The warmth of the soup had settled in my chest, but the heat of Woonseok's gaze was what truly kept the fever at bay. I stood up, my legs feeling a bit like jelly, but my resolve as an officer kicking back into gear. I couldn't stay in this velvet sanctuary forever; the more I stayed, the more the line between my reality and this fantasy blurred.
I offered a deep, formal bow—the kind you give to someone you respect from a distance. "Thank you, Sir, for everything. For the doctor, the soup, and for... the truth. We don't want to bother you more. It's late, and you have a schedule. We'll take a taxi back."
Sanvi and Anvi stood up too, looking like they were trying to memorise every square inch of the penthouse before they were kicked out.
"Wait." Woonseok stood, the car keys already jingling in his hand. The moonlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows caught the sharp line of his jaw. "I will drop you."
"Sir, please," I protested, my heart starting that familiar, frantic skip. "It's okay. We are fine with a taxi. If a dispatch or a fan sees you at this hour..."
"But I'm not fine, Butterfly."
The word hung in the air, soft and heavy like silk. My face turned a shade of crimson so deep I was sure I was glowing. "W-what... Sir?"
He didn't answer. He just gestured toward the door with a small, knowing smirk—the kind that said he knew exactly the effect he was having on me.
The city of Seoul rushed past the windows of the sleek, black sedan—a blur of neon blue and cinematic gold. Inside, the air was heavy, charged with the electricity of a truth that had finally been set free.
I sat in the passenger seat, my fingers twisting the hem of my skirt. I felt small in the leather interior, dwarfed by the presence of the man beside me. Park Woonseok—the man who had just dismantled his entire world in a single sentence—was driving with a calm focus that terrified me.
In the back, the silence of Sanvi and Anvi was louder than any of their previous shouting. The playful teasing had died the moment Woonseok's voice dropped into that tone of absolute, unshakable conviction.
"Wanna know something about me?" Woonseok's voice broke the silence, a low, beautiful murmur that seemed to vibrate through the very frame of the car.
I saw Anvi and Sanvi jump slightly in the rearview mirror. "No... no, sir," Anvi stammered, her voice a terrified squeak. "Nothing. We weren't saying anything."
Woonseok let out a soft, melodic chuckle, but it wasn't the practiced laugh of an idol on a variety show. It was the sound of a man who was finally breathing.
"You don't have to call me 'Sir,'" he said, his eyes flicking to the mirror to meet theirs. "I know I am a stranger to you. I know that to you, I am a risk. And you are right to be serious."
Sanvi leaned forward, her protective nature overriding her awe. Her voice was steady, the voice of a woman who had seen Sana struggle through years of exams and duty. "We are serious, Mr Woonseok. Sana isn't just our friend. She is our heart. You don't know her world. You don't know what it took for her to get here. Are you serious? Or is this just a story for you?"
Woonseok slowed the car as we approached a red light. He turned his head, looking directly at Sanvi and Anvi, then shifted his gaze to me. The intensity in his eyes was like a physical touch.
"I am more serious about this than I have been about anything in my seven years on a stage," he said, his voice quiet but filled with a power that silenced the city outside.
> "Fame is a beautiful lie we tell the world so we don't have to be alone, but love is the terrifying truth we tell one person so we can finally be ourselves."
"You're right," he continued, looking back at her friends. "I don't know her past. I don't know what she likes to eat when she's sad, or what movie makes her cry. I don't know the names of the criminals she's chased or the dreams she's put on hold for her family. But I know her soul. I know that in a world where everyone wants a piece of me, she was the only one who wanted to give me something back."
I felt a tear slip down my cheek, hot and stinging. I didn't wipe it away.
"I called her 'Butterfly' because she was the only thing in my life that wasn't pinned down," Woonseok whispered, his hand momentarily leaving the steering wheel to rest near mine on the centre console. He didn't touch me, but the proximity felt like a promise. "The rules of my world didn't bind her. She just... lived. She felt every moment. She is the first real thing I have touched in years."
The car pulled to a stop in front of my hotel, the engine a quiet hum in the late-night air. I was sitting there, a thousand thoughts swirling in my head. A part of me, the part that had fallen for his kindness, wanted to stay. But the other part, the part that remembered the scars of my past, knew I had to go. I couldn't drag him into this. He was a beautiful, shining star, and I was a person haunted by a darkness that only I and my friends knew. I couldn't be the reason he got into trouble. I couldn't love anyone. The fear, the trauma, it was a wall I couldn't climb.
He got out and came around to my side, a soft, beautiful smile on his face. He opened the door, and I stepped out, the cool air a shock to my senses. I turned to him, a simple, final thank you on my lips. "Thank you," I said, a quiet, tearful goodbye.
I started to walk away, a desperate plea to escape this before it went any further.
Then, I felt his hand. It was on my wrist again, a warm, desperate touch that stopped me in my tracks.
"Butterfly," he whispered, his voice a soft, beautiful sound. "Please, don't go. I want you to meet us again."
My heart shattered in my chest, but I couldn't show it. I hardened my face, my voice a cold, cruel whisper I didn't recognise as my own. "Sir, please stop bothering me." The words felt like a physical pain in my throat. "I am not the person the celebrity used to pick and throw. Thank you for your help, but it's better we not meet."
My friends gasped in the quiet night, their faces filled with a sudden, heartbroken confusion. His face, so full of hope just moments ago, became a mask of shock and pain. His eyes, unmasked and honest, filled with a look of utter bewilderment.
"But... but... butterfly..." he stammered, a broken plea.
I didn't let him finish. I turned away, my voice icy, final. "Please, sir."
I walked away, my back ramrod straight, my eyes stinging with unshed tears. I didn't look back. I couldn't. I left him standing there, a beautiful, heartbroken truth in the middle of a city I was running from. My friends were still there, still frozen, processing the cruelty I had just delivered.
Sometimes, a heart can break more from kindness than from cruelty.
I walked into the safety of the hotel, leaving the magic and the pain behind.
The words hit him like a physical blow. He stood there, his hand still suspended in the air where hers had been just moments ago. The cool night air of the city felt like a searing burn on his skin. He watched her walk away, her back ramrod straight, disappearing into the hotel, leaving him and her friends frozen in a daze of disbelief.
His mind replayed her words: "The celebrity used to pick and throw." The words were so cold, so cutting, and so wrong. He hadn't picked her up to throw her away. He had picked her up because she was a beautiful, shining truth in a world of lies, and he had wanted to hold on to her. But she didn't see that. She saw him through the lens of her past, a lens of a trauma he didn't even know existed.
The confusion was a physical weight in his chest, a deep, aching pain that felt more real than any applause he had ever received. His carefully crafted confession, the sincerity of his heart—it was all for nothing. She had seen it all as an act, a game played by a celebrity.
His face, so open and vulnerable just a moment ago, now settled into a mask of pure, devastating heartbreak. He looked at her friends, their faces a mirror of his own shock and sorrow. They knew something he didn't. They knew the "trauma" she spoke of, and he could see in their eyes that it was serious.
He had exposed his heart, his secret identity, and his love, all for her to tell him to stop bothering her. The beautiful, impossible love story he had been living in his head had just been brutally torn to shreds, and he had no idea why.