Her eyes met Soohyuk's, and they locked gazes for a moment before she quickly turned away and continued her conversation.

~•~

For Minkyung, it was a day like any other. A normal Wednesday, which she would, as always, spend first at the meteorological station and then, around four, move to the KBS building to start preparing for the live broadcast—meaning an entire day at work, only to stand in front of the camera for five minutes, tell everyone the weather forecast, and then head home. Others would soon start complaining that they couldn't live a normal life because of it, but that was exactly why she was perfect. She didn't have to be at work all day—that was the great thing about it. She had a work laptop, so sometimes she could take work home or let someone else do the live broadcast because she wasn't the only one who could do it. She was just the main presenter, but a backup was always ready. She could take time off whenever she wanted. But that was precisely what she didn't want. She had no husband or boyfriend to spend time with, so she wasn't tied down to anything.

Minkyung loved her job. As a child, her parents constantly reminded her that one day she would inherit her father's pharmaceutical company, so she needed to focus on chemistry and business at school. When she made it clear to her parents, in high school, that she wanted nothing to do with chemistry or business, they shifted their attention to her younger sister instead. They let their older daughter do as she pleased, and she ended up in a math-physics major, eventually becoming a meteorologist. She was happy with her career choice because she couldn't have asked for a better job—not only was every day different, making her work diverse, but she also worked with the best people she could ever wish for.

She could finally say that she had made friends. In elementary and high school, she couldn't say that, but now she finally could. It had taken her twenty-eight years to achieve this, but despite that, she was proud of herself.

And so here Minkyung was. At work. However, she wasn't in the KBS building but at the meteorological station located on the outskirts of Seoul—slightly on a hill so that they were high enough for their sensors and satellites to collect the best data. Of course, there were stations in even better locations all over South Korea, and they shared information among themselves, but Minkyung rarely visited those stations—she simply didn't have the time to travel far just to help collect data that the stations could gather on their own.

"Hyerim, can you show me that data again, please?" she asked her best friend, who, despite their two-year age gap, was her biggest support. They had met three years ago when Hyerim started as an intern, and Minkyung was assigned as her mentor. They immediately got along, and afterward, Minkyung asked her boss to hire Hyerim once her internship ended because they simply had to keep a talent like hers.

"Sure, but I don't know what else you expect to find," the younger woman nodded, handing her a stack of papers filled with graphs and various number-packed tables. A normal person who had never studied this would be confused and not understand a thing, but for her and the others in the building, it wasn't a problem at all—except for the receptionists, who certainly didn't know what was going on in this building. Well, except for the gossip, of course—they knew those all too well.

"There's something off about tomorrow's storm over Iksan," Minkyung explained. "Yesterday, the data was still showing sunshine."

"You've been working here for five years," Hyerim pointed out.

"And what exactly does that have to do with this sudden weather change?" Minkyung looked at her in confusion. She knew she had been working here for over five years, but that didn't mean she was the one who changed the wind direction and air density to turn Iksan into a rainy city where everyone would be walking with umbrellas overhead by tomorrow afternoon.

"It means you've been here long enough to know that these changes can happen," Hyerim chuckled. "We could be wrong, or our instruments could be wrong. Remember when you predicted snow, but instead, we got hail, and then it was so clear that people could have mistaken that January day for summer?"

"I know these changes can happen, and they happen very often, but this just doesn't make sense to me," Minkyung explained. She knew the rules of weather better than anyone. She had studied everything about it for years, and even now, she watched various documentaries, educational videos, or read scientific literature that was constantly being published. She never stopped learning, which some might find sad and not understand why she did it—many people don't want to continue studying after school—but she just saw things differently.

She lacked what most people around her already had—a boyfriend, a husband, or even children. She had no one waiting for her at home, so she filled that loneliness with work.

She knew it was her own doing. She was very aware of that. Her family constantly set her up on dates with different men they found for her, but she only went out of politeness, to avoid ruining her parents' reputation. Maybe it bothered her that they were involved in the dirty games big corporations played against each other. Maybe it bothered her that she was merely a pawn in the chess game her father had set in motion. Maybe she just didn't want to be part of their business world, which was why she studied something else. But that didn't mean she wanted to cut ties with her family. She still wanted the best for them, and unfortunately, that meant agreeing to the ridiculous dates they arranged for her.

But she wasn't searching for love.

It frustrated her that everyone around her, except for Hyerim, had partners they could rely on when they had a bad day or things weren't going well. It frustrated her that they had someone waiting for them at home after work. It frustrated her a lot—because she wanted that too.

She had never had that. In high school, she had a boyfriend for two months, and then another one in university for five months. She had never had a long-term relationship. She had never told anyone she loved them. She had never found someone to whom she could say, "I love you."

She never found it, so she stopped looking.

Love would find her on its own. That's what people said, right? That love finds you when you finally stop searching for it. They also said that everyone had a soulmate waiting for them somewhere.

But Minkyung didn't know where hers was.

It had been a long time, and love still hadn't found her.

"What doesn't make sense to you?" Hyerim asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. The girl stood up from her desk, walked around it, and positioned herself behind her friend. She had always been curious and eager to learn new things. That was something Minkyung liked about her—it showed that she took this job seriously and wasn't just studying it for the promise of good money. Hyerim was genuinely interested in weather science, and Minkyung knew that one day she would be among the best in the industry.

"This?" Minkyung pointed at one of the three graphs. This one was completely different. None of the numbers matched the previous ones, and overall, it just didn't seem to belong in these reports. It didn't look like a graph that should be associated with Iksan.

"It's true that these numbers are completely off," Hyerim said as she took the paper from her and ran a hand through her short brown hair. She had only recently cut it, but Minkyung had already told her countless times that short hair suited her perfectly. She looked absolutely stunning, and Minkyung was sure that thanks to it, her friend would finally find a boyfriend.

"Can you check it against the data from other cities? I think someone made a mistake, and this graph belongs elsewhere," she requested.

"I'll grab Sohee, and we'll go through it together," Hyerim nodded before heading toward the table where three interns were sitting—still full of energy and hope that they would be hired permanently once their internship ended. Minkyung had been in their position once too, but she had never been like them. Every year, three new interns were brought in, but she had noticed that they were becoming less and less proactive. She had wanted to secure a job, so she constantly walked around, asking if there was work she could help with. These new ones just sat and waited to be assigned tasks, because why would they go out of their way to do extra work? If it were up to Minkyung, she wouldn't hire any of them—none of them had approached her in the two months they had been there to ask anything.

"Hyerim," Minkyung called, catching her friend's attention.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you," the brunette said with a smile, which Hyerim returned.

She had enough work of her own, so she was relieved that someone else was taking care of Iksan and the unexpected storm that their data was suddenly showing. She hoped it was just a mistake and that someone had accidentally attached this graph to the rest of the reports. She hoped so because otherwise, she would have to figure out the reason for this anomaly—and she neither had the time nor the patience for that right now.

~•~

Everything was eventually resolved. One of the interns responsible for sorting papers made a mistake, attaching a graph meant for Busan to Iksan, which caused the anomaly. To him, it was just a tiny mistake—something to laugh off with a shrug, as if nothing had happened. But for Minkyung, it was a major error, one she would have gladly fired him for. She didn't want to be cruel—she certainly didn't want to be known in the workplace as the viper who made people's lives miserable—but this was a serious mistake. Sure, everything was fixed in the end, so the disaster was averted, but he didn't even acknowledge his error. He didn't apologize. He simply brushed it off, saying that hopefully, nothing bad had happened.

Minkyung hated people like that. Those arrogant types who thought they were above everyone else. Later, she found out from a receptionist that he was the son of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and had gotten the position through connections. At that moment, she understood why he acted that way. He didn't even want to be there—he was there only because his parents wanted him to be. But that didn't mean he could make such mistakes and refuse to take responsibility for them. Being the minister's son didn't make him any better than anyone else. His father was accomplished, but he himself had done nothing in life yet, so he had no reason to think he was superior.

She didn't want to dwell on it now. With a folder containing the draft of the weather script she had worked on with Hyerim, she was on her way to the KBS building. She needed to prepare for her broadcast and, at the same time, get as far away as possible from that idiot who thought too highly of himself. Just a 23-year-old guy whose greatest accomplishment so far was getting drunk to the point of blacking out and remembering nothing the next day. He had successfully ruined the rest of her day.

She parked in her reserved spot. Grabbing her dark blue folder from the passenger seat, where she kept all the necessary materials, along with her handbag—which held other essentials, plus her laptop in case she needed to message a colleague for any missing documents—she let out a sigh and looked out at the building.

The large stone structure had a distinct style. It looked communist, almost brutalist in design. Minkyung never liked the way the building looked, and whenever she was nearby, she always felt like the air was colder than usual. The building radiated a kind of sadness—or at least, that's how it felt to her. The interior was better, though some parts could definitely use modernization.

Straightening her back, she stepped out of the car. The weather was a pleasant twelve degrees—expected for October. It couldn't be said that she was breathing fresh air in the middle of Seoul, but it was certainly better than the stuffy air in her car after the half-hour drive from the meteorological station.

There were many people outside. Some looked like employees finishing their shifts, walking away from the building in their suits without looking back—just like in any job, where once you're done, you don't want to see your workplace anymore. There were also mothers with strollers, taking their babies for a walk. And among all these stories was Minkyung, living out her own.

She had to keep moving forward. Her story was still being written, and she needed to continue this chapter. So she started walking up the stairs toward the main entrance of the building. But it wouldn't be Minkyung if she weren't interrupted halfway there by her phone.

At first, she thought Hyerim was calling to tell her she had forgotten something at work—Hyerim had stayed behind longer to finish up a few things. But the name on the screen showed someone else.

"Father," she read aloud, letting out a sigh. The last person she wanted to talk to right now. As if her day wasn't already ruined thanks to that arrogant intern, now she had to deal with pointless conversations with her father—conversations they had had countless times, with her always giving the same answer. But her father was never satisfied with that answer, so he kept asking, hoping that one day she would finally tell him what he wanted to hear.

"Hello," she greeted her father as she accepted the call. Normally, she wouldn't have answered and would have called him back after work—she really didn't want to discuss family matters in front of her colleagues. But she also knew that if she didn't pick up, he would just keep calling. She wasn't about to spend the next three hours with her phone on silent just to avoid the vibrating notifications of her father's persistent calls.

"You didn't call," her father said, getting straight to the point.

Minkyung had no idea what he was talking about. She didn't remember telling him she would call him back or anything of the sort.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Yesterday, right before you hung up, I told you to call me," he explained. His voice didn't sound pleased. He sounded annoyed—maybe even more so when he realized that his daughter didn't remember.

But Minkyung remembered something else. She clearly recalled that it was her father who had said he would call. She would never have promised to call him back—because that was the last thing she wanted to do. Call her own family just to be reminded, once again, that she was a failure in life because she still wasn't married, despite having already turned thirty. Meanwhile, her younger sister had been married for three years.

"Well, I apologize for that," she let him believe he was right because she really didn't want to argue. Arguing was the last thing she was in the mood for. "I must have forgotten because I had a lot of work to do."

"How much work can a meteorologist possibly have?" her father scoffed superficially. Minkyung just rolled her eyes because he always did this. He thought his job was the hardest anyone could ever have and didn't believe that his daughter had it tough at work too. He assumed that working with the weather had to be really easy—mainly because he didn't think his eldest daughter was some kind of Einstein, so he doubted she could handle difficult work.

"What do you need?" she asked, changing the subject so she could finally end the call. She was already inside the building, walking through the hallways, where many people surrounded her, and she didn't want to discuss family matters in front of everyone. She didn't need people knowing that Kang Minkyung was dealing with such major problems with her own family.

But aside from one person, no one paid her any attention. Everyone had their own problems to deal with. Assistants, scriptwriters, producers—everyone involved in running KBS and its programs was rushing around, handling the daily challenges of their jobs. Only one person, standing a short distance from where Kang Minkyung had stopped, had nothing pressing to handle because everything was served to him on a silver platter. He was also surprised that the girl hadn't noticed him—people always noticed him—but he realized she must have been too caught up in her conversation, which seemed intense, even though she tried to appear composed.

Lee Soohyuk.

He was leaning against the wall, just ten meters away from Kang Minkyung, who ran a hand through her short hair and watched the street outside through the window while listening to the person on the other end of the call. He had no idea what they were talking about or who she was speaking with, but he could tell she didn't look happy. Quite the opposite. She looked genuinely sad, like she wanted to end the call but couldn't.

"I've told you many times not to do this," she said to the person on the other end, sighing—but quietly, so they wouldn't hear her frustration. Lee Soohyuk noticed and wanted to say something, but he didn't want to seem like someone who eavesdropped on other people's conversations. At that moment, he technically was eavesdropping, but it wasn't intentional. He had been standing there before Minkyung arrived, so it wasn't his fault. He could have walked away and left her alone, but he had been told to wait here for an assistant who would hand him the script and escort him to the studio for the first episode of Project 7.

"No, you listen to me," Minkyung suddenly burst out, drawing the attention of a few employees passing by. She quickly bowed apologetically for causing a disturbance.

Her eyes met Soohyuk's, and they locked gazes for a moment before she quickly turned away and continued her conversation.

"I won't be a pawn in your game. Find someone else for that. I am not getting married just because you need some company to merge with yours so you can become even more powerful."

With those words, she ended the call. One last time, she ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. She took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled, trying to calm herself. She grabbed her belongings, which she had briefly placed on the windowsill, and without another glance, walked away down the hallway.

Lee Soohyuk watched her the entire time.

~•~