A/N: If you aren't watching Kim Beom's comeback drama Tale of the Nine-Tailed, you should be because it is awesome so far!

Fun fact: I was watching Crash Landing on You when I first wrote Se Ri's character. I named her after Son Ye-jin's character (who is also a total badass CEO) in that drama. If you haven't seen Crash Landing on You, you should watch it as well!

"CEO now, is it?"

Se Ri looked up from her desk to where Yi Jeong stood in the doorway to her office. Setting down the papers in her hand, she offered him a pleasant smile.

"Yes," she answered. "My father officially decided to step down."

"Congratulations. You deserve it."

"Thank you. It feels weird being in this office knowing that it's, well, mine instead of his. Come in. Sit." She gestured to the chair across from her desk, and Yi Jeong entered the expansive office. He could tell she'd already had the place redesigned by the industrial chic light fixtures and feminine gray and teal furnishings.

"Working late?" he asked, dropping into the comfortable gray chair opposite her.

"I'm coming up on a massive deadline. Sorry you have to meet me here." She touched her hair self-consciously and gestured around. "I'm a mess." Se Ri's desk was, indeed, a mess, though Se Ri was the type of person who would know where everything was, despite appearances.

Which was, in fact, why Yi Jeong had come to see her. Because despite appearances—or despite his past assumptions about Se Ri—apparently she knew something about romantic relationships that he did not.

"It's fine." He smiled. "I just wanted to get your advice on something."

Se Ri pushed her glasses up her nose and leaned back in her chair in a business-like manner.

"What can I do for you? If you're looking to invest, you've come to the right company." She said the last part with a hint of teasing.

"Don't worry. Now that you're running things, I'll definitely be buying shares. But, actually, the reason I came here today is..." Yi Jeong paused, realizing this was the first time he'd be saying the words out loud, even to himself. "I want to ask a girl out on a date."

Se Ri lifted her eyebrows.

"Sorry, but I think that's more your area of expertise than mine." She chuckled. "If So Yi Jeong can't get a date, we're all screwed. What happened to all of your restaurant dates? Did the rest of them cancel?"

"It's more like...I've cancelled them." Yi Jeong tried—and failed—to keep from fidgeting with his tie.

Se Ri stayed silent for a moment, studying him.

Appraising him the way he imagined she would a client.

"Yi Jeong, are you growing up?"

"What?"

She laughed again.

"I've never seen you look so nervous in my life."

"I'm not nervous." He frowned, sitting up straighter. "I'm...All right, maybe a little bit. The thing is, I said something"—Yi Jeong flung his hand to the side—"stupid—maybe I did something stupid—and I think I gave her the wrong idea...Well, at the time I wasn't trying to...But then she just took everything so...badly..." He trailed off, unsure what he had originally intended to say.

"If I'm understanding your little speech correctly, you like a girl, and you hurt her feelings, probably while you were pretending not to like her"—Se Ri's voice lilted up questioningly—"and now you're afraid she doesn't like you anymore. Does that sound about right?"

"Well..." Yi Jeong sighed. "Yes, that's pretty much it," he finished glumly.

"Well, there's only one thing to do in that case," Se Ri stated matter-of-factly.

"What's that?"

"Tell the truth."

"The truth?"

"You admit that what you said before only confused her. So now you need to clarify. Tell her you like her, that you are sorry for whatever happened, and that you would like a chance to make it up to her." Se Ri clasped her hands together on her desk and shrugged. "As for whether she accepts that or not, that's up to her." She narrowed her eyes. "Whatever you do, don't push her on it. I know how insufferable you chaebols can be. If she says 'no,' she means 'no.'"

"Just...straight out...like that?"

"Well, what other way could you be, Yi Jeong?"

"Uh, well..." Yi Jeong laughed nervously.

Charming? Flattering? Seductive? Skirting his way around the actual issue through various distractions?

Being straightforward was so...unlike himself.

Though maybe that was the problem.

"Yi Jeong, do you remember Woo Bin's seventh birthday?"

"Uh, vaguely, I guess." Yi Jeong shot her a quizzical look.

What did that have to do with—

"I remember he got a—what was it?—a Game Boy. It was the first color edition, I think." She rapped her fingers on her desk.

Yi Jeong's brain flew through various gaming consoles he'd owned at lightning speed, finally settling on the Game Boy Color he'd gotten for Christmas one year. It had been the first console he'd ever owned. He still had it somewhere.

Woo Bin had gotten a Game Boy Color before him. Trust Se Ri to remember a present someone else had gotten for their birthday twenty years ago.

"Anyway," Se Ri continued with a wave of her hand, clearly giving up on getting the exact item right in her head, "whatever it was, you wanted it. I remember you screaming about it for a while. After they finally got you to calm down, we ate cake, and you somehow slipped away from your parents and got the present from Woo Bin's pile of gifts." Se Ri giggled. "His maid chased you all over the house to get it back, and you hid under a bed in one of the guest bedrooms and refused to give it up until your father came to drag you out."

"Oh." Yi Jeong laughed. "I do remember that, actually. I haven't thought about that day in years." Unfortunately, he mainly remembered it because his father had been tipsy when he came to drag Yi Jeong out, and Yi Jeong's delinquency had made his already sour mood worse. Yi Jeong's mother had gone home 'with a headache' a while before, so there had been nothing standing between Yi Jeong and his father's temper on the way home.

"So...what's your point?" he asked, batting away the bad memories.

"Children are so simple. When they see something they want, they just take it. When you're an adult, it's easy to come up with excuses for why you shouldn't have something. Or why you shouldn't even attempt to have it. But children don't think about that. They see something they want, and they go after it. Because if they don't get it, they know they'll cry. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I make demands and throw a tantrum if I don't get my way?" Yi Jeong joked. "Isn't that what you told me not to do earlier?"

"Not exactly." Se Ri shook her head. "I just mean that...you're So Yi Jeong, for goodness sake's. You were always like that. So Yi Jeong wants a toy. He gets it. So Yi Jeong wants an art award. He gets it. So Yi Jeong wants a girl. He gets her. You didn't become a world-renowned potter by second-guessing yourself or being afraid. So what's your excuse this time?" She gave him a pointed look. "Whatever you want to say, just spit it out. That's my advice."

A/N: I know this chapter and the previous chapter are on the short side; the final chapter will much longer, and it will have a little something for everyone in it. ;)