Chapter Text
The shrill beeping of the alarm clock shattered the early morning silence.
Sol groaned, blindly reaching out to silence it before burying her face back into her pillow. Just five more minutes…
Before she could drift back into her dream, the sound of tiny feet pattering against the wooden floor made her eyes snap open.
"Mommy!" Young-jae’s tiny voice rang through the room. "Wake up! You have work today, and I have school!"
Sol turned her head to see her five-year-old son standing beside her bed, his round cheeks puffed up in determination–a dimple on his right cheek appearing. Dressed in dinosaur-patterned pajamas, his dark brown eyes—so much like his father’s—sparkled with excitement. The sight of him sent a surge of warmth through her, a reminder of why she pushed through every difficult day.
She sighed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Young-jae, baby, it's too early for this much energy."
"But you promised you’d help me pick my outfit for kindergarten!" he pouted, arms crossed.
Sol chuckled, sitting up and ruffling his already messy hair. "Alright, alright. Let’s get ready, champ."
Young-jae cheered and bolted towards his room while Sol dragged herself out of bed. This was their usual morning routine—her reluctance to leave bed, his endless enthusiasm. It was a reminder that no matter how hard things got, her son was her biggest source of strength.
The aroma of pancakes, a promise of warmth, greeted her as she entered the kitchen, now dressed in a simple yet elegant blazer and slacks. Her mother, Park Bok-soon, stood by the stove flipping pancakes, while her grandmother, Jung Malja, sat at the table peeling fruit.
"You finally woke up," her grandmother teased, raising an eyebrow. "I was starting to think I’d have to march in there and dump water on you."
Sol rolled her eyes. "Good morning to you too, Grandma."
Young-jae appeared beside her, now wearing a bright yellow hoodie and jeans. He tugged at Sol’s hand. "Look, Mommy! I picked a happy color because I’m going to make lots of friends today!"
Sol’s heart melted as she knelt and cupped his face. "You’ll do amazing, my love."
Her mother placed a plate of pancakes in front of them. "Eat quickly. Your grandma and I will drop him off at school so you won’t be late for work."
As they ate, Sol's gaze kept drifting to the clock. Excitement fluttered in her chest, battling a wave of anxiety. This was it – her chance to finally break into the film industry.
"Thinking about work?" Bok-Soon asked knowingly.
Sol sighed. "Yeah. It still feels surreal. I just hope I don’t mess up."
"You’ll do great," her grandmother reassured her. "And if anyone gives you trouble, just throw a shoe at them."
"Grandma!" Sol laughed, shaking her head.
Young-jae giggled. "Mommy, don’t throw shoes! You’ll get in trouble!"
Sol kissed his forehead. "Don’t worry, baby. Mommy will be on her best behavior."
After breakfast, she hugged Young-jae tightly before heading out the door, her heart full as he waved goodbye with both hands.
What she didn’t know was that her world was about to turn upside down.
Sol stepped into the grand lobby of Bon Cinema, the tap-tap-tap of her heels echoing against the polished marble. The air thrummed with a nervous energy – harried employees clutching scripts, phones pressed to their ears, their voices a low, continuous buzz.
Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself why she was here. This was her chance.
Bon Cinema’s headquarters were even more intimidating in person. The high ceilings, the glass walls, the busy employees moving with purpose—it all screamed prestige.
Sol squared her shoulders and stepped onto the production floor, trying to project an air of confidence she didn't quite feel as she entered the room, where a team meeting was already in progress.
"Ah, our new assistant producer is here," her supervisor, Team Leader Choi, announced. "Everyone, this is Im Sol. She’ll be working closely with us from now on."
Sol bowed politely. "Nice to meet you all. I look forward to working with you."
"Welcome!" a bubbly employee, Han Jiwoo, greeted her. "You’re going to love it here. Well, sometimes. Depends on the workload."
A few chuckles spread across the group.
"You’ll get used to it," another employee, Kim Minseok, added. "We all just pretend we know what we’re doing."
Sol smiled, relaxing a little. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. As soon as the door opened, Sol felt the air in the room shift. A presence—one that was painfully familiar yet utterly foreign—stepped inside.
Her breath hitched.
Ryu Sunjae. Her first love. The man she had mourned, resented, and longed for. The father of her child.
The name alone had the power to stop her heart, but seeing him now—standing tall, his expression unreadable, exuding authority—felt like a slap to the face.
Memories flooded her mind unbidden. Sunjae grinning at her under the warm glow of campus streetlights, his hand instinctively reaching for hers in a crowded lecture hall, the way he whispered her name against her skin in the quiet moments between dreams.
That Sunjae was gone.
This man, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit, his gaze cool and distant, wasn’t the same boy who had once held her so tenderly.
Their eyes met.
A jolt of anticipation coursed through her. Any second now, recognition would flicker in his gaze. He would see her and—
Nothing.
The moment stretched unbearably as he simply looked past her, his eyes void of warmth, of familiarity, of her.
Sol’s fingers clenched against the table.
Was this some kind of joke?
Sunjae’s gaze didn’t waver. He regarded her with the same polite detachment he did with every other employee in the room.
"CEO Ryu," Team Leader Choi greeted him respectfully.
CEO?
Sunjae gave a subtle nod to their team leader, then he spoke.
"Let’s begin."
His voice was deeper than she remembered, more measured, more refined. But it still sent a shiver down her spine.
Her stomach churned.
Was he pretending not to know her? Had five years hardened him into this cold, unreachable man?
She didn’t know which was worse—that he had forgotten her completely, or that he had chosen to erase her from his life.
The hours crawled by in a daze. Sol spent the day familiarizing herself with the team, handling minor tasks, and sitting in on meetings—meetings where Sunjae barely acknowledged her existence.
At lunch, Jiwoo pulled her aside. "You okay? You looked kinda pale in the meeting earlier."
"Oh, uh… I’m just nervous," Sol lied.
"You’ll be fine. Just don’t get on CEO Ryu’s bad side."
"Why?" Sol asked, forcing herself to sound casual.
Jiwoo lowered her voice. "He’s strict. Hardly ever smiles. If he doesn’t like something, he won’t hesitate to shut it down. People say he wasn’t always like this, though."
All day, she found herself drawn to him, searching for a flicker of recognition, a softening in his eyes, a secret smile that might break through the icy facade. But the Ryu Sunjae she knew remained buried, inaccessible.
The end of the workday came with a dull ache in Sol’s chest. Her body was here, but her mind had been caught in a whirlwind of emotions since their meeting.
She was packing up her things when hushed voices nearby caught her attention.
"Did you know?" One of the employees whispered conspiratorially. "CEO Ryu lost his memories."
Sol’s hand froze mid-motion, her fingers tightening around the folder she was holding.
"Yeah, the accident. Five years ago. Hit-and-run. He lost his college years completely. Family sent him to the States, but… nothing came back."
The words were like a punch to the gut.
Her breath hitched as the world around her blurred.
Sunjae… didn’t choose to leave her? He had forgotten her entirely?
She had spent five years thinking she had been abandoned, rejected. Every unanswered call, every sleepless night—she had convinced herself he had walked away. But the truth was, he had been lost all along.
A wave of nausea rolled through her.
Her knuckles turned white as she clutched the folder, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
No. She couldn’t just stand here. She needed to see him. Now.
Before she could think twice, her feet were moving.
She didn’t care if she looked ridiculous, running through the halls of Bon Cinema like a madwoman.
A sob clawed at her throat, but she forced it down. She needed to see him with her own eyes.
To know if, despite everything, there was still something—anything—left of the Sunjae she once loved.
She found him in the dim basement parking lot, heading for his car. He looked exactly as she remembered him.
"Sunjae!"
He stopped, turned slowly. A familiar face with an unfamiliar confusion creased his brow as she ran toward him, tears blurring her vision.
Before he could speak, she’d thrown her arms around him, clinging as if he were a ghost.
"Are you okay?" she choked out, sobs wracking her body. "Did it hurt? All this time… I thought I'd lost you. I'm so sorry I didn't know."
He stiffened. "Miss… Im Sol-ssi? What is this?" His hands hovered, hesitant, as if unsure whether to reciprocate or push her away.
She gripped him tighter, and she could feel the tension building in his shoulders.
"Why are you crying?" he asked, his voice softer, bewildered. "I haven't done anything...have I?"
Yet, inexplicably, her tears twisted something inside him. And for the first time in five years, he felt a flicker of something familiar.
Sunjae’s POV
From the moment he entered the room, Sunjae felt an inexplicable shift in the air—something just slightly off-kilter. It was subtle, but enough to make his gaze scan the room more carefully than usual.
Then he saw her.
A small crease formed between his brows before he could stop it.
The woman standing among his employees—Im Sol, his mind supplied from the introductions earlier—felt… out of place. Not in the way of an outsider in a new workplace, but in a way that left an odd pull in his chest. Like something forgotten was lingering just out of reach.
For the briefest second, a flicker of something—hesitation? Deja vu?—passed through his mind.
His grip on the documents in his hand tightened just slightly. A fleeting, near-imperceptible pause before he forced himself to relax, shifting his weight ever so slightly as if dismissing the strange sensation.
Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. He had a meeting to run.
His expression remained unreadable as he gave a small nod to Team Leader Choi and addressed the room, his voice steady, detached. "Let’s begin."
To everyone else, nothing was amiss. And to Sol—who had been too lost in her own thoughts to notice—he was just a distant, indifferent CEO.
But deep in the locked corridors of Sunjae’s mind, something stirred.
Something he couldn’t name.
Something he wasn’t even aware was missing.
Flashback - 2012, Fourth Year University
Sol stared at the tiny plastic stick in her trembling hands.
Two pink lines.
She blinked. Once. Twice. Maybe it was a faulty test. Maybe she'd read it wrong. But the result didn’t change. The stark pink screamed its truth, mocking the dreams she'd so carefully constructed.
A sharp breath rattled through her chest, a sob fighting its way up. She slowly lowered the test onto the sink counter, the cool ceramic a jarring contrast to the heat rising in her face. Her fingers, cold and unsteady, curled into fists, nails digging into her palms before unfurling again as if trying to reject the reality in front of her.
Pregnant.
A strangled laugh nearly bubbled up, a hysterical sound that had no place in her life. It died in her throat, choked by the fear that was now a solid weight in her chest. She pressed a hand over her mouth, trying to contain the tidal wave of emotions threatening to drown her.
This couldn’t be happening. Not now.
She had been feeling off for weeks—nausea that lingered long after breakfast, an exhaustion that seeped into her bones, her period stubbornly absent—but she had dismissed them all. Blamed late-night study sessions, stress-eating ramen, anything but this.
Graduation was just a few months away. The internship at that production company in Busan... she had practically secured it.
She and Sunjae had so many plans. They were going to conquer the world, him in business, her in film.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to them. Not yet.
Her chest tightened, a vise squeezing the air from her lungs as she sank onto the closed toilet lid. The tile felt cold against the back of her thighs. Her heartbeat hammered painfully loud in her ears, a frantic drumbeat against the silence of the bathroom.
What was she supposed to do?
She and Sunjae had been together for a year now, and she loved him. Deeply. The kind of love that painted her world in brighter colors. But this… this threatened to shatter everything they had built. Would it even survive?
Would he be happy? Doubtful. He had mentioned having kids someday, but "someday" was years away. Would he be scared? Terrified, probably. Would he blame her? The thought sent another shiver through her.
She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands instinctively going to her still-flat stomach, a gesture both protective and disbelieving.
It wasn’t just about her and Sunjae anymore. A new life, a new responsibility, a new…fear.
Her mind drifted to just last night, when they were curled up together in his small off-campus apartment, the air thick with the scent of instant coffee and ambition. The glow of his desk lamp cast a golden hue over the room, highlighting the soft curve of his smile as he reviewed a business case.
"You’re gonna be an amazing producer one day," he had murmured, pausing his reading to press a lingering kiss to the back of her hand. He was so proud of her, so supportive of her dreams.
She had laughed, nudging her forehead against his. "And you’ll be a ruthless businessman."
"Ruthless?" Sunjae scoffed, rolling onto his side and caging her in with his arms, his eyes twinkling. "Please. I prefer ‘charming and intelligent.’ Plus, I have you to keep me grounded."
Sol had rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop her grin. "Oh, right. My mistake, CEO Ryu."
His lips brushed her temple as he hummed, his hand gently stroking her hair. "I like the sound of that, you by my side."
For a moment, she had let herself melt into his warmth, believing in the future they had envisioned together. He had spoken about climbing the corporate ladder, making a real difference. And she had dreamed of bringing stories to life, telling tales that resonated with the world.
They had plans—big, exciting, meticulously crafted plans. Their whole lives were mapped out.
But now…
Her lips trembled as she bit down hard to stop them from quivering. The taste of copper filled her mouth, a stark reminder of the reality staring her in the face.
She needed to tell him. She had to tell him.
But as she sat there, staring at the pregnancy test that had just rewritten her entire future, she wasn’t sure if she had the courage to do it. And a new, terrifying thought wormed its way into her mind: what if telling him broke them? What if he didn't want this? What if she lost him?