“Didn’t you come home last night?”
Ly Tu’s voice carried obvious displeasure.
Not worry.
Not concern.
Displeasure.
I sat beside the hotel window, looking at the gray morning sky.
“No.”
“Where did you sleep?”
“At a hotel.”
There was a pause.
Then his tone became colder.
“Why are you throwing a tantrum?”
I almost laughed.
“I’m not.”
“Then come home. To Yen stayed over because she caught a chill last night. Bring breakfast when you return.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
Of course.
Even now, the first thing he thought about was her.
“What does she want?”
Ly Tu seemed relieved that I had finally become “reasonable.”
“Rice porridge. Nothing oily.”
“I see.”
Then I hung up.
I did not buy breakfast.
I did not return home.
At nine o’clock, I went directly to the company.
Human Resources had already received my resignation.
The manager looked at me in surprise.
“Lin Wan, are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“But your project with Phuong Chu is at the most important stage.”
“I’ve completed the handover documents.”
“Does Director Ly know?”
I smiled.
“He will.”
Ly Tu discovered it at ten fifteen.
He entered the office after taking To Yen to a clinic.
The moment he saw my resignation request on the system, he walked straight to my desk.
“What is this?”
The entire department became quiet.
I continued organizing files.
“My resignation.”
“I can read.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m asking why.”
“Personal reasons.”
His expression darkened.
“Because of last night?”
“No.”
That answer seemed to anger him more.
He lowered his voice.
“Lin Wan, stop being childish.”
For three years, every time I expressed dissatisfaction, he used that word.
Childish.
Jealous.
Sensitive.
Overthinking.
Anything except hurt.
I finally looked at him.
“I’ve accepted another offer.”
He froze.
“Where?”
“Phuong Chu Group.”
His face changed completely.
Our colleagues began exchanging glances.
Everyone knew what that meant.
Phuong Chu was not merely a client.
It accounted for almost thirty percent of our department’s annual revenue.
And the person responsible for most communication with them had always been me.
Ly Tu stared at me.
“You’re joining our client?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how inappropriate that looks?”
I smiled.
“Director Chu contacted me a month ago.”
His eyes narrowed.
“A month?”
“Yes.”
“And you hid it from me?”
“I rejected him.”
“Why?”
I closed my laptop.
“Because I was worried people would say you couldn’t even keep your girlfriend from joining the client.”
For the first time, Ly Tu went silent.
I continued:
“But now that I don’t have a boyfriend, there’s no problem.”
His expression stiffened.
“What do you mean?”
I looked directly at him.
“We’re done.”
Someone inhaled sharply behind us.
Ly Tu’s face became frighteningly calm.
“You’re breaking up with me because I gave To Yen an umbrella?”
“No.”
“Then because I drove her home?”
“No.”
“Then what exactly did I do?”
That question finally exhausted me.
Three years.
And he still needed a list.
I took out my phone.
I opened our conversation.
“Two months ago, you refused to stand under one umbrella with me because colleagues might misunderstand.”
He said nothing.
“Last night, you shared one with To Yen in front of the entire company.”
His lips moved.
“She was soaked.”
“So was I.”
He stopped.
“I fell less than twenty meters behind you.”
His eyes dropped toward my knee.
Only then did he notice the bandage.
His face changed.
“You fell?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
I almost laughed.
“You told me to call a car myself.”
He opened his mouth.
No words came.
I picked up my bag.
“The problem isn’t the umbrella, Ly Tu.”
“It’s that for three years, you protected her feelings from me and protected your reputation from our relationship.”
“But you never protected me from either.”
To Yen came running over before lunch.
Her eyes were already wet.
“Wan Wan, are you leaving because of me?”
The office became painfully quiet.
I looked at the woman I had called my best friend for five years.
“No.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly.
Then I added:
“I’m ending our friendship because of you.”
Her face froze.
“What?”
“You knew we were together.”
“Of course I knew.”
“And yet every time he created distance from me in public, you moved closer.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe.”
I looked at her calmly.
“But fairness is no longer my responsibility.”
Her tears began falling.
“Nothing happened between us!”
“I believe you.”
She blinked.
Apparently she had prepared herself to defend an affair.
I wasn’t interested.
“You don’t need to sleep with your best friend’s boyfriend to disrespect the relationship.”
Her face went pale.
Ly Tu stepped forward.
“Enough.”
I turned toward him.
There it was again.
Protecting her.
I smiled.
“Exactly.”
Then I left.
I started at Phuong Chu three weeks later.
Chu Minh did not ask about Ly Tu.
He did not treat hiring me like some revenge story.
He gave me a title.
Senior Brand Strategy Manager.
My own team.
A real budget.
Decision-making authority.
Within two months, Phuong Chu began reviewing all external agency contracts.
That included Ly Tu’s company.
The first time we met again was in a conference room.
He walked in carrying the proposal.
Then stopped when he saw me sitting beside Chu Minh.
His expression changed.
“Lin Wan?”
Chu Minh looked between us.
“You know Manager Lin?”
Ly Tu recovered quickly.
“Former colleague.”
I almost admired the phrasing.
Former colleague.
Not former girlfriend.
Even now, he was instinctively erasing what we had been.
I simply nodded.
“Director Ly.”
Professional.
Nothing more.
The review had nothing to do with revenge.
Ly Tu’s company was expensive.
Its campaign performance had declined.
Its competitors offered better data and faster delivery.
So Phuong Chu reduced the contract.
Not canceled.
Reduced.
By forty percent.
When the decision was announced, Ly Tu requested a private conversation.
We met in the empty conference room.
“Did you do this?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I was one of six people who voted.”
His eyes hardened.
“And you voted against us.”
“Yes.”
“Because of what happened between us.”
“No.”
I slid the performance report toward him.
“Because your conversion rate has fallen for three consecutive quarters.”
He looked at the numbers.
I continued:
“This is exactly why I originally refused Phuong Chu.”
“What?”
“I knew if I ever had to judge your work objectively, you would assume my decision was emotional.”
His face tightened.
“Then tell me honestly.”
He pushed the report away.
“If we were still together, would you have voted the same way?”
I thought for a moment.
“No.”
He looked almost triumphant.
Then I finished:
“I probably would have protected you.”
His smile disappeared.
“That’s why leaving was good for both of us.”
Something changed after that.
Without me handling half his client communications, Ly Tu finally discovered how much invisible work I had done.
I had remembered every client preference.
Fixed presentation errors before he noticed.
Rewritten proposals at midnight.
Taken calls on weekends.
Absorbed anger from clients so he could appear calm in meetings.
For three years, he believed he was the one carrying our relationship.
Because his title was higher.
His salary was larger.
His name appeared first on the presentations.
But after I left, he hired two people to replace the work I had been doing.
And they still struggled.
One evening he sent me a message.
【I didn’t know you did so much.】
I looked at it for several seconds.
Then replied:
【I know.】
To Yen lasted another four months at the company.
Without me fixing her mistakes and Ly Tu constantly protecting her, colleagues became less patient.
Eventually she resigned.
Before leaving, she asked to meet me.
I agreed.
She looked thinner.
More subdued.
“I thought you were jealous because you didn’t trust me.”
I stirred my coffee.
“I trusted you too much.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I liked his attention.”
That was the first completely honest thing she had ever said.
“Did you love him?”
“No.”
She smiled bitterly.
“I liked knowing he would choose me when you were standing there.”
I looked at her.
For three years, that had been the game.
She did not necessarily want Ly Tu.
She wanted proof that she could take his attention from me.
I stood.
“Thank you for finally saying it.”
“Can we ever be friends again?”
“No.”
I wasn’t angry.
That was simply the answer.
A year after the rainy night, Phuong Chu held its annual celebration.
It rained again when the event ended.
Someone laughed near the entrance.
“Only two umbrellas left!”
For a moment, the scene felt almost absurdly familiar.
Then Chu Minh handed me one.
“You take this.”
“What about you?”
“I parked underground.”
He pointed toward the elevator.
No dramatic gesture.
No tilted umbrella.
No performance.
Just an ordinary solution.
I walked outside alone.
Halfway to the car, someone called my name.
Ly Tu.
He stood under the awning.
He had come as a representative of one of the agencies invited to the event.
“Lin Wan.”
I turned.
He looked at the rain.
Then at me.
“I think I finally understand why you left.”
I said nothing.
He continued:
“I thought keeping our relationship secret was protecting both of us.”
“But I let everyone see me care about To Yen because, somewhere inside, I liked being needed by her.”
His voice was low.
“I didn’t realize how humiliating that was for you.”
“I did.”
He nodded.
Then asked:
“Is there really no chance?”
I looked at the man I had chased for three years.
Once, I had measured love by how often he answered my messages.
How many private moments he gave me.
How many excuses I could create for him.
Now it all seemed exhausting.
“No.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Because of To Yen?”
I shook my head.
“Because I don’t want to run after anyone anymore.”
Then I opened my umbrella.
And walked into the rain.
That night, Ly Tu had thought he was only choosing who stood beside him beneath one umbrella.
He did not know he was making a much larger choice.
For three years, he had taught me that loving him meant staying two steps behind.
Waiting.
Understanding.
Pretending not to see.
But when I fell in the rain and he never turned around, something finally became clear:
I had spent three years chasing a man who was perfectly capable of slowing down.
He simply had never chosen to slow down for me.
So I stopped running.
And when he finally turned around—
I was already walking toward a life where I no longer had to beg anyone to make room for me under their umbrella.
