The morning had started like any other. The low hum of the city filled his apartment as Jae-Min sat at his small kitchen table, sipping his black coffee with a calculated precision. He had long abandoned the indulgences of his past—the sweet, creamy lattes and the decadent pastries. He didn't deserve such luxuries anymore. His days of excess were behind him. Now, he was only concerned with one thing: progress.

Today was no different. He would throw himself into his work, dive deep into the financial reports, analyze the market trends, and push himself further in his role at Goldman Sachs. It was all he had left. It was the only thing that filled the emptiness inside of him. It was the only way he could shut out the painful memories of the life he had lost, of the love he would never have again.

But that day, like all the others before it, would carry a twist—a cruel reminder of the past he couldn’t escape.

It was a simple headline at first. A news ticker running along the bottom of the TV screen, almost too casual in its delivery. But the words hit Jae-Min like a fist to the gut.

"Soo-Ah, Daughter of the Han Group, Engaged to Lee Joon-Ho, Heir of the Lee Corporation."

His breath caught in his throat. The words blurred as they repeated in his mind, over and over again, until they were the only thing he could hear. The image of Soo-Ah, smiling radiantly in the arms of another man, another chaebol heir, flashed across the screen. The ring on her finger gleamed in the light as she laughed with Joon-Ho, a man who was everything Jae-Min had once been, everything he could never be again.

Her smile. The smile he had once imagined seeing as she stood beside him, the woman who had captured his heart. But now, it was directed at someone else. Someone worthy of her. Someone who had all the things Jae-Min had once taken for granted. Someone who was competent, successful, driven. Everything he wasn’t. Everything he had tried—no, needed—to become.

Jae-Min's hands clenched into fists, the coffee mug now forgotten on the table as his vision blurred. The pain that had been lying dormant beneath the surface for so long suddenly broke free. It was as if his entire body had been thrown back into the past, into the moment when she had told him she was done with him, when she had called him "disgusting," when she had told him she could never be with someone like him.

The guilt hit him like a wave. It was his fault. He had brought this on himself.

He could almost hear her voice in his mind, the words so clear, so sharp. "You were never enough. You never tried. You never took anything seriously. You were a joke."

And now, she was gone, slipping away into the arms of another man, the one who had everything he never had: ambition, competence, and the will to succeed. The one who had the power to make her smile in a way that Jae-Min had failed to. He hadn’t been enough to keep her. And now she was gone.

The pain was suffocating, pressing in from all sides, and yet there was no release. No way to numb it. He had spent so many years numbing his emotions with drink, with distractions, with anything that could make him forget how much he had failed, how much he had been rejected. But now, in the quiet of his apartment, with the news of Soo-Ah’s engagement spreading across the airwaves, he couldn't escape the truth.

She had moved on. And he was the reason for it.

His mind flickered back to that moment when she had broken up with him, to her words that had cut deeper than any knife. He had let her down. He had let everyone down. All of his hard work, all of his transformation—it had been to erase the past, to escape the failures he had carried with him for so long. But it hadn’t been enough.

Jae-Min let out a quiet breath, his eyes closing as he tried to push the hurt aside. He had spent so much time running away from his old self, from the man who had been unworthy of Soo-Ah's love, but it hadn’t made a difference. She had found someone else. And that would always be his punishment.

His phone buzzed with another message—another missed call from his father. But he didn’t answer. He never answered anymore. What could he say? What could he say to his family, to the people who had never understood him, who had never seen him for who he could be? They would never get it. They would never understand what he was going through.

Instead, Jae-Min grabbed his jacket, his eyes darkened with determination. There was nothing left to do but keep moving forward. He couldn’t let this moment defeat him. Not now. Not after everything he had worked for.

He wasn’t going to cry over this. He wouldn’t wallow in the past. He would throw himself into his work, like always. He would grind harder, push further. Maybe then, he could forget the ache, the unbearable weight of his own failure. Maybe then, the pain would become bearable.

He stepped out into the crisp morning air, his heart still aching, but with each step he took, he reminded himself of the one thing that he had left: the work.

And so he would work. Until it no longer hurt.

But as he walked to the subway, the ache never really went away. And deep down, he knew it never would.