Overtime Tonight. Just You and Me.
The heavy door thunks shut with a decisive click, and I stay frozen in place, barely daring to breathe until the executive director's hurried footsteps fade completely down the carpeted hallway far away. Cold sweat trickles down my back, leaving my shirt plastered uncomfortably against my skin.
Beep-click!
Seol-ah presses a small remote hidden under her desk. A cheerful triple lock engages on the thick oak door of the director's office. At the same time, the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that had offered a clear view of the hallway and office beyond tint over with a faint whirr, transforming into opaque smart glass. Perfect blackout—no sunlight gets in.
It all happens in an instant. The Strategy Planning Director's office at Taesung Group—fifth-largest conglomerate in Korea—morphs into a massive prison, no, a top-tier bunker designed to trap and devour just one lowly intern named Kang Jinwoo.
"Uh, um. Seol-ah. Can you let go of my hand now? I think the blood's not circulating. Might actually get necrosis at this rate."
I mumble awkwardly, eyes darting anywhere but at her. From the moment the executive director barged in, Seol-ah's been gripping my hand like she's trying to shatter it. Now that we're in a perfect airtight seal, she whips her head back toward me. The flawless poker face of Director Han—cold as ice—melts away in a flash, replaced by the fidgety expression of a restless little kid.
"Ah! S-sorry, Jinwoo! I gripped too hard, didn't I? Does it hurt? Your bones aren't broken, right? Should I call an emergency chopper from our group's VVIP hospital? Have the chief physician fly over right now?!"
"H-hey! People's hand bones don't shatter that easily. And a chief physician chopper? I'm fine, so quit overreacting. I'd spend my whole life paying off the fuel for that thing."
I shake out my aching wrist, grumbling in panic, and Seol-ah circles me anxiously like a puppy wagging its tail. Then she suddenly grabs my tie and yanks me toward her.
"But Jinwoo, have you eaten? No, of course not. No way you'd get dinner on time slaving away at this garbage intern work till now. Our company doesn't have that kind of humane welfare. Should I fire the whole HR team?"
She trashes her own company's—her department's—working conditions with a casual double curse, then snatches up the intercom roughly.
"Secretary Chief. Set up dinner in the director's office right now. Oh, French course from Taesung Hotel. Wait, Jinwoo—no, Intern Kang—might like meat, so have the top Cheongdam-dong Hanwoo omakase chef shut down the whole place and wait in the side lounge. Best ingredients only. If it's not ready in 15 minutes, tell the secretary chief he doesn't need to come in tomorrow."
Click.
Insane. My brain's short-circuiting so often now it's becoming routine—total overload.
"Hey! Are you nuts? What kind of overtime calls for Taesung Hotel courses and Michelin chefs in the lounge? I can just hit the first-floor convenience store and boil some cup ramen..."
The word 'convenience store'—symbol of dirt-poor life—barely leaves my mouth before tears well up in Seol-ah's big eyes again.
"Ha... You know how hard I cried, beating my chest, when I saw that damn intern application? Night shifts at the convenience store, loading dock gigs crammed into the experience section... and that address, some cramped semi-basement one-room with no sunlight... I nearly hyperventilated right there reading it."
"Come on, you don't cry over stuff like that. Every 20-something job hunter lives like this. I'm not specially pitiful."
"I don't care how other losers live! You're my whole world, and knowing you spent those 15 years without me rolling around like a street rat, surviving on cup ramen— it drives me furious!"
Seol-ah stands on tiptoe, cupping my cheeks gently, like handling fragile glass art. Her thumb strokes my skin.
"But our Jinwoo didn't stray for any sly fox girls while grinding part-time and specs, right? Makes sense—no time for dating in that brutal schedule. I had HR director squeeze your college buddies and seniors for background checks. They said you're a national treasure who hasn't even held a girl's hand. At MTs, you just grilled meat in the corner and crashed? Waiting for me so obediently—good boy, I praise you."
No, fuck, it wasn't obedience—it was no money, no time, too exhausted for dating. And she's romanticizing it like pure love? The humiliation hits peak when I realize she mobilized Taesung Group's HR director to interrogate my classmates over a mere intern's college life. My face burns like fire.
"Seol-ah. That's crossing a line. HR director must think I'm a total psycho inside. And I really need to hit my night shift tonight. Barely scraped a sub yesterday making that internship PPT. Skip again and the store manager will kill me."
My desperate plea furrows her brow slightly. She tsks in annoyance, then pulls something from her tailored jacket's inner pocket. A gleaming black card—no ordinary person sees one in a lifetime. VVIP only.
"Quit that pathetic convenience store gig right now."
"What?"
"Family card in my name. No limit—even if you swipe every breath, the card company won't blink. Buy cars, houses, whatever. And your night shift manager? My secretary already shoved 10 million won cash as 'severance' and notified him you're done as of today. He was thrilled."
"Hey, crazy! Who are you to cut my job and stuff cash like that?!"
"And like I said earlier, I put a down payment on a Cheongdam-dong Han River-view penthouse in your name. Your one-room lease? Canceled today. Paid the landlord triple penalty. Your stuff's already packed by my secretary team and a premium moving service—on its way to the new place."
I'm so flabbergasted I can't even laugh. This isn't some romance fantasy where a mad tyrant emperor decks out a ragged maid in jewels. My first love after 15 years is steamrolling me with impossible money. The thought of Taesung Group's secretaries packing my threadbare undies and textbooks makes me dizzy.
"You... you're not right in the head."
"Yeah. I'm not. Those hellish 15 years without you broke me. Now I can finally breathe, feel your warmth—if I stayed sane now, that'd be the real psycho."
Seol-ah wraps her slender arms around my neck seamlessly. Her lush, soft hair tickles my cheek with a dizzying shampoo scent.
"So Jinwoo, just take everything I give you obediently and breathe by my side. I'll earn the money. I'll grow the company to feed us. You just... laze in my arms forever like old times, munching Pikachu tonkatsu and living off me."
Our faces so close her breath—our eyelashes—nearly touch. Her obsessive gaze pins my trembling eyes through my glasses, then drops to my lips. Gulp. My dry swallow slices the dead silence of the sealed office.
That's when it happens.
Knock knock knock.
"Director, the meals you ordered are ready. Chefs on standby. Shall we bring them to the lounge?"
The secretary's polite voice from outside makes Seol-ah—who was a heartbeat from my lips—scowl like a demon and pull back. The tender gaze that had devoured me sweetly vanishes, replaced by feral murder as if her prey was snatched away mid-bite.
"Ha... That clueless secretary—ship him off to a rural factory warehouse tomorrow."
She rakes back her hair irritably, muttering viciously. Panicking she'll actually ruin some elite's life over this timing, I desperately grab her sleeve.
"Hey! I said no dinner! Don't scapegoat an innocent guy into abuse-of-power drama—let's just eat. I-I'm starving—only had a triangle kimbap since yesterday, about to collapse!"
I clutch my stomach, playing pitiful to save a stranger's career, and Seol-ah's eyes melt back to angelic warmth in a second.
"Oh no, our Jinwoo's hungry? Sorry sorry! Let's go. I'll tell that chef if the Hanwoo grill isn't art tonight, he's checking Han River temps after dark."
"Please don't say mobster jokes with those innocent eyes like it's nothing..."
Dragged half-forcibly to the lounge, I watch her solid back and squeeze my eyes shut in resignation.
Kang Jinwoo, 25-year-old business major returnee. A typical dirt-poor guy's life—crushed by job market gates, specs, and rent—gets hijacked onto an uncontrollable, brakeless supercar worth hundreds of billions: first love. Honestly... not bad. No, it's fucking awesome. Long live Taesung Group.