03.

“Hwang Jinae! Did you finish that transcript?” She heard her manager’s voice boom from across the office. She ducked her head lower in her cubicle. I am so dead.

“Hwang Jinae!” She looked up at the short, stubby man standing at the entrance of her cubicle, guiltily.

“I’m sorry Manager, can I have 20 more minutes?” She cowered under his glare.

“Miss Hwang I don’t know what sort of ship you think I’m running here. This is an office! A network of workers, like bees!” Jinae groaned, not the bee speech again. She had already heard it 3 times alone this past month. She put on the most remorseful expression she could muster whilst pretending to listen to the 40 year old elaborate on the lifecycle of a honeybee.

Jinae’s eyes wandered down to his attire, taking in the light coffee stain on the right of his abdomen. She distinctly remembered that he had asked her to get him tea this morning and that coffee was his order yesterday. She was unimpressed; this man was as filthy as Baekhyun. Her eyes floated back to his collar where a small broach caught her eye. Squinting, she made out the shape of… a honey jar. Oh my lord, the man was obsessed.

“… If I don’t have that completed transcript on my desk in 20 minutes, consider yourself fired!” With that he turned and stormed away muttering “Kids these days, what do they do with all their credentials? Use it to collect snot? Disappointing...”

Brought back to reality, Jinae groaned and pulled on the ends of her hair dramatically, feigning a muted shriek before seizing her highlighter and burying her nose into the pile of papers.

Jongin knocked on the heavy doors to his father’s office, waiting for approval before entering. The pale yellow walls on all sides were covered by large bookshelves, reflecting his father’s commitment to expanding his knowledge. Kim Youngchul was a gentle and hardworking man. He was one of those working fathers who made it his business to never miss a family birthday or Christmas. Jongin had always admired him for that. He had yet to meet a person as grounded as his father, so it stunned him to see the older man hunched forwards on his desk with his forehead in his palms.

“Abeoji, you called for me?” Jongin lowered himself onto an armchair in front of his father’s desk and shifted himself into a comfortable position.

“Ah-dul, how is work?” He was beating around the bush. He never bet around the bush.

“Everything’s fine, abeoji. We’re on schedule with the Thompson project and the supplies to Kori have just been sent on their way. ”

“Very good. Very good.” He knew his father hadn’t absorbed a word he said. “Jongin-ah, that girl you’ve been dating. How long has it been?” Jongin sat upright. His parents never queried about his girlfriend. Most probably owing to the fact that he had had so many over the years. But to him, Eunjung was his first serious girlfriend. The first relationship where he actively saw her out of need and desire and not because he wanted a woman’s body. Eunjung was the remedy to everything in his life. She kept his head on straight and was always there to turn every day he had into the best day yet in his life.

“Just a little over 7 months. Why abeoji? Did you want to meet her?”

His father frowned. “7 months? Ah-dul that’s a long time. I didn’t know you dated girls for that long.”

“She’s different, abeoji.” He had thought that that statement would fill his father with relief. His parents had always disapproved of his frivolous ways. He had been waiting for the right time to introduce them to Eunjung. He was sure they would love her. To Jongin’s confusion, his father buried his face back into his palms and groaned.

The pair sat in silence. Jongin listened to the deep, steady breaths of his father, too nervous to initiate for the conversation to continue. After a minute or so, his father lowered his hands, lacing together his fingers and without making eye contact, asked Jongin a question in a voice so soft he almost wasn’t sure he had heard his father right.

“How possible would it be for you to break up with her?”

Jongin froze. He opened his mouth but not a single one of the thousand words running through his brain would come out. Clearing his throat to compose himself, he forced a laugh and lightheartedly addressed his father, “Abeoji, she’s a really great girl. You’ll love her; she’s not like any of my previous girlfriends. She’s a primary school teacher. And she loves pottery, almost as much as you! She claims to be quite good at mahjong too so she can play that with oemeoni. This is not one of my flings, I promise.”

“She sounds like a great girl… But Jongin-ah, you’re going to need to break up with her,” came his father’s lifeless reply.

“I love her.”

His father raised his head and immediately Jongin registered the forlorn guilt and regret flooding from his eyes. He felt his chest burn and his fists curl into tight balls. What was his father trying to do? Isn’t this what he and his mother had asked him to do for years? Find a decent girl to have a relationship with? Now here he was, 7 months in love with the one girl that completed him and his father had the audacity to ask him to break it off. Jongin felt his breath hitch.

“Why? Why do you want me to break up with her? Isn’t this what you’ve wanted me to do? I told you, she’s not like the other girls. She’s the complete opposite. She doesn’t care for our fortune and she’s more innocent than a devout nun! Why are you being like this abeoji?! I love this girl, and it won’t matter what you say because I’m not breaking up with her!” He fought to keep his breathing steady. He couldn’t remember a time when he had felt this angry. He refused to even entertain the thought of breaking up with Eunjung.

“Ah-dul, listen to me. Let me explain.” Youngchul reached out trying to calm his son. “As you might have suspected, our business, it’s not doing very well. We don’t even have enough to sustain us until the end of the year. When the business goes down, we’re going to neck deep in debts that even forfeiting all our assets won’t pacify. I will probably spend some time behind bars. And that is acceptable for me, but this business Jongin, this business has so many lives depending on it. We brought half our village to the Seoul factory and the mining sites. This is their only source of livelihood. We promised them shelter. What are they to do when Kim Metal Management bankrupts? And your mother’s relatives that we sponsored over from China. Without this working opportunity they won’t be able to stay in Korea and their children will have to cease with their education.”

“What does this have to do with Eunjung?”

“I’ve spoken to all the people with money and power that I could have. I’ve groveled and I’ve pleaded. No one is willing to give us a hand Jongin-ah. The banks are all saying no. I met with an old friend today. Hwang Jinsung. He was there at your 21^st birthday. Do you remember?”

“...Yes.”

“…Do you remember his daughter?”

“Abeoji, where is going?” Jongin began to panic.

“His business needs a merger. Not for financial purposes but for the company’s credibility; a convoluted reason I don’t personally understand. But he can fund us Jongin. That's all that matters right now. As much as he wants to just lend us the funds, he isn’t legally able to.”

“You’re not possibly suggesting I date a girl for business purposes are you?”

“Not date, Jongin-ah… Marry.”

The younger sat stunned. He was too shocked with disbelief to feel the anger.

“No.”

“Jongin-“

“Abeoji, no. I can’t. I don’t even remember the girl. I’m in love with someone else. If I told you to leave oemeoni for another woman, would you?”

“Ah-dul, I know this is hard. But this is the only way. We can’t just think about us. There are a hundred families depending on us to survive. How are we going to knowingly let them perish when there is a way, no matter how hard, of salvaging them?”

Jongin felt like crying. The feeling of being completely defeated by a situation was new to him. It made him feel nauseous and his heart beat erratic. He knew his father was right, but he couldn’t be without Eunjung. “Don’t make me do this. Abeoji, please. There has to be another way. I can’t not have Eunjung in my life.”

“I’m so sorry ah-dul,” Youngchul pressed hard on his moist eyelids and sat back in his seat. In a soft voice he uttered, “The decision is up to you, Jongin. Take the rest of the day off and think about what I said.”

Jongin scoffed. “Decision? Crush Eunjung or crush a hundred families? How could you do this to me?" Youngchul lowered his gaze. This is all my fault.