\\\\\

“What did you say?” Sehun questioned surprised, his brows furrowing but Hayoung stood equipped with a leather binder in her arm refusing to repeat herself.

“Get me in touch with them,” Sehun ordered with a shake of his head.

“You can’t do this right now.” Hayoung insisted, a depth in her voice to emphasize the importance of the meeting. “You have a meeting with the board directors you can’t miss!”

“No, I have to do this. Get me connected with them. If we don’t solve this issue first, the company will be floored, do you understand?” Sehun stared her determinedly in the eyes.

Rebelling, Hayoung stood there with firm lips and eyes hard on him. “No.”

“Do you want to get fired? You think I can’t get anyone else to replace you?” he threatened.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Hayoung pressed angrily. “You’re putting all you want on the line! The board directors want you to assure them that you won’t take their power from them or lead the company astray! They can’t trust you because you’re not an heir of the Kim family!”

Sehun gritted his teeth, conflicted. A moment of hesitation fluctuated through him.

“Call them.”

\\\\\

“What’s going on?” Kai asked, curious to know why the blame was going to Choonhee.

“No…it’s just…” the female hesitated.

A man chimed in, as if tired of standing in the back while waiting for the situation to be cleared. “There’s a book we that went through editing last week. It was released into public yesterday, but it’s being heavily criticized for the many grammar mistakes and typos in it. The author’s company is threatening to take legal action since the product passed through our review firsthand.”

Alarmed, Namjoo turned to look at Kai afraid that it was really her carelessness that caused such a big situation. And legal action…meant the involvement of the law. What if in the process…they discovered her true identity?

She began sweating even more, as if the office suddenly turned into a sauna. Namjoo wondered if her clothes were sticking to her skin yet, and if the others could see. Loud footsteps emerged by the doorway and they turned.

“Lee Choonhee, you’re being requested by the directors of the board.”

What did that mean?

“Are you sure?” Kai questioned, suddenly placing a hand at her back.

Gulping, Namjoo gripped her hands into weak fists. Her stomach was becoming weak with the turn of events – events that she didn’t understand, business stuff that proceeded in ways she didn’t know.

The man at the doorway nodded and she listened to Kai say, “I’ll come with you.” Which all, but made her feel a little less worried to be accompanied by him.

\\\\\

They rode the elevator up and were led down a deep orange carpeted hallway with diamond patterns. The further they travelled, the more Namjoo felt like she was being escorted to her private jail cell. She felt sick to the stomach upon having no clue about what awaited her. Among the few closed double doors they passed, she wondered which one held her impending doom.

The man finally paused after they turned the corner and knocked on the door before pulling it open, then bowed, gesturing for them to go in. Namjoo nervously tried peering into the meeting room firsthand, but felt Kai’s reassuring hand on her shoulder and naturally walked in with him. The very first person she saw by the head of the oval table was Oh Sehun. Their eyes met very shortly before she averted her gaze.

She was embarrassed and felt like she just lost face in front of him. This was a shameful situation; to be the fault of a situation blown up. Kai led her over to an empty chair by the wall as all the chairs surrounding the table were occupied. With head lowered the same way as when she received punishment at the orphanage, she kept her hands clasped together.

It felt like all eyes were on her through the deathly silence, every one of them judging her for recklessness. Slumping down stiffly she placed her hands on her lap to await punishment.

“What is this?” one of the elder man questioned. “What is going on? What is the President’s daughter doing at the meeting?”

Authoritatively, Sehun held his hand up for silence. Namjoo watched him and waited patiently, trying her best to keep the panic from surfacing. After gulping another time the door opened, sounding like the heavy doors of an abandoned medieval castle. Her heart jumped up to when Hayoung walked in, her steps evenly paced and fast. Stalking over to Sehun she handed him the folder in her hand and turned to stand by him. Namjoo noticed the woman’s eyes did not turn her way, which either meant she would get a lashing later or she was too immersed in business formality to care about her. Namjoo leaned toward the latter.

Hayoung would definitely have her neck in private.

“Shares are still the same, stocks have increased per VVIP holder,” Sehun read aloud. “The records seem steady. What is there to fear that I’ll take from you? That is, unless you pass over some of your bonds.”

Namjoo’s mind buzzed and she looked around the room to see the elder men making unsatisfied expressions, quietly muttering among themselves. Then she recognized some of them as the men she’d met before at the opening ceremony – the men Kai’s father introduced her to.

“But,” Sehun said, “if you can’t still trust me, we have a messy situation I doubt any of you would want to handle.”

Waving his hand back Namjoo watched Hayoung step forward obediently and hand him another folder. As Sehun opened the folder she stepped back, quietly resuming her place leaving Namjoo in awe with how they worked.

“The famous author Ahn Jaeha is suing Power Printings for recklessness and defamation of character,” Sehun read off the paper.

Namjoo heard one of the men whisper, “Isn’t that us?”

Kai gripped onto her hand in the seat beside her to reassure her it would be alright, but her eyes remained glued on Sehun. He suddenly looked much cooler and she was anxious to see what he was up to.

She felt much smaller when a number of the board directors turned to look her way, catching onto why they were there.

“Is that why President Lee’s daughter is here? Is she the one at fault?” they whispered among themselves, their curious eyes glancing at her nonstop.

Tightening her fists Namjoo felt her fingernails claw into her palm and lowered her head.

“I’ll take responsibility for the situation caused by a newbie.” Sehun spoke.

The whisper among the men grew more desperate and Namjoo’s head shot up to stare at him, but he refused to meet her eyes.

“Chief Executive!” one of them called out.

“Who’s going to handle the situation if you resign?!”

“Are you mad?! Is the business a playground for you to quit as you like?!”

“The company will fall without a Chief Executive! We just started!”

Namjoo timidly lowered her head even more when the men shot her angry stares. Hunching her shoulders up she shrunk even more in front of them, finally realizing for the first time what the merge really meant, and why Hayoung pestered to do her job right, for she was the core of it.

Blame would stain her name – actually, it would go to Choonhee’s grave and taint her unknown death. She would be the shame and the cause of bringing her sister’s careful reputation to ruins. The guilt, the heavy burden of it wasn’t something she could carry alone. And not only would dead Choonhee be affected by the fall of the company, her parents would lose out on billions of dollars, their names tarnished and slandered by the public and the media. Kai and his family, Sehun and his family, and Hayoung would lose her job – every one of them harmed in one way or another.

And it would be all her fault.

As Namjoo realized the reality of every burden she carried on her shoulders she felt more stressed, scared, and at fault for what was going on. The situation was gigantic, more problematic than she imagined.

Stepping forward Hayoung announced, “Our legal team is currently taking action with the disputing party. There is nothing to fear. No one will be resigning.”

\\\\\

The meeting came to an abrupt and awkward end and Namjoo wanted to run out of the room, but Kai stuck behind, continuously bowing and giving his apology. She awkwardly forced herself to do the same since it only felt natural, and she still felt guilty for what had happened. She hated it even more when Sehun walked by coldly without giving her a glance or telling her that it was alright to make her feel at ease.

Namjoo partly hated herself for even caring about it.

Instead of returning directly to the department Kai led her downstairs to the coffee bar and bought her a cup of warm mocha.

“How was that? You were scared, right?” he asked taking the seat in front of her.

Quietly wrapping her hands around the warm cup, she thankfully absorbed the warmth and nodded.

“I knew Sehun would make it alright,” Kai told.

“Huh? Oh…” Namjoo felt her eyes drift over the tabletop as she saw the image of him sitting calmly at the head of the table all so coolly. Swallowing, she glanced up apologizing, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you? It’s not a big deal.”

“I made you look bad,” Namjoo reflected, “and I didn’t keep track of what I was looking through, so I don’t know if I really looked at that document. I’ll do better from now on.”

She glanced him to see him smiling so handsomely that it made him look ultimately generous. He looked like he could give her the world if she asked for it. He would step below her just to make her happy. Namjoo suddenly felt bad that she was lying. She saw it even more that he had liked Choonhee so much.

“As long as you’re willing to learn from it, which I know you will. You’re Lee Choonhee,” he encouraged. “It’s your first mistake, don’t think about it too much.”

A first mistake that brought about legal action? Namjoo wasn’t too sure about that, but she knew he was going easy on her because he thought she was Choonhee. If it was anyone else they would have already been dismissed from work.  

After returning to the department Namjoo found herself ostracized among the rest of the workers. She had nothing to do, leaving her to stare at an empty screen bored out of her mind. And when the others left for lunch they didn’t invite her to go with them.

Alone in the office she bit on her nails and spent minutes spinning her chair until she grew dizzy. She didn’t think she’d ever been so bored before and she had no guts to go down to the cafeteria to eat with the others. None of them, she expected, would sit down with her.

Thumping her forehead against the desk she groaned. The image of Sehun in the meeting room again swerved into her memory and she sat up. He had taken the fault, covering for her when they could have very much just fired her. He deserved her thanks as well, but she still felt overwhelmed by embarrassment. He was the first person she saw when walking into the room and thinking back to it, he must have known why she was there.

What had he thought of her? What did he think of her now?

Groaning to herself even more she roughly rustled her hair. Despite her overall embarrassment, she knew she was going to be constantly hassled by her conscience throughout the rest of the day. It was one or the other.

Minutes later when the elevator doors opened Namjoo stared out into the empty hallway. Smoothing her hair down with her hands and checking her reflection against the silver doors, stepped out. Her heart was beating erratically. She was afraid that Hayoung was on the lookout for her, waiting to jump and scold her.

The desk outside the office doors was empty. Stopping in front of Hayoung’s nice desk she read her brass nameplate and felt envious of it. In her cubicle downstairs there was nothing there that said it belonged to her.

Namjoo hesitated in front of the large doors, recognizing it as the office Sehun had dragged her into during the opening ceremony. Feeling slightly nervous she again, adjusted her appearance before knocking and opened the door. Half of her hoped he was out to lunch, the other desperately hoping to get this over with.

Sehun was inside with reading glasses on. Her heart fluttered at how mature he looked and quickly looked away, shy. She wished he’d say something, but as she stood there he just watched her walk in. Again, those eyes of his carefully observing her movement like they had at the mall. Namjoo felt uneasy and flustered, the room turning into a sauna again.

“Don’t just stand there,” he finally spoke, taking his glasses off.

Catching herself, Namjoo stepped away from the door and paused a few feet in front of his desk catching sight of the furniture behind her. She could still recall very well the threat he’d made to her the day of the first kiss. Anxiously, she held her hands together in front of her with her head timidly lowered.

“Um…” she nervously started, her eyes darting back and forth. Namjoo suddenly thought she would get sick. “I’m sorry.”

She forced herself to bow before straightening up, hoping to see some forgiveness in his face but his expression was as cold as ever. Namjoo wanted to sigh. She shouldn’t have expected anything. She was stupid for having come in the first place. God, how she wanted to plant herself against the wall and merge with it.

Picking his glasses back up he glanced down at the papers he was reading. “Thanks to you, now I’m being held behind with a bunch of legal papers to go over.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Then show me your thanks by treating me to dinner.”

“What?” lifting her head up surprised, she found herself staring at him. When he glanced at her she burned up and immediately lowered her head again.

“I’ll pick you up later.” Putting his glasses back on he switched attention back to his papers, gesturing that it was time for her to leave.

Backing out of his office she nearly jumped after closing the door when she spotted Hayoung standing behind her, arms crossed.

Namjoo expected a hasty lash from her, but instead Hayoung her heels to walk away saying, “Come with me.”

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Hayoung led her outside to the open back where the open ceremony had been held. Namjoo only noticed the bag of to-go food in her hand when she placed them onto the picnic table and sat down. She was confused about why they were outside. Because she wanted to give her a good punishment in private?

“I don’t have to tell you to sit down, do I?” Hayoung asked with what Namjoo thought was irritation.

Sliding into the seat opposite her Namjoo watched her take out the food, separating them into twos. After a minute of becoming to curious and worried over her punishment, she asked, “You’re not going to yell at me?”

Ignoring her Hayoung ordered, “Eat up.”

Namjoo glanced down at the food and picked up her plastic spoon to eat. The wind fluttered by and birds cried out as they flew by overhead. The grand oak tree nearby helped shade them from the beating sun. It was almost relaxing and Namjoo felt free for a moment, until she remembered she wasn’t anyone else but Choonhee.

Namjoo panicked when Hayoung set down her spoon and looked at her. Finding it rude to continue eating alone, she forced herself to lower her spoon and sat with hands on her lap again.

“You realize that Sehun put his job on the line to keep you in the company,” Hayoung stiffly asked, “do you not?”

“I…I know.” Again, Namjoo lowered her head. Something she’d been taught at the orphanage was not to look the other party in the eyes when being yelled at. It was a sign of challenge to domination and despicably rude when she knew she was in the wrong. She’d gotten a good spanking for doing it once. Namjoo would never forget the pain of her burning flesh.

“If you make him do something like that again, you better make sure you’re not in my sight,” she coldly threatened.

Gulping, Namjoo nodded.

“There’s a social event Kai will take you to this weekend. Make time tomorrow, I’m going to take you dress shopping.” She ordered.

Namjoo nodded obediently.

“Eat up.” Hayoung urged. 

***And here, Namjoo realizes the reality of her responsibilities on a personal level. HunJoo up next!