Spit it on her voice mail. A little slurred and sounding like the shot of whiskey you downed to get courage…

If you receive a phone call right now, but you don't know who it is,

Unknown Caller...

and his voice is cloaked with static, so you couldn't be sure. But when he said,

"I love you"

who did you think of?

who did you hope for?

###

That was the predicament Sandara faced. Two nights ago around one am, just at theright moment she was nodding off after a movie and ice cream spree Friday night. She was cozy in her warm embarrassing zebra onesie, and her pillow was a nest to a mass of her hair, and some secret dribble of drool, er phone rang.

She sprung awake, "What? Why? Where? I'm sorry!" She spat and realized it was just her phone. She swiped the back of her palm under her lip and the secret drool is gone.

She briefly see Unknown Caller waking her, and she would be peeved but she was oddly not. Oh well, Mr. Unknown, whatcha want?

She missed the call, but a glowing envelope indicates Mr. Unknown has left a message, she dials her voicemail numbers as she yawns, but there were only loud crackling static. Under all cracks she heard, "annyeong... Shhh... Dara... I'm sorry... Shh..."

Sandara covers her other ear to somehow magnify her phone ear's hearing capabilities. She screams through the static, "yah! Hello! I can't hear you! Hello?" which was stupid of course, because it was, obviously, voicemail.

It was like swimming through the thickest of waters, and the waves carried this voice, a little deep, maybe? Or was it her preference that made it so, "I'm sorry... shhh..." Dara tried to listen harder than she ever did, because for some reason, she thought the message struggling to beat dowm the waves and waves of static must be important, "so... sorry..." Dara began to squint her eyes like that would help. Was that slurring?  "shhh... but Dar... I.. love.. you..."

Then the line got cut and she was left with an abrupt and clear, beep, beep, beep.

"WHAT?" She screamed at her phone which was still aglow with Mr. Unknown Callers sudden confession.

I love you.

I love you?

What?

Sandara doesn't have a boyfriend. She was sure Sang hyun had stop saying he loved her so openly since he was fourteen. The last time Sang hyun said he loved her she was sitting on his head and making him scream Nuna. Her father passed away three years ago. And none of her guy friends, at least to her knowledge was in love with her. She quirks her head to the side still eyeing her phone.

Well... it could be...

But she stops herself "Ani. Ani!" No, no..  definitely not. Her cheeks began to get warm and she deliberately stops herself from thinking of... him... he wasn't the type anyway, right? He wasn't the type to be so obscure about it, right? Given, of course, that their relationship right now was on the obscure side, but he wouldn't be such a coward, right? She always thought of him as straight-forward, no non-sense kind of dude.

###

He even hired her that way. With a no nonsense, "if you could start work tomorrow, I will block off my morning and some of my afternoon for you. I can show you around, and we can do the paperwork, get your ID and access card. I have an itinerary of priorities to do..." He stopped abruptly looking up from his notepad and he had these surprised eyes. Dara thought they were cute... "Ah, I mean, if you would accept the job offer?"

There wasn't really much time to think about. She needed the money, that's for sure... and honestly, she really didn't think she'd get the job. She was a Master of the Arts in Music, with zero office administration background, which was quite odd since she did apply to be an executive assistant, but then again, she was half joking when she sent the application... so when she got a call for an interview, she just called the bluff and showed up in her most corporate attire of a red blazer she once wore when she was a stand in vocals for a band.

She wore that red blazer with a mini black dress on the inside and Bom warned her that she looked like she was a cross of a hostess and a member of a march band. She just laughed, so she was something of crossbreed between somewhat trashy and pathetic. This is what she gets for damning the corporations.

"You mean, I got the job?" She said skeptically.

"Well, only if you want it..." Seung hyun said, no nonsense, straight forward.

"Why?"

"Ah. I think creative people are hard workers." He smiled at her, in a no nonsense kind of way.

So she said "Yes." and she would be a liar if she said that smile wasn't a contributing factor to her decision.

The next day she was his executive assistant. He did tell her to wear something longer.

She obliged.

Also, that same day, she admitted to herself, she liked him, and his stupid strict schedules, and his slicked back hair, and his perfectly ironed suit, and his perfectly measured stride, and how he brushes his tie when he has to bow to clients.

Damn corporations, but dang, corporate Seung hyun was hot.

She cleared when the thought of how attractive he was popped in her head.

She did it often enough that Seung hyun bought her some cough drops and gave it to her with a worried look.

"I can't have you getting sick on me the first day."

Sandara popped a cherry flavoured cough drop in and admitted to herself that she is harbouring a deep admiration for her boss. Some would even venture calling it some kind of crush.

###

Seung hyun couldn't possibly... and she had his number too, and why would it be an unknown caller...

Did it sound like him? Well... sort of... She thinks after having spoken to him a number of times she would know his voice. It has been 6 months already, her contract expiring at the end of the month.. But she has gotten to know him, and his voice and the way it flowed. But can she be sure it was him, amidst the loud crashing static? Was that his timbre that echoed through?

Or is it simply... wishful thinking?

###

The six month came by fast and Sandara felt, admittedly, to be a fish out of water. At the beginning Seung hyun does about 45% of her work for the sheer reason of her not knowing heads or tails of anything. She even had a bit of an argument with the commercial printer with all its pretentious buttons. She did learn the ropes eventually, before she hanged herself on them. But it was mostly Seung hyun who did everything for her, it was embarrassing. He printed his own documents, read through her emails to proof, set his own appointments and about every two hours he would ask if she was doing okay.

She really didn't what she was there for the first two months. She figured, he might have been lonely or something.

On the third month, she was fabulous and by that it meant that she bought some pencil skirts and pinstrip blouses and she looked like an orchestra conductress with a coat sans the baton, and she said so when Seung hyun said she looked nice.

He agrees, "isn't that what you want to be?"

"Well, no... I mean, how do you know?"

"You do this." he makes small beats with his hands, "when you listen to music" He smiles.

Maybe that was when she fell in love with his attention to detail... and him, of course, that too.

There were many things she liked about him like his patience, and his focus, and his easy tamed smile...

and those stares, she often catches him with, and his rather casual boldness of not looking away for a second or two and then his fake busy look he musters after...

###

Of course, she might be assuming everything. She thought as she stared at her phone. They were flirting, or maybe it was just her, she doesn't know. All she was sure of was that he never asked her out. Not for dinner, not for a movie, not for a measley coffee. He does bring her the casual to go Starbucks, but that doesn't count, right?

Of course, on the other hand, there were already whispers around the office that they were together, and though she would always deny it when someone asked, Seung hyun never bothered with it. When he was asked one time by the watering hole, he just wondered out loud why would anyone be interested if they were dating? Or why everyone is so concerned about other people's personal life? And then he would walk away.

She learned after that he was rather unsociable and he liked being alone, that the only reason he hired an assistant was because the director's required him to. But then when Dara came.. didn't he seem more sociable? At least to her? He even brings her coffe