I blinked. That fast?

Pinnacle Group was headquartered in the capital — the largest multinational architecture and design conglomerate in the country, with notoriously demanding hiring standards.

But for a company that size, did the general manager really have nothing better to do?

“Don't worry, I'm not a scammer. I'm the direct supervisor for your position and wanted to discuss the role with you ahead of time.”

“If you confirm you're joining, please accept the friend request as soon as possible and let me know your start date so HR can prepare the contract.”

So that was all it was.

Before I could reply, a text from an unknown number buzzed in.

“Little Toby, I heard your eyes were red again today?”

"Fine, so you've got no family background, no body to speak of, and zero personality. But I guess your face is passable.”

“I ordered a Black Forest cake to your dorm. Don't be mad at me, okay?"

When I first arrived at the Morton house, I barely spoke. All I did was sit with my head down, drawing little houses.

Willow tried everything — jokes, toys — and none of it could get a word out of me.

Until one day she pointed at my drawing and wrinkled her nose—

“That's the ugliest house I've ever seen. Did your dad teach you that? Ugh, his drawings must be terrible.”

I lifted my head, indignant.

“My dad draws the best houses in the whole world!”

Willow broke into a grin. “So the little mute can talk after all.”

I couldn't even say what hurt, but the tears came rolling down anyway.

She panicked instantly. “Don't cry! I was just talking nonsense!”

“What if I buy you a Black Forest cake to make up for it?”

The cake was just as sweet as the ones my dad used to buy me. I stopped crying on the spot.

After that, whenever she wanted to pull me out of my shell, she'd pick a fight on purpose, then bribe me with cake to make it right.

Thinking of this, I typed something I hadn't planned to—

“If I left the Morton house one day — left the city — would you be sad?”

The moment I hit send, her call came through.

My heartbeat was deafening. I pressed accept with shaking fingers.

The next second, Willow's scoff filled my ear.

“Little Toby, so you're awake after all. Then why are you dreaming?”

“Of course not. Not in a million years.”

Faintly, in the background, I heard Clyde's voice.

“Willow, so the wallpaper on your new phone is my photo now, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

I went still.

That summer, we'd binged a drama together. The female lead set the male lead's photo as her phone wallpaper.

Willow said romance dramas were cringey, but she still sat through it with me.

When she caught me staring at the screen with envy, she shoved a chip into my mouth and said, half-jealous herself—

“She's not even as pretty as me. Are you seriously that starstruck?”

“When I get a boyfriend someday, I'll do the same thing — so he never has to be jealous of anyone else. You just sit tight and wait.”

I thought she was hinting at something. My heart pounded so hard it hurt.

Turns out she wasn't telling me to wait to become her boyfriend.

She was telling me to wait and watch her be happy with someone else.

I hung up without a word and accepted the friend request on my phone.

By accident, I tapped into her profile.

When I saw the photo, I froze.

The general manager of Pinnacle Group was her?

Clyde took a photo of Willow's phone wallpaper and posted it online.

By the next day, news that they were together had spread everywhere.

Willow never confirmed it. She never denied it either.

But in everyone else's eyes, silence was confirmation enough.

And me — the ‘lovesick fool’ — I became a tool. Anyone who wanted a shot at a job at Sawyer Corp figured the fastest way to Clyde's good side was through me.

It started Friday evening. I was getting dinner in the cafeteria when someone slammed into me out of nowhere, sending food all over my clothes.

The guy just shrugged, grinning.

“Oh man, Fox the Top Student — my bad. My eyes went blurry for a second there. Thought some dog in heat was charging at me.”

“Food's a little dirty, but you can still pick through it. You and your mom probably eat the Mortons' leftovers all the time anyway, right?”

“A broke nobody like you thinking he deserves Willow? Her and Clyde are the real deal!”

I said nothing. Tossed my jacket, bought a cup of instant noodles, and headed back to the dorm.

The second I walked in, I saw it. Every color of paint, splashed across my bedding.

Patrick and our other roommate were out. Only Steve Perry was there.

I looked at his darting eyes and didn't say a word. Just gathered the sheets and comforter into my arms and carried them to the washroom.

My mother had sewn this bedding by hand, stitch by stitch. I wasn't throwing it away.

It took hours to scrub the paint out. When I finally got back, the door was deadbolted from the inside.

I stood there a moment, then knocked softly.

“Steve. Can you let me in?”

His voice came through the door, strained and helpless.

“Toby, please don't make this harder for me.”

“Clyde's uncle knows the boss at the company that hired me. One word from Clyde and I lose everything. Can you just not be selfish about this?”

My hand froze against the door, then dropped to my side.

I didn't understand. Yes, I had feelings for Willow.

But I'd never hurt anyone. Why was I the one being punished?

My phone rang. Willow.

“Getting bold, aren't you, Little Toby? You didn't even know I got a new phone? Add my new account already.”

“I'm in Switzerland with Clyde, skiing. The food here is terrible. When I get back you'd better cook me something good. If you behave, maybe I'll bring you along next time so you can see the world.”

“Hello? Why aren't you talking? Gone mute again?”

Her thesis defense for business management was already over. No wonder she had time to kill.

Any other day I would've asked what she wanted to eat. But right now I was just so tired.

“Willow, there's something I need to tell you……”

She cut me off before I could finish, her voice sharp with alarm.

“Don't tell me you're pulling some last-day-of-college stunt where you confess your feelings and then threaten to freeze yourself to death if I say no?”

“Please. Just don't. Think about who you are and who I am. If I'm picking someone, obviously it's going to be someone like Clyde.”

“I've got you on speaker right now, by the way. My friends are all listening. Don't make yourself a stain on my life.”

Then she seemed to remember something.

“Oh, right. Clyde wants to train at Morton Group for a while after graduation, but that position's full. So you should go be a janitor first. I mean, you already help your mom clean all the time at home anyway.”

“Once he moves back to his family's company, you can have the spot. Gotta go, looks like Clyde took a fall on the slopes. Bye.”

My chest felt packed with cotton—thick, bitter, suffocating.

I pressed my hands over my face and laughed at myself, and the tears leaked out between my fingers.

So that's what I was. A stain on her life.

No matter how hard I tried, to Willow I'd never be anything more than the housekeeper's kid.

Curfew had passed. I sat in the freezing corridor, locked out and locked in.

Just like all those years living under the Mortons' roof.

The next morning, I packed my things and went back to the Morton residence.

My mother startled when she saw me：

“Toby, I thought you said you weren't coming home until after your defense on Tuesday?”

I didn't want her to worry. I just smiled.

“Couple days won't make a difference. I missed you.”

Then I collapsed.

When I opened my eyes again, I learned I'd spiked a fever. A hundred and two.

My mother stroked my face, hurting for me.

“The bedding you brought home was soaking wet. My boy. Someone hurt you, didn't they?”

“Was it because of……Miss Morton?”

I didn't answer. I just buried my face against her waist, my voice muffled：

“Mom, I got a job. Once my thesis defense is done, can we move to the capital?”

“I don't want to stay here anymore.”

No one knows a son like his mother. She understood everything without me having to say it.

She rubbed my back the way she used to when I was little, all that quiet, boundless love in her hand.

“Okay. I'll give Mrs. Morton my resignation tomorrow.”

I passed my thesis defense without a hitch.

But before Willow even made it home, Clyde's call came through.

“Toby, I heard about everything you've been going through lately.”

“I'm sorry my relationship with Willow dragged you into all this. I'd like to apologize in person, if that's all right?”

I didn't bother calling out the act.

“No need.”

“Oh. Well, you've got a roommate named Patrick Finch, right? You two are pretty close?”

“Then I guess I'll just have my uncle fire his father. I hear his mom's paralyzed and his grandma's bedridden too. Right when the family needs money the most. Real shame.”

My grip locked around the phone. I hadn't expected him to stoop this low.

The second I stepped into the private room at the club, a slap cracked across my face.

Clyde's friends on the sofa burst out laughing.

Clyde shook out his hand, eyes dripping with contempt.

“Toby, you're even more pathetic than I thought. You'd rather take a janitor's job than stop clinging to Willow.”

“Since you clearly can't figure it out on your own, I'll make sure you see reality for what it is.”

Willow's voice cut in from behind me.

“What's going on here?”

She saw the handprint on my face and her expression went cold.

“Who the hell hit him? Step up. Now.”

Clyde grabbed her arm, eyes rimmed red.

“Willow, I just wanted to get everyone together for a pre-graduation dinner. Toby's practically family to you, so I invited him too.”

“But he stole my diamond watch—worth three hundred grand—and won't even admit it. Everyone just wanted to help me get some justice.”

And just like that, he pulled the bracelet out of my bag.

Willow looked at me with open disappointment.

“Toby, why can you never stop embarrassing yourself?”

“If you needed money, you could've told me. Do you have any idea how much this humiliates……the Morton family?”

She hadn't checked a single fact. Hadn't asked a single question. Pure instinct told her I was guilty, and that was enough. The sting went straight through me.

“Willow, is that what I am to you? The kind of person who'd do anything for money because he's poor?”

“Yeah, I'm poor. But I've got two hands, two legs, and a brain. I don't steal.”

It was the first time I'd ever raised my voice at her. Willow froze.

Clyde put on a magnanimous face:

“Toby, for Willow's sake, all you have to do is get on your knees and say sorry. Then we'll drop the whole thing.”

“Otherwise, I'll have to call the police. Graduation ceremony's tomorrow. You don't want to get expelled tonight, do you?”

“Someone with your background, without even a diploma? You'd have nothing left.”

And Willow turned her face away. She didn't stop him.

In that moment, I finally understood what Clyde was really showing me.

Not how much Willow loved him.

But the wall of class prejudice between her and me, one I was never going to climb over.

Something in me went cold and still. I should have let go a long time ago.

In the standoff, a waiter suddenly walked in carrying a phone.

“Mr. Fox, a guest asked me to deliver this to you.”

It was a video.

Clear footage of me walking past the restroom near the private rooms, and a man deliberately bumping into me.

In that split second, the man had dropped the bracelet into my bag.

And that man was one of Clyde's friends, currently sitting on the sofa watching the show.

Every trace of color drained from Willow's face. She clenched her teeth.

“Explain!”

The man's expression twisted with embarrassment, his words coming out in broken stammers.

Clyde's face shifted. He slapped his own forehead.

“Ah, my fault. I pushed a few too many drinks on the guy. My watch got dirty, so I asked him to go rinse it off for me.”

“He was already out of it. Probably just slipped and dropped it in by accident. Whole thing's a misunderstanding.”

Willow looked at me, something complicated moving behind her eyes.

“Toby, I……”

I didn't acknowledge her. I walked straight out.

That night, Willow knocked on my door holding a cake, scratching her chin like she didn't quite know what to do with herself.

“Okay, I did jump to the wrong conclusion today.”

“But whose fault is that? You're so hopeless at defending yourself. You don't explain anything, you just yell.”

When I didn't take the cake, she shoved it into my hands with an impatient huff.

“There. This heiress has personally lowered herself to apologize to you, so don't you dare be ungrateful.”

“Tomorrow morning we'll go to graduation together. I have a present for you. Then I'm taking you skiing in Switzerland. Just us this time, nobody else.”

I lowered my eyes and answered quietly.

“Okay.”

Only then did Willow pat my head, satisfied.

“That's more like it. See you in the morning.”

Since the incident in high school, this was the first time she'd offered to go to campus with me.

But I didn't need it anymore.

The next day, Willow waited and waited. I never came out.

She finally lost patience and went upstairs, only to find my door hanging open and the room completely empty.

Mrs. Morton passed by, looking puzzled.

“Why are you still here? You're going to be late for the graduation ceremony.”

Unease surged through Willow. She asked before she could stop herself.

“Mom, where's Little Toby?”

Mrs. Morton widened her eyes in surprise.

“Toby didn't tell you?”

“He found a job out of town and needed to get there early to settle in. He and his mother left in the middle of the night.”