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“My contract is being terminated,” I said.

“Yes.”

“I understand. Immediately? Or am I covering the remainder of the tour?”

The tour was officially over in a week, surely they’d–

“Immediately,” she said. “Now, Miss Thompson.”

I nodded, not surprised, but even knowing it was likely to happen did not prevent the shock of cold that ran through me when I was formally terminated.

“The breach of the non-fraternisation clause leaves no room for ambiguity,” Director Kang went on, and I tried hard to keep my face neutral, despite my erratic pulse.

Her eyes seemed to soften for a moment, before she dropped them to scan the papers, shuffling them for seemingly no other reason than for something to do.

“You’ve put us in rather an awkward position, Miss Thompson,” she admitted. “In similar cases, we might have cause to pursue harsher measures. However,” she said, tilting her head and glancing up at me. “Given the circumstances and past… connections…”

She trailed off, leaving me wondering if she meant my previous relationship with Jihoon – which she had known about, and now so did everyone else in the world – or my previous employment with ENT.

“We’ve chosen to leave the situation with a clean slate,” she said decisively.

Something in my gut uncoiled, and I took a stuttering inhale, doing my best to keep the placid expression on my face, instead of sagging in my seat.

“To be clear, you will never work for ENT again,” she emphasised. “The association is too high-profile now. While ENT is choosing not to pursue more stringent repercussions, Miss Thompson, we cannot protect you. Even if we wanted to.” Her voice had lost its edge, and she was staring at me as if she was trying to convey meaning beyond the words. “These particular clauses are well-known. We cannot ignore them. Not even for previous good terms, and not even for the sake of our artists. This is not something we can be seen to encourage, I’m sure you can understand why. The moment you leave this building, you will be owed nothing by ENT and will receive nothing from us. Not monetary compensation, not a reference, and not any legal protections.”

I swallowed hard, my fingers twitching under the table as I fought the urge to pick at my thumbnail.

“However,” Director Kang went on, “if asked, we will not comment on your personal business. It is not this company’s policy to comment on the private lives of our artists. That extends to their family, friends, and romantic partners. If asked,” she said again, “all we will say is that the journalist Kaiya Thompson completed her assignment with ENT and is no longer associated with the company.”

I nodded my understanding, seeing the gift for what it was. ENT, if they wanted, could have gone full scorched-earth on me. They could have easily set fire to my entire career. They were essentially choosing to quietly escort me from the building and wave me off.

For the first time since I set foot in that room, I smiled. And maybe I imagined it, but I thought I saw Director Kang return it.

I wasn’t thinking when I walked out of the building, because if I had been, I would have remembered to go through the basement instead of the front door.

Because not only would I not have needed to walk past the forest of funeral wreaths on the public part of the pavement, but I also would have been able to avoid the tabloids that were stationed outside the building.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I was half-way towards the street when someone caught sight of me. I saw the way her eyes widened as they locked with mine, and the way she practically stumbled in her haste to catch up. Others followed until I was surrounded by a handful of people shoving recording devices and phones in my face.

“Kaiya Thompson! Why were you at ENT today?”

“Was ENT aware of your relationship before the tour?”

“There are rumours that Baek Jihoon arranged your position on the tour, is that true?” One reporter shouted her question in a way that implied she believed I didn’t speak Korean well enough to understand it at a normal volume. I flinched and stepped back, but she pursued.

“Did you get special privileges because of your relationship? Don’t you think that’s a breach of professional conduct? Do you have any response?”

She was vitriolic in her line of questioning, and even though I moved away at a brisk pace, not answering, she followed, shoving her camera so close to me that I felt it brushing against me a couple of times.

“Were you Baek Jihoon’s fan before you started seeing him?” she shouted as I finally moved beyond the shadow of the building, not even trying to pretend I wasn’t fleeing.

My chest ached with how hard my heart thundered, and I gulped in air as quickly as my lungs could fill and empty, and only when I was certain the pack of reporters weren’t following me anymore did I allow myself to slow down.

I hated how I could read the headline they were trying to build. I hated how I could connect the dots from their line of questioning, because what they were not trying to write was the story of two people who worked alongside each other who just happened to fall in love. They weren’t even trying to draw on our history. This wasn’t a story about two people reconnecting after years apart. Not to them. This was them trying to paint me in the role of a fan who dared to get too close, or someone who took advantage of her professional privilege to cross boundaries.

Jihoon was being lambasted for daring to have a private life, I was being dragged over the coals for everything else.