บททั้งหมดของ He couldn't see my face, but fate never forgot mine: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

The arrivals hall smelled like coffee, jet fuel, and other people's excitement.Wren crouched by a pillar near Gate 4. His left knee pressed against the polished floor while he fumbled with a shoelace that had picked the worst possible moment to come undone. Around him, the airport moved in its usual chaos. Trolleys rattled. A toddler shrieked with laughter somewhere behind him. Someone's heavy perfume trailed a little too long in the air-conditioned air.He checked his phone. Lilian: landed, give me 10 mins, don't you dare leave.As if he would. He'd promised to be here the second her flight touched down. Wren didn't break promises to his sister—not after three weeks of her texting him grainy beach photos just to rub it in that she was somewhere warm while he was home reheating instant noodles.He tugged the lace tight, double-knotted it out of habit, and pushed himself up.He rammed straight into a wall of solid fabric.For a terrifying fraction of a second, the bustling airport no

The headache had started somewhere over the Pacific, a dull pressure behind his left eye that Killian had learned, over the years, not to bother fighting. Fighting it only made it worse. The trick was to let it sit there, humming under everything else, and keep moving like it wasn't happening.He'd been managing it for as long as he could remember. Longer than he could remember, his grandmother used to say the pressure started before he was even born, passed down the way some families passed down a bad hip or a widow's peak. A curse, she called it, in the same tone she used for recipes and weather. Just a fact of the bloodline. No peace until you find the one meant for you. She'd said it so many times throughout his childhood that it had long since stopped sounding dramatic and started sounding like something closer to a diagnosis.He rubbed at his temple as the car pulled away from the curb, city lights starting to blur past the window in a way that had nothing to do with speed and

The bike had been rattling for two days. It was a thin, metallic scraping sound coming from somewhere under the seat. Wren had been ignoring it on the theory that if you ignore a problem long enough, it might fix itself. It hadn't worked yet. Today, the noise ground into an angry screech every time he twisted the throttle, like the engine was personally offended by how little gas was left in the tank."Come on, not today," Wren muttered. He swerved hard to weave between a delivery van and a city bus that had illegally stopped in the middle of the lane. "Hey, just keep moving."His phone was clipped to the plastic holder on the handlebars, its bottom corner webbed with cracks from an old drop. The screen lit up with the exact same text the temp agency had already sent twice this morning.Reminder: Shift starts at 8:00 AM sharp. Late arrivals will not be accepted. This is a trial period.The digital clock in the corner read 7:41am.Under normal circumstances, nineteen minutes was plenty

Killian slammed the backup glasses onto the bridge of his nose. They were a cheap, thick-rimmed pair he kept in the bottom drawer for emergencies, and the prescription was slightly off. The lenses warped the edges of his vision, making his ranted headache flare behind his left temple with a fresh, sickening pulse.He ripped his dark wool coat off, throwing it over the leather sofa across the room. The fabric was ruined, caked in gray concrete dust and scuffed white lines from where that lunatic on the bike had aggressively dragged him across the pavement.His hands were still shaking. Just a part. It wasn't from fear, it was the pure adrenaline of watching his car compressed into a three-foot cube of scrap metal. If he had been inside, he'd be dead.The door to the executive office clicked open. Mr. Kang stepped inside, carrying a trembling tray with a single cup of black coffee. He looked pale, his eyes darting toward the ruined coat on the sofa. Rumors of the downtown wreck had clea

The glass door to the executive office didn't click open; it swung wide with the smooth, practiced ease of someone who owned the building."Killian," Corin said, stepping into the room. He had already straightened his tie and replaced his frantic phone demeanor with a mask of perfect, brotherly concern. He carried a small white box from a high-end bakery downtown. "Marcus said you refused the ice pack. You always were stubborn after a hit."Killian didn't look up from his monitor, though his shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. "I told you I'm fine, Corin. The car took the damage. Not me.""Yeah, well, seeing the footage of a crushed chassis tends to make people worry," Corin said. He set the bakery box on the corner of the mahogany desk, leaning against the edge with an easy, informal posture that no one else in the conglomerate dared to use with the Director. "I ran up the second the budget hearing wrapped. Dad was insufferable today. He's already calling the logistics team to s