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You said you loved me

You said that you wouldn’t leave me

You’d remain by my side

You’d cherish and love me

You said you meant it, didn’t you?

“Son, why is she calling you with your old name?”

Mrs. Kang repeated the question again for the second time, in a serious yet motherly tone to her son. Kang Daniel knew that he could never lie to his own mother, her motherly instincts is second to none to a lie detector –in this case for her only child. Still, he chose to answer her neither with a truth nor a lie as he went selectively mute, much to his mother’s expectation. She sighed, understanding that he would rather not talk about why Hani called him using the name that he decided to change a few years back before moving to Seoul, at least hopefully not for now.

“Is she the girl that made you move out from your house to come and live with me?” she changed her question to a more simpler one with a higher possibility of getting an answer from him.

He refused to reply yet again, but the answer was evident in his face and his mother nodded understandingly. “So, I am right. You knew Hani and she’s more than a friend.”

“I don’t know what happened between you two, but I can see that both of you are hurting because of it,” His mother gently grabbed his right hand in hers and gave a comforting pat with her other hand. “Even if you don’t want to see or talk to her again, you should at least make sure she arrived home safely.”

That was how Daniel ended up trailing behind Hani from a safe distance, making sure that she arrives home safely –part of him wanted to do so even before his mother suggested it. But he didn’t expect Hani to notice him following or the more serious fact that he was pretending not to know her all this while.

He regretted the decision to follow Hani as she was now pouring out all the pent up frustrations and confessions since he left her a few months ago. Daniel turned his back towards her, in hopes to lessen his aching heart as he listened to her sobs, but failed miserably when she confessed that she has fallen in love with him. Normally, one should be happy to find out one’s love has been reciprocated. However in Daniel’s case, Hani’s confession added fuel to the fire of guilt burning in his heart.

You shouldn’t Hani… It’ll only make things more complicated…

“So that’s it? You made me fall in love with you and disappear just like that?” Hani shouted, wiping the tears that came down like a waterfall. “Is it because… you already have someone else?” she asked, fearing if her speculation is true.

“No, I’m not the Kang Daniel you knew,” Daniel tried to sound cold and unemotional, still refusing to face Hani.

“Then who are you?” Hani trudged to a closer distance, enough for her to reach out to him. She forcefully turned him around to face her with all her strength. “I don’t care who you are, where you’re from or what you do. As long as you love me…”

Daniel looked up to the sky, heaving a sigh of guilt as he slowly closed his eyes in an attempt to stop them from producing any tears. He could just break free from her grasp and walk away, but the moment she touched him, his heart soften and his defenses were starting to crumble.

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you love me,” Hani pleaded, searching for his wandering eyes.

Daniel stared into her eyes, but he was still tight-lipped. The words that she wanted to hear were unvoiced as he only told himself silently in his heart, I love you…

Getting no answer from him, Hani’s grip on his arm loosen as she took a step back, distancing herself from him. She always thought that he’d feel the same way she does, but the reality became clear to her. Daniel’s eyes were so awkward and she couldn’t bear to look at him, not being able to read the emotions shown in them.

“I think I know the reason why we broke up. It’s simply because you don’t love me. You never did. It was one-sided all along,”

Hani hastily wiped the tears stains on her cheeks and dried her eyes from more tears using her sleeves. She coughed to clear her voice and tried very hard to show no expression on her face as she spoke, “Don’t you have anything else to say now? Do I just let you go like this?”

Daniel knew she was trying to show a strong facade, but failed miserably as he still could see her lips trembling as she said those words to him. he wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t want to give her false hope. “This is it for us,” was the last thing he said before he disappeared.

But then what becomes of me now?

What becomes of my heart that believed everything you said?

Don’t be like this, please

You’re trying everything you can to distance yourself

I’m trying everything to persuade you to stay

This hurts. Seeing us like this hurts

Daniel went straight to his room the moment he arrived home, preventing his mother from asking about what happened. He fished out a phone from the bedside table’s drawer and gazed at the wallpaper on his phone, smiling bitterly at the picture of him and Hani holding onto their respective cats. He knew it was cruel to suddenly break up with her and cut off all contacts, even refusing to reunite with her despite what happened. But Daniel had his own reasons as he reminisced the day when he made the hard decision to break up with Hani…

“Hyung, I have to be quick. I promise Hani I’d drop by her house today,” Daniel announced as soon as he stepped inside the café that morning.

He was greeted with five pairs of eyes filled with concerns and tension. When the eldest Jisung placed a mug of coffee in front of him as soon as he took the empty seat at the table, Daniel knew that the topic they were going to discuss was serious.

“I found something that you might want to take a look,” Minhyun spoke first, pushing his laptop towards the younger male.

Daniel scanned the screen once, immediately recognizing a picture of his girlfriend in a spreadsheet that looked like a profile page. The first page contained her personal details, similar to what he has in the client folder given to him when he first started the assignment. However, once he scrolled down to the next page, his eyes widened in surprise.

Instead of the familiar ‘client’ title used, the word ‘target’ was written at the top of the page. The whole page contained deeper personal details about Hani, from her past relationship experiences to the cause of her parent’s death, that Daniel only knew after dating her. “W-where did you get this?” he asked, looking back at Minhyun.

“I found more information after you asked me to find out about Hani’s ex,” Minhyun answered, typing in a few things on the keyboard. “Turns out, Hani sending a request to the agency was not by coincidence. She has been targeted by Madam K for the long-term relationship experiment.” He pushed back his laptop towards Daniel, now with a new display on the screen showing numerous client profiles that were also labeled as ‘target’.

“What?”

“Minhyun found more files of girls that were classified as ‘targets’ by Madam K. They have all sent in requests, but only Hani’s was approved and processed.” Jisung commented, pushing the mug closer and gesturing him to take a sip. He hoped that it would at least prepare Daniel for more shocking revelations.

Feeling that his throat was rather dry, the younger male took the much needed sip before asking more specifically, “I still don’t get it. Why is Hani a target?”

Seeing how Daniel was unable to comprehend the situation, Sungwoon explained in a straightforward manner, “Madam K has been reviewing different profiles of girls from the local universities to look for a suitable target for her experiment months before she gave you this assignment. She chose Hani because she is an easy target to start with.”