Two years.

Two years since you last saw Seo Changbin in person, and not in the carefully curated way the internet sees him — not on a stage, not in a V-Live, not in a magazine spread where his jawline could cut glass. Two years since that night you found the texts, the photos, the excuses that didn't add up. Two years since you walked out of his apartment with your bag half-zipped and your heart pounding so hard you thought you'd throw up on the stairs.

He cheated on you.

It wasn't a rumor. It wasn't a misunderstanding. It was bad and it was real and you never got an apology that actually sounded like one. Just a "it wasn't serious" and a "you're overthinking" and a "let's not throw this away." You threw it away anyway.

And you rebuilt.

You became a makeup artist. Not a famous one. Not an Instagram-famous one with a million followers. An ordinary one, with a kit you saved up for piece by piece, brushes you clean every night, and a reputation for being fast, quiet, and good with skin that has to survive under hot stage lights and HD cameras. It paid the rent. It kept your hands busy. It kept your mind off him.

Until today.

The agency called yesterday. Big job. Last-minute. Good pay. "Idol group, comeback shoot, full-day booking, be there at 8 a.m." They didn't say which group. You didn't ask. You should have asked. That was your mistake.

Now you're standing in the lobby of the JYP building, a building you've seen a thousand times on YouTube behind-the-scenes videos, holding the handle of your rolling suitcase full of cosmetics so tight your knuckles are white. Your heart is already doing that stupid, traitorous thing where it remembers before your brain does.

The coordinator, a harried woman with a clipboard, barely looks up. "Makeup team? Room 3, third floor. They're waiting. You're late."

You're not late. You're three minutes early. But you nod anyway and drag your suitcase toward the elevator.

The hallway on the third floor smells like hairspray, coffee, and new clothes. You can hear them before you see them — laughing, loud, chaotic. Eight voices you know better than you want to admit, because for a year and a half, they were background noise to your life. You heard them through Changbin's phone calls. You met a few of them at dinners where you tried not to feel out of place.

You pause at the door to Dressing Room 3. The nameplate says: STRAY KIDS.

Your stomach drops straight through the floor.

Stray Kids. Of course it's Stray Kids.

You think about turning around. You think about calling the coordinator and saying you're sick, you have food poisoning, your grandmother died. Anything. But your feet don't move. Your professional pride does. You didn't come this far to run.

You take a breath. You fix your face — the same neutral, pleasant, unbothered face you use on every difficult client. You push the door open.

The room is a mess of light and noise. Mirrors ringed with bulbs. Racks of stage outfits. Someone is eating ramen in the corner. Someone else is doing vocal warm-ups way too loud.

And then, all eight of them look up.

Bang Chan. Lee Know. Changbin. Hyunjin. Han. Felix. Seungmin. I.N.

Your eyes go to him before you can stop them, like a reflex you thought you'd trained out of yourself.

Changbin.

He's bigger than you remember. Broader. More built, like the gym finally won. His hair is darker, styled back. He's wearing a black t-shirt and sweatpants, a towel around his neck, laughing at something Han said — and then he sees you.

The laugh dies in his throat.

His face does this thing — shock, then something like guilt, then something you can't name because you refuse to name it. His eyes widen. His mouth opens slightly. The towel slips a little.

The whole room goes quiet. You can feel seven other pairs of eyes darting between you and him, sensing the shift in the air, that thick, awkward, electric tension.

Han is the first to break it. "Oh! The makeup noona is here!" he says brightly, oblivious.

You force a smile. You step fully inside, wheeling your suitcase in behind you with a soft click that sounds way too loud in the silence.

"Hi," you say, your voice steady in a way that surprises even you. "I'm your makeup artist for today. Where do you want me to set up?"

You don't look at Changbin. You look at Chan, because Chan is the leader and leaders handle things. Chan, who clearly recognizes you from somewhere, gives you a polite, confused nod.

But you can feel it. Changbin is still staring. Two years, and you are standing three feet away from him in a dressing room, holding a suitcase full of foundation and concealer, about to touch his face and pretend you don't know every scar, every freckle, every place he used to be ticklish.

This was supposed to be an ordinary job.

It isn't anymore.