Chapter 8: When Silence Screams
The sun barely rose over Baguio's misty hills when Lili sat by the window of her childhood room, fingers trembling as she opened her laptop. The story she never thought she'd write—her own—was now being poured into chapters, one by one.
"He didn't message me. Not even once," she typed with a tight chest.
"But the silence screamed louder than any words."
She posted the new chapter to her fan fiction account without overthinking. She no longer cared if people judged her for what happened. Let them read the truth—how one stolen photo flipped her world upside down.
Hours later, her inbox was flooding.
Thousands of readers.
Thousands of reactions.
And one message—from an unknown sender.
"Is this story real?"
"Did this really happen to you and Kang Linho?"
She didn't respond. She just watched as the story took a life of its own, shared across forums, translated in different languages, and retweeted with hashtags like #TheGirlBehindTheViralPhoto and #MyViralLove.
---
Meanwhile, in Seoul…
Linho was stuck in traffic, scrolling through his feed when he saw his staff frantically whispering while staring at their phones.
"Sir… this," his assistant said, handing him the screen.
It was her story.
He read the first few paragraphs in silence—his throat tightening as the words bled honesty and heartbreak. There it was, the truth he never asked for… in a fan fiction story that was far too real.
"Did she… really lose her job because of me?"
His assistant nodded slowly. "She resigned and went back to Baguio. That's where she's been writing from."
Minho stared out the tinted window, his reflection barely visible in the glass.
"I didn't even get to say sorry," he whispered.
The car turned a corner—but inside him, something had shifted.
It was time to stop hiding behind silence.
Time to fix what fame had broken.
Time… to find her.