Chapter 16 — Fake Kisses with My Ex's Best Friend

True to his promise to Khả Tâm, Thành Kiệt met Bảo Ngân the next night to talk decisively. They met at her apartment, the atmosphere between the two was tense from the moment he walked in the door.

"You came to say goodbye, right?" Bảo Ngân asked directly, his voice cold, without any emotion left after long days of waiting in pain and doubt.

"I'm sorry, Bảo Ngân," Thành Kiệt replied, bowing his head, not daring to look her in the eye, "I know I've been unfair to you all this time."

"Unfair?" She laughed bitterly, "You stood in front of the whole company, confessing your feelings to your ex, even when I was still your girlfriend. Do you think the word 'unfair' is enough to describe what you did to me?"

Thành Kiệt remained silent, unable to find any worthy excuse. That silence made Bảo Ngân even more angry, the pent-up emotions over the past several weeks suddenly exploded into words.

"You know, I gave up my stable position at the old branch and moved here completely, just because I believed in what you promised about a shared future. But now, I discovered that I was just a backup choice, while your heart never really left the old person."

"Bảo Ngân, I'm really sorry," Thành Kiệt said, his voice choked, "But you should know, the story between Tâm and Bách Nhân, it's not as simple as you think."

That sudden sentence made Bảo Ngân pause, curiosity overpowering anger for a moment. "What do you mean?"

Thành Kiệt, in the pain and bitterness of being rejected, because he felt like he was losing everything at once, couldn't control himself and blurted out what he should have kept secret. "Their love story was initially just a plan. Tâm asked Bách Nhân to pretend to date to get revenge on him, to make him jealous. I know this because Bách Nhân himself admitted it to me."

Bảo Ngân widened her eyes, not expecting the truth behind the relationship that she always admired as a model of sincere love was a drama staged from the beginning. "Are you telling the truth?"

"I have no reason to lie to you right now," Thành Kiệt replied, his voice still full of bitterness, "But I don't know if the feelings between them are real or fake now, perhaps they have deteriorated at some point."

After Thành Kiệt left the apartment, Bảo Ngân sat alone in the dark, anger and pain from betrayal mixed with the information he had just received, creating a dangerous mixture of emotions. She felt she had been deceived not only by Thành Kiệt, but also by the way the whole office admired Khả Tâm and Bách Nhân's "perfect" relationship, when in fact it was just an elaborate hoax.

In her anger, a dangerous thought began to form in her mind: if she couldn't keep Thành Kiệt, at least she wouldn't let Khả Tâm continue to be hailed as an example of sincere love while deceiving the entire company.

She lay awake all night, tossing her body from one side to the other, her mind spinning between the pain of being abandoned and the anger of not knowing where to vent. She thought about the evenings when she was alone waiting for Thành Kiệt to text, the times she patiently refused to ask directly for fear of making him uncomfortable, the sacrifices she made to nurture a relationship that now turned out to never be truly solid in that man's heart. The more she thought, the more she felt like a fool being taken advantage of, and that feeling, instead of being directed towards Thành Kiệt, the person who really caused everything, she unconsciously vented towards Khả Tâm, who, in her eyes at that moment, had become the embodiment of all the injustices she was suffering.

The next morning, when he arrived at the office with dark circles under his eyes from insomnia, Bảo Ngân applied makeup more carefully than usual, trying to hide all traces of fatigue, putting on his usual confident appearance. But inside, the determination to retaliate has clearly formed, just waiting for the right time to do it.

The next day, Bảo Ngân began quietly whispering to a few close colleagues in the Sales department about the "truth" behind Khả Tâm and Bách Nhân's relationship, deliberately weaving the story in the most unfavorable direction possible, turning a plan stemming from trauma into a coldly calculated plot.

"You know, Ms. Tâm's love story with Mr. Nhân was fake from the beginning, staged to take revenge on Mr. Kiệt," she said to a group of colleagues during the lunch break, her voice sounded regretful but filled with intention, "I heard it from a very reliable source, I guess now I don't know who is real and who is fake anymore."

Rumors spread like wildfire, embellished with each retelling. From a plan stemming from trauma and the desire to find justice, the story is gradually distorted into the image of a scheming Khả Tâm, taking advantage of friendship to achieve personal goals, and a weak Bách Nhân, ready to betray his best friend just because he was cleverly manipulated by a woman.

Đinh Việt Long, who likes to gossip, also quickly contributed to spreading the story, even though he did not know the accuracy of the information. "I heard that this drama is even scarier than I thought. It turns out it was all a drama from the beginning."

In less than three days, almost all employees of both the Communications and Sales departments had heard the distorted version of the story, with scrutinizing eyes and whispers every time Khả Tâm or Bách Nhân appeared.

Some people even added that Khả Tâm was never honest with anyone, that she used both men to satisfy her wounded pride, and that Bách Nhân, out of respect for friendship, became a puppet in her hands. Those rumors, even though there was no real evidence, were still enough to make the atmosphere in the office stuffy, causing many colleagues who were once close to them to start keeping their distance and be more cautious when talking to the two people.

Gia Kỳ was the first person to notice the change in the attitude of everyone around him, and quickly found Bách Nhân to warn him. "Mr. Nhân, there is something bad going around in that company, about your love story with Ms. Tâm being fake, a plan to take revenge on Mr. Kiệt or something. Do you know about this?"

Bách Nhân was stunned, feeling like the ground under his feet had just collapsed. He knew immediately that there was only one person who could know enough details to create such an accurate rumor: Thành Kiệt, the only person he had ever admitted part of the truth to during a tense argument.

He immediately called Khả Tâm, his voice filled with worry, "Tâm, have you heard the rumors spreading in the company?"

Khả Tâm, sitting at her desk, also noticed the strange looks in her colleagues' eyes around her throughout the morning, a change that she couldn't explain until she heard Bách Nhân say it. Her heart sank, realizing that the truth that they had both tried to protect for so long had now been exposed to everyone, in the worst way imaginable.

"Can we meet and talk?" She asked over the phone, trying to keep her voice calm even though her hands were shaking slightly.

They arranged to meet at the sixth floor emergency staircase, the place that witnessed the fall that started all the events, and now became the place where the two came to face the consequences of what they had created. Nhật Hạ was also present, her face full of worry.

"Rumors are spreading quickly," Nhật Hạ said, her voice urgent," I just heard the ladies in the Sales department talking, they said very specific details, like you asked Nhân to pretend to date you to get revenge, exactly like what really happened."

"Only Thành Kiệt knows enough details to recount it so accurately," Bách Nhân said, his voice low, clenching his fists, "He must have told Bảo Ngân after breaking up, maybe out of anger, maybe because he wanted to drag us both down with him."

Khả Tâm stood leaning against the stair railing, feeling dizzy as if she had just returned to the exact moment of her fall. She closed her eyes, trying to calmly think, but in her heart, a vague fear that everything good she had just found could collapse in just a few days was starting to overtake her.

"What should we do now?" She asked, her voice less panicked but still shaking.

"First of all, I didn't panic or overreact," Bách Nhân said, trying to act as a strong fulcrum for both of them, "Rumors can spread quickly, but if we don't give them more reasons to grow, they will gradually subside. The important thing is to maintain our stance, and not let rumors shake what we have built." Khả Tâm nodded. Even though her heart was still filled with worries, Bách Nhân's composure somehow helped her regain some of the calm she needed to face the turbulent days that lay ahead.