Rewriting Her

The air inside the forty-fifth floor boardroom of Go Holdings was cold and clean. It smelled a little like expensive coffee.

Go Hyo-Rin sat at the head of the long glass table. Her posture was perfect. She did not look like a woman who had feelings. She looked like a statue made of stone, wearing an expensive suit. Outside the big glass windows, the bright skyline of Seoul looked like a playground of glass and steel, but Hyo-Rin was not looking at it. Her sharp eyes moved over the senior managers and finally stopped on the project director who was sitting across from her and shaking.

"A seven percent loss in marketing, Director Choi,"

Hyo-Rin said in a flat, quiet voice.

"And your excuse is that the creative team did not have emotional connection this quarter?"

Director Choi stammered and pulled at his collar. Sweat was on his forehead.

"CEO Go, the deadline was too tight, and the teams were just very tired after the last product launch."

"Emotions are a bad investment, Director,"

Hyo-Rin cut him off. She closed the heavy financial report with a thud.

"They give zero profit and cause a lot of problems. I don't pay this department for emotions. I pay for numbers. You have until nine tomorrow morning to fix the numbers. If you don't, the legal team will fire you."

She stood up. She ignored everyone holding their breath in the room and walked out without looking back. Her assistant ran after her, trying to keep up with her fast steps, but Hyo-Rin just waved her hand to send him away. She did not need anyone to hold her files or tell her she did a good job. She knew her own value, and she ran her company with full control.

Hyo-Rin had lived her whole life by logic. Years ago, when she was in her early twenties, she let one emotion into her perfect world. She fell hard for a guy she really liked. She let her guard down for the first time. For three years, she built her life around him. She gave him loyalty, her free time, and quiet love that she showed to no one else. She thought he felt the same.

But he never saw her as a woman.

To him, she was just a useful, reliable part of his life, a friend. He thought her deep care was just her normal, practical nature.

The end came on a rainy evening when he introduced her to his new girlfriend. The new girlfriend was a weak, dependent girl who could not make a decision without him. Later, Hyo-Rin asked him why.

"You don't need anyone, Hyo-Rin,"

he had said lightly, like he was giving a business review.

"You are too strong. Too independent. A man wants to feel like a protector. Being with you feels like being managed by a boss. She actually needs me."

Hyo-Rin did not cry when he walked away. But the quiet shame of being rejected cut deep. She had given him her real heart, and he treated it like something extra that he did not need.

From that day, she made a strong promise to herself. She would never fall in love again. She would never let anyone play with her heart again. To protect herself, she shut off all her emotions and became stone-cold. To her, love was just a broken system that made people stupid, brought ruin, and gave zero profit.

It was almost midnight when her luxury car pulled into the private garage of her simple, modern penthouse that looked over the Han River. She was tired after working for fourteen hours. She kicked off her heels, fell onto her leather sofa, and opened a popular reading app on her tablet just to turn off her brain. Hyo-Rin normally avoided love stories. She thought they were silly and not real. She liked dark, sad stories that matched how she saw the world. But as she scrolled, one love story caught her eye because it was number one in the daily ranking. She got curious and clicked on the title,

Different Shades of Love.

It was not a sweet escape. It was a sad story that hit a painful spot in her mind. The book was about the fall of the rich villain, Bae Se-Young.

Se-Young was a beautiful but powerless rich girl who fell in love at first sight with the cold, strict, and controlling Kwon Tae-Hyun in university. Se-Young had a lot of money, expensive cars, and designer clothes, but her family had no real business power or political power. She was blinded by her rich life. She chased Tae-Hyun everywhere on campus. She did not know that he was secretly and deeply in love with his shy childhood friend, Min Yu-Ri.

When Se-Young found out about his hidden feelings, her one-sided love turned into bitter jealousy. She used her money and status to bully the weak, soft-spoken Yu-Ri all over the university. She ruined Yu-Ri's art projects, spread bad rumors, and tried to make everyone leave Yu-Ri alone. This stupid behavior went wrong. It only made Tae-Hyun notice Yu-Ri more and hate Se-Young with all his heart.

After graduation, seven long years passed before Se-Young met Tae-Hyun again. By then, he had become the powerful, cruel CEO of Chronotope Group, the most famous company in Seoul, where everyone dreamed of getting a job. Yu-Ri was also working right next to him as a shy design assistant. When Se-Young applied for a job, she was surprisingly selected in the interview even though she had no skills, no

experience, and no talent.

The foolish girl thought Tae-Hyun finally liked her or felt sorry for his past cold behavior. She did not know, it was just a cruel trap made by Tae-Hyun to bully her back and take revenge for Yu-Ri.

Tae-Hyun forced the innocent Se-Young to sign a strong work contract that took away her right to quit. If she tried to leave, his big legal team would sue her and ruin her family's money. He used his high position to torture her. He gave her too much work, impossible stress, and very low pay.

But Se-Young took all the abuse without complaining because she really thought if she just stayed obedient and did everything he said, he would finally fall for her. To feel less stressed, she kept secretly bullying Yu-Ri in the office hallways. That only made Tae-Hyun more angry, and he gave her extra night shifts as punishment.

Her sad, toxic dream ended on a rainy night after a tiring shift. She was walking home drunk, tired, and stumbling on the side road of a high flyover bridge. She met a group of thugs who tried to steal her designer bag. During the fight, one of the thugs accidentally pushed her over the concrete railing. She fell straight onto the windshield of a car running below and went into a coma forever. The author ended the whole web novel right there, leaving the villain broken and forgotten while the main couple lived happily ever after.

Hyo-Rin slammed her tablet down on the marble coffee table and let out a sharp, annoyed sigh in the empty penthouse.

Even though she hated the bullying, she could not help but feel deep pity for Bae Se-Young. Reading about how Se-Young chased a man who only hated her felt too familiar. Hyo-Rin saw a dark image of her younger self in Se-Young. The memories of her own past weakness and the shame of loving someone who only saw her as a friend stayed in her mind and would not leave.

"What a complete waste of money, beauty, and family name,"

Hyo-Rin said to the ceiling, her eyebrows tight with disgust.

"She had rich parents and clothes worth millions, but she spent her whole life begging for a cruel man who treated her like trash. If I were her, I would not waste one second chasing a man like Kwon Tae-Hyun. I would have used that money to bring down his company stock."

With a final, annoyed shake of her head, Hyo-Rin rubbed her head, closed her eyes, and fell asleep. The flashing red battery light of her tablet glowed in the dark, quiet room.

She expected the familiar sound of her penthouse, but the darkness broke into something completely strange. When she woke up, she felt a cold chill that made it hard to breathe. She found herself unable to move in a strange hospital bed. Her breathing was shallow. Her throat was completely dry. Cutting through the dim, cold shadows right beside her, the tall shape of a man stood frozen, watching her come out of nothing with a cold look that no one could read.

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