365 days to find love
One year to live. One chance to be seen. One dream to chase.
I was a ghost in the heart of London, a silhouette fading into the grey fog of the city. As a lead designer for a prestigious fashion house, my talent was the engine behind our top sales, yet I lived my life submerged in oversized black hoodies and fake glasses. I had mastered the art of being invisible—a survival tactic born from a teenage trauma that taught me beauty was a target. My "snatched" waist and striking curves were secrets I kept buried under layers of fleece, while my boss, Martha, treated me like a nameless tool that produced gold on paper.
The diagnosis changed everything. A brain tumor. 365 days.
When Martha called at midnight, ordering me to a struggling branch in Seoul without a hint of empathy, I didn’t argue. I didn't care about her corporate greed. All I saw was an exit ramp. I was going to my dream country, and I was going to spend my final days living out loud.
Seoul was a whirlwind of neon and steel, but the prejudice was a cold splash of water. In the Mapo-gu office, my coworkers didn't see a savior; they saw an outsider who "couldn't even dress herself." she can't even dress how is he going to make dresses.
But I was done hiding.
The company’s survival rested on my collaboration with Kim Shi-na, the "Nation’s Goddess." She was a porcelain-skinned superstar, obsessed with perfection and deeply in love with the heir to the company, Lee Hun-joo. To the public, they were the ultimate power couple. To me, Shi-na was a nightmare who looked down on my heritage and my baggy clothes—until my designs made her the talk of the world.
The breakthrough came when Shi-na wore my "Lunar Silk" gown on the red carpet. Suddenly, the company was back on its feet, and I was the secret weapon everyone wanted to unmask. But the glory was short-lived.
The night I went to Shi-na's apartment to show her my latest sketches, my world fractured. I walked in on her with a secret lover—not Lee Hun-joo. The rage in her eyes was murderous. She threatened to ruin me, to kill me, if I ever spoke. But fate had a different plan for my heart.
Amidst this chaos was Sean, my colleague and flatmate. He was the one who saw me when I was still "the girl in the hoodie." He was my anchor, his messy hair and quiet smiles making me feel like I finally had a home. I was falling for him, but my heart was set for a different kind of heartbreak when I realized he was already engaged to be married Unable to face him in our shared apartment, I wandered the streets of Mapo. The air was freezing, biting at my skin as I walked the empty, neon-soaked roads, my eyes blurred with tears.
That was when I saw him.Lee Hun-joo, the cold, untouchable heir and the man Kim Shi-na claimed to love, was staggering down the middle of the street. He was completely drunk, his expensive shirt unbuttoned and his tie hanging loose. He looked nothing like the powerful man he was .He was heavy, smelling of expensive bourbon and cold air. As he leaned against me, his head dropping onto my shoulder, the "Invisible Girl" and the "Golden Heir" stood alone in the dark. I couldn't leave him there. I called shi na but she never answered confused about what to do I struggled to lead him back to my apartment, my heart still raw from Sean's marriage news but racing with a new, terrifying adrenaline.
I didn't know it then, but by dragging the drunken heir into my home, I had just walked into a thrilling, dangerous love story—one that would force me to shed my hoodies, face the wrath of a jealous Kim Shi-na, and finally show the world the beautiful woman I was before my 365 days were up.