Chapter 70 — Unsent Messages and Unseen Threads
9:14 AM
The AUREUS apartment buzzed with live broadcast energy.
Cameras tracked the members' every move—from Rin measuring coffee beans with scientific precision, to Sungchan accidentally knocking over a plant in the hallway and trying to pretend it was "abstract décor."
The fans were eating it up.
#48HoursOfGold was already trending worldwide.
But amidst the chaos, no one noticed how often Jaeheon checked his phone.
He didn't unlock it.
He didn't text.
He just looked at the screen. Once. Twice. Then turned it off again.
There was no notification.
But That Wasn't the Point.
He had stopped waiting six months ago.
And started writing instead.
Unsent Message #183 (Archived Draft)
To: Her
"The sun rose like a shy girl today. I thought of you immediately."
"There's a cat that follows me near the studio building. I call her 'Light'. She doesn't like anyone else. You'd understand her."
"I'm tired today. Not because of work. Just… I miss speaking to someone who doesn't need me to perform."
"Sometimes I wonder if silence is a kind of answer too."
He never pressed send.
But he never stopped writing.
They were for her. Even if she never saw them.
Especially if she never did.
Back in the Living Room
"Hyung," Hyunjae called. "You wanna join the game?"
It was a chaos-filled mini variety segment where the members had to draw each other blindfolded. The punishment? Imitate the member you drew, live.
Jaeheon looked up from his coffee and nodded once.
He walked over.
Sat down.
Blindfolded himself.
And laughed—quietly—when Minjae drew a stick figure with sunglasses and yelled, "I MADE JAEHEON!"
It was the kind of laughter that came from somewhere real. And the others noticed.
But again—
No One Asked.
And he didn't explain.
Because the truth wasn't theirs to know.
Elsewhere — A Location Unknown
A woman sat at a desk made of brushed steel and tempered glass.
Her blonde hair was tied back. Her eyes the color of the sea during a storm.
She had watched the live broadcast. Exactly two minutes of it.
And then turned it off.
He smiled today.
He never used to.
She closed the screen.
She didn't send anything.
But her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a while after.
And then slowly, she opened a locked archive on her private server.
Inside it was every unsent message he had ever typed.
Her AI had collected them.
Encrypted them.
Preserved them.
She had read all 183.
Twice.
She wasn't ready to reply.
But she had never missed a single one.