Chapter Two: Work 

From the bright clouds of wintertime, Mi Yeon sat up and stretched.

With a new day beginning, she took a shower shorter than last night’s, then walked into one of the walk-in closets, looking for an outfit for the day. With a few minutes of deciding, she chose: a plain dress with patterned roses on the bottom half, a blue blazer, thick tights, a white scarf, and light brown UGG boots to complete the winter look.

After gobbling up her breakfast, she grabbed her bag before rushing out of the building. Not that she was late for work or anything, but Mi Yeon just preferred getting to the gallery early.

What did she do for a living? She never liked to admit it, but she was a noted artist in Seoul; known so much for her exquisite paintings, and the gallery she eventually set up from the early earnings she made. The gallery was her third home: the first was her parents’ house, and her apartment as the second.  Others thought it was rather remarkable that she managed to do such a thing at a young age of 20, but to set up a gallery was one of the dreams she had always wished to happen since she was young.

Mi Yeon managed to get there by 8:30, an hour and 30 minutes early before the opening time.

She went to her office, and started looking through photo entries of what could be featured. Although she didn’t paint as much as she did before, she liked having to help people make their dreams come true in the field of art. And from where she sat now, hundreds of drafts were sent to the famous artist, hoping to make it.

For the past hour and thirty minutes, she reached the 15^th entry, trying to decipher the painting’s meaning when she heard the main door of the gallery open.

Mi Yeon headed out of the office, knowing that one of her co-workers started to arrive.

She approached the staff room to see Xi Wang, a middle-aged Chinese girl with short brown hair, and dark eyes that matched. A bubbly and cheerful girl, she worked as the gallery’s organiser for featuring events.

“Good morning, sajangnim,” Xi Wang addressed her, with a bright smile

“Morning, Xi Wang,” Mi Yeon replied tonelessly “And please, call me Mi Yeon,”

Xi Wang didn’t seem fazed from her voice, she’s always tried to talk to Mi Yeon but her boss was always busy when there’s work, and detached from others when there’s free time.

“Uhm, are you sure? I mean, don’t you think it’s informal?” She asked, unsure

Mi Yeon sighed, “There’s only four of us, working in here anyway, I’d prefer it if you didn’t have to be formal,”

“Ohh, okay…Mi Yeon,” Xi Wang said

“Better,” Mi Yeon nodded, “When you’ve done the organising for the next featured paintings, can you please help look through the entries? There’s still kind of a lot, and tell the others as well. Thanks.”

With that, she went back to her office to continue her work.

She wasn’t bad after all, Xi Wang smiled before heading to the main room.

All her employees arrived by 10am. Mi Yeon’s group is composed by four people, including her; Liu Xi Wang is the organiser, Park Seung Hyun, a 24 year old guy who collects cute things, in charge of finance, and Yoshida Mayumi, a 25 year old Japanese girl who has a big love for KPOP, manages the entries and makes sure they aren’t copied from another work of art.

Strangely enough, all of them have jolly personalities who all have a passion for heart. But when it comes to work, they are serious when they needed to be, and always does their work before the assigned deadline. It didn't bother them at all that their boss was younger than them, in age. 

Mi Yeon didn’t hire many people because she believed that you need trust to work with others. And so far, all of them have proved themselves which gained them her trust during work.

Basically, this is how their routine worked: Mayumi chooses from the hundreds of art entered, looking for how the painting is worked out, its meaning, checks that there isn’t anything similar from another artwork, and if it has the emotion it needs. She then passes the pile to Mi Yeon who gives a double check, and is in charge of approving them.  Shortly afterwards, they have a meeting to decide the theme, the guest list and such so that Xi Wang can start organising. When they have decided, Seung Hyun verifies the budget needed. Depending on its value, roughly 15% of the painting’s money goes to the gallery.

Surprisingly, they didn’t find it hard at all, the three employees enjoy their jobs very much since there was a lot of time spared, the salary was fair, and there was no hassle among them.

“So, what theme should we have this time?” Mayumi asked during the meeting where they have to plan out the necessary things that need organising for the featured batch of exhibitions next month.

A theme depends on the chosen paintings to attract more buyers. For example, if most of the paintings chosen have something nature-related, the theme would be nature; meadow-painted walls, green food…etc. Money wasn’t much of a problem since there were many contributors and buyers. Besides, it would be more fun with a designated theme.

“Well, we had a beach theme the last time,” Seung Hyun said, his chin resting on his palm

“That was so fun! Nearly all the paintings got sold,” Xi Wang chimed

“Let’s look through the batch and see what theme has the most paintings,” Mi Yeon spread out twenty print-outs of the ones selected

After five minutes of looking through all of them, they chorused together, “Vintage Theme’

When the meeting ended, it was almost 12pm and they were about to head for their lunch break.

The three consistently asked Mi Yeon to have lunch with them but she always politely declined, knowing that it would be awkward since she wasn’t much of a speaker.

“Have lunch with us…uhm, Mi Yeon?” Seung Hyun and Mayumi were spoken to about the formality. Like Xi Wang, they found it something hard to get used to because Mi Yeon looked like the scary-I-will-fire-you-if-you-don’t-respect-me kind of boss. Despite this, they still invited her to lunch, because they wanted to know more about their employer, and have a good relationship with her. They started to respect her greater when Xi Wang told them what happened this morning.

“Oh, sorry, I have to go meet my family,” Mi Yeon courteously turned down as she put her bag on

“I’ll see you guys later,” She nodded at them before heading to her car

“I know I’ve said this loads of times, but she reaaaaally isn’t that bad,” Xi Wang jumped happily, and the other two agreed.

Author's Note:

To be honest, I don't really know how a gallery works so I just made it all up XD

PS, sorry if I'm really bad at updating, lmaoo.