Ji Hyo brought him coffee from the same café they went to on her first day on the job. She greeted the other employees, but they quickly turned away as fast as they looked at her and what’s on her hands. She shrugged and outside Jong Kook’s office, she waited for him to arrive.

She heard a thunderous voice echoing from outside the office doors. She craned her head above the cubicles to see the source and saw Kim Jong Kook intensely making his way to his office. He stopped in the middle, probably to have himself seen and heard by everyone, and sighed audibly.

“Get me only the best people. Please. Don’t hire weak ones who’ll leave after being berated a few times!” she heared him yell at his secretary, who was frantically writing down on her notepad. She kept her gaze on him as he walked with reports in his hand, and her habit of sticking her tongue out in times of distress made its appearance as he came closer and closer to where she’s standing.

Jong Kook was less than five steps away from her when he looked up from his reading and met Ji Hyo’s eyes. “Miss Song Ji Hyo,” he muttered, his scrunched forehead slowly returning to normal. He turned to Jo Min Hee. “Please take care of her,” he said to her before he closes the door behind him to his office.

Min Hee smiled at her and ushered her to the desk next to Kim Jong Kook’s office. Ji Hyo’s face may have looked as if she has a hundred questions was currently running through her head, but Min Hee answered the most obvious one. “He’s not always like that, you know.”

“Huh?” she looked up at Min Hee, momentarily coming out from her reverie.

“Mr. Kim Jong Kook. He’s only like that because of what happened yesterday.” She scanned her notepad and scratched off something on what seems to be a list from where Ji Hyo’s sitting.

“Wha- what happened yesterday?”

“His best friend, which is also his editor-in-chief, Mr. Ha Dong Hoon, walked out on him. So did most of the staff.” Ji Hyo looked at her blankly as Min Hee further explained. “Anyway, Mr. Kim told me that you would be here today. He personally looked through your resumé and portfolio yesterday, and all had been set. Follow me.”

Ji Hyo immediately stood up and trailed behind Min Hee, who showed her to a desk across from Jong Kook’s office. “This is going to be your spot,” she told Ji Hyo. She pointed to the unopened boxes on top of her desk. “Mr. Kim had those bought just for you to use because our previous photographer took the company cameras.” Min Hee caught her smiling.

“Did he get mad?” Ji Hyo asked curiously, her hand grazing the boxes.

“Not really. He just let it go.”

She nodded. “Oh. Thank you.”

Min Hee left Ji Hyo some previous issues of their magazine, ERA, and had her read through it to familiarize herself with their content. She told her that in a while, she would be given her first project. Ji Hyo nodded at the secretary gratefully. She looked at the untouched coffees on her new desk and smiled to herself. It’s only the beginning, don’t sweat it, she thought.

Once Min Hee came back from Ji Hyo’s desk, the office phone on her desk started to ringing. Kim Jong Kook asked her to come to his office.

“What do you think about her, Jo Min Hee?” he immediately asked.

“Sir, she seems to be okay. She appears the have some great work ethic because once I left her, she already started leafing through the pages of the magazines,” Min Hee reported.

He nodded at her and gave a half-smile. “That’s good. That’s good. Do you think she’s all right with the cameras?”

“Yes, sir. She seems pleased.”

“Good. You may go now.”

She bowed to him and exited the door.

~

“I give her four months.”

“One.”

“I give her seven.”

“Seven months?”

“Seven days.”

Song Ji Hyo turned around to see three guys snickering behind her. She furrowed her brows and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” one of them replied. “Is this your first job?”

“Sort of,” she smiled at them.

“Why choose this place?” the man with a big nose, Ji Suk Jin, she learns afterwards, asked.

“Mr. Kim and I sort of bumped into each other one day and he figured out that I’m a photographer, so…”

“So you and Mr. Kim…” Choi Soo Hyun asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“What? No!” she frowned at them.

“Hey, what type of questioning is that, Soo Hyun?” Song Joong Ki chastised. “It’s your first meeting, be more polite, jeez.”

Soo Hyun shrugged. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

She nodded and turned back to her desk.

“What’s your name?” Ji Suk Jin, the eldest of the guys, asked.

“I’m Song Ji Hyo,” she answered and bowed at the three. They introduced themselves one by one and she memorized each of their jobs. Ji Suk Jin was in charge of marketing, and Song Joong Ki and Choi Soo Hyun were the magazine’s writers. “I’m a photographer and a writer.”

From the glass windows that separate the desks outside and Kim Jong Kook’s office, he looked at the workers’ interactions. He smiled because Song Ji Hyo was finally working on the same office with him and that she looked content, but he realized that he needs to find more people. Quickly.

Hey, guys! Sorry for not updating quickly. I at it, I'll be honest. It's because I started a sideblog on Tumblr that's dedicated to Spartace and that sort of took most of my time. Also, sorry for not having way to many Jong Kook-Ji Hyo interactions in this chapter and for the lack of the Korean terms. As much as I want to use them, I'm more afraid that I'll misuse them and be disrespectful. Hope you guys understand. Thank you all for reading, subscribing, upvoting, and commenting!