So Hee's flashback started as she stared at Ji Woo with pride, although he is her junior, she could not have found a better boss than him.
The twin tragedies of his mother's death from breast cancer and his father's subsequent descent into alcoholism carved a stark realization into Ji Woo's soul: life was brutally short, and happiness was not a given—it was a choice he had to fight for. He was determined to live his one life to the fullest, building a bright, polished facade for the world to see. Yet, beneath that carefully constructed surface lay a deep and private wound: the absence of his long-lost brother, Joo Won. It was a pain he kept locked away, a ghost that rarely surfaced but wreaked havoc when it did. The only key that unlocked this box was alcohol. In his drunkenness, the name "Joo Won" would spill from his lips with a raw, desperate longing that puzzled everyone around him.
So Hee, watched this happen with a curious jealousy. Ji Woo was famously private, never speaking of his past. Any attempt to inquire was met with immediate defensiveness, a wall slammed down so quickly it was startling.
With a smug, taunting laugh, a classmate sidled up to Ji Woo. "So, Ji Woo, got a secret? The whole party heard you last night, calling out for someone named 'Joo Won.'" His eyes narrowed in fake concern. "Don't tell me you're into guys? Wow... huh. Well, that actually makes me feel better. More girls for the rest of us, right?"
In a flash, Ji Woo's affable mask shattered. He seized the guy by his collar and slammed him against the wall. Leaning in close, his gaze turned icy and penetrating, staring straight into the other boy's soul. "Stay away from me," he warned, his voice a low, dangerous whisper.
Terrified, the guy scrambled free and fled, his voice trembling as he shouted over his shoulder, "You are insane!"
It was in this explosive, emotional aftermath that a realization dawned on So Hee. Watching the sheer intensity of his alcoholic grief for Joo Won, a grief that seemed to eclipse even that for his parents, she wondered if this "Joo Won" was perhaps something more. To her, the depth of his pain suggested a different kind of love, and she began to suspect that the handsome, elusive Ji Woo might be guarding a secret heartache for a lost lover.
Maybe that is why Ji Woo tried to forget that night with So Hee below the Noraebang sign on the stairs. He was drunk. He was about to make a mistake. This Joo Won perhaps was the person who called him that day. After the call, realizing the mistake he was about to commit, Ji Woo ran away.
The memory of that night was etched into So Hee's soul, vivid and tender. Because she had been in love with Ji Woo since their college days—not for the loud, lively energy he showed the world, but for the quiet, hidden boy she sensed behind the smile. He was always laughing, always the first to volunteer, always present... and yet, always somewhere else. His eyes held a story no one had ever read. Sometimes, he would sit long after class had ended, lost in thoughts he never shared, until So Hee gently nudged him back to reality.
After celebrating a project success at a restaurant in the evening, their group stumbled into a noraebang for a second round, drunk on youth and freedom and soju. That's when Ji Woo took the mic. He began singing a famous love song—but the words were wrong. Not slurred. Not mistaken. They were different. As if he had rewritten the lyrics himself, practiced in private, singing not to the crowd, but to someone only he could see.
Worried he was embarrassing himself, So Hee gently took his arm and guided him out. They sat together on the cold steps outside, the city humming below them. She offered him water. He drank slowly, his eyes clearing slightly before locking onto hers.
"Why are you so nice to me?" he asked, his voice softer than she'd ever heard it.
"Because you're my junior," she replied, clinging to the script she'd rehearsed a hundred times. "It's my duty to look after you."
"There are five other drunk juniors in there," he said, not looking away. "But you only saw me."
Her heart stammered. "Mm... maybe I saw only you."
He leaned closer, his breath warm against the night air. "So Hee Noona... do you like me?"
"You're drunk," she deflected, though her voice trembled. "Go home."
A faint, knowing smile touched his lips. "I'm not drunk enough to misunderstand what you mean."
And in that moment, something broke open in her—a flood of truth she could no longer contain. Maybe it was the liquid courage.
"Really? Okay, fine. Yes, I like you. I've liked you since the day you chose the seat next to me in lecture. Since you volunteered for every team project just to be in mine. Since you'd magically appear at lunch, pushing everyone aside to claim the spot beside me. Since you saw me standing in the rain and yelled, 'So Hee Noona, wait!' before sprinting to meet me, sharing an umbrella you tilted so completely my way that your own shoulder was soaked. Since you began to notice my quiet moods and would show up with my favorite snacks, knowing exactly what I needed during my period."
She took a breath, her cheeks flushed, her courage building under his silent, sober gaze."Since the day you drank from my boba tea... even though you saw I'd already taken a sip. Should I go on? Are you sober now?" Now staring at Ji Woo, So hee said.
He was. completely.
And in the silence that followed, under the dim glow of the noraebang sign, something passed between them—unspoken, electric, real. A moment suspended in time. A romance born not in confession, but in recognition.
But just as he leaned in, his eyes softening with something she'd never seen before—a look that promised a beginning—his phone buzzed violently in his pocket.
Once. Twice. Then again.
He ignored it, his gaze still intent on hers, lips coming closer. They could feel each other's warm breath. So Hee tried to pull away but she also wanted to feel the taste of his light brown lips. She wanted him to hold her in his arms. She wanted to sink into his wide warm embrace. Her body quivered in expectation.
His phone rang again—this time he did not ignore it. The tone he only used for one person. His father.
And when he finally looked down at the screen, his face changed. The warmth vanished. The light in his eyes shut off. The message wasn't just a message. It was a photograph taken for preserving memory, a vessel of joy meant for happy revisiting. But for Ji Woo, it was a relic of the precise moment happiness curdled into his most profound sorrow—a wound whose opening had long since scarred over, yet still throbbed with a familiar, haunting pain. As its memories flooded his alcohol-heavy mind, he fled. The group, the noraebang, the stairs, and most crucially, So Hee herself dissolved into a meaningless blur. He ran because had he stayed, his eyes would have betrayed him, shamelessly revealing the weakness he fought so hard to conceal..