“Jungkook? What are you doing awake?” Jieun yawns as she enters the kitchen to eat breakfast before leaving for work, “couldn’t sleep,” he mumbles and she frowns at him, since when can Jungkook, her brother, not sleep? Unheard of it is.

She puts a hand on his forehead and recoils quickly as she feels him burning up, “oh god,” she mumbles and goes to grab a towel to wet it with some cold water, when she returns she makes Jungkook lean back in his chair as she puts it on his forehead. He mules pathetically as the cold touches his hot skin and she shushes him, “you can’t go to school like this,” she mumbles and goes to reach for her phone to send a message to the school. “Noona, no. I have test and I can’t miss it,” he says before leaning over as a cough racks through his body.

“I can’t let you leave when you’re sick Kookie,” the nickname slips out before she even has time to think about it and Jungkook snickers before letting a cough take over, “j-just leave me, s-save y-yourself,” he says dramatically and she rolls her eyes before going to the cabinet by the fridge. She grabs the thermometer and walks back, “open your mouth,” she says sternly, “ooh bossy,” Jungkook hums and she makes a face of disgust at her brother’s behavior.

The fever is making him crazy, she jokes to herself before sticking the thermometer into his mouth and forcefully closing his jaw, “keep it there til I’m back,” she says and goes back to her room, she puts on a dress (her light makeup already done) and grabs her bag.

As soon as she gets back the thermometer beeps and she grabs it from his mouth to check his temperature, “38.7,” she mumbles disappointingly and looks at her brother who’s begging her with his eyes to let him go to school.

“Please, I have to do this test,” he says and Jieun drags a hand through her hair in distress, she really shouldn’t let him go but the test is important and if he can’t retake it then he might miss out on extra points in his final grade, she checks the clock and sees that it’s almost time for her to go for her to make it to work so she reluctantly nods and puts the thermometer down, “but if you feel worse you’re going home immediately, do you hear me?” Jungkook nods furiously and she sighs heavily and hugs him to her chest.

“Noona,” he whines like a kid but she just hugs him closer, “I’m fine,” he mumbles between them and she steps back a bit to let him breathe, she takes one last look at him before nodding and patting his cheek. “Call me at lunch okay? I want to hear how you’re doing,” she insists and he smiles at her, “I will,” he mumbles before coughing into the crook of his arm. Jieun winces at the sound of it and already regrets letting him go.

“I have to go now,” she adds but as Jungkook sees that she’s not making any move to leave he chuckles and pushes her away from him, “then go,” he snaps but there’s humor in his eyes and Jieun snorts at him, “fine,” she says back but still hesitates to move.

“Noona I’m serious, do you want to lose your job?” this time Jieun really does move to the hallway but not without calling a ‘brat’ over her shoulder. She exits the apartment with worry but trusts that her brother will go home if he does get worse. He’s not one to endanger himself without a damn good reason for it.

She takes a bus too late but hopefully she’ll still be able to clock exactly at seven like she usually does but with a bit more cardio, he hurries off the bus but misses a train just as she gets off which leaves her waiting for ten minutes and as she watches the time tick by she’s slowly growing more anxious. Maybe she’ll really be late, and maybe she’ll get fired, Seunghyun did say it’s happened before.

She’s too worked up to enjoy the scenery as the train speeds past and she’s more focused on her wrist watch slowly ticking closer to the mark.

As soon as the train stops she’s sprinting out and running up the stairs and out on the street, there are lots of business people running around all hurrying to their jobs and Jieun finds it hard to get through the masses, her watch says it’s 06:57 am and she swears to herself and starts pushing past people to get forward, she reaches the building at 06:59 and she runs to the elevator,  not bothering with pleasantries at the reception.

When the elevator stops at her floor she runs out and down the corridor to the office, she skids to a halt as she gets to the corner and as she turns she sees her boss sitting on her desk watching his wrist watch carefully. He looks up as he hears her stop suddenly in the opening and he looks surprised, “you made it?” he acknowledges and Jieun frowns, why the surprise? And how could he possibly know that she’d be late today? What if she was already here but just had to go to the bathroom? He couldn't know, right?

“I’m sorry sir, I was held back,” she apologizes and he looks her up and down and she realizes that she probably doesn’t look the prettiest after running like crazy to get here in time, “what held you back?” he asks suddenly and he looks so smug that Jieun just wants to slap it away from his face, she refrains, obviously.

“I just-” she pauses, he doesn’t want to hear about her brother so she refrains from spilling too many details, “-had to take care of something, sorry. It won’t happen again,” she says and bows deeply. There’s a pause where all that passes is silence before her boss claps his hands and gestures to her, “get ready, we’re leaving,” he suddenly states and Jieun’s eyes widen, is this where he lures her into a false sense of security before firing her?

“If I may ask, where are we going?” she questions and he grabs his coffee from her table and (did he get it himself? Since when) he turns to her a dabs at his forehead, “right, we’re getting breakfast,” he says and Jieun’s sure her jaw’s touching the floor because what in the world. She discreetly pinches her arm to make sure she’s not having some sort of weird dream about her boss but when she’s still standing in the office after bruising her arm she realizes that this is really happening.

“You coming?” he asks and only then does she notice that he’s standing right in front of her and he’s smirking that stupid smirk he always does when he manages to catch her off guard, she nods mutely and follow him as he starts walking down the corridor, he greets the staff behind the reception and she can see them all fumble to stand up quickly and greet him back. Just how powerful is this guy?

“Very powerful,” comes the response and she gasp as he sees him looking at her, she said that out loud? Oh gosh.

She blushes furiously and looks down at her feet that are for once not covered in dirty converse but not wearing 5-inch heels either which she’s thankful for (she went out and bought a pair of comfortable 3-inch heels during her lunch break) because at least she can walk with some confidence now.

They enter the elevator together and the awkward elevator music starts playing and Jieun’s mind starts spinning, ‘say something stupid’ she keeps thinking and she bites at her lip to stop her from saying, well, anything stupid but as always not even that can stop her from speaking her mind.

“You should really change the elevator music, I don’t know to what but this is really...peculiar,” she doesn’t want to sound rude so she changes the last word to something less mean than her original thought but as she speaks she doesn’t think even the small change can impact the fact that just insulted a part of his company, albeit not a very large part. It’s not like she said their economic system or their products do.

She slaps a hand over and closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see the fire grow in the dragon's eyes, but instead of a snappy remark like she expects she hears a slight chuckle, it’s not a laugh, no, it sounds a bit mean but she guesses she deserves that.

“Are you always this…” he pauses like he can’t find the word to describe her and Jieun cuts in, “strange?” she questions and yet again that smirk appears (god dammit). “I was going to say open but strange fits as well,” he says and then they stand in silence for the last three stories before they reach the ground floor.

As they exit the people outside part like the red sea and Jieun raises an eyebrow at their behavior, it’s like he’s a walking god or something, she huffs at her own joke but quickly snaps out of it as she sees that she’s a few meters behind.

She hurries over to walk beside him again and if she was looking at him she’d see the amused glance he gives her.

As soon as they walk through the glass doors the doors to the car parked outside opens and she looks at it in shock, who’s that for? She wonders and pauses to see what her boss will do next. But he keeps walking forward until he’s standing by the car and beckoning her over, “what are we-”

“Get in,” he says and she frowns at him, is he taking her to an abandoned building to torture her and leave her body to