Radio Silence

The curse that burst out of her mouth hit Sa-ra like a bucket of ice water, snapping her wide awake.

There stood Yun-seul, confusion written all over her face.

Damn it. It's over. Everything is over.

Sa-ra went cold with dread. She could almost see the future already — her mother's glacial eyes carving into her heart like a blade.

But then, out of nowhere, Yun-seul broke into a radiant smile and pulled her into a fierce hug.

"Unnie… did you curse him out for me?"

Sa-ra exhaled in secret relief, thanking her stars that oblivious, gullible Yun-seul had walked straight into the perfect misunderstanding.

"Thank you. Honestly, I feel like a weight's been lifted, all thanks to you."

While her own insides were as clogged and suffocating as a deadlocked highway — not that Yun-seul had any idea.

Sa-ra gave her a gentle push with one hand, and that was that.

She'd effectively cursed herself out on Yun-seul's behalf, with her own mouth, and there was no taking it back now.

"You should get some rest."

Forcing out that one flat remark, Sa-ra hurried out of Yun-seul's room.

Yun-seul stared at the closed door for a long while afterward.

Just picturing that bloodless, ghost-white face made it feel as though a ten-year-old weight had lifted, if only a little.

But the debt still left to collect stretched long and far ahead.

Yun-seul's eyes gleamed, sharp and bright.

Sa-ra hurled her bag onto the bed in a fit of temper, but it did nothing to calm her down.

No matter how she turned it over in her head, she couldn't make sense of Yun-seul's behavior. She'd assumed, obviously, that the girl would be holed up in her room, hair in disarray, wailing into her hands — at which point Sa-ra had planned to laugh herself silly inside.

But Yun-seul was far too intact. Too composed.

"How is she this unbothered? Did she even actually love Tae-kyung oppa?"

Sa-ra had hated Yun-seul from the very day Jung Jung-hee brought her home, calling her her own daughter. She hated how Yun-seul siphoned off her mother's attention, hated how the girl outperformed her at everything, effortlessly, every single time.

Nothing felt settled unless she'd snatched it away from Yun-seul first. Whatever it was.

Woo Tae-kyung had been no different.

The moment she learned Yun-seul genuinely loved him, she wanted him so badly it drove her half-mad. Seducing him hadn't been difficult — their eyes met almost instantly, and the thing between them caught fire like dry tinder.

Clueless Yun-seul never noticed a thing, but her mother caught on right away.

Sa-ra had braced herself for an explosion of rage. Instead, words she never could have imagined came out of her mother's mouth.

It took her a long time to understand what those words really meant.

She had always believed her mother loved Yun-seul more than her. That Jung-hee cherished that girl — always prettier, always sharper, always a step ahead — more than her own flesh and blood. Her mother despised useless people above all else, after all.

But no. She'd brought that girl home with a purpose from the very beginning.

When the truth of it landed, a catharsis so electric it raised every hair on her body rippled through Sa-ra.

She ached to spit that cruel truth straight into Yun-seul's face — her mouth practically itched with it — but doing so would have turned every last plan to foam, so she swallowed it and bided her time.

And time had slipped by, until Yun-seul and Tae-kyung's wedding was right around the corner. Except now this had thrown a wrench into everything.

Sa-ra clawed at her hair in frustration.

"Shit… Mom can never find out about this……."

No one knew better than Sa-ra the cruelty that lurked behind Jung Jung-hee's benevolent mask, and that was precisely why the thought of being caught terrified her.

Tae-kyung was right. Yun-seul, who loved Jung-hee like her own heartbeat, would never say it out loud so easily.

That was exactly how it had to be.

But even her silence left a problem unsolved. Yun-seul's deadpan reaction — as though she'd already scrubbed every last feeling for Tae-kyung away — made Sa-ra antsy.

She bit her nails down to the quick.

If Tae-kyung ultimately failed to turn Yun-seul's heart back around, it would be a catastrophe.

Right. Trust the man. Trust Tae-kyung.

The shock was just too enormous — she was numb to it, that was all.

Sa-ra chose to believe in his confidence. He was the man she'd made love bloom in, a feeling that had started out as nothing more than jealousy of Yun-seul.

A man like that could play Min Yun-seul like a fiddle, any day of the week.

Sa-ra forced the anxiety out of her mind.

And yet the nagging sense that she was missing something refused to leave her head.

A week passed since that day.

Tae-kyung could neither see Yun-seul nor hear her voice. She didn't pick up his calls, and his messages vanished into the void without a single reply.

All that piled up on his phone was a growing log of outgoing calls and texts — each one more groveling and pathetic than the last.

How long was he supposed to keep up this charade? An irritated sigh leaked from the corner of Tae-kyung's mouth.

Was Min Yun-seul always this cold-blooded?

By now he was half-convinced she'd simply buried her true nature all these years while she was wrapped around his finger.

With every passing day the anxiety gnawed deeper. The possibility that one careless mistake might cost him Yun-seul for good made even work impossible — he caught hell from his team leader more than once.

Chewed out yet again, Tae-kyung fled to the rooftop to smother the suffocating feeling and lit a cigarette.

"Why is she going home so early these days?"

It was barely five in the afternoon, and according to the location-tracking app, Yun-seul was already home.

Until recently she'd spent her late nights at cafés and libraries, supposedly working on her contest script — but these days she was home before sundown, without fail. And he couldn't dare go to the house, not with the risk of Jung-hee finding out they'd broken up.

So of course Tae-kyung's insides were burning black.

"Goddamn it… if I could just see her once, I could talk her around in five minutes……."

One look at his face and Yun-seul would surely soften. Except he couldn't get that look.

Chafing at it, he took a long drag on his cigarette and filled the message window with a heartbroken monologue he didn't mean a single word of.

It stung his pride to grovel this far, but this was the hour to swallow the filth and endure.

"Ha… fuck……."

Tae-kyung raked a hand savagely through his hair.

I should have had her once, at least.

He bitterly regretted laying a single finger on her to protect her — all that chivalry for nothing. If they'd been bound together more deeply, Yun-seul would never have peeled off him this easily.

Hands heavy with longing, Tae-kyung pressed the call button one more time. The ringing tone stretched on and on — but this time, too, he never heard her voice.

While Tae-kyung withered away day by day, Yun-seul's life was nothing but tranquil.

She left for school after his commute began and returned home before he got off work, erasing every chance of running into him. She never answered his calls.

The reason she hadn't blocked his number was simple: she wanted him to do exactly what she once had — to cradle a thread-thin hope in every ringing tone, and be crushed by it, over and over.

The screenplay was coming along smoothly, too. That very day, Kim Sol-ji, the head PD at Hansan Media, called with news that made Yun-seul's jaw drop.

"That's wonderful news."

A Diflix co-investment meant the drama wouldn't just air on the network — it would get a second run on OTT. The thought of Insomnia reaching viewers all over the world made Yun-seul's heart race.

Do Lee-gun — that Do Lee-gun — as creator?

Yun-seul was so stunned she couldn't find her voice.

But the surprises weren't finished.

"Wow……."

Arriving at the meeting spot right on the hour Sol-ji had given her, Yun-seul stood gaping at the building's magnificent facade, snapping photos with her phone.

It was an old habit — whenever she visited a stunning location for reference on a script, she always photographed it.

But the moment she lowered her phone and turned toward the main entrance, a voice slid up behind her that sent a chill down her spine.

"Yun-seul."

She whipped her head around, startled — and there was Woo Tae-kyung, waving at her with a smile.