Later that evening at Jihan's office, a message came in a little past six, while Jihan was still buried in a stack of contracts he'd been putting off all week.
An unfamiliar number. No name attached.
He almost ignored it, assuming spam, but something made him open it anyway—old habit, maybe, or the particular unease that had settled into him since the scandal broke, a low-grade wariness that made him check things he might have otherwise dismissed.
A photo loaded slowly across the screen.
Jae-min, standing close to a man Jihan didn't recognize outside what looked like a mall entrance, both of them laughing at something, the stranger's hand resting lightly at the small of Jae-min's back as they walked toward a car together.
Jihan stared at it for a long moment.
*It's nothing,* he told himself, setting the phone face-down on his desk and returning to the contract in front of him. *A friend. Someone from school. There's a dozen innocent explanations.*
