Chapter 5: Ghost in the Frame

I stared at the photo.

Longer than I should've.

The grainy alley. Our silhouettes. Her hand close to mine. Her expression just visible—tired, guarded, real. And me, mid-step, reaching toward her like someone who meant it.

It wasn't a tabloid shot.

It was too intimate.

Too precise.

This was personal.

Ji-eun leaned in, frowning. "What is it?"

I flipped the phone toward her without a word.

She read the message.

Her breath left in a slow hiss, barely audible, like she was trying not to react at all.

Then she backed away—two full steps—like the image burned her.

She didn't say anything.

Didn't curse. Didn't cry.

She just folded into silence like she'd practiced it.

I watched her closely.

"Do you think it's him?" I asked. "Jun-woo?"

"I don't know," she said. Her voice was level, but her hands were clenched into fists at her sides.

"You said he sent the last one."

"Yes."

"And this?"

She hesitated.

Too long.

I pushed. "Ji-eun."

"I don't know."

That pause again. The kind that tells you the speaker knows more than they're saying, but they're hoping silence will erase it.

I moved to the table, set the phone down between us like a weapon we couldn't disarm.

"Someone followed us."

She nodded.

"They knew exactly where we'd be."

Another nod.

"And they're watching us now."

She didn't nod.

She just said: "Yes."

A long beat passed.

"I'm not afraid of being seen," she added.

I raised an eyebrow. "You sure? Because this screams fear."

"I'm afraid of what they'll do with it. How they'll twist it."

She sat on the edge of my couch, elbows on her knees, the way someone does when they're either going to stand up or fall apart.

"People think being an idol means you're never alone," she said. "But the truth is, you're alone all the time. Even in rooms full of people. Even when they're cheering."

"You're not alone now."

That earned me a glance. Quick. Sharp.

"No," she said. "Now I'm watched."

I stepped closer, slowly, like approaching a bird that might bolt.

"We need to report it," I said.

"To who?" she snapped. "The police? You think they'll believe me? You think my agency will let them investigate him when they can bury it instead?"

I didn't answer.

Because I wasn't sure she was wrong.

She exhaled, softer now. "You don't understand. They'll frame it as a relationship. Say we were in love. Say I led him on. Say I broke him. You know how they are with women who ruin men."

I sat across from her. The room was quiet, the kind of quiet that makes everything else louder—the distant honk of traffic, the faint buzz of an old lightbulb, the soft tick of the microwave clock.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Too late for that."

"I mean it," she said. "You're already in this deeper than you signed up for. I can still pull you out. Say it was just business. That you didn't know."

"I did know."

"You didn't know all of it."

"No," I said. "But I know you're scared. I know you're angry. I know you're trying to handle this alone, and you're not built for alone anymore."

That last part made her flinch. Barely. But I saw it.

She looked down at her hands.

"I don't even remember what normal feels like," she whispered.

"You're not going to get normal from me."

She smiled at that. Faint. Sad. "No. But I might get truth."

And then she stood.

Paced toward the window.

Pulled the curtain back.

Just a sliver.

"Don't," I said quickly.

"I need to know," she whispered.

She scanned the street below. Her fingers trembling against the edge of the fabric.

After a few seconds, she let it drop.

"No one," she said.

"For now."

I stood. "We can't stay here."

She turned. "You want me to run?"

"I want you to survive."

"Same thing, some days."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

I stepped closer.

"Then you need to trust me."

She looked up at that.

This time, she didn't argue.

Didn't deflect.

Just nodded.

Soft. Small. But real.

And it scared the hell out of me—because trust meant weight. Responsibility. Vulnerability. And she was giving it to me in pieces I wasn't sure I deserved.

"I'm staying here tonight," she said.

"I figured."

"But not because I'm hiding."

"No?"

"Because I'm tired of pretending like I don't need anyone."

I didn't answer.

Didn't need to.

She walked past me, grabbed her phone off the table, and sat down again. Pulled out her charger like she did this every night.

Like this was normal.

Like we were normal.

She didn't ask where she was sleeping.

I didn't ask if she needed anything.

We just… sat there.

Two strangers. Married on paper. Surrounded by secrets.

But for once?

Breathing the same air without pretending we weren't.

It was past 2 a.m. by the time she showered.

I heard the water running through the paper-thin walls. Heard the dull thud of a shampoo bottle being set on the edge of the tub. Heard her hum, softly—one note, then none. Not a melody. Just sound. Just proof she was still human.

I didn't know if I was supposed to wait up.

I did anyway.

I sat on the couch with a glass of water I wasn't drinking and my laptop open in front of me like a prop. The screen glared white. The cursor blinked. No words came.

How do you write fiction when your real life sounds like a fever dream?

She stepped out twenty minutes later.

Wearing one of my old t-shirts.

I blinked. "Where'd you get that?"

"Closet," she said, drying her hair with a towel. "Yours was cleaner than mine."

I almost choked on my breath. "You went through my stuff?"

"You invited me to move in."

"That's not how that works."

"It is now."

She flopped onto the other end of the couch without asking, tugging her knees up to her chest, feet bare. Her makeup was gone. Hair damp. Skin pink from the heat of the shower.

She looked younger.

And infinitely more tired.

"Why aren't you asleep?" she asked.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I'm used to hotels. They hum. This place is too quiet."

"I could turn on the AC."

"No," she said. "Then it's fake noise."

I didn't reply.

We sat there a long time.

Not talking.

Just… existing.

I watched her stare at the wall like it had answers. I glanced at my laptop screen again and typed one sentence, just to prove I could.

> They slept in separate rooms but not separate thoughts.

I deleted it.

Too poetic.

Too honest.

"Do you miss it?" I asked suddenly.

She looked at me. "Miss what?"

"The stage. The fans. Being worshipped."

She didn't laugh.

"I miss the control," she said. "When I'm on stage, I know who I am. I know what people expect. I can hit the notes. Pose the right way. Smile like I mean it."

"And offstage?"

"I never know which version of me they want. The mysterious one? The cheerful one? The scandal-free product ambassador?"

She rubbed at her eyes, suddenly small.

"I don't think anyone's ever wanted the real me. Not for more than five minutes."

I didn't know what to say to that.

So I didn't say anything.

And maybe that's why she kept going.

"You know what my therapist said once?" she murmured.

I raised an eyebrow. "You have a therapist?"

"Had. Agency-appointed. Useless. She said my 'defensive detachment style' was a trauma response to parasocial distortion."

I blinked. "I understood maybe three of those words."

"She meant: you can't let yourself want things when your whole life is about being wanted."

That landed in my gut.

Hard.

"You ever fall in love?" she asked, glancing at me from under damp lashes.

The question caught me off guard.

I hesitated.

Then answered, truthfully: "Almost."

"What happened?"

"She loved someone else."

Ji-eun didn't press.

She just nodded like she understood.

And somehow, I knew she did.

"You?"

"Once," she said. "When I was still dumb enough to think love meant being seen."

"And now?"

"Now I think it means being left alone in the right way."

I turned that over in my head.

Didn't hate it.

Didn't understand it either.

She shifted her weight, pulling the blanket from the back of the couch and wrapping it around her shoulders.

Her eyes were glassy now. Not crying. Just… dimming.

"Do you want the bed?" I asked. "I can take the couch."

"No," she said quickly. "This is fine."

"You sure?"

"I don't want to be alone."

I nodded.

Didn't say anything.

Just pulled another blanket from the closet and lay down on the floor next to the couch.

She watched me for a moment.

Then whispered, "You're not what I expected."

"Disappointed?"

"No."

She pulled the blanket tighter.

"You're worse," she said.

"Thanks."

"Because you don't treat me like I'm fragile," she added.

"I don't think you are."

"You're wrong."

She turned away from me, curling in on herself.

And somehow, that hurt more than anything she'd said all night.

The silence returned.

But it wasn't hollow this time.

It was full of everything we hadn't said.

Everything we couldn't.

And somewhere in that silence—between her breath and mine—I realized something I wasn't ready for:

I didn't want to protect her out of duty.

I wanted to protect her because I couldn't imagine not protecting her.

That was a problem.

A big one.

Because feelings were against the rules.

Clause 3.7: No accidental love.

Too bad contracts don't cover what happens at 2:47 a.m., lying in the dark, listening to someone else's sleep, and realizing you're already too close.

I woke up before her.

I always do, even when I don't want to. Years of unpaid deadlines and 4 a.m. script rewrites trained me to fear sleep as something that could make me miss something vital.

The apartment was quiet. The air still carried traces of her conditioner—lavender, I think, or something trying to be.

I sat up slowly, stretching, my spine popping like an old typewriter.

Ji-eun was curled up on the couch above me, the blanket pulled over her head like a barrier between her and the world. She looked almost peaceful. Almost.

I stood, careful not to wake her, and padded barefoot into the kitchen to make coffee.

That's when I saw it.

Her phone.

Left face-up on the counter.

Unlocked.

Still open to her most recent messages.

I should have looked away.

I didn't.

Not because I wanted to snoop.

Because I was afraid not to.

Afraid of what she wasn't telling me.

Afraid of what she thought she needed to hide.

I stepped closer.

The thread was unnamed. No contact picture. Just a string of gray bubbles and short, clipped replies.

But I recognized the rhythm.

The tone.

And the timestamp: just before midnight last night.

While I was sitting in this room.

While she was showering.

> UNKNOWN: You don't get to choose what's forgotten.

UNKNOWN: You owe me that.

UNKNOWN: Or I tell the truth myself.

JI-EUN: Don't do this.

UNKNOWN: Then give me what you promised.

JI-EUN: That was years ago.

UNKNOWN: You made me a promise. You don't get to walk away clean.

I scrolled up.

The conversation had history. Months of it. Sporadic. But real.

And nowhere in any of it… did she tell him to stop.

Nowhere did she block him.

Just these restrained, surgical replies. Carefully chosen words like she was trying to calm a bomb that might explode if she said the wrong syllable.

And I realized—

She wasn't just being blackmailed.

She was negotiating.

Managing him.

Playing the long game.

And not telling me.

"Don't."

Her voice behind me was quiet.

But it still made me flinch.

I turned.

She stood in the kitchen doorway, wrapped in my blanket, hair tangled from sleep. Her expression wasn't angry.

It was something worse.

Wounded.

"You weren't supposed to see that," she said.

"I noticed."

She stepped forward. Took the phone from the counter, locked the screen, and held it tightly like it was trying to escape her grasp.

"I wasn't hiding it to lie," she said. "I was hiding it because I didn't want you to feel responsible."

"Too late."

"You don't understand."

"Then help me."

She shook her head. "If you read all of it, you'll hate me."

"You don't get to decide that for me."

"Yes, I do," she snapped. "Because I can't afford for you to hate me right now."

The words hung there.

Sharp. Raw.

"I'm not the victim you think I am," she added, voice shaking now. "I've made choices. Ugly ones. Ones I thought would protect people and only made things worse. You think this is just about a photo and a secret marriage and one ex-boyfriend who won't go away—but it's bigger than that."

She looked up at me, eyes full of something that had nothing to do with cameras or contracts.

"I didn't just lie to protect myself," she said. "I lied to survive."

The room went still.

And then my phone buzzed.

Not hers.

Mine.

I pulled it from my pocket.

Unknown number.

Again.

But this message was different.

Not a threat.

Not a photo.

Just two lines.

> She's not the only one lying.

Check your inbox, Yoon Jae.

My chest went cold.

I looked up.

Ji-eun saw my face shift. "What is it?"

I didn't answer.

I walked to my laptop, opened it, and logged into my email.

There was one new message.

No subject line.

No name.

One attachment.

I clicked it.

And there—staring back at me—was a PDF.

An early version of a drama script.

My name not on it.

But the content unmistakable.

The logline?

"Two strangers forced into a secret marriage to protect their reputations… only one of them knows the other is writing their story."

It was my life.

Our life.

But it wasn't my writing.

It was hers.

She had written it.

Months ago.

Before we ever met.