But this isn’t silly anymore. This isn’t something to joke about.
This is a PR catastrophe meticulously engineered to skin us alive. I’ve seen the reposts, the rewordings, the sly reframing of a single article into something more damning.
And the comments.
God—the comments.
False, vicious, perfectly curated like someone was paid to annihilate me. Someone actually could have.
“I’m sorry,” Taewon says, voice thick with guilt I don’t understand. “I should’ve… Are you okay?”
I look at him—really look—searching for the usual spark of confidence in his face. The one that always made me feel like we’d find a way out. He was Levi’s EA, his shadow, his best friend, and his contingency plan. He always has workarounds. There is a reason why he is his inheritor.
But right now, he just looks tired.
So I nod, hoping my voice doesn’t crack from disuse. “I’m fine. Just… weird day.”
Another small pressure coils around my waist. Levi is still beside me, silent. Holding me up without making a show of it.
“Noona—” Taewon’s voice is cut off by another, more urgent feminine one.
“Ms. Wentworth, Could I… I’m just so sorry for how—”
But I’m not listening anymore. The room blurs. Or maybe the voice slips past me. Taewon’s presence fades too. My focus tunnels to the ringing in my ears and the white noise in my chest.
Someone is talking. Arguing.Flailing.
And I’m already somewhere else. Until I hear the one sentence that yanks me out of the stupor.
“You’ve done enough,” Taewon whisper-yells harshly, too loud in the quiet room. “There’s a limit to how much you can interfere. You reached it a long time ago.”
My eyes snap to them. Taewon. Iris. Standing a few steps away, far from the boardroom table. I didn’teven notice she was here. She’s been here the whole time?
Iris looks flustered, even a little angry—her eyes glossy, her jaw tight. “I just wanted to apologize—”
“Keep those damn apologies to yourself,” Taewon snaps again.
Levi stands abruptly, chair legs screeching against the floor. “Can you not do this here, Taewon?”
Taewon barely looks at him. His eyes stay locked on Iris, filled with an unfamiliar fury. “We called you here for a statement. And that’sthat. There’s nothing else we need from you.”
“I—” Iris frowns. “I am sorry if this bothers you, Mr. Choi. But these are things that don’t include you—”
“They include me,” Taewon says coldly. “Everythingto do with them includesme.”
“Tae, relax,” Levi mutters, stepping forward. “Take this—”
“Can you,” Iris’s raised voice cuts through the tension like a whip, “forone minute,stop being the fucking guard dog to these two? They’re entirely capable of having a civil conversation with me.”
At some point, everyone else must’ve cleared out the conference room, because it’s just the four of us now.
Me. Levi. Taewon. Iris.
And this is no longer about strategy or PR or damage control. This is personal.
I blink. The fog was somehow thinning.
I can hear the heat in Taewon’s words. I can finally see the way Iris’s shoulders have curled in on themselves.
