Lin came back to Yeh's city for the purpose of work. In truth, the timing, the meeting, even the agenda—none of it was accidental. Lin had arranged it on purpose, wanting to see whether anything will change this time.
The first discussion of the meeting centered on the ending Of the series.
Lin argued for a regretful or at least open ending. Unfinished emotions, she said, lingered. She mentioned the Zeigarnik effect—how what remains unresolved stays with people longer. Mature love didn't need closure to be real. Sometimes.
Yeh dSomething agree at all this time.
Her tone stayed even, her reasoning precise. She moved from market response to audience behavior, from platform data to comparable projects, laying everything out before arriving at something simple and immovable—people wanted certainty. They wanted to leave with something held, not something that echoed without resolution.
"This was never meant to be purely expressive," she said. "It's a balance. Between emotion and responsibility. Between what we feel… and what we leave people with. It was comfort. It was giving the audience a reason to feel healing when they walked away."
The room stretched around them, the discussion looping, tightening.
It was the first time they pushed against each other in front of everyone. No raised voices, no loss of composure—but every response landed clean, deliberate, leaving no room to retreat. Like a game played too precisely to be casual.
Then Yeh said it.
"In real life, there's already enough love that doesn't work out. Why make people go through it again in a story?"
Her voice slowed, just slightly. Her gaze fell on Lin—then slipped, as if it hadn't meant to stay.
"People come to feel something that gives them back a little light. You want a regretful ending because you don't need that… because you're already happy in real life. Aren't you?"
The moment Yeh spoke out, she knew,
The logic didn't fully hold. It leaned somewhere it shouldn't have.
The room went quiet.
No one else caught the weight of it—not really. To them, it was just friction in a discussion. But Lin looked at her, and for a brief second, something in that look paused—not disagreement, not offense.Surprise, maybe. Or something close to it.
Yeh didn't know how much she understood.
The conversation moved on.
Yeh pulled herself back together quickly, built her argument cleanly, reinforced it with data, precedent, expectation—until there was nothing left to question.
The ending was set.
A happy one.
A decision the project needed.
Only Yeh knew the truth—her insistence on that ending wasn't just about the market. She wanted to hand over what couldn't be fulfilled in real life to the story, to let it exist there instead—at least in another world, in a version where it was finally allowed to happen.
When the meeting ended, people left in small clusters until the room emptied.
Lin didn't move right away. She paused, almost instinctively, like she was waiting for something familiar to follow—something like a casual question from Yeh"Do you want to grab dinner?"
Nothing came.
Yeh closed her laptop, clean, efficient. No hesitation. She stood up.
"I have something to handle later," she said, "I'll head off first."
No space left open.
Lin didn't even get the chance to respond.
As Yeh turned, she caught a glimpse of Lin still sitting there.
For a second, it hit Yeh—
This was cruel.
Her composure came at a cost of hurting someone else's.
That wasn't who she used to be.
She used to choose the opposite—take the weight herself, just to avoid letting anyone feel left behind. But somewhere along the way, she learned something else—
If you don't define the boundary, it will define you.And it never stops where you want it to.
Outside, night had already settled.
Traffic moved slowly under the streetlights. Yeh stood there for a moment, like she was waiting for her body to catch up with her decision.
Then she called Fiona.
"Are you busy? We just wrapped."
"Just finished working too. Want to grab dinner?" Fiona's voice was light, easy.
Yeh hesitated.
"I have something to deal with now. Why don't you ask Lin? She doesn't seem to have plans. She came all this way."
A soft laugh on the other end. "Sure, I'll call her."
Fifteen minutes later, Yeh opened her phone and typed before she could stop herself.
Which restaurant are you guys going?
She knew that wasn't what she was really asking.
The reply came quickly—some Thai place nearby. Want to join?
Yeh looked at the screen.
Paused.
Not tonight. Still caught up here. Next time, I'll come.
Sent.
She put her phone away and let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh.
It had been simple.
Just dinnerwith a friend. But with Lin, it was never just that.
It would pull her back—to that place she had just managed to leave.
Back into something without an ending.
And this time—
she chose not to step into it.