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Chapter Seven: The Night They Met
Long before hashtags, before lawsuits, and before betrayal, there was only a quiet rooftop and two strangers looking up at the same sky.
Ji-hoon had just finished a 16-hour drama shoot.
He was 34, emotionally exhausted, but professionally invincible — the golden star of the nation.
To the public, he was Korea's dream.
But off-camera, he was lonely. Suspicious. Controlled.
The industry had made him paranoid.
So when he climbed to the SBS rooftop that night in 2022, he wasn't expecting anyone to already be there.
But someone was.
A girl, sitting cross-legged in oversized jeans, eating convenience store kimbap with headphones in.
Sae-jin.
She was 22, fresh from rehab, blacklisted from multiple studios, but still carried a casual confidence — like nothing could touch her.
Ji-hoon recognized her immediately.
Everyone knew her face.
Child star turned tabloid regular.
But what shocked him was that she didn't acknowledge him. Didn't ask for a selfie. Didn't even look up.
That intrigued him.
> "You know this is a restricted area?" he finally said.
> "You know I don't care?" she replied.
He almost smiled.
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They didn't talk again until two weeks later.
She showed up at his private gym.
Coincidence, she claimed.
The third time, she was cast as a cameo in a web drama Ji-hoon was funding quietly — a drama his agency never acknowledged.
By the fifth meeting, they weren't strangers anymore.
She was sharp. Witty. Raw.
He was guarded. Cautious. But curious.
> "You act like someone who's scared of being loved," she told him once.
"And you act like someone who uses chaos as a shield," he replied.
They never dated publicly.
Never posted photos.
Never signed contracts.
What they had wasn't PR.
But it wasn't healthy either.
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By early 2023, Ji-hoon had distanced himself.
Too many scandals. Too many warning signs.
Sae-jin had begun showing up at drama sets, uninvited.
Leaving notes. Making vague references to blackmail from her mother.
She once told Ji-hoon, shaking, "If anything happens to me, don't trust anyone. Especially not her."
He didn't understand what she meant — until it was too late.
Until she vanished.
Until the world said she was dead… and somehow, he was the villain.
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But now, in 2025, with Eunha's investigation unfolding and the recording leaked, Ji-hoon was beginning to understand.
It wasn't just about love.
Or betrayal.
It was about control — the kind Sae-jin had been running from her entire life.
And she had warned him.