potential scenarios, the ways he could enter, the way you’ll have to address him without letting your past color the professionalism he’s expecting.

you reread the drafts sunoo had printed, and your stomach sinks further. they’re skeletal. there’s barely anything concrete here. no finalized schematics, no direction, no context. normally, this is fine – you’d thrive on piecing together a project from threads, but this is different. this is like walking into an exam without knowing the syllabus, and every muscle in your body is keyed up in anticipation of failure.

your eyes squeeze shut for a moment, and you take a deep, shuddering breath. trust. the word reverberates uncomfortably. trust doesn’t erase the weight of history; it doesn’t make the idea of sitting across from him less terrifying. you’re acutely aware that the meeting isn’t going to be just about design; it’s going to be a test for your composure, restraint, and every professional instinct you’ve sharpened over the years being tested in the presence of someone who once knew you entirely.

for an unwilling moment, your mind flitters distractedly; you wonder about him. well, you’ve been wondering about things because of him so far – the meeting, your feelings, how you should act, how your limbs suddenly feel too awkward and the likes.

but you haven’t thought of him, not yet at least. not in the past three days you had spent agonising in a similar way. but as the minute hands keep moving forward, it settles in.

you try to picture him – how he must look now, three years removed from the man you once knew so intimately. you imagine the sharp cut of his suits, the kind of tailoring that speaks of wealth and meticulous taste; the way his white shirt would sit perfectly under a jacket, crisp and precise. his hair – probably the same dark brown, almost black, now shorter maybe, more controlled, with none of the careless rebellion it had when he was younger, when you could still reach across the breakfast table and tussle it into submission. his jawline, still sharp, probably sharper now, tempered by the seriousness of life outside your shared history. you can see it in your mind’s eye, the careful polish of his shoes, the slight angle of his watch glinting as he gestures.

well, that’s the last memory you have of him of course. and that was the day you both had signed the papers in the court and both gone your separate ways.

and yet, even imagining him like this is dizzying. you don’t know what he’s like now. has the easy arrogance stayed? the sly smile that once made arguments dissolve into laughter? or has the divorce, the time, the distance, everything – etched new lines into him, softened, hardened, or tempered his temperament? would he still notice the small shifts in your expression, the subtle hesitation in your posture, as he used to? or will he be completely unreadable, like a stranger carrying the name of someone you once knew so well?

your thoughts spiral further. three years is a long time to rebuild someone in your mind. you find yourself dissecting the possibilities: maybe he’s more patient now, more deliberate in speech, less likely to let emotion leak into a conversation. or maybe he’s sharper, more cutting, better at reading the tension in others.

the tension in your chest tightens as you picture him entering the conference room. you wonder if he’s changed the way he walks, the way he tilts his head, the casual, almost imperceptible lean he used to do when he wanted to dominate a conversation without saying a word. would he still have that power over a room? over you?

and then your mind can’t stop. you wonder about the little things – the scent he used to wear, the one you swore you’d never forget, the faint trace of it that used to linger in your clothes, on your sheets, on your own hair. could it still be there?

every idle speculation fuels a nerve-deep panic, the sort that makes your stomach twist and your fingers itch with the need to do something to prepare, when the truth is there is nothing you can do. you have no details of the project. you don’t know the client’s expectations beyond the skeletal drafts. you don’t even know if he’ll recognize the echoes of what you once shared in the work he requested. and yet, everything about him, the way he exists in your mind right now, is so painfully precise, so present, that your usual confidence feels like it’s evaporating.

by the time the minutes drag closer to the meeting hour, your anxiety is almost tangible, a heavy, pressing weight in your chest.

you find yourself pacing the small space of your team’s conference room, each step deliberate but jittery, like a metronome running too fast. your fingers trace the edges of the chairs, they straighten your blouse for the umpteenth time, they drum patterns on the long wooden table. all while, your mind spins in spirals of “what ifs” and “how thens.”

a soft, deliberate knock at the glass partition pulls your gaze forward. your heart leaps into your throat. you freeze mid-breath, fingers clutching the edge of the table as the door handle turns. time feels stretched, every second magnified.

and then the door swings open.

four.

the door opens.

for a fraction of a second, nothing makes sense. the room feels too quiet, too brightly lit, like a stage before the actors remember their lines. you register movement first – the clean pull of the door, the shift of air – as if your body is trying to delay recognition by focusing on mechanics instead of meaning.

then he steps in.

jay looks exactly like someone who has learned how to wear time without letting it show.

the suit is dark, immaculately cut, his hair is shorter than you remember, slicked back carefully, every edge of his face accentuated by the pull of his hair. the glasses sitting on his nose glint; the sleek frame making his face sterner than you ever remembered. there’s a stillness to him now, a composure that reads less like ease and more like control honed into habit.

your face flickers through his expression; he doesn’t speak your name out just yet, not when his eyes are carefully returning your own gaze, unreadable as ever whenever he wanted it to be that way.

something in your chest tightens that is sharp and sudden, but you force your shoulders back, spine straight, hands steady at your sides. this is not a courtroom. this is not your past. this is a meeting room with a long table and neutral chairs and glass walls meant to keep things transparent.

“good morning,” he says, voice even, professional, carrying no obvious inflection of familiarity.

it lands heavier than if he’d said your name.

you return the greeting on instinct, the words automatic, practiced, smooth enough that no one in the room would suspect the way your pulse has gone feral. sunghoon shifts beside you, suddenly alert. sunoo straightens, all bright efficiency, already stepping into his role as host.

introductions happen. hands are shaken. titles exchanged. jay’s grip is brief and firm – nothing lingering, nothing that could be misread. if anyone were watching closely, they’d see two professionals meeting for the first time.

only you feel the echo of it after, the way your palm tingles as if your body is remembering something your mind is trying very hard to forget.

jay takes his seat across from you, setting his folder on the table with deliberate care. he looks around once, assessing the space, the people, the setup and you recognise it as an old habit, unchanged. then his gaze returns to you, steady, unreadable.

“thank you for meeting on short notice,” he says. “i appreciate the flexibility.”

there it is. the opening move.

and as you nod, as you begin to speak, as the meeting officially starts, you realize with a strange, sinking clarity that this is actually happening right now.

your hands clasp and unclasp under the table and for the first time in your life, you thank lord for the fact that it was a wooden table, at least he won’t be able to see the way your nails dig into your thigh at the sound of his voice.

“before we get into anything visual,” sunoo says, clasping his hands together as he looks down the length of the conference table, “it might help if we understand how you’re approaching this space. priorities, lifestyle, things you already know you want, or don’t.”

jay nods once. he’s seated at the head of the table, jacket buttoned, posture immaculate in a way that reads less like stiffness and more like habit. his briefcase is placed neatly beside his chair.

“of course,” he says. his voice is calm.. “i’m aware i’m coming in early in the process, so i don’t expect anything concrete yet. i’m more interested in alignment.”

sunghoon glances at you, just briefly, before returning his attention to jay. “alignment how?”

jay considers the question for a moment, eyes shifting – not to you, but to the window beyond the glass wall. like he’s orienting himself to something external before speaking.

“this is a remodelling project,” he says finally. “i’ve recently come into…possession of it. it used to belong to my great aunt. she left it to me,” he finishes, eyes returning to the table. “it’s been in my family for decades.”

sunghoon nods, “what condition is the property in?”

“structurally sound,” jay replies. “outdated of course, it's a little away from the city, but the house itself is in a decent condition.”

sunghoon leans back slightly, assessing. “so what are you looking for?”

“i’m looking for someone who understands the difference between preserving a house and preserving what it once held.” his eyes meet yours again, steadier this time. “someone who knows when to leave a wall standing, and when to open it just enough to let the light through.”

it’s a reasonable answer. the kind of thing clients say after reading one too many design blogs – but there’s no posturing in it.

to you, it sounds like a load of bullshit. “that’s just a philosophy,” you say evenly. “not a brief.”

sunghoon nudges you under the table, but you ignore it.

“what my colleague here means,” he attempts to patch up your bluntness,” is what does that actually translate to in practice?”

jay doesn’t bristle, nor does he rush to clarify himself into safety. if anything, he seems to relax a fraction, as though this was the resistance he’d been expecting.

“in practice,” he says, “it means i don’t want a museum. and i don’t want a blank slate.” he pauses, considering. “the house has good bones. awkward ones too. its got narrow hallways and this weird staircase that doesn’t quite make sense. i want those decisions interrogated, not erased by default.”

“and…?” you prod, because that’s all still very conceptual. “what exactly are you hoping the end result feels like?”

jay leans back slightly, hands folded over his lap. “it should feel lived in. someone has to decide what stays, what changes, and why. but the house shouldn’t feel like it’s lost itself in the process.”

you let that settle. your mind, trained to translate emotion into space, starts ticking. the way light might fall through a window that’s never been cleaned properly, or the corner where a plant could root itself and soften a room that’s otherwise harsh. the dents in a couch that mark long afternoons spent thinking. the kitchen table scratched just enough to know it’s been used, not preserved.

you don’t say it out loud. you don’t even let it fully form in your head. you keep your face neutral, eyes trained on the notepad in front of you, pen resting uselessly between your fingers. if you look at him for too long, you might give something away. a twitch, a tightening; something that betrays the way his words scrape against old memories like a blade dragged slowly over bone.

sunoo, blissfully unaware of the undercurrent thickening the air, nods along. “that makes sense. we usually start with broad strokes anyway – how you live, how you want the space to feel, any concepts… we can refine as we go.”

jay’s gaze finally returns to the table. to you. it settles there for a fraction of a second longer than necessary before shifting again. he gives a small nod. “that works.”

sunghoon flips open his notebook. “do you have a timeline in mind?”

“a flexible one,” jay replies. “i’m not in a rush to finish. i’m more interested in getting it right.”

“alright,” you say, finally lifting your head. your voice sounds steady. good. “then let’s talk about usage first. is this a primary residence?”

jay’s attention sharpens, as if he’s been waiting for you to speak. “yes.”

“full-time?” you press.

“yes.”

“no plans to sell or lease in the near future?”

“no.”

“family?” sunoo asks gently, glancing between the two of you.

jay’s jaw tightens, just barely. it’s subtle enough that anyone who didn’t know him would miss it entirely. “no.”

you don’t look at him when he says it. you don’t need to. the word reverberates in the space between you, heavier than it has any right to be.

you nod, jotting something down. “okay. so this is… personal. not an investment property.”

jay’s lips part, his arms coming up to cross in front of him as he peers at you through his glasses. the light from the window behind you catches his wristwatch and for a momentary second, it irritates you.

“…yes,” jay finishes, after the briefest pause. “personal.”

there’s something careful about the way he says it, as if he’s laying the word down gently, testing whether it will crack the table between you.

you keep your eyes on the page, nod once, make a small notation in the margin that means nothing and everything. but your mind is busy trying to grasp at the threads of memory; had jay ever mentioned this house to you before? you had known he had a great aunt, but you had no recollection of ever meeting her. in fact, you had never really been close to his family in the first place. the dinners you had once in a blue moon with his extended side had been enough to leave you with indigestion for days.

nhis parents had been the exception. warm in a way that was almost disarming, the kind of warmth that made you forget briefly that you were an outsider. they had welcomed you easily, too easily, as if it never occurred to them that you might not stay. as if permanence was assumed, not negotiated.

jay’s stringent side had definitely come from his father. the quiet discipline, the way affection was expressed through consistency rather than words. his mother, on the other hand, had been softer—too perceptive for her own good. she used to watch you the way people do when they’re trying to memorise something before it disappears. you remember once catching her eye across the dinner table, her smile gentle but searching, as if she already knew how the story would end and was choosing not to say anything about it.

the great aunt, though, you know nothing about her. there hadn't been any anecdotes, or fond retellings folded into casual conversation. which, in retrospect, feels deliberate. jay had always been selective about what parts of his family he let into the open, careful to keep certain doors closed even to you. especially to you.

those dinners had always left you unsettled, not because anyone was unkind, but because kindness there came with conditions. you were welcomed, yes, but as an idea, not a person. as jay’s partner, a role they seemed to accept more readily than you. conversations circled careers, stability, future plans, spoken in the careful language of people who believed life was something to be managed correctly. your work was praised in the vague way people praise hobbies when they don’t fully understand them. “creative,” they’d say, tilting their heads. “that’s nice.” as if it were something you might outgrow.

you learned quickly that disagreement was considered impolite, and vulnerability worse. emotions were redirected, reframed, or smoothed over with dessert. any tension was treated like a spill on a tablecloth – acknowledged just long enough to be wiped away. you would sit there, smiling and nodding, carefully digesting each interaction until it sat heavy in your stomach long after the plates were cleared. it wasn’t hostility that made you sick; it was the constant performance of harmony, the insistence that nothing difficult be named.

his parents, somehow, had been different. they asked questions and waited for the answers. they remembered things you’d said months ago and brought them up again, like they mattered. being around them felt briefly like exhaling after holding your breath too long.

and now, this house. inherited, not earned. another structure built on decisions made long before you ever entered the frame. you underline personal again, the ink pressing harder into the page this time, and wonder when exactly jay decided this place would become part of his present. and why, even after all this time, it still feels like something you were never meant to touch without consequence.

sunghoon clears his throat, the sound sharp enough to cut through the fog in your head. the conference room lights hum faintly overhead, suddenly too bright, too white. someone down the hall laughs and the normalcy of it all feels almost obscene.

sunoo hums thoughtfully. “that helps, actually. when it’s not an investment, it opens up different priorities. longevity over resale, comfort over trends.”

jay nods again. “that’s what i’m hoping for.”

sunghoon leans back slightly in his chair. “do you live alone?”

the question lands softly, but you feel it anyway, the way you feel pressure changes before a storm.

“yes,” jay says. this time there’s no hesitation. just a clean answer.

“and do you expect that to change?” sunghoon adds, neutral, professional.

your pen stills.

for a fraction of a second, jay doesn’t respond.

“how is that relevant?”

as if sensing the tension tightening the room by the second, sunoo cuts in with practiced brightness.

“it’s more of a process thing,” he says easily, smile warm, disarming in a way that feels almost strategic. “when a space is shared, we usually factor in multiple viewpoints early on. habits overlap, needs clash – design works best when everyone’s voice is accounted for from the start.”

“but,” sunoo continues smoothly, tapping his pen against the page, “if it’s a single occupant, that actually gives us more freedom.”

jay doesn’t know how to respond to this. he’s vividly aware of the way your stare has found purchase on his reaction, as if you’re assessing him.

you probably are though. but he’s not sure whether it's the curiosity of an ex or the attention of a professional sizing up a client. the line between the two is blurred at the moment and dare he say, considering the notion to be former on his part would be crazy because what right does he have really to assume as such in the first place – especially when he’s the one who came here seeking counsel. regardless, the ambiguity is maddening. his eyes flick to yours and back to the table, searching for something to anchor the conversation, some safe ground that doesn’t exist.

jay exhales softly, barely audible, and leans back in his chair, letting his hands fold neatly in front of him. there’s a pause that is really him buying a fraction of a second to weigh his words.

“i… understand,” he says finally, voice calm but carrying the weight of someone accustomed to holding control. “freedom is… valuable. it allows a space to evolve without constant compromise. that’s what i want here.”

it is the most diplomatic answer he could come up with, but he’s done better. for fuck’s sake, he’s park jongseong, one of the top attorneys of his district but for the first time in years, he feels the edges of that confidence fray just slightly. because your gaze is steady, unflinching, like a mirror reflecting every subtle hesitation he hasn’t allowed himself to acknowledge. it’s unnerving, the way it peels away the armor he usually wears so naturally.

because he’s afraid you’ll see through his ruse, and he hasn’t even taken the first step yet.

sunoo, ever the mediator, leans forward slightly, breaking the pause. “that makes perfect sense,” he says, warm, unobtrusive, as if offering an olive branch. “knowing that, we can tailor the process so the space grows naturally. the elements can adapt over time rather than being locked into one vision from the start.”

jay nods, barely perceptible, eyes drifting back to you. he can feel the subtle way you’re studying him – the tilt of your head, the slight lift of your brow, the pen poised, ready to capture the weight behind every word. you are measuring, cataloging, the same way you always did, and for a moment, he almost panics, because a part of him suddenly remembers all the shared meals, arguments, laughter, and the silences all at once, lurking beneath the professional façade.

he flexes his fingers once, folding them again, letting the brief tension bleed into the leather of the folder beneath his hands. “i… would like to discuss the initial concepts,” he says finally, a careful edge to his voice, controlled but firm. “not finalized layouts. just… ideas. the possibilities. so i can understand where this space could go.”

sunghoon clears his throat, leaning slightly forward. “of course yes, we are aware you already have some concepts in mind…?”

jay’s eyes flick to the folder again. he feels the weight of what he’s about to do, the quiet audacity of bringing these sketches here, into this room, under your gaze. these are pieces of memory, intention, and familiarity he’s carried like a secret talisman for years. and now, they will speak louder than any words he can say.

he opens the folder slowly, deliberately, letting the paper catch the light. for a heartbeat, he almost hesitates, almost considers the possibility of pulling back, leaving the first impressions to professional abstractions. but he doesn’t. he’s gone too far, come too far, to stop now.

the first sheet slides across the table toward you, quiet and precise. your eyes flick down, scanning. at first, nothing strikes you – it’s just some preliminary images per usual flow of client meetings; a collage of ideas from pinterest.

as expected of course, most clients walk in with a somewhat half baked idea of what they want. there’s a handful who are very precise about what they want, from the orientation of the bedroom to the placement of a beanbag.

what you had expected today was pretty much the same. yes, jay may have been the sort of person who you would have categorised into the latter handful, but what he’s showing you right now is oddly vague, almost unnaturally so.

the images are inadvertently what you would have anticipated from his end, but it’s mind boggling actually. and you’re not sure how to explain. nothing here screams “park jongseong” to you. and that is a hard notion to grasp really, because the minute you had seen that folder in his hand, you knew he would have probably come in here with a clear picture in his mind.

nothing here betrays the meticulous precision you’ve come to expect from him in other contexts. the moodboard almost feels deliberately neutral, the kind of safe ambiguity you’d see in an early-stage concept – nothing that would provoke argument or demand scrutiny.

you lean forward slightly, pen hovering above the notepad, trying to anchor your thoughts. “hmm,” you murmur, tilting your head. the words feel empty even to yourself, like a placeholder, because what’s in front of you doesn’t yet trigger the alarms that your mind subconsciously recognizes. nothing in these sheets – the furniture placements, the windows, the flow of rooms – sets off the bells of memory. at least, not yet.

another sheet slides across the table. this one has a little more detail – the drop in the ceilings, an arched wall between a kitchen and the dining room, the tiled staircases, the faint suggestion of where sunlight might fall – but even so, at first glance, it’s still within the realm of the ordinary, professional, detached.

slightly unexpected of jay of course, because never in your short lived marriage had you known him to care much about arches and tiles, but the naivety of it all fools you. you lean back in your chair, pen tapping lightly against your notepad, and allow yourself a faintly smug thought: maybe he’s trying a new approach. maybe this is just him, post-divorce, exploring interior design like any other client, unaware of the nuances that might speak louder than words. it’s evident in the way he presents this collage of incohesive thoughts much like an amateur, and that’s what you assume it to be.

jay watches you, just slightly, with a kind of quiet intensity. he knows the moment is coming; he can feel it, the subtle shift in his own posture, as if bracing himself from the impact of his own actions.

he shifts slightly in his chair, clearing his throat. “i… also brought some sketches,” he says carefully, voice measured, “if it’s alright, i can present them next.”

you exchange a quick glance with sunghoon. the eyebrows raise, just a fraction, a silent, almost imperceptible what now? passing between you. sketches? from him? the jay you remember – painfully meticulous, precise in law but catastrophically inept in anything requiring a pencil or hand-eye coordination – couldn’t draw to save his life. you’d witnessed it yourself once, years ago, when he had insisted on helping with a layout for your first apartment; the result had been a tragic mess of perspective lines and indecipherable scribbles.

“sketches?” sunghoon finally says aloud, voice carefully neutral, though you detect a hint of incredulity. “do you mean conceptual diagrams, or–?”

sunoo rises smoothly from his chair and walks over to the corner where a small projector sits, its cord coiled neatly beside it. he kneels briefly to plug in jay’s laptop, the faint click of the connector sliding into place echoing slightly in the now quieter room. while sunghoon pulls the curtains across the large glass windows behind you.

a hum fills the space as the projector powers on. the lights dim slowly, the large fluorescent panels overhead fading into shadow until only the white screen at the front glows, casting a soft, almost clinical light across the table.

jay shifts slightly, hands folded on the table, watching as the glow spreads. he doesn’t speak, doesn’t give any hint of what’s coming next. you notice the faint tension in his shoulders, a subtle bracing, as if he’s readying himself for a storm that only he can see.

“shall we?” he says finally, voice calm, almost casual, but there’s a tautness beneath it, a quiet pulse of anticipation.

sunoo presses a button on the remote. the first sketch slides into view. lines, soft and precise, scanned onto the digital sheet. at first, it seems ordinary. just another early-stage concept. furniture placements, window orientations, the hint of where sunlight might fall. nothing jumps out.

but still, there’s this odd familiarity to what you’re looking at. your brows scrunch up in confusion, your back straightening as you squint at the screen to make sense.

another click from sunoo. the second sketch comes into view. this one has more detail – an arched wall between the kitchen and dining area, the angle of morning light spilling in faded black strokes of a pencil, across what could be a breakfast nook. annotations haphazardly written in cursive across the page… just like you do. shading so precise, you could almost feel your fingers twitch at the way muscle memory catches up.

good fucking lord.

the third sketch appears. and now it hits you – the arches, the orientation of the rooms, the way bay windows, the cantilevered porch, the little margin note you’ve written a hundred times in your own sketchbooks.

you made these. these are your sketches. from ages ago.

you look up. jay meets your gaze in the dim glow of the projector. his face is unreadable, but you sense the faintest flicker of acknowledgment there, just enough to confirm the connection before words are even spoken. your mind reels. the familiarity, the intimacy of these lines, the exact way the space has been imagined – it’s unmistakable.

sunghoon and sunoo lean forward slightly, oblivious to the undercurrent thrumming between you and jay. “these are quite detailed,” sunghoon says. “may i ask… who prepared them?”

“they… were made for me,” jay replies carefully, voice steady, composed. “a long time ago. by someone very close.”

the audacity. the utter, maddening audacity of this man. your heart plummets, your pulse spikes, and your mind begins to reel through every possible justification, every possible explanation, every single reason why this should not be happening – and yet, it is.

you swallow hard, breath catching, and it’s not a question of trust or intention. it’s not about whether he thought he was clever.

your chest burns with anger, disbelief, and something dangerously close to grief. you want to laugh. you want to scream. you want to flip the table and demand answers; to unravel him as he has unraveled your carefully curated calm. and yet, your throat feels tight. you realize with a jolt that the only thing keeping you anchored is the certainty of recognition. this is your work. your imagination. your design. his audacity is not in creation but in presentation, in daring you to see it, to acknowledge it, and to react.

you finally raise your head fully, meet his gaze squarely. you see his intent. you feel your own pulse, an uncontainable thrum under your skin. every shred of control you’ve clung to for years threatens to slip, because he has done something impossible: he has taken your past, your vision, your work, and placed it before you, and he knows you know.

and in that moment, you decide: you will make him pay for this. for trespassing on your past. for knowing exactly how to hit a nerve. for bringing the very sketches you’d never meant for anyone else to see into this room.

jay doesn’t flinch. he knows, even before your eyes meet his, before the words sharpen in your mind and the fire ignites in your gaze. he leans back slightly, folding his hands, prepared to endure the storm, because this project – this absolute, maddeningly perfect project – is finally in motion. and nothing, not even your fury, will stop it from being completed.

five.

“he did this on purpose,” you barely seethe out, gulping down the glass of water as sunghoon watches with barely concealed amusement. he tilts his head slightly, lips twitching, but doesn’t say anything just yet, letting you stew in the silence that follows the explosion in your mind.

you set the glass down a little too hard. “the audacity. can you even imagine?” you snap, though your voice is lower, simmering, restrained only by the conference table between you and the memory of what you just saw.

sunghoon’s brow rises. “imagine what?” his tone is light, teasing – but the mischief in his eyes only sharpens your edge. “that he… dared to use your old sketches?”

“yes,” you spit out the word, sharp as glass. “all those hours, all those plans i kept… private. and he – he brought them here. like he knew exactly how it would land.”

sunghoon leans back in his chair, clearly enjoying the slow burn of your frustration. “sounds… bold,” he says, letting the word hang like smoke in the air.

“bold?” you echo, incredulous. “it’s– it’s infuriating. he’s playing with me, sunghoon.”

your hands curl into fists on the table. sunghoon doesn’t move to stop you; he just watches, an amused sentinel. you can feel your pulse still hammering, the echo of the projector’s glow, the faint lines of your own sketches burned into your vision.

“i don’t even…” you trail off, shaking your head, running a hand through your hair. “…i can’t decide if i want to throttle him or laugh. that man – he’s impossible!”

“he knows,” sunghoon says quietly, leaning forward, voice lower now, serious enough to make you pause. “he knows exactly what he’s doing. that’s why he didn’t even have to explain. and maybe,” he tilts his head, “that’s why it worked. you’re furious, but you’re focused. he got exactly what he wanted.”

you narrow your eyes at him. “focused? don’t start analyzing me now. i’m still processing how…how dare he–”

sunghoon only hums, noncommittal, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a way that suggests he knows better than to push right now. the moment stretches, your breath still uneven, your thoughts still caught somewhere between fury and disbelief.

the rest of the meeting had passed in a blur.

you remember the way you’d forced yourself back into your chair, spine straight, expression schooled into something passably neutral while the projector light still hummed softly behind you. the sketches had stayed on the screen longer than you would’ve liked, sunoo asking practical, oblivious questions about scale and feasibility, sunghoon chiming in with measured observations about circulation and zoning. jay, for his part, had said very little after that.

he’d watched instead. as if every flick of your pen, every breath you took, confirmed something he already knew. when sunoo suggested looping back to the sketches in the next session, jay had agreed without protest. when the meeting wrapped, he’d thanked everyone again, tone polite and infuriatingly composed.

by the time the conference room emptied and sunoo had cheerfully excused himself to grab coffee for the next meeting, you’d been vibrating with anger.

sunghoon had waited until the glass door slid shut before turning to you.

“…those weren’t his,” he’d said, not a question.

you’d laughed then. a short, humourless sound that surprised even you. “no,” you’d replied. “they were mine.”

you hadn’t given him everything. not the nights on the floor with tracing paper spread everywhere. not the stupid arguments about windows and warmth and how a house should feel lived-in, not just impressive.

“i designed those years ago,” you’d said quietly. “for… that’s my house.”

sunghoon had absorbed that in silence, eyes flicking briefly to the darkened screen, then back to you. “…that’s insane.”

your mouth had twitched despite yourself. “tell me about it.”

now, back in the present, sunghoon studies you again, amusement returning in a more tempered form. “you handled it better than i would’ve.”

“that’s because you weren’t ambushed with your own past in 4k resolution,” you mutter, leaning back and scrubbing a hand down your face.

silence settles between you, heavier now, less volatile but no less charged. the anger hasn’t gone anywhere, it was a constant heat drawn inward, simmering under your skin, instead of flaring outward.

you haven’t felt this kind of anger in a long time.

it’s one thing to see your work out in the world, detached from you, filtered through distance and time. it’s another thing entirely to have it placed back in front of you by the one person who knew exactly what those lines meant when you first drew them. to watch him present it as if it were just another ‘reference’.

as if it hadn’t once been a future.

you’d been graceful today. you recognize that now, in hindsight, almost bitterly so. you’d accepted his request for a consultation like a professional. you’d sat across from him at that table and treated him like any other client who walked in with money and intent and expectations.

and he had repaid that grace by asking you to step back into a life you’d already designed once and then buried. to design the house you had both dreamt of together.

your throat tightens again, the sensation unpleasantly close to grief. not fresh grief. old grief, disturbed, dug up and dragged into fluorescent light.

“you’re spiraling,” sunghoon says gently, watching the way your stare has gone distant.

you blink, refocus. “i know.”

he sighs, pushing himself up from the edge of your desk and pacing once, slow and thoughtful. “look. i’m not defending him,” he says carefully. “but from a purely logistical standpoint, he didn’t say those sketches were meant to be built as-is. he could’ve brought them as inspiration or context. a way to communicate spatial sensibility without words.”

you scoff, sharp and humorless. “you think i don’t know that?”

“i think,” sunghoon says, meeting your eyes, “that you’re assuming intent because of history.”

you lean back in your chair, dragging a hand down your face. he’s not wrong. that’s the most infuriating part. from the outside, there is plausible deniability. jay hadn’t said, build this. he hadn’t looked at you and asked you to recreate it. he hadn’t even acknowledged, aloud, what those sketches truly were. he’d framed them as reference, as something personal, something formative. if anyone were to dissect the meeting transcriptually, there would be nothing overt to pin him down with.

and that, more than anything, makes your teeth grind.

because plausible deniability is jay’s native language. he has always known how to operate in the grey. how to do things that look reasonable on paper while detonating something much more fragile beneath the surface. the man you married had never raised his voice in arguments either. he’d just rearranged facts until you were the one questioning your footing.

you feel caught between two versions of yourself – the one who had walked into that meeting steady and contained, and the one now vibrating with the aftershock of the bomb that had been dropped on you.

sunghoon is still watching you, quietly attentive. he doesn’t fill the silence. he never does when he knows you’re thinking.

“i hate this,” you say finally, voice low. “i hate that he’s made it impossible to call him out without sounding unprofessional.”

sunghoon hums in acknowledgment. “that part tracks.”

your jaw tightens.

“he could’ve just asked,” you mutter. “if he wanted my help. if he wanted… whatever this is. he could’ve just asked.”

sunghoon doesn’t respond immediately. when he does, his tone is careful. “would you have said yes?”

the question catches you off guard. you open your mouth, then stop.

the answer isn’t clean. it’s tangled up in anger and pride and something that still aches when you press on it too hard. you don’t know what you would have said. and that uncertainty only fuels your irritation further.

before you can respond, there’s a knock on your door.

you straighten reflexively, spine going rigid.

“come in,” sunghoon says, already stepping away from your desk.

sunoo peeks inside, cheerful as ever, carrying none of the weight that’s settled into the room. “hey, sorry to interrupt.”

“it’s fine,” sunghoon says easily.

sunoo’s gaze flicks to you, then back to him. “mr. park’s still here. he asked if he could speak with you for a moment before he leaves.”

sunghoon’s eyebrows lift just slightly as he looks at you, silently checking in. you can see the question in his eyes: do you want to do this now?

you don’t answer him immediately. your gaze drops to your desk again, to the neat stacks of paper, the life you’ve rebuilt piece by piece. you inhale slowly, then exhale.

“yes,” you say. your voice surprises you with how steady it sounds. “that’s fine.”

sunoo smiles, relieved. “great. i’ll let him know.”

he disappears before either of you can add anything else. the door shuts.

sunghoon watches you closely now. “you don’t have to—”

“i do,” you cut in quietly. “if i don’t, this is going to fester.”

he nods once, accepting that. you appreciate that he doesn’t make a bigger deal of it. doesn’t try to shield you from what you’ve already decided to face.

when the door opens again, the air changes.

jay steps inside.

the room feels smaller instantly, as if the walls have shifted inward by a fraction of an inch. he’s removed his suit jacket, sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms, watch glinting softly under the lights. he looks exactly as he had earlier – composed and unhurried, entirely in control of the image he presents to the world.

“thank you for agreeing to speak,” he says, closing the door behind him. his voice is balanced in that way that used to convince judges and juries alike.

you don’t gesture for him to sit. you just stare at him from where you're sitting. you remember playing this game ages ago, when the arguments had started to wear your heart thin. you can make out no difference from that time and this very moment.

the silence stretches, dense and deliberate. you can hear the hum of the air conditioner. the distant murmur of voices outside the glass walls.

three years.

that’s how long it’s been since you’ve stood this close to him. since you’ve existed in the same physical space without intermediaries or paperwork or lawyers doing the talking for you. the realization makes something shift uncomfortably in your chest.

jay’s gaze settles on you, as if he’s taking inventory. as if he’s confirming that you are, in fact, real.

“i won’t take much of your time,” he says finally.

you let out a small, incredulous laugh. “you already did.”

a flicker passes over his expression. he absorbs the jab without comment. infuriatingly enough, he pulls out a chair and takes a seat in front of you, legs crossing over as if this is his own office.

you want to kill him.

“alright well, i won't beat about the bush–”

“no shit, you've always been too good at being blunt.” you interrupt, crossing your arms and leaning back in your chair. your brows hurt from the way you don't even try to relax them from the frown that has temporarily found purchase across your face.

“i don't suppose this is how you would treat a client–”

“i don't suppose you're here as a client, mr. park.”

if looks could kill, jay's sure the room would have been cordoned off by now. you're glaring daggers into him, but for whatever sick odd reason, he's trying to suppress a smile. this is the first time he's seen you up close in years, he can't pretend his heart doesn't immediately yearn.

in fact, it had been a particularly gruelling task for him to sit just three seats apart from you during the meeting and pretend his calm exposure wasn't threatening to rip and spill across the table.

he had prepared for this, for months – no damn it, for two whole years. he had gone into this venture knowing full well the risks it involved, aware clearly of the stakes, of the fact that it would hurt – both you and him. you, more, because at least he knew what he was doing, he was going into this prepared. you on the other hand would be at the brunt of receiving this out of nowhere.

but every time he had thought of that, he had reminded himself of the way you had left. and the unfairness of it all angered him enough to temporarily forget about his guilt, and for a while it worked well. of course it left him feeling immature in lieu of such petty feelings.

and yet, sitting there in that dark meeting room, inhaling the same air as you had been a punch to his gut.

it’s almost impressive, actually – the precision with which you excluded him. you acknowledged everyone else in the room, nodded at their points, responded with that calm, clipped authority that used to undo him in private. with him, there had been nothing.

it shouldn’t have stung, but it did.

until of course he had bought up those sketches. that's the first time you had reacted, unfortunately so, but regardless, you had looked at him properly then. and you had screamed murder at him through your barely concealed glare.

truth be told, even on his way here, his entire body had been tense. his mind had been reeling, trying to figure out the mechanics of a normally functioning human.

how one was meant to breathe normally while reopening something that had once dismantled them. how one sat still while the past occupied the same chair across the table. he’d rehearsed restraint more than he’d rehearsed words.

slow breaths. neutral posture. keep your hands visible. don’t lean in. don’t look at you for too long. don’t let the room sense what this costs him. he’d treated it like training for a role he couldn’t afford to mess up, convinced himself that preparation could substitute for readiness.

it hadn’t.

because no amount of mental scripting accounted for the way his body betrayed him the second you crossed your arms – the old tell, sharp and defensive, or the way your mouth tightened when he spoke, as if his voice alone was an inconvenience. he felt it all in real time, a series of small ruptures he patched over with professionalism.

he wondered, briefly, if you were aware of how meticulously he avoided you, even though you were sitting right there. how every instinct in him leaned forward while discipline forced him back into his chair. he wondered if you could tell that the calm he wore was effortful, not innate; that it took everything in him not to say your name the way he used to.

when he’d brought up the sketches, he’d known it would be cruel. necessary, but cruel.

he’d justified it to himself anyway. told himself it was honesty. he hadn’t admitted that part of him wanted proof that you were still there. that something could still reach you. that the past hadn’t turned you entirely impermeable.

when your eyes finally met his, furious and unguarded, something inside him twisted hard enough to almost feel like relief.

there you were.

it was wrong to think that. he knew it even as the thought surfaced. he wasn’t entitled to your reaction, least of all your anger. but anger meant impact. it meant he wasn’t invisible. it meant he hadn’t miscalculated so badly that you’d erased him entirely.

still, the guilt came rushing back the moment he saw your jaw set, the way your shoulders squared like armor being reforged in real time. he had done this. he had walked back into your life with a blueprint you once drew together and expected it not to hurt.

cowardly, a voice in his head supplied. selfish. he had swallowed and kept his face neutral.

and that’s when the truth settled, heavy and unavoidable:he hadn’t come here because he was ready. he’d come because not trying felt worse than whatever damage this might cause.

so when he cleared his throat and asked to speak to you, voice steady, pulse not, it wasn’t confidence that carried him.vit was the simple, terrifying knowledge that this might be the last chance he ever had to be seen by you again.

“i am here as a client,” he says now, “believe it or not.”

“just what the hell do you think you're doing right now? what are your intentions?”

“listen, i know you are upset–”

“wow, your powers of observation continue to amaze me.” you scoff.

a frustrated sigh escape jay's lips without him meaning to. “will you continue to interrupt me?”

“will you continue to dodge my questions? i asked you why you're doing this.”

“i need a house. and i need someone i trust to work on it, because this is important to me.”

he's got to be kidding you. as if a sorry excuse like this is an answer. no, it's barely an answer, park jongseong can cut through people with his words blindfolded on a bad day, and this is what he comes up with?

you let out a short laugh, the kind that has no humor in it. “you trust me,” you repeat, flat. “that’s convenient.”

jay doesn’t rise to it. he stays seated, hands still, eyes on you in a way that isn’t challenging but isn’t backing down either. “let’s call it that,” he says, leaning back into the chair and in that moment you want to truly strangle him, for the easy display of composure he holds, “it’s an ancestral home, i merely wanted someone i could trust to work on it.”

“from where i’m sitting, it sounds like you found a professional way to reinsert yourself into my life and called it a necessity.”

you don’t look away when you say it. you’ve learned, over the years, that flinching is an invitation to vulnerability that can be latched onto mercilessly if you’re not careful enough.

jay exhales slowly through his nose, the smallest crack in that composure you want to peel apart. “that’s not fair,” he says.

you snort. “neither is asking your divorced partner to redesign your family home.”

“it’s not my family home,” he corrects gently. and then, after a beat, “it was hers.”

“my great aunt lived there alone for the last twenty years,” he continues. “she didn’t have children. she liked things… quiet.” his fingers flex once on the armrest. “when she got sick, she told me i could have it. on one condition.”

you fold your arms. “let me guess. don’t sell it.”

“don’t turn it into something unrecognizable,” he says. “she said houses remember when you don’t.”

you let out a breath through your nose. “you realize i don’t even know this woman, right?”

jay’s gaze flicks up, assessing rather than startled. “you knew of her.”

“that’s generous,” you reply. “i’ve never met her. i’ve never stepped foot in that house. i didn’t even know it existed until today.” you tilt your head slightly. “for someone who’s suddenly very invested in preserving family history, you were remarkably efficient at keeping your own sealed off.”

his jaw tightens, just barely. not guilt. irritation.

“that was a choice,” he says. “a separate one.”

“was it?” you counter. “because from where i was standing, it felt less like separation and more like omission. entire parts of your life that just… didn’t concern me. until they did.”

jay exhales once, slow and measured, like he’s filing something away rather than reacting to it. “you didn’t want to be part of them.”

you blink. once. “excuse me?”

“the gatherings,” he clarifies, tone even. factual. “my extended family, the dinners, the gatherings…” his head tilts a fraction. “you hated them.”

that lands sharper than you expect, “i didn’t hate them,” you say. “i tolerated them.”

“you endured them,” he corrects calmly. “you counted the hours. you’d ask me how long we had to stay before we even left the house.”

“because they were exhausting,” you snap. “they weren’t exactly welcoming.”

jay shrugs, small and contained. “they were loud and opinionated, qualities you didn’t forget to remind me i had a streak of. and you don’t do well with that.”

you let out a sharp laugh. “oh, don’t do that.”

“do what?” he asks.

“rewrite the narrative like i was some unwilling hostage you dragged along,” you shoot back. “i showed up, every time. i sat there and i–i smiled. i answered invasive questions about my job, my body, my plans like they were public property.”

“they weren’t invasive,” jay says. “they were curious.”

“no,” you correct flatly. “they were entitled. there’s a difference.”

his eyes narrow, just slightly. “you never tried to meet them halfway.”

you step closer to the table now, palms flat against it. “halfway to what, exactly? to being interrupted mid-sentence? to having my career reduced to a ‘phase’ because it didn’t align with their idea of stability?”

“you made it clear you didn’t belong there,” he says.

“and you made it clear you didn’t need to make space for me to,” you fire back. “you sat there and let it happen. you let them talk around me, over me, like i was an accessory you brought along, not your fucking partner.”

“that’s not fair,” he says again, irritation edging in now.

“no,” you snap, “what’s not fair is you standing here years later, inheriting a house i never even knew existed, and acting like i opted out of your family when you kept the door half-closed the entire time.”

there’s a beat. the air feels tight, pressurized.

“you didn’t want that life,” jay says finally.

you stare at him. “so your solution was to just… remove the option?”

“my solution,” he says evenly, “was to not force you into spaces you resented. you were clear about what drained you.”

“and you decided that meant i didn’t get access to the rest of your life?” you ask. “that i didn’t get to choose which discomforts were worth it?”

his expression doesn’t soften. doesn’t harden either. “you chose plenty,” he replies. “just not that.”

you let out a dry breath, almost a laugh. “you know what you’re really good at?”

jay looks at you. waits.

“making things uncomfortable and then acting like that’s not what you’re doing.” you tilt your head. “you inherited a house. your great aunt’s house. and somehow i’m the one being shown my sketches.”

“they were relevant,” he says simply.

“they were personal,” you shoot back. “and you didn’t warn me. you didn’t explain. you just put them on the table and let me deal with it.”

his jaw tightens in annoyance. “i’m here to hire you,” he says. “not unpack history.”

“yeah,” you say. “that’s kind of the problem. you keep doing this thing where you pretend context doesn’t matter, and then you’re surprised when it does.”

“that’s not what this is,” he says, and there’s an edge now, bordering on insistence. “if i wanted access, i’d be doing this very differently.”

“oh, i’d love to hear how,” you cut in.

he takes a breath. lets it out slowly. “i wouldn’t be sitting here letting you tear into me. i’d be justifying myself. i’d be telling you why you were wrong to leave. i’d be turning this into a debate.”

“tear into you?” you exclaim incredulously, “park jongseong, just what are trying to imply right now, after waltzing into my office and demanding–”

“i'm not demanding anything,” his voice rises, “i'm asking you to build me a house. is that too hard to understand?”

oh he did not. he did not just fucking talk down to you.

“you might want to check that tone of yours,” you grit through your clenched jaws, every ounce of you begging you to just up and leave this situation.

“i didn't–fuck, i didn't mean it like that,” and then for the first time since the moment you laid eyes in hin this morning, jay actually looks disgruntled. he exhales slowly, as if grounding himself.

“i didn’t intend to ambush you,” he says.

the anger that flares at that nearly makes you laugh again. “you walked into my firm,” you say, each word measured, “and projected my work onto a screen without warning.”

“i presented sketches that were meaningful to me.”

“you presented my sketches,” you snap, the control in your voice cracking just enough to let the truth cut through. “don’t reframe this.”

his gaze sharpens at that, finally. “i never claimed authorship.”

“no,” you agree coldly. “you just conveniently omitted the context.”

silence falls again, heavier this time. jay studies you, his expression unreadable. you wonder if he’s trying to adjust his strategy now that the conversation has moved out of polite territory.

“so tell me, what exactly did you expect to happen after that?”

he hesitates, just for a fraction of a second.

“i expected,” he says slowly, “that it would start a conversation.”

the word lands like a slap. you stare at him, chest rising and falling too quickly now. “so this was calculated.”

“i never denied that,” he replies.

anger surges, hot and sharp now, finally shedding its restraint. “you had no right.”

“i know,” he says and the admission throws you off balance.

for a moment, you’re speechless. not because you don’t have anything to say, but because there’s too much. years of unresolved resentment. questions you’d buried because they hurt too much to exhume. you feel like you’re standing at the edge of something vast and volatile, and you’re not ready to fall into it yet.

“this is work,” you say finally, clinging to the anchor you still have. “if you want me involved in this project beyond a surface-level consultation, you ask. clearly.”

jay nods once. “then i’m asking.”

“it's a little late for that, don't you think?”

“so you're not going to take up this project?”

“why the hell should i?”

there it is, the defiance that he had been expecting from the very beginning. jay had expected your grace to extend only up to the first meeting, the one where you didn't know you were going to be ambushed. regardless of the fact that you have always been a practical person, this question of yours right now isn't a genuine inquiry; it's anger.

“because,” he says finally, voice flat and measured, “you’re competent. i came here because this is a project that needs doing. and i want it done well. you’re the most qualified person for that.”

the question is put out so quietly, your subsequent outburst almost makes you flinch.

“do you even fucking hear yourself right now? have you lost your goddamn mind?” the expletives slip off your tongue with a scathing intensity, so hot that it burns your mouth, but not once does jay flinch.

“i've thought about this,” he says, finally finishing the sentence, voice low but steady. “a lot more than you think.”

you let out a breath that’s half a laugh, half disbelief. “no, jay. you’ve decided things. there’s a difference.”

he doesn’t argue that. instead, he shifts his weight, hands slipping into his pockets like he doesn’t trust them to stay still otherwise. it’s a small tell. one you remember too well. you search his face, looking for something – remorse, triumph, uncertainty. you find none of it. just resolve. the same unyielding resolve that once made you feel safe. and later, trapped.

“i didn’t come here expecting this to be easy,” he says. “i knew you’d be angry.”

“so what,” you ask, quieter now, “you thought i’d yell, get it out of my system, and then what? we’d talk shop?”

“no,” he says immediately. too quickly. “i thought you’d say no.”

“i haven’t agreed to anything yet,” you say, as if to confirm his uncertainty.

“i know.”

“and if i say no?”

his gaze doesn’t waver. “then i’ll respect that.”

you scoff. “you’re not very good at that.”

a muscle in his jaw ticks. the quiet that follows isn’t charged so much as unfinished. like a sentence cut off halfway through. you can hear movement outside the room again – chairs scraping, voices passing, the world continuing on without regard for the fact that something old and unsettled has just been stirred up.

you stand, not to leave, but to put an end to this moment before it digs in any deeper. “send me the details,” you say. “all of them. scope, timeline, expectations. i’ll look at it when i have the bandwidth.”

he nods, slower this time. “and then?”

“and then,” you reply, meeting his eyes steadily, “i’ll decide.”

there’s no relief on his face. no disappointment either. just something restrained, carefully held in check. he nods once, accepting the blow.

“and jay,” you say, just as he’s starting to leave. he turns around to face you, and for a moment you recognise that face without its stubbornness, without the filter of hurt that you had once started to see it through. “leave those sketches behind.”

he pauses, fingers tightening briefly around the edge of the folder, then sets it down without a word, but with a quiet compliance that feels heavier than defiance ever could.

when he leaves, the door shuts with a soft, definitive click, and the room returns to its neutral stillness. you remain standing, eyes fixed on the sketches he’s left behind – not ready to touch them, not ready to discard them either.

aware only that this isn’t an ending, just a point of hesitation, a line you haven’t crossed yet but can no longer pretend you don’t see.

six.

the street outside was quiet, drenched in the soft glow of streetlamps, the air still carrying a faint warmth from the day’s sun. you and sunghoon settled into a small corner booth at a late-night café. it was empty except for a few regulars hunched over laptops.

you rested your elbows on the table, cradling the mug of coffee you’d ordered with a little too much stubbornness against sunghoon’s raised eyebrows at your choice of caffeine at this hour.. the condensation left rings on the wood, but you didn’t care. you weren’t even sure how to hold yourself anymore, at least not after how your day had started.

“i don’t…” you started, voice low, tight around the words. “i don’t know what the hell this is supposed to mean.”

sunghoon leaned back, letting his arms cross casually, studying you without judgment. “you mean… the whole ex husband situation?”

“can you not call it that?” you groan out, resting your head on your palm. “i mean… what kind of—what kind of a person does this? who… i don’t even know how to describe it.” you pinch the bridge of your nose. “he asked me to design a house. not just any house. our house. the one i drew for him, for us. years ago.”

sunghoon raised an eyebrow. “and you’re… upset–”

“upset?” you glance at him sharply. “no. i’m…i’m angry! and so fucking confused and infuriated. all of it. and yes, there’s a part of me that… can’t even process why...” you press your hands flat against the table. “i mean, he knows what he’s doing, right? he knows exactly how this hits me. he knew.”

sunghoon sits forward slightly, elbows resting on the table now, his voice calm but insistent. “you’re letting it bother you too much though.”

you glare at him, because he’s right, and it’s irritating. “i can’t just… ignore it. i can’t just pretend it’s a normal client project.”

“of course it’s not.” he says it like a fact, not an opinion.

you exhale, bitter and slow. “i can’t figure out whether this is genius or cruelty.”

sunghoon hums, tilting his head. “or both.”

you flinch slightly, because yes, that’s it. both. every calculation of his that landed today had been manipulation cloaked in civility. he’d presented your sketches as reference, not as a personal statement.

“and…” you say slowly, dragging the words out, “i don’t even know if i want this project…”

the only problem is, you have been thinking about it non-stop.

sunghoon leans back again, regarding you carefully. “then why are you thinking about it?”

you frown. “because i have to. professionally, i can’t ignore a request from a client. technically, i don’t even know if he’s asking for the house to be built exactly as it was. or if he wants my ideas, my designs, my… judgment.” your voice falters slightly at the end, and you hate the hesitation. “i don’t even know if i want to give it to him.”

he folds his hands over his chest, like he’s holding himself steady before dropping a truth. “and there’s your question, isn’t there? you don’t know what you want. that’s what you’re wrestling with right now.”

you snort, but it’s humorless. “riveting observation, sunghoon.”

“no, really,” he insists, softening slightly. “think about it. well, you already have been, what’s actually holding you back from taking up the reins?”

at that, you stare at sunghoon incredulously. does he not get it? what part of any of this situation does not warrant your hesitation?!

“who the hell asks their ex to design a house they both imagined living in years ago?” you dead pan.

“no,” sunghoon stresses, “you were there in the meeting (y/n), he never asked you to build him that particular house.

wow, amazing. was sunghoon also going insane? were the late nights making the screws loose in his head or—

“don’t need to look surprised,” he says, noticing the way you were looking at him all wide eyed, jaw-dropped, “you’re reacting to what you felt he was asking. not what he actually said.”

you place your coffee cup a bit too forcefully on the table before replying. “that’s semantics, sunghoon. he brought those sketches. the ones we worked on together. he didn’t need to say it out loud.”

“he didn’t,” sunghoon agrees easily. “but he also didn’t say, ‘build me the house we never got to live in.’ he said he wants you on the project. big difference.”

you shake your head, pacing now, hands threading through your hair. “you’re giving him too much credit. that house isn’t neutral ground. it’s—” you stop, exhaling sharply. “it’s bait.”

you stare at him, letting that settle. the hum of the café, the clink of a spoon against a cup somewhere, the quiet buzz of fluorescent light overhead – they all fade into background noise as you wrestle with the simple truth: that if you take this on, you won’t just be designing walls and windows. you’ll be stepping back into a version of yourself you spent years carefully dismantling.

sunghoon doesn’t say anything first, then with a candor that makes the knot in your stomach snap, he says, “you’re scared.”

you scoff, turning toward the window instead of him. “of course i’m scared. i didn’t claw my way out of that marriage just to willingly walk back into its blueprint.”

“(y/n),” he replies, firm now. “i know you didn’t ask me to join you for a cup of coffee after closing hours because you wanted to justify your actions. you’ve never done that before—”

“i didn’t—”

“i know,” he continues, overriding your explanation, “you wanted me here to convince you into taking up this project.”

“what?! you’re insane, why would i even—” you’re just spluttering at this point.

sunghoon watches that too. “you don’t want permission,” he continues. “you want friction. you want someone to push back hard enough that whatever decision you make doesn’t feel like you’re running.”

you laugh, breathless and brittle. “so what, you’re saying i staged this whole existential crisis for moral support?”

“i’m saying,” he says, unflinching, “that you already decided to say yes the moment he slid those sketches across the table. and now you’re trying to figure out whether that makes you weak or honest.”

its honestly uncanny, the way sunghoon has always been able to clock you like this. of course, your first instinct had been a big, fat ‘no’ to the project.

it had come instinctive, almost reflexive – a clean refusal, a way to keep the past neatly boxed and labeled handled. but instincts had never been the same thing as truth, and you’d learned that the hard way.

because even as you’d said it, your mind had already betrayed you. had gone straight to the sketches. the weight of the paper. the familiarity of those lines you could still trace from memory. not the life you’d planned back then, but the thinking behind it.

that was the part you hadn’t been able to outrun.

you rub at your face, exhaling hard. “i haven’t decided anything yet.” you mutter, though it sounds weak even to you.

sunghoon doesn’t argue. he never does when you’re lying to yourself. he just waits, patient in that infuriating way of his, like he knows you’ll arrive at the conclusion eventually.

“go home,” he says, eventually, “sleep. don’t stare at ceiling cracks and call it thinking.”

you huff out a breath, half a laugh. “wow. revolutionary advice.”

“i’m serious,” sunghoon replies, unfazed. “you’re exhausted. every emotion feels louder when you’re running on fumes.” he tilts his head, studying you. “you don’t owe him an answer tonight. or tomorrow.”

you sink back into the chair, the fight bleeding out of you now that no one’s pushing.

“what if i wake up and still want to say yes?” you ask quietly.

sunghoon shrugs. “then you say yes. and you do it on your terms.”

your fingers curl around the edge of the table. “and if i wake up and realize i was just… spiraling?”

“then you say no,” he says just as easily. “and you don’t beat yourself up for protecting yourself.”

you nod slowly. that, at least, feels fair.

sunghoon stands this time, already picking up his jacket and taking out his wallet, as if closing this conversation for the time being, “i think you’re underestimating how much you’ve changed. and overestimating how much power he still has. whatever you decide, make sure it’s yours.”

you nod again, slower this time, feeling the tension in your shoulders ease fractionally. the decision isn’t made. the question isn’t answered. but the seed of possibility has been planted.

across the city, jay feels it too, though he’s not sure he’s planted anything but fresh hatred for himself in your mind.

he would accept that outcome, if it came to it. hatred, at least, would be honest. cleaner than the silence you’d mastered toward the end, the kind that left him guessing whether he was being punished or simply phased out. he has always been better with defined consequences than with ambiguity.

he doesn’t go straight home. instead, he calls his assistant and tells him he’s taking the day off just drives.

the drive takes him farther out than necessary, the city thinning into long, uninterrupted stretches of road where the streetlights come at predictable intervals. he keeps the windows down despite the cooling air, the rush of it loud enough to drown out the part of his mind that keeps wanting to replay your voice.

he ends up parking near a narrow lane he hasn’t walked through in years.

he doesn’t realize where he is at first. just another stretch of mismatched shops, signboards layered over each other, wires sagging between buildings. it’s only when he steps out of the car and the smell hits him – oil, broth, something peppery, that memory catches, sharp and unwelcome. the lane is barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. you have to go in on foot.

you’d brought him here once, long before the marriage, before things had names and expectations. back when everything between you had still been tentative and careful. he remembers complaining about it, about the rain, about how you’d dragged him somewhere inconvenient and obscure when there were perfectly respectable restaurants nearby. he remembers the way you’d just laughed at him, unapologetic, tugging him by the sleeve into the shelter of the shop’s awning while rain hammered the lane behind you.

the place had been tiny. just some ten odd stools, rickety tables, steam fogging the windows. you’d ordered for both of you without asking, like you already knew he’d trust you. when the bowls came, you’d slid one between the two of you instead of keeping them separate, nudging it closer until your knees touched under the table. he remembers noticing your hair, damp and curling slightly at the ends, your cheeks flushed from the heat, from the walk, from him. the way you’d leaned in to speak over the noise, your voice softer than it needed to be.

he hadn’t been someone who did things like that back then. hole-in-the-wall places, shared bowls, sharing tables that barely had enough leg room.

but he had liked what he’d shared with you that night, when you were both still careful with each other, still pretending this was casual. he’d liked the way your knee had stayed pressed against his even when there was space to pull away, the way you’d leaned in over the bowl as if it belonged to the two of you by default. the steam had clung to your lashes, and he’d caught himself watching your mouth more than the food, the small pauses between your words when your lips hovered just close enough to make him wonder if it was intentional.

much later, once the line between flirting and certainty had blurred, you’d tease him about it. about how stiff he’d been at first, how out of place. you’d say he’d looked like someone dropped into the wrong life. he never told you that that was exactly why it had stayed with him. because with you, discomfort had felt like proximity. like being allowed closer than he’d ever been before. you’d had a way of turning cramped spaces into invitations, of making him feel chosen even when there was nowhere else to sit.

and that had carried into the marriage, for a while. the way you’d fit yourself against him without asking. how you’d curl into his side on the couch, fingers slipping under his sleeve, warm and familiar, as if you assumed he would always make room. he had, every time. until the spaces stopped being physical and started being something else entirely, something he didn’t know how to widen without letting go.

he walks through the lane now, years later and still feels as odd as ever in his button up and stiff tie and expensive watch on his wrist. funny, he had never felt this way when he was here with you.

back then, he’d barely noticed how out of place he looked, how the polished edges of him didn’t belong in a narrow stretch where shop signs overlapped and the air smelled like broth and detergent and old stone. with you, the incongruity had softened. you’d stood close enough that your shoulder brushed his arm, like you were quietly claiming him, like you were daring the world to question it.

the place is still there.

inside, he takes the same seat, or as close to it as memory allows. the table is just as narrow. his knees still don’t fit properly. he imagines you opposite him, chin tucked into your scarf, eyes bright as you talk with your hands. he remembers how the conversation had slowed once the food arrived, how the pauses had stretched. how you’d watched him taste the soup like it mattered. how, when he leaned in to say something low, your breath had hitched just enough for him to notice.

and then he remembers the first time he brought you to a family dinner. he remembers feeling oddly proud of you, the way you held yourself. the way you were courteous without being pliable. you’d worn something understated, knowing better than to give anyone ammunition, and still they’d found ways to comment. your hair, your job, the way you answered questions too precisely, as if precision itself were a provocation.

he’d clocked your discomfort then. of course he had. he just hadn’t assigned it the weight it deserved.

in his mind, discomfort was something to be endured. something temporary. something you worked through in service of larger structures: family, obligation, continuity. he’d grown up believing that if no one was actively being cruel, then nothing needed to be challenged.

his family had never been cruel. just convinced of their right to know and opine and categorize. he had never taken pride in this knowledge, but he had grown up surrounded with it. dealing with it had come to him naturally. he’d been good at it – good enough that he told himself you were fine because you weren’t crying in the bathroom, because you still smiled, because you still reached for his hand under the table.

you had, that first night. your fingers had curled around his knee beneath the tablecloth, a small, grounding pressure that said i’m here, that asked, without words, if he was too. he’d squeezed back, absentminded, already half-occupied with an uncle’s comment, an aunt’s assessing stare. he’d thought that was enough. he hadn’t noticed how your grip lingered longer than necessary, how it tightened when someone laughed a little too loudly at their own remark.

much later – you’d stopped smiling. that should have been his first clue.

you’d told him once, in the aftermath of a particularly long dinner, that it felt like being crowded into a room with no windows. he’d suggested coming less often. rotating appearances, setting limits – all practical solutions. all of them missing the point.

you hadn’t needed fewer dinners. you’d needed him to notice.

for god’s sake, his own parents had noticed. they’d watched you with a kind of fond wariness, as if they knew exactly how easy it would be for someone like him to take you for granted. his mother had pulled you aside more than once, asking if he was listening to you properly, if he was giving you enough room to breathe. his father had made jokes at his expense, loud enough for you to hear, about how stubborn he was, how inflexible.

they’d been right.

but none of that had mattered in the beginning, because when the two of you were alone, it had been fine. it hadn’t mattered, because he had always been the one to pull you into a hug and kissed you till the rest of the world blurred at the edges, till whatever you’d been about to say softened and slipped away. it had been easy, then. easy to lean into the warmth of your body, the familiarity of the way you fit against him, the quiet language you’d built together out of touches and half-smiles. to the point where it stopped feeling like an interruption and started feeling like a decision.

his mouth lingering, unhurried, like he had nowhere else to be. like he wanted to convince you of something without saying it out loud. your hands would slide under his jacket, fingers curling into fabric at his back, pulling him closer not out of need but recognition. the heat between you had always been quiet and deliberate, hips aligned, breaths exchanged slowly.

there were nights when you’d end up half-draped over him, your thigh pressed between his, his palm spanning your waist as if measuring the space you occupied. he remembers the way you’d tilt your head, inviting but never asking, the way your lips would part just slightly when his mouth traced your jaw instead of your mouth. how everything stayed just shy of urgency, stretched out until it felt heavy with promise. you’d sigh into him, soft and unguarded, and he’d think that this was what stability looked like.

nights where words were unnecessary, where closeness was enough, where the slow drag of fingertips over skin, the murmur of his name against your throat, felt like reassurance rather than escape. he had mistaken that ease for permanence.

what he hadn’t understood was how intimacy had slowly become the place where everything unspoken went to hide. how kisses started filling the space where conversations should have been, how holding you became a way to quiet discomfort instead of address it. you had still come to him, still let him pull you close, but sometimes, even then, your breath had already been a little too shallow.

back then, that had felt like proof. that love could be enough to smooth over the sharp edges. that closeness could substitute for listening.

he knows now how lazy that belief was.

jay drags a hand down his face and exhales through his nose, forcing his mind to get rid of these thoughts. he couldn’t do this here, not now. so he thinks of when it had all gone wrong for sure. because that’s all he can do right now, open those boxes of memories and dissect them like he had for the past three years.

you had said it first on a random evening that hadn’t seemed important at the time. you were standing in the kitchen, barefoot, stirring something on the stove, and you’d said, almost casually, “sometimes it feels suffocating to be with you.”

he remembers freezing, spoon halfway to his mouth, the word ringing so loudly in his head that he almost missed the way you immediately tried to soften it. how you’d rushed to explain, to reassure him that you didn’t mean it like that, that you loved him, that you just needed space sometimes. how he’d nodded, told you he understood, pulled you into a hug that was just a little too tight.

he hadn’t, though, not really. what he’d understood was that something had gone wrong and that if he stayed still enough, firm enough, it would stop moving. he remembers telling himself that everyone feels cramped sometimes, that it was normal, that it would pass if he didn’t make it worse by overreacting.

after that, he started cataloguing things instead of changing them. your silences, the way you lingered in doorways before entering a room he was already in. how you’d step outside to take calls that used to happen curled up beside him on the couch. he noticed, filed it all away, and did nothing with it. he told himself he was respecting you, when really he was avoiding the risk of doing it wrong. it was easier to be reliable than responsive. easier to assume love could absorb discomfort if left alone long enough.

he realised the flaw in that logic much later. he hadn’t defended you when his relatives pried and commented and treated your life like a topic for discussion. he hadn’t interrupted the invasive questions, the assumptions about what kind of partner you should be. he’d thought neutrality was maturity. he’d thought not choosing sides was restraint. what it had actually been was absence.

he hadn’t understood you at all. hadn’t understood why you needed the couch to be filled with mismatched cushions, hadn’t understood the need for unnecessary clutter, the way you let objects accumulate like proof of living. books stacked sideways because you’d been in the middle of something. mugs left by the sink because you planned to come back to them. half-finished projects spread across surfaces he preferred to keep clear. to him, order had always meant control. to you, it had meant air. space to move, to leave traces, to not feel erased by tidiness.

he’d thought he was making room by not complaining. he hadn’t realised you were asking him to make room by shifting.

he remembers the way you’d started sleeping closer to the edge of the bed, a barely perceptible migration at first. how you’d angle your body away, enough that he could no longer pull you back without it feeling deliberate. he hadn’t asked why.

he had been so focused on not being the problem that he’d failed to notice he was becoming the absence of a solution.

by the time you stopped bringing it up, he’d mistaken the quiet for relief. he hadn’t understood that silence wasn’t peace; it was resignation. you’d already started pulling yourself free in increments so small he could pretend not to notice. and when you finally left, when the words were said plainly and there was no softening them this time, he’d been stunned, not because it hurt, but because it was final. because the thing he’d believed would pass if left untouched had, instead, solidified.

sitting here now, years later, jay knows the truth he’s avoided naming: he lost you because he treated love like a fixed structure instead of something that needed continual adjustment. because he believed endurance was a virtue and didn’t realise, until it was too late, that you had been asking him to bend.

he’d thought the space between you was temporary, like a hallway you passed through on the way to something more solid. not a room anyone could live in. but the space had widened quietly, almost politely, until it became structural. like the gap between two walls that were never meant to stand apart, a threshold no one names because it isn’t a destination, just a place you cross, or fail to notice you’re standing in too long.

he’d stayed there, balanced between holding on and letting go, convinced that stillness was the same as stability. it hadn’t occurred to him that thresholds are only safe if you keep moving.

that is why the house matters. not because it is yours, or was meant to be. not because of the sketches, or the life that never materialised. it matters because it is the last thing his great aunt said to him with any clarity: don’t turn it into something unrecognizable. she’d meant the house, yes, but she’d also meant the pauses, the imperfections, the lived-in in-betweens. the places people pass through without thinking until they realise too late that those spaces were the point.

he thinks, now, that asking you to remodel it is the closest he knows how to come to saying the thing he never said then: i should have made room. i should have pushed back. i should have listened when you said you couldn’t breathe.

he knows it doesn’t undo anything. knows it might not even be forgiven. but for the first time, he isn’t trying to hold anything still. he’s letting the fault lines show, letting the house be altered by someone who was always better at seeing where the walls pressed too close.

he needs you.

he doesn’t recoil from the way it sounds too desperate to him. he needs you the way he’s always needed structure – because you see where things strain before they fracture. because you understand that space isn’t absence, it’s design. that if you don’t account for it deliberately, it forms anyway, uneven and unforgiving.

so he sits there, in a place that remembers a softer version of him, and lets the discomfort stay. lets the guilt stay. lets the wanting remain unpolished and unspoken. if you say no, he will live with that. he’s learned, finally, that some structures deserve to collapse untouched. but if you say yes – if you take the plans and redraw them without mercy – then at least one thing will be done right.

either way, he’ll stop mistaking waiting for restraint. this time, the outcome won’t be accidental.

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