Lin came back to Yeh's city under the pretext of discussing work in person, but the trip—its timing, it's carefully chosen moments—had all been arranged with quiet intention. She wanted to see for herself whether, now that the distance between them had closed again, anything at all had shifted.
The heart of the meeting was the ending.
Lin argued for a tragic close, or at least an open one. An unfinished ending, she said, carried its own force; she even brought up the Zeigarnik effect, how what remains unresolved lingers, how emotions left unsealed echo longer in the mind. A love that has truly matured doesn't always need the reassurance of a defined conclusion.
For the first time, Yeh didn't follow her lead. Her tone remained even, her reasoning unfolding layer by layer—from market response to audience habits, from platform data to comparable projects—until everything narrowed to a single, practical point: audiences needed certainty. They needed emotional resolution, something to hold onto, not a question left suspended. This project, she reminded them, had never been pure artistic expression; it was a negotiation between art and commerce, meant to heal, to leave viewers with the sense that something inside them had been gently put back into place.
The discussion circled through several rounds. It was the first time they had openly argued their positions in front of everyone. Neither raised her voice, neither lost control, yet every response landed with precision, like moves in a game of strategy—clean, deliberate, with no easy retreat.
"There's already so much love in real life that doesn't work out," Yeh said at one point, her pace slowing just slightly. She paused, her gaze falling on Lin, though it felt as if she were looking somewhere else entirely. "Why make the audience go through it again in a story?"
She held there for a breath before continuing. "People come to stories for emotional release—for healing. You insist on a tragic ending because you don't need that… because you're already happy in real life, aren't you?"
The moment the words left her, Yeh knew something was off. The logic didn't quite hold, stretched thinner than she would normally allow—but there was no taking it back.
The room went quiet.
No one seemed to catch the direction beneath the words; to them, it was just a flicker of emotion in an otherwise controlled debate. But when Lin looked up at her, she paused—just for a second—not in protest, not in anger, but with the faintest trace of being unexpectedly struck.
After that, the discussion slid back into place. Yeh gathered herself, tightened her argument, and, with clear analysis of market trends, platform preferences, and audience expectations, laid out the case until there was little room left to disagree.
The ending was set: a full resolution.
It was, on the surface, a decision made for the market. But only Yeh knew that her insistence wasn't entirely practical. There were things that could not be completed in real life—she wanted the story to carry them through, to let them exist somewhere else, in a version where certain feelings were allowed to reach their end.
When the meeting ended, people filed out one by one, the room emptying quickly into silence.
Lin didn't move right away. She lingered for a second, almost unconsciously, as if waiting for something familiar to follow—something as simple as, Want to grab dinner?
It never came.
Yeh closed her laptop with quiet efficiency, no hesitation, as if she already knew exactly where she was going next. She stood, her tone warm but decisive. "I have another meeting. I'll head out."
No pause, no opening left behind. Lin didn't even have time to respond.
As Yeh turned, her peripheral vision caught the stillness of Lin sitting there, and for a fleeting second, something in her tightened. There was a kind of cruelty in her composure—the ease of it resting on the other person's disappointment.
It wasn't how she used to be. She had once been more willing to carry discomfort herself than let anyone else feel excluded. But over time, she had learned that some boundaries, if left unmarked, would eventually close in on her instead.
Outside, night had already settled over the city, traffic drifting under streetlights in slow streams. Yeh paused at the curb for a moment, as if waiting for something inside her to cool.
Then she called Fiona.
"Are you busy? We just wrapped the meeting."
"Just finished up. Want to grab dinner?" Fiona's voice was easy, as always.
Yeh hesitated. "I've got something else to take care of. Maybe you could go with Lin? She doesn't seem to have plans, and she came all this way."
A soft laugh came through the line. "Sure. I'll call her."
After hanging up, Yeh stayed where she was, unmoving. Fifteen minutes later, she still found herself texting Fiona: Where did you end up going?
She knew perfectly well what she was really asking.
The reply came quickly—a Thai place near the office, along with a casual quest: Want to join?
Yeh looked at the screen for a few seconds.
Not tonight. Still tied up here. Next time, I'll join for sure.
She hit send, slipped her phone away, and let out a faint breath that almost turned into a laugh. It was her own hesitation that had made something simple feel complicated. At its core, it was nothing more than friends having dinner.
But with Lin—
she knew it would never be just that.
It would pull her back into a place she had only just managed to leave—a loop with no clear exit, one she couldn't quite bring herself to abandon. And this time, she chose not to step back into it.