No Strings Attached

CHAPTER 5: error

Because suddenly he understands something horrifyingly clear:

Her "card" isn't about escaping.

It's about ending something.

Ending something he can't control.
Something he can't predict.
Something he can't stop if she's already set it in motion.

He sits slowly on the edge of the bed beside her, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.

Then at her sleeping face.

Then at the faint movement of her breathing.

Finally he whispers — almost too softly to hear:

"...If you think I'll let you die..."

His fingers curl into fists.

"...you're fucking insane."

He looks at her again, expression shifting into something cold, lethal, and resolute.

Not panic.

Not despair.

Pure, surgical focus.

He leans slightly closer, voice barely a breath:

"I'm going to find it, Yerin...
whatever you set up...
whoever you told...
whatever you hid."

He sits back.

And the last line leaves him like a vow:

"And I swear to God —
you're not dying before me."

The door clicks behind him with the softest sound.

Hyunjun stands in the dark hallway, one hand still resting on the doorknob like he needs the cold metal to anchor him. The stillness of the house presses against him—heavy, strange, wrong.

He draws in a slow breath.

Lets it out even slower.

But nothing in him calms.

Not after the way she looked asleep.
Not after the transfer.
Not after the realization she's preparing to vanish in a way that wasn't frantic or panicked—
but planned.

Planned for a long time.

He drops his hand and starts walking, not toward his office and not toward the stairs—just moving because standing still feels like drowning.

The floorboards creak under his bare feet.

Every sound feels too loud.

And inside his mind, something begins stitching itself together from scraps he never understood before:

Yerin hiding things.
Yerin watching exits.
Yerin being calm about consequences she should've been afraid of.
Yerin never investing in a future for herself.
Yerin acting like she's already half-gone.

He grips the railing at the top of the staircase until the wood strains under his fingers.

He wants to be angry.
He wants to feel betrayed.
He wants to think she's doing this out of spite, or pride, or whatever other excuse would make it simple.

But none of it fits.

Instead, a sharper, quieter thought slides into place:

"...She's been preparing this longer than I knew."

His jaw tightens until it aches.

And for the first time in years, Hyunjun realizes something else—
something he has always conceptually understood, but never truly felt: