The rain had stopped, but the air still smelled like wet pavement as Mira stepped out of the taxi. She hated being late. Hated it. Yet here she was, sprinting across the slick sidewalk toward the office tower, her heels clicking too fast, her bag slipping off her shoulder.
She'd spent the night tossing and turning, chasing sleep that never came, her mind replaying the shadowy figure under the umbrella.
Her phone buzzed. Seo-yeon, 8:47 AM: Did you die?
Mira swiped the notification away without replying.
The elevator ride up was torture—too slow, too quiet. She checked her reflection in the mirrored walls: dark circles under her eyes, lips chapped from nervous biting. Professional. Put together. She forced her shoulders back.
The office was in chaos when she arrived.
"Yoon!" Mr. Han barked from his glass-walled fishbowl. "Where the hell have you been? Park's team called—they're sending someone to review the files in person today."
Mira's stomach dropped. "Today?"
"This morning." He threw a folder at her. "Get the conference room ready. And for God's sake, fix your face."
She barely had time to dump her bag at her desk before the emails started pouring in—Park's assistant, confirming arrival in thirty minutes. Park's legal team, demanding last-minute revisions. Park's chef, asking about dietary restrictions.
Who brings a personal chef to a business meeting?
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, adjusting the presentation, printing fresh copies, triple-checking every number. The clock ticked louder with each passing minute.
At 9:58 AM, the receptionist's voice crackled over the intercom: "Ms. Yoon, Mr. Park's representative is here."
Mira took a steadying breath. Four words. Four beats.
She walked to the lobby.
And froze.
Not at the sight of the man waiting there—tall, expensive suit, phone pressed to his ear—but at what sat on the reception desk beside him.
A carton of strawberry milk.
Condensation beaded on its surface, the same way it had twenty years ago when a quiet boy left one on her desk every Friday.
The man—not Park, just an assistant, thank God—followed her gaze. "Oh, that? Mr. Park's request. Weird, right? He had us stop at some convenience store on the way."
Mira's mouth went dry.
The assistant shrugged. "Said it was for someone named—" He checked his notes. "Stutterbird?"
The floor tilted.
Somewhere behind her, the elevator dinged. The assistant straightened. "Ah, that'll be him now."
Mira didn't turn around. Couldn't.
Because suddenly, she was seven years old again, hiding behind the school slide, watching a boy with scuffed shoes walk away without ever saying a word.
And now he was here.
And he remembered.
The elevator doors slid open.
---
Mira didn't turn around.
She couldn't.
Instead, she snatched the strawberry milk carton off the desk and shoved it into the assistant's hands. "Tell Mr. Park we have bottled water in the conference room." Her voice came out sharp—too sharp. The receptionist's eyebrows shot up.
The assistant blinked. "But he specifically—"
"Water," Mira repeated, already striding toward the meeting room. Her heels clicked like a metronome, each step measured, controlled. Professional. Unaffected.
Behind her, the elevator doors slid shut with a whisper.
She didn't look back.
---
The conference room was too bright, the glass walls reflecting her own pale face back at her. Mira arranged her files with military precision, aligning each page just so.
Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap.
Her fingers froze mid-air.
That rhythm. The same one from—
The door opened.
Mira didn't glance up. "If you'll take a seat, I'll begin the presentation in just—"
"You're left-handed now."
A voice like dark velvet.
Her pen slipped.
Park Jae stood in the doorway, one hand in his pocket, his tie slightly loosened. He wasn't looking at her slides or her meticulously prepared charts. He was staring at her hand—the one gripping the edge of the table, white-knuckled.
"You used to hold pencils in your right," he continued, stepping inside. "But you kept smudging your notes. So you switched."
Every muscle in Mira's body locked.
How did he—?
Because he'd watched. Because he remembered.
She forced herself to breathe. "Mr. Park. Let's review the quarterly projections."
Professional. Distant. Safe.
Park took the seat directly across from her. Not the head of the table, where clients usually sat. Here. Close enough that she caught the faint scent of his cologne—something woodsy, undercut with citrus.
Mira clicked to the first slide. Her voice came out steady, rehearsed. "As you can see, the ROI on the waterfront properties exceeds initial estimates by twelve percent."
Park didn't look at the screen.
He looked at her.
Specifically, at her left ear—where her fingers had just unconsciously begun tugging at the lobe.
She dropped her hand like it burned.
---
The meeting should have taken twenty minutes. It stretched into forty.
Mira recited numbers like a mantra, her gaze fixed on the wall just past Park's shoulder. Do not look at his face. Do not notice the way his hair falls over his forehead. Do not wonder if his hands still have that faint scar from the time he caught a baseball barehanded in fourth grade.
"—which brings us to the zoning concerns," she said, clicking to the next slide.
Park leaned forward. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"That thing with your pen." He nodded at her hand. "Twirling it when you're nervous."
Mira hadn't even realized she'd picked it up. The plastic barrel spun between her fingers, an old habit she'd thought she'd kicked in college.
She set it down with a clack. "If we could focus on the—"
"You also bite the inside of your cheek." His eyes dropped to her mouth. "Harder when someone interrupts you."
Heat flooded her face.
This wasn't professionalism. This was excavation.
Mira stood abruptly. "Would you like coffee? I'll get us coffee."
She didn't wait for an answer.
---
The break room was empty. Mira braced her hands against the counter, sucking in ragged breaths.
Get it together.
She'd faced down screaming clients, last-minute deal collapses, even a full-blown panic attack during her first year at the firm. None of them had made her feel like this—like her skin was two sizes too small.
The coffee machine gurgled. She focused on that, on the mundane ritual of pouring two cups. Black for him. One sugar for her.
Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap.
The rhythm came from behind her.
Mira spun.
Park stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the frame. His fingers drummed the laminate countertop—the same pattern he'd used to knock on her desk before sliding notes across in class.
"You forgot the sugar," he said.
Her hands shook. The coffee sloshed.
Park stepped closer. Too close. She could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispered.
He reached past her for the sugar packets. His sleeve brushed her wrist.
"Because you won't look at me," he said simply.
Then he dropped a crumpled piece of paper onto the counter and walked out.
Mira unfolded it with trembling fingers.
A child's drawing. A rabbit. And in the corner, in smudged pencil:
Happy Birthday, Stutterbird.