“Son Naeun-ssi! How does it feel to be back here again?”

“Your contract with YG has already ended. Why have you accepted the offer?”

“Are you aware of the possible backlash this would cause?”

“Please say a few words to the viewers!”

Son Naeun, dressed in her signature Adidas black leggings and a simple black t-shirt that barely goes down to her waist, strides through the crowd of reporters from every station in an attempt to enter the MBC building. At this moment, she has no company, so no one is here to help her navigate through these reporters. Years of exposure to these occurrences could never ease the gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach that one wrong move – just one wrong word – could make her even more of a target for the viscous netizens.

Although she’s tried her best to ignore the hurtful comments of people only confident in front of a computer screen, at times they would pop up and her eyes would betray her mind’s logical pleas to look away. She’s seen them all.

S***. Who does she think she is?

She’s not even that pretty.

Gold digger much.

Worthless attention seeking wh***.

Now that no company wants her, she’s trying to gain attention by throwing herself at guys.

All baseless remarks that serve no purpose at all except to make her cave. There wasn’t even any truth in them except that she no longer has a company, but it’s not that she hasn’t received any offers. They’re just not what she’s looking for…or whom…

Finally making it past the barricade of ruthless reporters, she enters the building and without wasting time to breathe a sigh of relief, she heads straight to the meeting room for the We Got Married (WGM) team. But the closer she gets, the slower her steps become and in an instant her determination wavers because they’re right. Accepting this role is bound to bite her back even harder than when she first appeared in the show. Can she really handle the hate she couldn’t bear before? Only this time it would be worse because they will have more ammo, the words will have more venom, and she no longer has the five pairs of arms to hold her when she crumbles.

But if not this, then what? Because this is her chance to start again. It’s been almost a year since her last project and any longer, she’ll lose all relevance in this cursed industry. This is all she’s ever known. So how could she deny the only production offer she received when all else turned their backs on her when she no longer had a company to list beside her name?

“-eun-ssi. Son Naeun-ssi.” A voice behind her, rips through the anxiety plaguing her system as she stands unmoving in front of the door she should have already walked through. His voice breaks her suffocating trance, and she only now realises that she had forgotten to breathe.

She slowly turns towards the source in a stiff motion as if both sides of her brain are fighting against turning to him or turning away. Finally, she’s face-to-face with a face carved by the Gods because how can someone look that good without trying? They used to be well-acquainted, but the years were unkind to their friendship and now they’re perfect strangers meeting