Rain-Drenched Midnight
The ferocious rain battered the floor-to-ceiling windows of the massive building, its relentless drumming the only sound filling the eerily empty office. In the dim, shadowy space, a single workstation glowed with the pale light of its monitor.
The clock hands crawled heavily toward midnight, but the endless spreadsheets on the screen showed no sign of shrinking.
"Haa."
Harin clutched the stiff nape of her neck and let out a deep sigh. It had been days of this murderous overtime. Her incompetent and vicious direct superior dumped all his mistakes on her, a fresh hire, then fled like a coward before dinner time.
Indignation and rage. And the bone-deep exhaustion seeping into her marrow—they gnawed at her sanity.
Habitually, she reached for her smartphone, slumped in the corner of her desk. The screen lit up, revealing the affectionate couple photo set as her lock screen. There he was—Kim Junho, her long-time lover, now stationed at the southernmost tip of the country. Just months ago, they had spent every night and day together, promising each other the future. They believed crossing the threshold of employment would make everything perfect. But the company had cruelly torn them apart, placing them at opposite ends of the map.
The early tenderness wore away helplessly under the brutal weight of reality. Weekends meant sacrificing time and no small amount of money on transportation just to see each other. Exhausted, they struggled to stay awake even when facing one another. Meetings dwindled to a grotesque rarity, and even their check-in calls had become obligatory chores.
With trembling fingers, Harin tapped the call button. Just one minute. No, even ten seconds of Junho's warm voice to soothe her—that was all she desperately craved. In this vast concrete fortress, she yearned to erase the suffocating isolation with her lover's voice.
A long, dry ringtone pierced her eardrum. Please pick up. Oppa, please just once. She pleaded silently a hundred times, pressing the phone tight to her ear.
But what came through wasn't her lover's warm tone.
Harin's vision warped grotesquely as the mechanical voice echoed.
Down south, Junho was trapped in a stifling, nauseating departmental dinner. He was blacking out from the bombs of liquor his superiors force-fed him. His smartphone had long been abandoned on the damp floor of the barbecue joint's corner, silent.
"God. What the hell am I even doing here..."
Harin slammed her phone down and buried her face in her hands. Hot tears squeezed through her fingers.
Her distant lover was utterly useless when she was crumbling like this. The vast void created by physical distance—a fatal, perfect deficiency no abstract emotion like love could fill.
The rain pounded the windows harder.
It was in that moment of utter despair.
"Assistant Manager Seo Harin. What are you doing here this late without clocking out?"
Footsteps echoed from beyond the dark partition, followed by a low, leisurely male voice slicing through the office silence.
Harin jolted, lifting her tear-streaked face. Into her view stepped a towering man in a impeccably tailored luxury suit—the absolute powerholder of this colossal company, the young Executive Director Park Minhyuk, who held every employee's fate in his hands.
Overwhelming wealth and status. Wild, chilling features. He was the secret object of desire for every female employee. A being on a cloud too high for a mere newbie like her to even meet his eyes.
Yet he approached silently and set a warm canned coffee on her desk with a casual thud.
"That bastard Kim Manager dumped his shit on the newbie again and ran."
Minhyuk glanced at her monitor—scanned the documents in one second—and grasped the situation perfectly. A cold, sardonic smirk curled his lips.
"Shut down the computer and stand up. Holding onto this garbage spreadsheet won't earn you brownie points with the company. I'll handle the rest Monday morning—personally yank Kim Manager's leash and assign support staff. Pack your things now."
A perfect lifeline, striking like lightning in her most desperate, horrific moment. Not from her powerless lover out of reach, but from this absolute power incarnate, descending to seize control with a single word.
"Director, but this is due by morning..."
Harin stammered, her red eyes fumbling a protest.
But Minhyuk gripped her chair's backrest and loomed his massive torso over her. A thick, sensual male skin scent and the lingering aroma of premium cigars assaulted her senses fiercely. Unthinkingly, she inhaled deeply.
"My word is law. Assistant Manager Seo Harin follows my orders only. Stand."
An unrefusable, arrogant command. Harin rose as if entranced. In her hand was the warm canned coffee he'd placed—the fierce heat he'd left seeping into her frozen palm.
Minhyuk matched her steps, slowly exiting the office. In the executive elevator to the underground parking, their breaths intertwined precariously in the sealed space.
Harin kept her head bowed, staring at her worn, scuffed shoes. Beside her, Minhyuk's bespoke loafers and perfect trouser fit formed a grotesque contrast to her shabby state.
"Rain's pouring. I'll drive you home safely."
"No, Director. I can take a taxi. You've done more than enough."
"You think a cab will show up at midnight on a rainy Friday night from the company grounds?"
His bone-chilling fact-bomb silenced her. Her flimsy defenses were paper-thin against this overwhelming predator.
The doors opened to his massive black sedan. Minhyuk personally opened the passenger door, escorting her. Hesitant, she slipped into the maw of the great beast he'd parted.
As the door shut, the roaring rain vanished like a lie. The premium leather seat cradled her weary body like a cloud. Inside, Minhyuk's thick, sensual scent hung even denser than in the elevator.
With a smooth engine purr, the sedan glided into the dark roads. Outside, the deluge devoured the world, but the cabin was unbelievably serene and warm.
In this perfect comfort, Harin felt a strange guilt. A taste of overwhelming capital she'd never known in her lover Junho's cheap used car. It was the most potent drug, numbing her reason.
At a signal, Minhyuk broke the silence in his low voice, hands on the wheel.
"Does Assistant Manager Seo have a boyfriend?"
The personal jab made her flinch, fingers fidgeting.
"Yes. One year older."
"I see."
Gazing at the nightscape, Minhyuk plunged the coldest, cruelest dagger into her heart.
"Then why doesn't that young boyfriend of yours come pick you up when you're suffering under a sleazy boss in an empty office late on a rainy night?"
"He's... stationed down south right now. Circumstances aren't ideal."
Harin defended Junho desperately, but her voice dripped with irrepressible resentment and misery.
Minhyuk caught the tiny crack perfectly and smiled predatorily.
"Distance fades the heart and lightens responsibility. If it were me, I wouldn't let my woman pull an all-nighter crying. Even if, I'd race there come hell or high water."
His arrogant, conviction-filled voice. Harin bit her lip hard. Her mind screamed to reject it, but deep in her heart, a horrific agreement stirred.
He's right. Oppa wasn't there when I needed him most. He didn't even pick up. The one who saved me and put me in this warm car... isn't Oppa.
The perfect male cloaked in capital and power charging straight. The vicious void from physical distance. An irreparable crack echoed through her once-solid morality, piercing the rain.
The sedan stopped before Harin's rundown studio apartment building. The dark, narrow alley clashed grotesquely with the luxury car.
"Thank you, Director. I got here so comfortably. See you Monday."
Harin unbuckled and hurried her thanks, eager to flee.
But his rough, large hand snatched her slender wrist.
"Ah!"
She gasped in shock. Minhyuk turned slowly, staring straight into her flushed face.
"Monday, after Kim Manager's done, come to my office alone, Assistant Manager Seo Harin. Dinner on me—instead of overtime pay."
No mere meal invite. The ultimate predator's fatal, blatant hunting signal before biting the prey's nape.
Harin couldn't tear her eyes from his intense, burning gaze. The man's hot body heat raced up her veins to her brain, boiling madly.
"Yes. Understood, Director."
Reason's warning to refuse evaporated tracelessly. Unknowingly, she nodded, stepping into the swamp of corruption herself.
Out of the car without an umbrella, Harin dashed to her building entrance. Her heart pounded wildly as she watched the sedan's red taillights fade.
The perfect void from long-distance love's time lag. The velvet trap of absolute power had already bound her ankle tight.
