Prologue
The air inside the forty-fifth floor boardroom of Go Holdings was crisp, sterile, and smelled faintly of expensive espresso.
Go Hyo-Rin sat at the head of the long glass table, her posture immaculate. She did not look like a woman who felt emotion, she looked like a machine carved from stone and tailored wool. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the glittering skyline of Seoul stretched out like a playground of glass and steel, but Hyo-Rin had no interest in the view. Her sharp, intelligent eyes swept over the senior management team, resting finally on the trembling project director sitting across from her.
"A seven percent deficit in the marketing logistics, Director Choi," Hyo-Rin stated, her voice flat, smooth, and quiet. "And your excuse is that the creative team lacked emotional synergy this quarter?"
Director Choi stammered, pulling uncomfortably at his collar as a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. "CEO Go, the timeline was simply too aggressive, and the teams were emotionally exhausted from the previous product launch."
"Emotions are a terrible business investment, Director," Hyo-Rin cut him off, calmly closing the heavy financial report with a dull thud. "They possess a zero percent return on investment and incredibly high liabilities. I do not pay this department for emotional synergy, I pay for metrics. You have until nine tomorrow morning to balance the projections and fix this deficit, or the legal team will handle your immediate termination."
She stood up, ignoring the collective holding of breath in the room, and walked out without looking back. Her assistant scurried behind her, trying to keep up with her long, confident strides, but Hyo-Rin simply waved a hand to dismiss him. She did not need anyone to hold her folders or tell her she did a good job. She knew her worth, and she ran her corporate empire with absolute efficiency.
Hyo-Rin had lived her entire life by absolute logic. Years ago, during her early twenties, she had allowed a single emotional vulnerability into her structured world. She had fallen deeply for a guy she genuinely liked, letting her guard down for the first time. She had chased after him, giving him her time, her care, and her affection, fully believing those feelings would be returned. But that guy never loved her back, he only viewed her as a friend and assumed her deep care was just her standard friendly personality. He eventually chose another girl instead, leaving Hyo-Rin to realise she had wasted her heart on someone who never saw her as a romantic option.
Hyo-Rin did not cry when he walked away, but the quiet rejection cut deep. From that exact day, she made a fierce, unyielding oath to herself. She swore she would never fall in love again, and she would never let another human being play with her heart. To protect herself, she shut down her emotions entirely, locked her heart away, and turned completely stone-cold. To her, love was just a flawed human algorithm that clouded good judgment and invited ruin.
It was almost midnight by the time her luxury sedan pulled into the private garage of her minimalist penthouse overlooking the Han River.
Exhausted from a fourteen-hour workday, she kicked off her designer heels, threw herself onto her leather sofa, and opened a trending reading app on her tablet just to turn her brain off. Hyo-Rin normally completely avoided romance novels, finding them entirely unrealistic and foolish. She usually preferred dark, tragic stories that matched her cynical view of the world. However, as she scrolled through the app, a specific romance book caught her eye because it was sitting at the absolute top of the daily rankings. Intrigued by its sudden popularity, curiosity got the better of her, and she clicked on the title, Different Shades of Love.
Instead of a sweet escape, she found herself reading a tragic story arc that struck a painful nerve deep inside her head. The book detailed the downfall of the wealthy villainess, Bae Se-Young.
Se-Young was a stunning but completely powerless high-society heiress who fell in love at first sight with the cold, strict, and dominant Kwon Tae-Hyun during their university days. Se-Young had plenty of money, luxury cars, and a designer wardrobe, but her family lacked any real corporate power or political influence. Blinded by her wealthy background, she chased Tae-Hyun relentlessly across campus, completely oblivious to the fact that he was secretly and deeply in love with his timid childhood sweetheart, Min Yu-Ri.
When Se-Young eventually discovered his hidden feelings, her unrequited love curdled into bitter jealousy. She used her money and status to start ruthlessly bullying the fragile, soft-spoken Yu-Ri all over the university. She ruined Yu-Ri's art projects, spread malicious rumors, and tried to isolate her from everyone. This pathetic behavior backfired completely, it only made Tae-Hyun notice Yu-Ri more and grow to despise Se-Young with every fiber of his being.
After graduation, seven long years passed before Se-Young met Tae-Hyun again. By then, he had become the powerful, ruthless CEO of Chronotope Group, the most prestigious conglomerate in Seoul, a place where getting a job was the dream of every citizen. Yu-Ri was also working right by his side as a timid design assistant. When Se-Young applied for a position, she was miraculously selected on the interview panel despite having no qualifications, work experience, or corporate skills.
The foolish girl thought Tae-Hyun finally liked her or regretted his past coldness. Little did she know, it was nothing but a brutal corporate trap designed by Tae-Hyun to systematically bully her back and get revenge for Yu-Ri.
Tae-Hyun forced the naive Se-Young to sign an ironclad employment contract that completely stripped away her right to resign. If she tried to walk out, his massive legal team would hit her with a lawsuit that would ruin her family’s wealth. He used his executive position to torture her, burying her under extreme work hours, impossible project stress, and insultingly low payments.
Yet, Se-Young endured the workplace abuse without complaining because she genuinely believed that if she just stayed obedient and did everything he said, he would eventually fall for her. To relieve her stress, she continued to secretly torment and bully Yu-Ri in the office hallways, which only made Tae-Hyun more furious, resulting in extra overnight work shifts as a punishment.
Her pathetic, toxic delusion ended on a rainy night after an exhausting shift. Walking home drunk, tired, and stumbling on the side road of a high flyover bridge, she ran into a group of thugs who tried to rob her designer handbag. During the frantic struggle, one of the thugs accidentally pushed her over the concrete railing. She fell straight onto the windshield of a running car below, falling into a permanent coma. The author abruptly ended the entire web novel right there, leaving the villainess broken and forgotten while the main couple lived happily ever after.
Slamming her tablet down on the marble coffee table, Hyo-Rin let out a sharp, deeply irritated sigh into the empty penthouse.
Even though she strongly disliked the bullying, she could not help but feel a deep, aching pity for Bae Se-Young. Reading about how Se-Young chased after a man who only felt spite felt uncomfortably familiar, Hyo-Rin saw a dark reflection of her younger self in Se-Young's character. The memories of her own past vulnerability and the humiliation of loving someone who only saw her as a friend stuck firmly in her mind, refusing to leave.
"What an absolute waste of capital, beauty, and pedigree," Hyo-Rin muttered to the ceiling, her brows furrowed in pure disgust. "She had a wealthy lineage and a multi-million won wardrobe, yet she spent her entire life begging for a tyrant who treated her like garbage. If I were in her place, I would not waste a single second chasing a man like Kwon Tae-Hyun. I would liquidate his assets, expose his legal traps, and buy his entire company out from under him."
With a final, irritated shake of her head, Hyo-Rin rubbed her temples, closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep, the flashing red battery light of her tablet reflecting in the dark, quiet room.
"Who... who are you?" she whispered, her voice raspy and weak as she blinked through the blurry light. "And why am I in a hospital? I was literally sleeping in my own bed a few hours ago."
Tae-Hyun stopped right at the doorway, a cold, mocking smirk touching his lips as he slowly turned back to face her. He let out a short, scoffing breath, clearly finding her words completely ridiculous.
"Are you genuinely asking me who I am, or is amnesia the latest pathetic routine you are using to get my attention?" Tae-Hyun said, his voice dripping with icy amusement. "And your own bed? Please, Bae Se-Young. You have been rotting in this hospital mattress for three entire years. If your brain actually convinced you that you were sleeping peacefully at home last night, that is a beautiful delusion, but it does not change reality."
"Bae Se-Young?" Hyo-Rin sat up slightly, her brow furrowing in genuine, deep confusion. "Why do you keep calling me that? My name is Go Hyo-Rin. I am the CEO of Go Holdings."
Tae-Hyun let out a sharp, cynical laugh, shaking his head as he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe.
"Go Hyo-Rin? CEO?" His eyes dragged over her pale face with absolute mockery. "Wow. I knew that flying off a bridge would cause some damage, but it looks like you managed to destroy your last remaining brain cell during the fall. If you wanted a promotion, you should have worked harder instead of inventing a fictional executive alter-ego while asleep."
He casually adjusted the silver cuffs of his tailored blazer, his dark eyes narrowing with a freezing, teasing glint.
"Don't worry, the office espresso is strong enough to cure your three-year jetlag and whatever CEO fantasy you have running in your head," he added coldly, his smirk widening. "I will see you at nine tomorrow morning. That is, assuming you can actually remember how to use your legs by then, Miss... My Dearest Personal Assistant."
Without waiting for her to respond to his mockery, he turned on his heel and stepped out, the heavy wooden door closing behind him in absolute silence.
The heavy wooden door shut with a sharp click, leaving the room in a suffocating silence.
Go Hyo-Rin sat frozen on the hospital mattress, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs. The raspy breath she drew felt shallow, completely disconnected from the steady, mechanical rhythm of the heart monitor ticking beside her. Her mind was a chaotic storm of calculations, trying to process the impossible data points she had just received.
‘Bae Se-Young? Three years in a coma? Chronotope Group?’
She lifted her trembling hands, staring at them under the harsh fluorescent light. These fingers were too long, too pale, and completely unfamiliar. Fear and absolute disbelief crawled up her spine. Shaking her head violently, she slammed her hand down onto the emergency call button next to her bed, pressing it over and over again like a maniac.
Within thirty seconds, a doctor and three panicked nurses burst through the double doors, expecting a cardiac arrest. Instead, they found a pale woman sitting upright, breathing like a marathon runner.
"Bring me a mirror!" Hyo-Rin demanded, her voice raspy but sharp. "Right now! Hand me a mirror!"
"Patient Bae, please calm down, your heart rate is spiking—" the doctor started, stepping forward with a penlight.
"I don't care about my heart rate! Give me a mirror or I will rip these IV lines out myself!" she threatened, her glare completely savage.
The nurses scrambled. One of them quickly handed over a small, plastic compact mirror from her nurse’s pouch. Hyo-Rin snatched it, flipped it open, and stared.
She choked on her own breath. Staring back at her was not her sharp, familiar corporate reflection. It was a younger, strikingly beautiful woman with wide, dramatic eyes, a soft jawline, and a mess of wavy chestnut hair. It was the exact face from the illustrated cover of the trending web novel she had open on her tablet last night.
"What on earth is this?" Hyo-Rin gasped, dropping her jaw as she aggressively poked her own cheeks and pulled at her nose. She spun around to face the lead doctor, her eyes wide with frantic suspicion. "Did you people perform illegal plastic surgery on me while I was asleep? Is this some secret medical experiment? Where is my real face? Where are my cheekbones?!"
"Patient Bae, no one changed your face," the doctor said, slowly backing away while gesturing for a nurse to prepare a sedative. "This is the exact face you were born with."
"Don't lie to me! I know my face value!" Hyo-Rin slammed her hand on the mattress, blinking aggressively at her reflection again. "This is impossible. I am in the novel. I am literally inside Different Shades of Love."
The doctor cleared his throat nervously, exchanging worried looks with the nurses. "Patient Bae... do you know who you are? Do you experience any memory fog?"
"Leave. All of you, out," Hyo-Rin barked, throwing the compact mirror back at the terrified nurse. "I need to conduct a structural audit of my current situation. Leave!"
The medical staff backpedaled out of the VIP suite immediately, muttering about calling a psychiatrist for severe post-coma delusion.
Left alone in the quiet room, Hyo-Rin slumped back against the pillows, her brilliant CEO brain going into overdrive. The cosmic irony of the situation hit her like a freight train. The web novel Different Shades of Love had officially ended right at the flyover bridge accident. The author had typed 'The End' and closed the book.
That meant there was no pre-written script left to follow. There were no future chapters to tell her what was going to happen next. She had to start a completely new, unwritten script from scratch, and she had to figure out a way to break through this fictional dimension to get back to her real life at Go Holdings.
But her immediate survival problem was far more pathetic.
She picked up the plastic employee card Tae-Hyun had tossed on the nightstand, flipping it over desperately. It listed her name, her department as his Personal Assistant, and the corporate address of Chronotope Group of Gangnam. That was it.
"This is ridiculous," Hyo-Rin groaned, rubbing her temples in pure frustration. "The author only wrote about this girl when she was busy bullying Min Yu-Ri! Where does Bae Se-Young actually live? Where does she work inside the building? Who are her friends? What does her family look like?"
Because she was a side character designed only for drama, her entire personal life was a complete black box. She was a high-society heiress who was functionally homeless, completely blind to her new identity, and a toxic billionaire tyrant was threatening her with a massive lawsuit if she did not report to his desk before nine tomorrow morning.
Hyo-Rin looked back at the card, her panic suddenly morphing into a cold, lethal corporate glare. A dangerous smile touched her lips.
"You think you can trap me with an amateur contract in a blank script, Kwon Tae-Hyun?" Hyo-Rin muttered, her fingers tightening around the plastic card. "You have no idea who you just put in your office. Tomorrow morning, I am breaking into your desk and stealing my own employee file. Let's see who writes the rules now."
