First Day on the Job (1)
An office building in Gangnam, Seoul.
Inside one of its offices sat the fledgling capital management firm Y Asset.
Official start time was nine in the morning, yet well before eight every desk was already occupied, employees buried in work.
It was a tiny company of only six people, but its results were nothing short of astonishing.
Among them, the undisputed ace Oh Harin stood in the CEO’s office, staring at the documents in her hand and letting out a long, heavy sigh.
“Haaah—!”
“Couldn’t you just hire a secretary instead? Why a bodyguard of all things…”
She muttered in a small, irritated voice and shot Yuri a look full of pure resentment.
“A secretary? That’s what you’re for.”
Yuri, seated at the CEO’s desk and savoring her Panama Esmeralda… (the rest of the name omitted), answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Then let me do only secretary work! You dump every single job in the company on me!”
“Yep. All of it falls under secretary duties here.”
“Uuuugh—! Seriously—!!”
At Yuri’s shameless reply, Harin trembled from head to toe, at a complete loss for words.
Outside the office it was business as usual. The other employees exchanged silent glances.
There they go again. Tsk tsk.
Don’t make a big deal out of it. Just get back to work.
Then they quietly returned to their own tasks. From their perspective Yuri never bothered giving orders or even speaking to anyone except Harin, so there was no real reason to care. Absorbing every last one of Yuri’s whims was simply Harin’s job.
And so today, as always, Yuri’s convenient fool—no, her secretary-slash-ace—Harin pressed the point like she was filing a formal complaint.
“You emptied the company for days just to hire one bodyguard?”
“Yep.”
Yuri’s completely unbothered answer made Harin’s face crumple in pure disbelief. She already had a mountain of things to scold her about, and that brazen attitude only made it worse.
“And what the hell is this? Have you completely lost your mind?”
Harin slammed the contract onto the table—the same absurd document Yuri had first handed Sihyun, listing a daily wage of one million won.
“Ah, well. I was going to cover it out of my own pocket anyway.”
Yuri waved a dismissive hand as if the whole matter bored her.
“This company basically is your personal piggy bank!”
Harin thumped her own chest in frustration.
“So what? Besides, that wasn’t even the final contract.”
Faced with Yuri’s endless arrogance, Harin could no longer contain her rage and hissed through clenched teeth.
“That’s not the point!”
Even at her shout Yuri didn’t so much as blink. She merely smirked.
“If it bothers you that much, you be the boss~”
She tossed out the snide remark and took another leisurely sip of coffee.
“Aaaargh—!”
Harin clutched her head and screamed.
“I quit!”
“Nope. Your contract still has a long way to go.”
“Hweeeeng… that’s a slave contract…”
“Yep. You signed it yourself~”
“Uuuugh—!!”
Watching Harin thrash about in helpless fury, Yuri chuckled quietly and thought to herself,
Anyway, when the hell is that brat getting here?
The clock had just ticked past eight. Desperate to see Sihyun’s face even a second sooner, she muttered under her breath,
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told him nine sharp…”
Right then—
Ding-a-ling—
The electronic chime of the office entrance rang out. Yuri shot up from her seat and strode out of the CEO’s office. Toward the door she unconsciously broke into a bright smile, ready to welcome him with open arms.
“Welcome…”
But the moment she saw who had actually walked in, her face twisted.
“…Hey. Why the hell are you here?”
Because the person who entered was none other than—
“Hmph. I didn’t want to come either, you know?”
—Min Seonye.
“Hmph. Then get lost.”
Yuri folded her arms and jerked her chin toward the door.
Seonye, however, took a deliberate step deeper into the office.
“I don’t wanna.”
“What is this, some kind of crazy bitch?”
Yuri looked her up and down in pure disbelief. Seonye’s appearance was the same as always—even that eye-searingly massive chest that no thick coat could hide. Yuri immediately understood.
Yep. Same old crazy bitch as usual.
“You’re the crazy one.”
Seonye glared at her with sharp eyes, then thrust out her palm.
“Give him back. Right now.”
“What the hell are you talking about, you lunatic.”
Yuri slapped the hand away in irritation.
“I said give him back!”
“Give what back, you crazy woman!”
Yuri leaned in, growling. Seonye closed the distance just as aggressively.
“Give Sihyun back—!”
At Seonye’s enraged shout Yuri let out a short, mocking laugh and took a step back.
“I don’t wanna. He’s already mine.”
“You bitch!!!”
As the two women squared off with murder in their eyes, the employees who had been quietly working stole curious glances—until the real UFC match broke out.
“Give me Sihyun—!”
Thwack—!
“Aaack! You crazy bitch—!”
Thwack—!!
“Kyaaaah—! Hand him over—!!”
Crash, bang—!
Faced with the full-blown brawl, every employee thought the same thing.
If we get caught in the crossfire, workers’ comp will cover it… right?
Yeah. Let’s just work.
They turned back to their monitors. The only person left fretting was Harin, who was shrieking in pure despair.
“Please stop—!!!”
She already knew the cleanup would fall entirely on her shoulders. Ignoring her cries completely, Yuri and Seonye kept yanking each other’s hair and trading blows.
“Who the hell are you to call Sihyun yours!”
Thwack—!
“Ugh! He’s mine, that’s why, you bitch!”
Thwaaack—!!
“Kyaaaah—! Is Sihyun some kind of object for you to claim?!”
Thwaaaack—!!!
“Aaack! You were the one who told me to give him back first!”
They were still thrashing each other without any regard for where the hits landed when—
“….”
—Sihyun, who had just arrived, froze solid in the doorway.
“What on earth is going on here?”
He approached Harin, whose face was a picture of pure misery, and asked quietly.
“Who… ah, you must be the new bodyguard starting today?”
“Ah, yes. Hello. I’m Kim Sihyun. Looking forward to working with you.”
“Ahh! I’m Oh Harin. Looking forward to working with you too. Hehe…”
Just moments earlier she had been grilling Yuri about why they needed a bodyguard at all, yet the moment the pretty, cute-faced Sihyun greeted her so gently, Harin’s lips stretched into an involuntary goofy grin.
Sihyun looked at her with genuine pity.
“…You really have it rough.”
He didn’t even need to ask. It was obvious Harin was the one stuck cleaning up after that lunatic woman. A strange sense of kinship made the words of comfort slip out naturally. Harin felt the exact same shared suffering from him.
“…Please, whatever you do, don’t sign anything.”
“…Ah, so Harin noona went through the same thing?”
“Yes, exactly… wait, noona?”
“Ah, sorry. It just came out…”
“No, no, hehe… you can call me noona if you want…”
They were just starting to fall into an easy, friendly rhythm when—
“Hey! What are you doing? And Oh Harin! You wanna die too?!”
“Sihyun! You can’t call that glasses girl noona!”
—Yuri and Seonye finally noticed he had arrived, stopped mid-fight, and bellowed at the two of them.
“Hweeeeng! What did I even do to deserve this!”
“Shut up!”
Enraged, Yuri charged straight at Harin and began raining knuckle-raps on her head. Seizing the opening, Seonye rushed to Sihyun and clung to him pleadingly.
“Sihyun! You can’t just quit like this!”
“Ah, no… I mean… I’m sorry.”
Tears welled up in Seonye’s eyes, and Sihyun’s resolve wavered against his will. Sensing victory, she latched onto his arm and yanked him hard into her embrace—specifically, straight into the valley of her chest.
“Sihyun, come back with me~ I really love the iced Americano you make~”
Squish—!
“…!”
The soft sensation made Sihyun’s mind go blank for a second. Seeing him like that, Yuri’s forehead veins bulged as she roared,
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing, bodyguard!”
“Can’t you see what that bitch did to my face? Get her off me already!”
“Hiiing… Sihyun, I’m scaaared!”
Seonye deliberately squeezed him even tighter, pulling out every last drop of her charm offensive. But Sihyun barely managed to regain his senses, resisted the temptation, and carefully peeled her arms away.
“Noona, this is really inconvenient. For now I have to follow my employer’s orders.”
“Hey, why is she ‘noona’ and I’m just ‘employer’—?!”
Yuri nearly jumped out of her skin at his wording. Not to be outdone, Seonye dropped a bombshell.
“I-I’m technically your employer too, Sihyun!”
“Pardon?”
Sihyun’s face went blank with confusion. Seonye pulled a business card from her wallet and held it out with a flourish.
“I didn’t say anything before because I thought it might make you uncomfortable, but this is who I am!”
— Hanbit F&B —
CEO Min Seonye
————————
“Whoa…”
Sihyun let out a low sound of genuine awe without meaning to. He had known she was someone important, but the CEO of Hanbit F&B? That was far beyond anything he had imagined.
“But what do you mean by employer?”
“Luminous! It’s Hanbit F&B’s café brand!”
“Ah…”
The moment understanding dawned on Sihyun’s face, Yuri stormed over, fuming, and yanked him hard toward herself.
“What ‘ah’! You’re my bodyguard now! Did you forget?!”
“Shut up! I signed the contract first! He’s clearly under our company! More importantly, Sihyun never once said he was quitting out loud!”
Seonye grabbed his other arm and pulled back just as hard.
“Is that so? Then say it right now! Tell her you quit!”
Yuri yanked his arm again.
“Sihyun! That’s not true, right? Look at that glasses girl! You want to end up like her?”
Seonye yanked him the other way.
“Hey, why am I suddenly getting dragged into this—?!”
Harin cried out in pure injustice at the completely unexpected attack, but Yuri steamrolled right over her.
“Quiet! You help too, Oh Harin! And you—you’re my bodyguard! Got it?”
She hauled on Sihyun’s arm once more. Sihyun pressed a hand to his forehead.
What kind of absolute circus was this on his very first day? Every fiber of his being wanted to throw everything away and run. But he knew all too well that he couldn’t. And so his expression could only sink deeper and deeper into pure despair.