The Right Wrong Number

Sometimes, a mistake is just a mistake. But other times, a wrong number is the only right thing that happens to you all year.

You spend 40 hours a week arranging romance for strangers, so you know better than anyone that the best love stories usually start with some kind of disaster.

And yours was no different.

The first time Cho Miyeon ever texted you, you were just the fake number that her one-night-stand threw into her phone. And the second time, she was drunk-texting you a week later asking if you were sure you weren’t him.

So how ironic is it that she’d also been the girl standing in front of you in your flower shop every week, buying herself flowers to mourn her own love life, completely unaware that the guy she’s been texting nonstop is also the one wrapping them?

“I want it to look exactly like this,” a woman says, tapping a newly manicured nail on her phone screen. “Cascading orchids, but with real blue roses.”

She’s holding a photo of a Pinterest bouquet that defies the laws of nature, and you are trying your absolute best not to laugh. Or cry.

“Ma’am,” you say, wiping your hands on your apron. “Those aren’t real. That’s either photoshopped, AI generated, or manually dyed.”

She blinks at you, offended. “My cousin had blue roses.”

“I’m sorry, but naturally blue roses don’t exist,” you correct her, gently. “Unless you want me to genetically engineer a new species in the back room during my lunch break tomorrow, we’re going to have to use spray paint.”

“Paint?” she asks, horrified. “For my engagement party?”

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, possibly right before the part where she’s demanding to speak to the manager of nature. You expect a text from your best friend Minho asking if you want to get drinks later to mourn your newly single status, but instead, it’s a number you don’t recognize.

Unknown

hey ☺️

i think i left my earrings on your nightstand

also, my legs are still shaking 😝

You blink, then look up at the bride-to-be—who’s now aggressively zooming in on the impossible blue roses—then back down at the text. You can’t tell if you feel jealousy or pity towards this person. Legs shaking—so a good night—but no way to contact the person responsible? Well, that’s more action than you’re getting, at least.

pretty sure you have the wrong number

i have a nightstand but no earrings

hope your legs recover though

“So,” you say, slipping the phone back into your apron. “For the roses. We can do white, or we can do paint. Or I can give you a marker and you can do it yourself.”

“Look at all these blue roses on Google.”

The florist life is not nearly as romantic as people think it is. Or at all, really.

Movies make it look like you spend your days gently misting ferns while soft acoustic music plays in the background, but in reality, your hands are permanently stained green, you have thorn scratches on your forearms that make you look like you hang out with feral cats, and you spend half of your time hauling buckets of water that weigh as much as a fully grown female Golden Retriever.

Your family owns Petal & Thorn, a small shop tucked away in a quiet alleyway in Gangnam. It’s not glamorous by any means, but it’s steady enough to pay the bills. Plus, you enjoy the peace on most days.

Lately, though, the quiet haunts you.

Jisoo moved out two months ago and the apartment feels too big now. The silence in the shop used to be tranquil, but now it just feels like an echo of the emptiness at home.

It’s the middle of January, right in the dead of winter, and you’ve gone full-blown workaholic mode. You aren’t just ignoring the looming threat of Valentine’s Day—you’re actively dreading it. Because aside from being the busiest day of the year for a florist, just the idea of facing it alone makes you sadder than you care to admit—but if you stop wrapping bouquets for five minutes, you might actually have to process those feelings, and you simply do not have the time for that.

Not after what Jisoo did to you.

The mysterious wrong number never replies. She probably saw your text, died of embarrassment, and threw her phone into the Han River.

So you forget about her completely.

…Until exactly one week later, when the first snow is threatening to fall.

You’re about six or seven shots of soju deep at a pocha when Minho slams his hand on the table, rattling the empty bottles.

“Okay, listen, you need to stop moping,” he says, pointing a pair of chopsticks at you. “Jisoo wasn’t even that great. Sure, she was hot, but she thought Your Name was boring. Like, come on, she didn’t cry at the twilight scene—matter of fact, she didn’t even tear up! That’s a red flag, hyung. A massive red flag.”

“I’m not moping,” you lie, pushing a piece of pork belly around your plate. “I’m just tired. I had to wrestle a cactus into a customer’s sedan today because she didn’t want to pay for delivery. It was exhausting.”

“You think that’s exhausting?" Minho scoffs, pouring himself another shot. “Try being on dating apps in 2026. I swiped right on four hundred girls last night. Four hundred! And do you know how many matches I got?”

“I don’t know—ten?”

He holds up two fingers aggressively. “Two! And one of them was a bot trying to steal my crypto.”

“Oh no, not the whole 65,000 won of XPR,” you say flatly.

“Shut up, I’ve got more than that.” He knocks back the shot and shudders. “Look, I’m saying it’s a wasteland out here. I have to deal with ghosting and catfishes, and you’re crying over a girl who didn’t appreciate an anime masterpiece.”

“So what, you think I need to suffer with you?”

“No.” He leans in, his eyes almost too serious. “You need a distraction, hyung. A rebound. Something messy to restart the flame.”

You snicker. “A messy rebound is the last thing I need right now.”

“Look, I just need you back in the game, because if I have to go on one more blind date alone, I’m going to become a monk—”

Suddenly, your phone lights up on the sticky wooden table.

Unknown