Yu jin's POV
"Follow me. I have a genius plan," Woo Min said, and I went because there wasn't a better option.
Rin's laugh came through the thin door. The TV light painted the hallway. He didn't know anything was going on. Woo Min closed the door behind us and leaned with his shoulder against it. The room felt smaller with the door shut. He didn't look at the living room; he looked at me like he wanted straight answers.
"Options," he said. "Lay them out."
I sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed my thumb along the seam until my hand stopped shaking. "Public humiliation."
"No," he said flat. "Too messy."
"Corporate pressure," I said. "Find something in his work. Quiet influence. Make his day-to-day a war."
He considered that for a beat. "Risky, but cleaner."
I almost said nothing else, but the stupid idea burned like a fresh cut. "Fake pregnancy rumor."
He slammed his palm on the door. The knock shook the frame. "No. No way. Don't even think about that."
"Relax." I held my hands up. "I'm thinking out loud."
"You shouldn't think out loud like that," he said. "Keep going."
I told him what I wanted: two steps. "First, let's dig. Find his life now girlfriend, job, standing. Map it. Second, we hit where it hurts. Emotionally."
He nodded at the map idea. "Straightforward. We can do that."
"And maybe," I said, and the words came slowly like water through a pipe, "you could make his girlfriend fall for you."
He froze. Not a dramatic freeze, a real stilling of a man who was trying to read whether a joke was actually true. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You want me to seduce his girlfriend?" he said finally.
"It's tactical," I said. "You'll make him off balance. Not love. Just… want. Make him feel hurt. Make him question his choices."
"No," he said. "Not me."
"Then I'll do it," I said. I mean this was my initial plan right? But saying it out loud to Min I didn't know if I was brave or stupid.
He looked at me like I'd lied about something small and crucial. "You plan to seduce Park Min."
"Yes."
"You're reckless and very stupid." He said it like it's a fact, not an insult.
"You're one to talk." I pushed off the bed and walked to the window. The city lights bled through the gap in the blinds. " Don't act like you're a moral compass."
He didn't answer. He walked to the dresser, sat, and watched me like a man who had decided to fold himself into whatever chaos I was offering.
"You can't do that alone," he said. "He's polished. He knows how to flip any story into something that makes you look unstable. If you sleep with him, and he walks, you'll get painted as the crazy one. People will nod and shrug."
"He already walked," I said. The word left like gravel. "He left me. He left Rin. I have no illusions about what he'll do. I want him to feel what I felt. I want him to wake up and have that hollow in his chest."
He was silent for a long time. The TV laugh from the living room popped twice. I pictured Rin's small face in the flicker of the screen and the weight of responsibility pressed at my ribs.
"Okay," he said finally.
He rubbed his thumb along his jaw and didn't look away. "If the sting fails, you don't go in alone. You need to get trained tho cuz you suck."
"Trained?" I said, not sure whether to be offended or relieved.
"Yes." He folded his hands. "I'll teach you posture, eye work, timing, voice. How to be compelling without looking like you need him. How to make him chase the idea of you, not the person who's been abandoned."
I laughed a short, ugly sound. "You want to coach my seduction."
"I want to coach your survival," he said. "If you insist on this" I watched him. He meant it. The deal was raw: he wouldn't seduce Park Min's girlfriend himself but he'd train me if I insisted. He'd hold me back if I went off the script. That might have been the strangest mercy I'd been offered. And I know he is going to do it well because, have you seen him? Woo min was the man I'd seduce if I wasn't so blinded and dumb, girls and boys had always been all over him since childhood so I'm sure he's mastered the act of seduction.
"All right," I said. "Teach me."
He slid off the dresser and walked to the bed. He sat on the edge opposite me and made a list on a note app. "First: posture. Stand like someone who has time. Not stiff. Not lazy. Second: eyes. Look like you know things and you might not tell them. Third: voice. Not high, not breathy. Controlled."
I copied the words in my head like a prayer.
"Fourth: timing. Two-second pauses. Make him feel silence." He tapped the screen. "Fifth: mirroring. He moves, you mirror in small doses. Make him feel seen but not in charge. Make him want to show off. These are the first five."
"You do realize this is weird as hell," I said. "Getting coached to be bait."
"It's not bait," he said. "It's a strategy. You control the play. You decide the rules. You never give away the real aim." he said gesturing with his arms
"And what if I can't do it?" I asked. "What if I look stupid?"
"Exactly, you give up maybe?." He looked at me like a man reading a problem to be solved.
"No flipping way." I said.
I let the corner of my mouth tug into something like a grin. "You make it sound so clinical. Like we're preparing for a presentation at work."
"Presentation with worse consequences," he said.
He stood and walked to the door. He stopped, hand on the knob. "I will start digging tonight. If he's seeing someone, who is she? If he's fragile anywhere, we find it."
"And me?" I asked.
"Do what you do best, stay pretty ." And I fell my jaws get hot. Stopped why was I blushing. He set a small list on the dresser and pushed it toward me. "Posture drills in front of the mirror. Two-second pause practice. Try a laugh on purpose. Record yourself. It'll feel humiliating at first. But trust me Humiliation teaches faster."
"You really know how to sell this," I muttered, but I meant the last part.
"One more thing." He looked serious in a way that made me tense. "If you move without telling me…if you try to do any of it on your own, this is flipping over."
The rule landed like a cold stone. It wasn't a threat. It was a guardrail.
"And if I refuse training?" I asked.
He stared at me like I would walk out this door and come back a different person. "You don't wanna know."
That was almost cruel. I thought about trying to do this alone and how that had worked out so far: poorly.
"Teach me master," I said. The words were small but steady.
He nodded once. "He walked to the door and paused. "One last rule. You keep Rin out of this. He is not a weapon. Understood?"
I felt hot with something like shame. "Understood."
I picked up the list. Posture. Eyes. Voice. Timing. I practiced standing up straight, then relaxed. I tried a pause and felt ridiculous and alive.
He shut the bedroom door behind him.
I sat on the bed and tried the two-second pause over and over until it stopped feeling like a trick and started to feel like a lever. I would need the lever. I wanted the lever.
Okay!! It's gonna be a great day tomorrow, weird one but either way.....