Every single day, Yongsun cursed the moment she chose to buy the building for Solar Inc. on that particular street. The restaurants were excellent, the bars chic with an elegant clientele, and there was a park a five-minute walk away with the Han River flowing nearby. All these benefits, though, would never outweigh the pain in her that was the building opposite hers: Moon Administration Inc. 

Yong had the perfect view of the company's name written in big, bold letters at the top of the building from her window wall. She could see it every time she entered her office, and every morning, as she stepped inside, she had to roll her eyes. “Moon Administration” was a stupid name, just as stupid as its CEO. Yongsun huffed to herself as she sat at her desk. It was so obvious they wanted to act like NASA or something…. Administration….

“You were almost late, you know.” 

Yongsun yelped, flinching so hard she almost tumbled off her chair. With a hand on her chest, her heart thumping under her palm, Yongsun glared at the source of the voice. Moon Byulyie. 

“What are you doing here?” She growled, running a hand through her hair to arrange her appearance. Byul’s dark eyes followed the gesture as a smirk slowly spread on her lips. 

“Bringing your morning coffee, as usual.” She said as she put the cup of Yongsun’s favorite coffee on the desk. 

“How did you get in my office?!”

Byulyie simply shrugged with a self-satisfied smirk. “I have my ways.” 

“This is trespassing, CEO Moon. I’m going to call security.”

“You’re really no fun, CEO Yong.”

“CEO Kim.”

“Right… As I said, you’re really no fun. Live a little. You sound like an uptight b–”

“If you finish your sentence, CEO Moon, I will personally kick you out of my building.”

“It’s not like you have anything better to do.” Byul scoffed. Yongsun’s face flushed in anger as she stood up, hands laid flat on her desk as she leaned forward. 

Byul’s eyes briefly flickered down before meeting the other woman’s furious gaze head-on. Yongsun was about to give her an earful but was interrupted by the other woman putting her hand up and fishing her phone from her pocket. 

“Moon Byulyie speaking.” Byul’s teasingly charming voice turned firm and authoritative as she answered the phone. Yongsun rolled her eyes and sat back down. “I see. Push my meeting back half an hour; I’ll be right over.” She hung up and turned to Yongsun with a small puppy pout. “I’m sorry, CEO Yong, I have to go.”

“Good riddance,” Yongsun said without even looking at her as she turned her computer on and sorted through the mail waiting for her on the side of her desk. 

Byul’s pout turned into a displeased frown, but she left nonetheless without another word. Yongsun let out a sigh of relief and leaned back into her office chair, twirling slightly to be able to see the window. Her gaze fell on the coffee on her desk. Every. ing. Day. CEO Moon would be waiting for her in the entrance hall of the building to hand her coffee. Without fail. And it was getting on Yongsun’s nerves. But today was really the peak of her annoyance. How did the woman even get into her office?!

“Hyejin-ssi, please come into my office,” Yongsun called her assistant through the intercom. 

The double doors opened almost instantly, and in strutted Ahn Hyejin. “You called me, boss?” She asked, raising her glasses on the top of her head. The woman was drop-dead gorgeous, and on days when Yongsun felt particularly insecure, she envied her a little bit. The feeling never lasted long, though. Hyejin had been her best friend for years and was too much of a sweetheart for anyone to harbor any negative feelings against her. 

“Can you tell me how CEO Moon got into my office?” Yongsun asked, arms crossed. Hyejin glanced to the side briefly, looking very much guilty. 

“I don’t know?”

“Cut the crap, Hyejin-ssi.”

“Okay, fine.” Hyejinie groaned with an eye roll as she plopped down on the chair across from Yong. “You were late, and CEO Moon was annoying everyone by asking where you were to anyone entering the building. Reception called me. I told her to wait for you here.”

“Are you out of your mind?! We don’t know her! She had access to all my documents, Hyejin-ah!” Yongsun yelled, furious. Her anger turned into astonishment as the younger woman had the gall to roll her eyes. 

“It’s not like she’s gonna do any industrial spying, unnie. How would contracts with musicians help in building spaceships?”

“She’s not building spaceships. She’s selling materials for them. God, she wants to be NASA so bad.” She rolled her eyes. 

“Right… I don’t know; I thought she was cute, so I sent her up here.”

“Cute?!”

“Oh, come on, it’s super cute that she brings you coffee every day!”

“It’s not cute. It’s harassment.”

“It would be if you didn’t like it. But you do.”

“You really have to scrap that ridiculous idea out of your head, Hyejin-ssi. I’m tired of you always shoving that absurdity in my face.”

“You know, if you didn’t want her to bother you with your morning coffee, you could simply ask security to keep her off the premises.”

“I really cannot stand her,” Yongsun said, ignoring Hyejin’s statement, her eyes going to the window as she spotted the time. She watched Moon Byulyie jog across the street in her pristine suit. She probably didn’t even break a sweat. Yongsun rolled her eyes for the nth time. “She feels entitled to everything, and I hate it. I hate it, Hyejin-ah. Her precious little daddy gave her that company because she absolutely wanted to be the CEO when she was too young for the position, and she keeps acting as if everything should be handed to her in life. Well, news flash, we don’t always get what we want!”

Hyejin was trying not to laugh. Yongsun glared at her when she noticed. “It’s not funny, Hyejin-ah. That’s why she keeps bothering me with her stupid coffee. Because she thinks she’s entitled to my attention and that I can be bought just because she brings me my favorite coffee every day. Well, she can go to hell!”

“She definitely doesn’t leave you indifferent. If you hate the coffee so much, why do you always drink it?”

“Contrary to Miss Moon over there, I know the value of things, and I will NOT waste food.”

The assistant raised a perfect eyebrow, knowing how except in the case of tteokbokki, Yongsun never finished her meals, always too preoccupied with her weight. 

“Keep telling yourself that, boss,” Hyejin said as she stood up. “Do you still need me, or may I return to work?”

Yongsun sighed. “You may go…. Are we still on for lunch?”

“Of course, unnie.” Hyejin winked and left her alone in her gigantic office. Yongsun looked at the coffee again and reluctantly took a sip. It was perfect, again. She glared at the cup and got to work.

A few hours later, Byulyie was finally done catching up with work as she sat at her desk with Wheein for their lunch. 

“Yongsun unnie is so prideful; it’s so ing annoying, I swear to god!” The CEO grumbled as she opened her burger. Wheein put some kimchi in between them and opened hers too.

“What happened again?” She asked with a huff. Byulyie was talking about the other woman all the time, and Wheein could mostly stomach it just fine, but sometimes it grated her a bit,  and she wished her boss would change subjects occasionally. Does she not have a social life outside of the other CEO?

“She just thinks she’s better than everyone else, and I’m sure it’s because she built her company from the ground up! It makes her think we’re all below her and don’t deserve to be in her presence! She should really get down her high horse.”

“I asked what happened.” Wheein reiterated, over it.

“She got all angry because I was in her office.”

“You were in her office?!”

“It’s not my fault! It’s her assistant that told me to wait there! It’s not like I invited myself in! I don’t know the code to the ing room!”

Wheein shook her head in disappointment. “I would be mad at you too, you know! She’s probably sick and tired of you harassing her with coffee! Why do you even keep doing that??”

“I’m just trying to be a good neighbor! That’s why I’ve been bringing her coffee since she got here! But noooo, Miss Big CEO Kim of Solar Inc. has to be better than anyone else and berate people that want to be friendly!”

“It’s been five years, unnie…. you should stop bringing her coffee. She obviously doesn’t want it!”

“That’s not true!” Byul defended herself. “She has never once asked me to stop bringing her coffee! She’s just too proud to accept it gracefully!”

“I’m sure you’re not that innocent, and you annoy her on purpose.” Wheein probed. She had known Byul since they were kids, and she was sure the other woman wasn’t totally innocent. 

“I mean… it’s amusing when she gets all red in the face when she’s angry.” Wheein stared at her.  “What?”

“You like her…”

“That’s stupid. I like annoying her. Big difference.”

“So you admit that you annoy her on purpose!”

“No!”

Wheein guffawed. “Keep telling yourself that, unnie….”

Byulyie went on with her day with a firm pout, sometimes looking out the window wall of her office at the building across the street. Her conversation with Wheein replayed in her head, and she figured that maybe she should indeed skip a day of giving Yongsun her morning coffee. 

The very next morning, Yongsun hurried through her building’s reception hall and, noticing the lack of CEO Moon ready to pounce on her with coffee, mentally prepared to face her in her office again. Her foot tapping the elevator’s floor impatiently, she kept mumbling to herself how the younger woman was more and more invading her space and that she should put an end to it. A hand resting on the handle of her office’s door, she took a deep breath before waltzing into a completely empty office. Her shoulders sagged at the realization, almost dropping her bag as all tension left her body. The only tiny bit of it that remained resided in the deep frown of her eyebrows as she studied the room, but it was decidedly empty and untouched.

Unsettled, she sat at her desk and started working. The disruption in her routine made it hard for her to concentrate on her job as all her brain demanded of her was to solve the mystery in the shape of CEO Moon. She gazed out her window only to be met with the faint silhouette of her nemesis doing the same thing. She quickly turned back to her computer. 

A few minutes later, she made the mistake of looking out her window again and frowned at the big sheet of paper seemingly stuck to Byul’s office window. Her eyes narrowed in her attempt at reading what was written on it, and, giving up, she grabbed her phone to use its zoom instead. 

“Missing your coffee?” She read to herself out loud before slamming her phone down on her desk. THE GALL?! Yongsun hurriedly grabbed a few pieces of paper and arranged them on the floor to make a big square before drawing a giant middle finger. She taped them on her window for Byul to see and returned to work, relieved that the mystery was already solved: Byul had just decided to annoy her.

Just a minute later, a notification popped up on her phone. She opened the message that read: “Very mature of you, CEO Yong.” Yongsun gritted her teeth. 

“How did you get my number?” She replied, her fingers hammering against her phone. 

“Does it matter? Did you miss me today?”

“Yes and no.”

“You mean no and yes?”

“What?” Yongsun reread her message. “NO! Stop bothering me, I have work to do! Frankly, for a company that sells materials to spacecraft companies, you seem to have a lot of time on your hands.”

“You seem to always be working… Weird, I didn’t know that signing artists took that much of your time.”

“! Off!” Yongsun texted back before turning her phone off and leaning back into her seat, exhausted.

Her phone now unable to distract her any longer, Yong spent the next hour focusing on her work. She had just decided on a five-minute break: she did need her missing coffee from that morning. She was about to leave her office when Hyejinie opened her door for her. 

“CEO Kim, there’s–”

“Is it urgent, Hyejin-ah?” The CEO asked as she left the office, “I’m taking a break, just going to get cof–” Yongsun was cut off as she bumped hard against another person. 

“!” Byulyie shouted with a hiss as the burning coffee she held spilled all over her shirt.  Yongsun watched in horror as tears gathered in Byul’s eyes as the younger woman tried to pull the shirt away from her skin. 

Hyejin watched the scene unfold with open in shock before quickly closing it tight to hide her amusement. 

“Hyejin-ssi, don’t just stand there! Get us some paper towels and some water!” Yongsun barked before pulling Byulyie inside her office, making her lean against her desk. 

“I will pay for the shirt,” Yongsun grumbled as she grabbed the last tissues she had on her desk to try to dry Byul’s shirt. She knew her attempt was futile as most of the white shirt was tainted with a giant brownish taint, but it was not like she could just stand there. 

Hyejinie quickly arrived with more tissues and a couple bottles of water before leaving and closing the door behind her. As soon as she was out of the office, Hyejin called Wheein with a smirk. 

Yongsun poured water on Byul’s shirt before trying to wipe the coffee off. 

“What are you doing??” Byul suddenly asked as she was drenched in water. 

Yongsun shot her a glare, frantically trying to repair her mistake. Byul blushed slightly as Yongsun’s hand rested on her hip while the other kept brushing down her abs and chest. Seeing how the woman was still on a mission, Byul leaned back slightly and observed her with a smirk. 

She wouldn’t deny it: she found this proximity incredibly exhilarating. Eventually, Yongsun stopped with a groan, sharply throwing the wet tissues in the bin. “I’ll get you a new shirt.”

But before the CEO could step away, Byul wrapped an arm around her waist. Yongsun looked up at her with a startled expression, and Byul had to admit that she really liked how expressive Yongsun’s face was. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Byul whispered, still holding Yongsun close, though the older woman was leaning back to not taint her own clothes. 

“Unhand me,” Yongsun demanded in a soft voice, a slight blush coloring her cheeks. Byul obliged and straightened up. Yong took a step back. “What are you doing?!” She shouted as Byul started ing her shirt. 

“What do you mean?? The shirt’s dirty!” Byulyie said, on the defensive. Yongsun was about to smack her hands off the buttons when she noticed that she was wearing an undershirt. She glared at Byul before circling her desk. Byul grabbed her wrist to stop her. 

“Where are you going?” She asked, her shirt completely open to reveal a very thin, almost see-through tank top that was just as stained. 

“Excuse me? I have work to do.”

“Weren’t you telling your assistant you were taking a break?”

“The break’s over.”

“Why are you always so mean to me?” Byul asked with a bit of a pout.

“What are you? Five?” Yongsun rolled her eyes. “Why are you always bringing me that damn coffee?”

“To welcome you in the street.”

Mouth agape in surprise, Yongsun stared at the younger woman in front of her, now flapping her shirt in the air for a reason that Yongsun couldn’t decipher. It made the muscles in her arms flex, though, and the sight felt indecent. 

“What do you mean to welcome me in the street? I’ve been here for five years!”

“Yes, and you’ve never once gracefully accepted my welcome.”

“Gracefully accepted? Am I supposed to bow at your feet next?!”

“I didn’t say that! Why does everything have to be a competition with you?!”

“Why do you expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter?! I can’t be bought, CEO Moon.” Yongsun crossed her arms over her chest, standing her ground. 

“Did you think the coffee was a bribe?? I was just trying to be friendly!”

Yongsun scoffed, which made Byul step dangerously close to her. “I’m not afraid of you, CEO Yong–”

“CEO Kim.” 

“Yong,” Byul repeated in Yongsun’s ear, her voice lowering in a register Yongsun didn’t even know the woman could reach. She clenched her jaw to prevent the shiver she felt coming. She was adamant not to let herself be intimidated. 

“I do not appreciate the disrespect, CEO Moon. Now please leave my office.” She whispered back. No matter how on top of things she wanted to appear, Yongsun couldn’t help but be destabilized by the proximity. Since when did the younger woman smell this good?

“I mean no disrespect, CEO unnie, I just really love the taste of your name on my lips.”

Yongsun brusquely pushed her back. “This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”

Byulyie’s laughter rang through the room. “Disgusting but true.”

“Shut up and leave my office,” Yongsun mumbled before plopping down on her chair with an exhausted sigh.

“What about my shirt…?” 

“Just give it to Hyejinie and ask her for a new shirt.” She said without looking up from her computer screen. 

Byul felt elated from their little bout that she had missed in the morning and already felt sad at the prospect of having to leave. So she didn’t and sat in a chair opposite Yongsun instead. 

“What are you doing?” Yongsun asked with a little growl. 

“I missed you this morning,” Byul admitted, understanding that she would have to be the bigger person. Yongsun looked at her with eyes wide in surprise, a slight blush creeping up on her cheeks. 

“W-What?”

“I missed you. Actually, I didn’t come this morning to pester you, but all it did was make me miss you.”

“Have you lost your mind, CEO Moon?” Yongsun hissed.

“When are you gonna start calling me Byulyie?”

“Have you lost your mind, Byul-ssi?” She reiterated. 

“No, I haven’t lost my mind. You’re my happy pill in the morning. It’s like drinking that really good freshly-made orange juice in the morning with a little pastry.”

Yongsun’s angry gaze had softened but was now replaced with a raised eyebrow. “What a nice comparison.” She said with an ironic tinge to her voice.

“Do you really dislike me that much?” The vulnerability in Byul’s voice disarmed her. 

“N-No…” She ended up replying, avoiding the younger woman’s gaze.

“So why are you always so confrontational?”

“Because you’re annoying.” Yongsun regretted her words when Byul looked at her like a kicked puppy. “I mean… you’re exasperating! You’re always acting as if you were owed the world, and it annoys me.”

“I don’t think I’m owed the world.”

“You look like you do.”

“And you come off as thinking you’re better than everyone else because you built your little empire from the ground up.” Yongsun leaned back in her chair at Byul’s words, arms crossed, lips thinly pressed. “But you look the part, so I can’t fault you.”

“What is that supposed to mean??” Yongsun asked, ready to be offended.

“That you look like a queen.”

“UGH, stop it!” Yongsun suddenly got up and walked up to Byul, grabbing her arm and pulling her up. “Out of my office!” 

Byul smirked and let her pull her up but wrapped an arm around her waist instead, pulling her close. “Is this okay?” She whispered, her face suddenly very close to Yongsun’s.

“I… What…” Yongsun’s face turned red from embarrassment. She slapped Byul’s shoulder hard. “What are you doing??” Yong whispered but never tried to pull away.

“It’s not every day that one is allowed to gaze at a work of art from so close.”

“Are you… flirting with me?”

“What if I were…?”

“Then I’d say you need to work on your pick-up lines.” She groaned and finally pushed Byul, though gently. 

“Will you help me work on them? Like actors doing a table read…. Except for us, it would be in an expensive restaurant?” Byul asked with her most innocent and pure smile. 

Yongsun, hands splayed against Byul’s back, pushed her towards the door. “You are the worst flirt.”

Byul suddenly turned around and wrapped both arms around her waist. “But I’m the best kisser.” She whispered in Yong’s ear. The older woman was completely flustered, hands now resting on Byul’s shoulders. When Byul didn’t get a reaction, she simply gazed into Yongsun’s eyes, biting her lip. Yongsun looked down and gulped, unable to look away.

“Can I kiss you…?” Byul whispered, her lips so close that her breath tickled Yongsun’s. 

“I don’t know…” Yongsun whispered back. Byul pulled her face back ever so slightly not to make Yongsun uncomfortable. 

“You’re aware that I’m asking you out on a date, though, right?” Byulyie’s voice remained low. Yongsun nodded slightly. “When are you free?”

“Tonight,” Yongsun whispered back, almost in a daze.

“I’ll pick you up after work?”

Yongsun nodded, and Byul smiled, slowly letting her go. “Perfect… See you tonight, then, CEO unnie.”

Yongsun felt strangely cold as Byul took a step back. But before the younger woman could turn away to leave the office, Yongsun pulled her in by the back of her neck and gave her a chaste kiss on the lips. 

Byul looked at her with wide eyes but a stupid smile on her face. “W-What was that for?”

“I just wanted to be the one to initiate our first kiss,” Yongsun said with a smirk, now retreating behind her desk. 

“It’s not a competition, unnie,” Byul said with an eye roll, though smiling so wide that little dimples on each side of her nose appeared. Yongsun melted at the sight without letting it show. 

“Everything is, Byul-ah. See you tonight.”

Byul let out a slight giggle and bowed deeply in greeting before leaving the office with a skip on her step.