"I'm sorry," I said, blinking. "Did you just offer me… a marriage? Like, a real one? With paperwork?"
Ji-eun kept her hand extended, her expression as smooth and unreadable as glass. "Fake marriage. Real paperwork. Temporary contract. Think of it like a startup. Limited run. High risk. Moderate rewards."
I didn't take her hand.
Not yet.
My brain felt like it had left the chat, leaving my mouth to stall.
"Ji-eun," I said slowly, "I write soap operas. I know a disaster arc when I see one. This? This is the part where the audience starts throwing shoes at the screen."
She dropped her arm, exhaling sharply. Not frustrated—resigned. Like she already expected me to say no. Like it was built into her strategy.
"I don't have time to argue," she said. "The tabloids have been sniffing around. I heard from my stylist—someone's trying to leak photos. From years ago. If they hit the press, I'll be trending for all the wrong reasons."
I sat down, mostly because my legs decided they weren't up to standing anymore.
"And your solution is me?"
"You're a nobody," she said bluntly.
"Thanks."
"I mean in a good way. You're not famous. You're not on social media. You're untraceable. That's rare."
"That's privacy."
"Exactly. And I need some."
I stared at the wall. I didn't know what made less sense—what she was proposing, or the fact that part of me was listening. Actually considering it.
"Why not get someone from your agency?" I asked. "Or fake date a co-star like everyone else?"
Her voice sharpened. "Because I don't trust anyone in my agency. And fake dating makes things messy. If people think I'm dating someone famous, the press won't stop digging. But if I'm married—and it's someone boring, safe, civilian? They'll leave it alone."
"I'm not boring."
"You write love triangles involving ghosts. You're practically invisible."
"…Okay, fair."
I let the silence stretch.
Outside, I could hear traffic somewhere far below, distant and muffled, like the real world had hit the mute button on me.
Ji-eun walked to the mirror she'd kicked earlier and leaned against it. I watched her face reflect back—distorted slightly by the warped edge of the glass.
"I'm not asking you to love me," she said softly.
That part hit me harder than I expected.
"I just need someone who won't screw me over. Someone who doesn't need the spotlight. Someone who can disappear with me for a few months."
"You know you're asking me to commit a crime of logistics," I muttered.
She glanced back, a small smile playing at her lips. "You'll survive. You look like the type who hoards envelopes and pays rent on time."
I rubbed my hands over my face. "You don't even know me."
"Better," she said. "Less chance of complications."
I laughed, hollow. "This is insane."
"You said that already."
"What if I say no?"
She shrugged, turning to face me completely. "Then I find someone else. Someone who'll probably leak it eventually. Or blackmail me. Or get caught by dispatch on day two. But hey… that's the business."
I stood up again, pacing now.
I'd spent my entire career avoiding this side of the industry. Glossy contracts, manicured lies, relationships that only lasted until the next press cycle. And now here I was—being asked to tie my name, my face, my life to an actual idol… just to shield her from her own fame.
And the worst part?
It made a twisted kind of sense.
"…What happens if people find out?" I asked.
"They won't."
"But if they do."
She paused.
Then she said, "They'll tear me apart. And you? You'll go from anonymous to annihilated in under twenty-four hours."
"Reassuring."
"I like to manage expectations."
I crossed my arms. "This is blackmail, in a way."
"No," she said, "this is business. I'm offering you something you want."
"You think I want money?"
"No," she said softly. "I think you want to matter. I think you're sick of being invisible."
That shut me up.
Because it wasn't wrong.
Not entirely.
She crossed the room, slow and deliberate, until she was standing just inches away. Her voice dropped to a near-whisper.
"You write people falling in love like you've never done it yourself."
I looked at her. Really looked.
She wasn't mocking me.
She was reading me.
"You could've asked anyone," I said quietly.
She nodded. "I know. But I asked you."
She held out her hand again.
Not desperate.
Not even hopeful.
Just certain.
The kind of certainty that comes from burning bridges behind you and watching the smoke like it's art.
I took her hand.
And everything changed.
"Okay, just say it again. Out loud. So I know I didn't hallucinate."
Ji-eun tapped her pen against the table. "We get legally married. Privately. Quietly. Within the week. No ceremony, no guests, no photos. I'll cover all the fees."
"Right. And in return, you fund my script?"
"Six months of full-time writing. No side jobs. I pay your rent, utilities, and one coffee per day. No luxury items. If you start ordering lavender flat whites, the deal's off."
I looked down at the contract between us.
It was five pages.
Single-spaced.
Color-coded.
There were subclauses.
"I've seen prenups less detailed than this."
She shrugged. "I take my fake marriages seriously."
We were sitting at a quiet corner booth of a dim cafe in Apgujeong, one that specialized in overpriced pour-over coffee and dim lighting that made everyone look like an Instagram filter. It was her suggestion. The owner knew her manager, and the staff had signed NDAs thicker than most novels.
I picked up the contract again, scanning for the parts that screamed "run."
> Clause 3.2: No physical intimacy, staged or otherwise.
Clause 3.5: No sharing of beds, toothbrushes, or existential trauma.
Clause 3.7: No "accidental" falling in love. Seriously. Don't.
I looked up. "Clause 3.7."
"What about it?"
"You put falling in love next to toothbrush sharing."
"I had to be thorough."
"Why does this feel like the world's weirdest roommate agreement?"
"Because that's what this is. With added legal spice."
I rubbed my temple. "And what happens if I violate Clause 3.7? Say I—hypothetically—develop a crush."
She didn't smile. She didn't even blink.
She said, deadpan: "Then I void the contract and leak a rumor that you're my stalker."
I stared.
She sipped her coffee.
"Joking," she added flatly. "Mostly."
"That's not how jokes work."
She shrugged again, flipping to the signature page. "Relax. You're not my type."
"What is your type?"
"Unavailable."
I didn't respond.
Not because I was offended—but because, once again, I couldn't tell if she was being sardonic… or honest.
She passed me a pen.
It was pink. And glittery. And shaped like a cat.
I raised an eyebrow. "You're serious about aesthetics."
"I'm serious about seeing who hesitates at the finish line."
I held her gaze.
Signed.
She smiled faintly and leaned forward, scribbling her name with the speed of someone who'd done this before—or thought about it a lot.
"Congratulations," she said. "You're now contractually bound to one of the most famous faces in Korea. And you still can't tweet about it."
"Can I write about it?"
"No."
"Can I emotionally repress it and let it ruin me slowly over time?"
"Highly encouraged."
I laughed, and she almost—almost—smiled for real. But then it was gone, replaced by that distant look she wore like a second skin. The wall was back up.
We finished our drinks in silence.
She handed me a second envelope—thin, crisp, professionally printed.
"What's this?"
"Your first check."
I opened it.
My hands shook.
It was more than I'd made in the last six months combined.
I folded it carefully, like it might vanish if I blinked. "So this is happening."
"It's already happened."
"And now what?"
"Now," she said, standing and adjusting her sunglasses, "you get measured for a ring."
I blinked. "Like… now?"
"Yes."
"Do I get to pick?"
"No."
"Is it at least tasteful?"
She looked at me over the rim of her glasses. "Does anything about me scream subtle?"
No. It really didn't.
The jewelry shop was in a basement showroom in Cheongdam, guarded like a mafia vault. A man in a velvet suit greeted us by name before we'd even said a word. Ji-eun didn't browse—she pointed. She chose one ring for herself (white gold, minimalist) and one for me (black titanium, somehow intimidating), and didn't ask for my opinion once.
I didn't give it.
Because the longer I stood there in a shop that smelled like new money and cold metal, the more surreal this became.
I wasn't daydreaming.
I wasn't scripting this.
This was real.
Ji-eun paid with a black card that slid through the reader like a guillotine.
As we stepped into the elevator, the rings in matching boxes, I said, "So do I call you something different now? Wife? Your Highness? Corporate overlord?"
She leaned against the mirrored wall, watching our reflections blur together.
"You can call me Ji-eun," she said. "But not in public."
"Why not?"
"In public, I'm JI.EUN."
I studied her face in the mirror.
One mask. Two names.
"Right," I said. "Of course."
The elevator doors opened.
The world outside hadn't changed.
But everything else had.
But fate, as always, has its own plans.
The Seoul Family Court doesn't look like the place where lives are made or broken. It looks like a school building gave up on its dreams and became paperwork.
Beige walls. Fluorescent lights. A smell like stale printer ink and indecision.
Ji-eun walked ahead of me, hoodie up, sunglasses on. Masked, like a high-fashion ninja. Even in anonymity, she walked like someone who expected people to move for her. And they usually did.
I carried the envelope—the one with our documents, ID copies, and a typed application for legal union. The phrase legal union still made me flinch every time I looked at it. Like I was drafting a treaty, not registering a marriage.
We stood in line. Third floor. Window 3. A middle-aged woman in a gray cardigan processed couples with the speed of someone who knew what love really was: bureaucracy.
"Do we smile for the paperwork?" I murmured.
"Don't even blink," Ji-eun whispered back. "In case there's CCTV."
"Romantic."
She didn't reply.
When we reached the front, I let her do the talking. Her voice softened slightly, but not by much. She was polite. Calm. Efficient. Like this was just another brand endorsement.
The clerk stamped our form twice. Asked for confirmation. We both nodded.
Then it happened.
"Ji-eun?"
That voice.
It didn't belong in this building. It was too warm. Too familiar. Too knowing.
I turned instinctively. Ji-eun stiffened beside me.
The woman approaching us was in her late twenties. Sleek black coat. Perfectly curled hair. The kind of polished look you only see on morning show hosts and campaign managers.
But what caught me wasn't her looks.
It was the fact that Ji-eun looked like she'd been punched in the gut.
The woman smiled—not wide, not fake. Just tight enough to carry a weapon beneath it.
"Well," she said. "This is unexpected."
Ji-eun didn't speak.
The woman turned to me, eyes raking over my face like she was filing me away in a mental database. "And you are?"
"I—uh—"
"He's nobody," Ji-eun cut in. Too fast.
Too defensive.
The woman's smile widened.
"Oh, I doubt that."
I watched Ji-eun's jaw clench.
The woman stepped closer. Not threatening, but intimate. Like she knew exactly how close she could get without causing a scene.
"It's been a while," she said.
"You look good," Ji-eun replied, flatly.
"Still full of lies, I see."
My stomach dropped.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
This wasn't just someone she knew.
This was personal.
The woman's eyes slid to the envelope in my hand.
"Registering something?" she asked, like she already knew the answer.
Ji-eun said nothing.
I could feel the temperature drop.
The clerk behind the counter cleared her throat awkwardly. "Next couple, please."
I tugged Ji-eun's sleeve gently, trying to pull her out of the moment. Her arm was rigid under my fingers, like she was made of steel.
"We should go," I murmured.
But Ji-eun didn't move.
The woman leaned in, whispered something I couldn't hear—and smiled again.
Then she walked away.
Just like that.
Ji-eun stood perfectly still for three more seconds, then turned sharply on her heel and headed for the elevator without a word.
I followed.
When we got inside, she hit the button for B2—parking level—and didn't speak until the doors shut.
"She wasn't supposed to be there," she muttered.
"Who was she?"
"Ghost."
"Ji-eun—"
"She used to be my manager."
"Why did she call you a liar?"
Ji-eun's mouth twisted into something between a laugh and a snarl.
"She didn't say liar," she said. "She said still full of lies."
There's a difference.
The elevator dinged.
We stepped into the underground parking structure—cold, echoing, empty.
Ji-eun didn't walk to the car.
She leaned against the wall and pulled her mask down, staring at me with something between panic and fury.
"This is already going wrong," she said. "She knows something."
"She saw the envelope."
"She knows how to dig."
"What did you lie about?"
She looked away.
And that's when I realized something else—something worse.
She wasn't panicked because someone saw her with me.
She was panicked because that woman—that ghost—might be the one person who knew what Ji-eun had actually been hiding all along.
And before I could ask again, Ji-eun's phone buzzed.
She looked at the screen, paled, and showed it to me.
A message.
From an unknown number.
Nice ring. How long do you think you can keep this act up?