Had a very tiring day! Hope your day was less tiring (and more fun) than mine! ^^

Eunseo didn't check her email until after lunch the next day. She'd lost touch with many of her old friends, so the emails weren't exactly piling up thick and fast in her in-box and she sometimes went days without logging on.

Today, however, she was aware of an urge to switch the computer on, just to see what might have come in. She resisted the pull until after her parents had headed off to the movie she'd made them miss yesterday. Then, with no other distractions on offer, she sat at her desk and gave in to curiosity.

The odds were good that Kim Minseok  wouldn't have responded to her email at all. It wasn't as though there was anything left for them to say to each other, after all. Once he read the article she'd linked him to, he'd understand, and any desire he'd had to renew their acquaintance would go out the window.

Men had lined up around the block to date Jang Eunseo, catwalk model, but she'd never been under any illusion as to why they'd pursued her. They'd wanted to claim her scalp, to prove something to themselves or their mates—look what I snagged. She'd been a trophy, a high-calibre notch on men's belts. But she wasn't even close to being notch-worthy anymore. At best, she was a charity case. At worst, a novelty. She didn't want any man's pity—or curiosity or kindness or consideration, for that matter.

She simply wanted to be left alone.

So why are you checking your email, then, if you're not interested?

She didn't bother answering her own question as she was too busy staring at the email in her inbox. Minseok had written back to her. She opened the message:

There are no words, but I'm going to try anyway. As far as I'm concerned, you have balls to spare for even setting foot outside your front door. Keep fighting the good fight. —Minseok.

Eunseo stared at the screen for a long beat. She'd had a lot of consolation emails over the past two years, everything from people offering to pray for her to New Age quotes and expressions of empathy and sympathy. No one had ever told her she had balls to spare. Nor had they told her to keep fighting.

She wondered how he knew. How he could possibly understand that every hour, every minute, was a battle against the