Hyun Woo's eyes fluttered open, not to the familiar chaos of his small, cluttered office, but to the pristine, white ceiling of his bedroom in the Hongs' mansion. Sunlight, filtered through sheer curtains, painted a soft square on the duvet. He lay there for a moment, the silence of the room a stark contrast to the buzzing in his head.
He sat up, running a hand through his hair. Something was different. The dull ache of resignation that had become his constant companion was gone, replaced by a strange sense of clarity. He felt… sharper. His thoughts, once a tangled knot of anxiety and despair, were now a clean, organized stream. He could feel the memory of his past self's fear, the way his stomach would clench every time he saw Hae In, but it was like watching a movie, a distant and foreign emotion.
He pushed himself out of bed and walked to the mirror. The face looking back at him was his own—the same dark hair, the same tired eyes—but something had changed. There was a new light in his gaze, a hint of steel where there had once been only exhaustion. He recognized the man in the mirror as a better, more complete version of himself.
A sudden, fierce surge of love for Hae In hit him, a wave so powerful it made him gasp. It wasn't the sad, hopeless love of yesterday, but a vibrant, determined force. He saw her, not as the cold, distant CEO, but as the girl he'd fallen for—the one who hid her vulnerability behind a fortress of ice. The one who was, right now, suffering alone.
He knew what he had to do. His hands moved on their own accord, a new sense of purpose guiding him. He walked to the hidden compartment in his wall, the one where he had stashed the evidence of his desperation. He pulled out the documents he had so painstakingly prepared: the divorce papers. The sight of them, his own handwriting on the dotted lines, made him feel sick with a shame he hadn't fully processed before. This wasn't him. This wasn't the man who loved Hong Hae In.
He took the papers to the en-suite bathroom, his heart pounding in his chest. He flicked a lighter he kept in the medicine cabinet. The flame danced, a tiny beacon of his newfound resolve. One by one, he held each document over the sink, watching the corners curl and blacken before the pages erupted in a furious blaze. The ashes drifted down, a gray confetti of his old fears, and he watched them swirl down the drain, washing away a past he was determined to leave behind.
With the ashes gone, a new sense of peace settled over him. He was a different man now, with a different mission. He wasn't giving up. He was going to fight for his love. He was going to win Hae In back.