Compared to the profesional life she craved after, trouble seemed to follow Miran everywhere. Once Heechul left his two employees, the brunette editor turned to her boss with wide eyes.

“You are my boss, the editor chief.” She stated, having Hyungsik nod with a pleased expression, “My boss, as in have skills and responsibilities." She continued, still not believing the brutal truth, “I slept with my boss.” Miran concluded, though she was far calmer than Hyungsik expected.

“Let’s not talk about that in here. We should follow your rule: forget about it and never see each other again." He started leaning towards her with a sheepish smile but those eyes of his were glinting with amusement, “Of course, it’s going to be hard to do the latter since I am your boss.”

And he actually about that. 

Miran narrowed her eyes at Hyungsik, his smug expression making her feel like she just entered the crepuscular zone where the world was complotting against her. That might have been true if she didn’t actually walk inside willingly, taking an interview for that editor post under him.

Thinking that it was partially coincidence and partially her fault, Miran sighed heavily and gave up.

“Where is my desk?”

Hyungsik’s smirk widened, his eyes scrunching slightly in bemusement.

“Follow me and please, call me sunbae.” He whispered as he led her to their office.

Miran's jaw clenched in annoyance and stopped in front of the door. She needed a moment to control her expressive face before meeting her work mates.

“Just like I said before, this department is one of the best places to work in.” Hyungsik started, glancing at her from the side.

“You never said that." She muttered.

 “You won’t find anywhere else you’d like to start a career but at Kim&Kim.” He continued, leading her inside the office.

Miran tilted her head to the side and blinked a few times, taking the sight in. The first thing that really hit her, literaly, was the smell and the dread that seemed to have swollen the whole room up.

“They look like they’re dead." She pointed out.

The room was quite large and could handle six cubicles that were divided by books. Three of them were facing each other while three of them seemed added in the last moment. Only one cubicle seemed big enough to look like a chief's desk and it was straight in front of a large window, messier than the rest yet still looking like it could get more. Another relatively wide desk was on the opposite of the chief's, right across the wall and very close to the door. That one was hard to describe; it might have been used for food at some point and other stuff but who knew...

The room didn’t look bad and Miran noticed another desk in the corner next to a bookshelf which looked like Soohyuk's during high school. If Hyungsik’s room was messy and cramped, their office was even worse. Actually, now that she entered and looked around, she realized it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time.

Hyungsik walked further, taking a magazine off the ground and spinning it into a cone, hitting three sleeping men as he walked back and forth behind them. Only one of them raised his head and his eye bags sent a chill down Miran’s spine.

“What happened to him?” She asked, walking to that guy’s side; he looked sick and tired.

Hyungsik glanced at her over his shoulder innocently, “Hm? Oh, that’s our horror editor, Nam Joohyuk.”

She frowned, “Is that why he looks like his soul has fled from his body?”

Hyungsik bit his lip thoughtfully as he glanced between Joohyuk’s disheveled appearance and Miran’s clean image. He puckered his lips, his mind swirling around one simple thought: Miran was a woman and she looked like a neat freak. He noted the way her nose scrunched as soon as she entered the workplace. 

“Your seat is at the end of the table, where a tank of manuscripts is-“ He slowed down realizing she had nowhere to sit, “Your first appointment is to clean up." Hyungsik announced her happily before getting to his own work. His height got covered completely by the wall of books and magazines in front of him but he did catch Miran's eyebrow twitching in annoyance.

That was exactly what Miran did; she cleaned up thoroughly and didn’t even care for the heads that rose from time to time in order to search for a paper or look something up on the computer. Miran found a lot of garbage thrown in the corners and she ended up throwing away a lot of suspiciously looking and smelling foods and bags of paper that they used for doodling. Being a girl, she brought a little bottle of perfume just in case she had to meet someone important but she ended up using it to spray some around the desks before opening the large window behind Hyungsik and letting in fresh air.

There were four tall bookcases and without greasy stuff and clothes thrown from overworking –things that she also threw because they were dusty and smelled rotten- there was a lot of space for everything. With a family like hers, it wasn’t a problem to organize the books in sections and even alphabetically. Interesting enough, there were a lot of books written by Jinhyuk and her eye twitched when she realized how big was the romance section compared to the others.

“Wow~ this place has never been so clean in my entire employee life here!” A guy a bit taller than Miran muttered, sipping from his mug.

She opened but no words came out, instead her eyes moved on the three desks that were now empty. The only one still working on his computer was Hyungsik and he looked like he was bathing in fresh air and sunlight.

Seeing her confused, the guy smiled and rubbed his head nervously before using the same hand to introduce himself. Seeing how his hair looked dirty and greasy, her nose scrunched and kept her hands alongside her body firmly.

“Ah~ I probably look like I haven’t showered in a long time.” He muttered, retracting his arm awkwardly, “I’m Ji Soo, in charge of the romance section. You must be the newcomer.”

“Choi Miran,” She introduced herself without moving a finger.

Something behind Ji Soo fell on his face, drawing everyone's attention. Hyungsik's loud laughter and teasing didn’t make it less silly than it looked but Ji Soo turned to Miran with an unaffected look.

“That’s Myungsoo, editor of sci-fi and fantasy books.”

“Where is my box? I swear there was a box right here!” He screamed, pointing accusatory at everyone before his eyes fell on Miran. He hurried towards her with a glare that looked like Ben Stiller in Zoolander, doing Blue Steele; anyway, it wasn’t intimidating at all but cute.

“Hyung, this is our new team member, Miran. She just came in today.” Ji Soo announced gladly, his eyes sparkling.

Myungsoo raised an eyebrow before he leaned in, scanning her.

"You cleaned up,” He stated, Miran nodding slowly. Myungsoo’s eyes shifted on the book shelves and saw them tidied up, “And cleaned the books...” He trailed.

“Woa, hyung, this is incredible! I only went out to the bathroom and now that I’m awake I can actually see this!” What looked like a livelier version of Joohyuk shouted in awe at how much space became available, “I can actually feel the carpet!” He pointed out, trotting excitedly.  

Miran was having one surprise after another and she was hoping she could just get an assignment and work in peace. With that thought in mind, she walked to Hyungsik and stuck her hands out expectantly. 

“I don’t have any change and don’t feel hungry right now, thanks.” He taunted bemusedly, the three editors walking closer to see the show unfolding.

She bit her lip, containing any smartass retort she had on the tip of her tongue.

“I’m waiting for my assignment.”

Hyungsik’s eyes widened, remembering something before he gave her a manuscript of five pages.

“Tell me what you think after you read it.”

“What’s this? It’s too short.” She started, shuffling through the pages but not seeing anything remotely familiar to a plot.

“It’s your homework and schedule. I heard you have problems with romance and anything related to that so I’m not going to risk having you fight with an author."

Miran’s eyes widened and the scowl on her face fell quickly. 

“You know about that?”

Hyungsik stopped what he was doing, the boys aweing in the back at the sudden interruption since it never happened before.

“It’s not every day you hear about an editor fighting at a book signing with the author about his story, especially when the author is award winning novelist Tiffany Hwang.”

She looked at him before her lips and looking at the papers in her hand.

"I’m going to tell you what I agree with and what is nonsense." She mumbled, walking to her desk defeated.

Myungsoo chuckled and walked to his desk groggily, which was coincidentally the closest to Hyungsik’s.

"You gave her that stupid questionnaire about Jinhyuk’s work in the romance world, haven’t you? The really cliché one where even Ji Soo cringed."