“Well, what can I do? It’s not like Mr. Lee Seol-won and I were actually dating. If we were a company, it would be like signing a letter of intent that didn’t work out. As soon as my parents found out that you were adopted, they were the first to break off the engagement using that as an excuse. Sure, your name carries weight – but I’m Heo Yeonseo. Even if I don’t end up with someone as good-looking as you, my parents will make sure I marry someone rich and well-connected. That’s how they are. “

Her tone was light, almost joking, but a brief trace of resignation crossed Heo Yeonseo’s face as she added the last part.

“And didn’t you say there might be problems with your family? If there are, how long do you think you can hold on to your position as CEO of the Cultural Foundation?”

“Nothing has been confirmed yet.”

“Anyway, while you’re still in that position, please use all your connections to get me as many Korean dance performances as possible. You have to do your best to support me. I need to get my name out there if I’m going to get even one more program with my face on it. You owe me some kind of compensation. Like Seol-won said, I wasted my time on this whole engagement and breakup thing. And this whole situation – well, my parents may not know this, but it’s basically a love affair gone wrong.”

He had never really been involved in a scandal like that, so wouldn’t it really bother him even if the misunderstanding wasn’t his fault?

I felt guilty. A deep uneasiness stirred in my chest.

I looked at Lee Seol-won and tried to gauge what he was feeling. Since it was all a misunderstanding, I thought he would at least look a little uncomfortable – but instead he looked completely unfazed, even a little relieved, as he exchanged promises with Heo Yeonseo.

“As long as I’m in this position, I’ll do everything I can to create opportunities for you, Ms. Heo Yeonseo.”

“You really must. The only reason I’m not making a bigger fuss about this is because I can somewhat understand how you both feel. I’ve had a similar experience myself. And more than anything… I don’t dislike Sunbae Seo-hae. I think I understand why Seol-won changed his mind. Honestly, I’m a little jealous.”

Heo Yeonseo, who had been leading the conversation all along, hesitated for a moment. Her usually bright, open expression froze, then suddenly sank like deep, still water.

After wearing a complex expression for a while, Heo Yeonseo finally confessed in a much softer voice.

“I also had to break up with my boyfriend, whom I’d been dating since I was twenty, because my parents were against it. They were fine with us dating, but said marriage was absolutely out of the question.”

My eyes instinctively widened.

Heo Yeonseo had a boyfriend she had to break up with?

We had doubted the circumstances that led to the broken engagement, and had even brought her and Lee Seol-won together in one place to ask her about it – but considering everything, her reaction had been remarkably restrained.

Far from blaming anyone, she had accepted the breakup – and even said she was jealous.

Perhaps it was a lingering sense of regret, stirred by seeing someone else go down a path she had not been able to follow. I, too, became more careful with my tone.

“Why did you break up? Was it because of his background?”

“Yes. His family was… extremely ordinary. Maybe even a little less than ordinary, now that I think about it. Anyway, the environment he grew up in was so different from mine that I kept making careless comments in the beginning. He had to work several part-time jobs just to cover his tuition and living expenses, and I…” she paused, a faint blush rising to her cheeks, “I once asked why he didn’t just ask his parents to pay for it, since the tuition wasn’t that expensive.

Even now, the memory seemed to embarrass her as her face flushed.

“I was the one who went after him first, but of course he dumped me after I said those things. But that only made me more determined. I mean, I’m Heo Yeonseo – for someone like me to say I like you, isn’t that basically winning the lottery? How could he not fall in love with me? That’s what I kept telling myself. I kept getting rejected, over and over again. Then one day I got really drunk and threw a tantrum and said if he didn’t pick me up I was going to go out and cause trouble. Honestly, I didn’t even think he would show up – it was just a childish, frustrated outburst. But he actually left work in the middle of his shift and walked around for hours trying to find me.”

She paused, her voice almost a whisper, as if talking to herself.

“I was passed out drunk, and when someone shook me awake, I opened my eyes and saw him, drenched in sweat, looking down at me… the look in his eyes, it was just…”

She trailed off, then continued quietly.

“That’s when I was sure. He definitely had feelings for me. But because of our different circumstances, it took us a long time to finally acknowledge our feelings and start dating. It was hard.”

As she reminisced about her ex-boyfriend, her expression was both deeply sad and quietly radiant – and suddenly a thought crossed my mind.

Even if Lee Seol-won hadn’t been the one to break off the engagement… it would have been difficult for their marriage to go smoothly.

Somehow, for reasons I couldn’t quite explain.

“He must have been a really good person. Just looking at your face, I can tell you have a lot of memories together.”

“Of course. He was the best person I’ve ever met. You know, in Korean dance, all that bending and stretching really wears on your knees. After his part-time jobs, he’d come back to the school rehearsal room and wait for me to finish rehearsing – then he’d carry me downstairs so I wouldn’t have to walk on my sore legs. Thanks to him, I never had to carry my own bags or walk up and down stairs in college.”

If he was so devoted to his dancer girlfriend, they must have been a couple that everyone on campus knew about. Especially since they had been together for so long.

At the same time, I felt like I finally understood why Heo Yeonseo was so shocked when she heard about Lee Seol-won’s synaesthesia.

When she met him at the age of twenty, it was probably her first real relationship. After years of dating someone who held her in his arms without caring what others thought, it must have been hard to accept marrying someone who couldn’t even drive to pick her up after a late night performance. That gap between the two experiences… it would have been hard to bridge.

“It’s not easy, you know…for someone you broke up with to still be such a happy memory.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like him again.”

“You must have really loved him…your parents must have been against it.”

“I cried and begged him, saying I couldn’t let him go…but some things just aren’t meant to be, no matter how hard you try. I was so desperate that I even asked if we could run away together – leave everything behind, go abroad and live in secret. But he refused. He told me he hoped I’d meet someone wonderful, someone my parents would approve of. He said, ‘You are Heo Yeonseo-you should live a good life, free from hardship, like someone worthy of your name. And just like that… he cut me off. Blocked me completely. Changed his number, moved away without a word… I have no idea how he’s doing now. Of course, if I really tried to ask around through classmates, I’m sure I could find him eventually. But I know I shouldn’t. We’ve both gone completely different ways now.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t know how much you’ve heard about me, but since I was young, my parents had very high expectations for me. I was always surrounded by the most expensive things, the finest food, the most beautiful clothes. I had to go to the most prestigious university in the country. And my parents went to great lengths – whatever it took – to invest in me. They believed that since they had raised their daughter with only the best, her husband should be of a similar level.”

It seemed that Heo Yeonseo had also suffered her share of unspoken wounds over the past decade.

Maybe that’s why when I met her after such a long time, she seemed so much more mature than the high school student I remembered.

“The reason I kept dancing-even though I planned to quit after graduation-is because of him. If I stopped working and just lived as someone’s wife, there would be no way for him to know how I was doing. But as long as I stay active as Heo Yeonseo the dancer, if he ever thinks of me, he might see my name in the news and feel reassured – like, ‘Ah, Yeonseo is still working hard and doing well. And maybe… maybe he even comes to watch my performances sometimes in secret.”

That’s probably why she chose a private company like the Hani Dance Company instead of the National Dance Company, which is hard to get into and even harder once you get in. It was new, but she could join right away.

“Well, it all fell through in the end, but even though the engagement story was exaggerated on TV… I had mixed feelings. Half of me was like, ‘Look at me now – after I broke up with you, I got engaged to this amazing guy. Are you still not going to come find me? And the other half… was like, ‘I’m marrying a chaebol, just like you wished the day we broke up, so don’t worry about me. Live your life well too.'”

“The man is probably relieved that you stayed on stage as a performer.”

Even the man who had been silent all this time finally broke his silence.

He added one more thing.

“And I think he hopes that you will continue to perform. Because when someone you thought would always be there suddenly disappears… it’s terrifying. It feels like you can’t even breathe.