I kicked off my heels to the side as soon as Youjin opened our room, my feet instantly making its way to the couch. “Finally!” I said loudly as I throw my body against the soft cushions of the suite. As I close my eyes, I could hear Youjin shuffling about the room, the gentle clack of my heels being placed neatly somewhere in the room.

“Will you like to take a nap, Ms. Jung?” He asks me politely. Groaning I sit up from the comfort of the couch and push my hair out of my face.

“After we get our bags,” I say to him, letting out a sigh. “In the meantime, let’s go over the schedule again please?” Almost instantly, Youjin is by my side as he pulls out the schedule from his briefcase, giving me a run-down of our schedule.

As he explains meticulously all the details that were to happen, I was blindly listening to him, having already memorized the schedule and just wanting to listen to him talk. He had such a soothing deep voice, like honey. It wasn’t gruff and hard, but incredibly gentle, even if he were panicking, I wouldn’t be able to help but feel calm.

I met Kim Youjin during an interview in search for a new personal assistant. I’m a marketing director, but it wasn’t a position I earned, but inherited from my mother who runs a company in South Korea, selling accessories for a multitude of pets (but mainly dogs). I decided to hire him for a few reasons: absolute eye candy was major (and incredibly unprofessional) factor, the confidence and organization of his resume, the outstanding recommendations from other employers he’s interned for and volunteer work, and because he was fresh out of college. Just like me. We’re the same age.

It was silly to hire him for that latter reason, but I was nervous at being the youngest marketing director in the company. I didn’t initially hire him for the comfort (there were other men my age who applied for the job, but he just so happened to have the better qualifications), but he became a safe zone for me. He calmed me down before meetings, helped me with my presentations and critiqued my work the best we both could do. He’s helped me more on this job and honestly, he definitely deserves it more than I do. However, I’m also scared of the backlash that could happen if I ever said this aloud.

“--And then we’ll have one day to go around San Francisco.” He finishes, finally turning to look at me and I nod my head.

“Let’s go over the presentation for the marketing plan,” I instruct him when a knock comes to our door. He gets up from his seat to answer it, revealing our bags. I get up to help him, but he’s already bringing all of them inside, handing the bellboy the tip. “Actually, let me get into something more comfortable, and then we can get to work on it.” I grab my bag and head into one of the two bedrooms of the suit, closing my door as I get ready.

As of right now, like Youjin had said before, we’re in San Francisco. The company is trying to move their items overseas and I am to discuss with the company located here how to promote our items and if the possible strategies we have will attract the public. It’s fairly new in America and we plan on branching further out.

From a little bit of research, as much as there are Koreans in Los Angeles, there are also people in the Bay Area who have a desire for our products. It’s evident in the fact that in Japantown there’s a Faceshop and Tonymoly store. The only thing that needs to be done is find a location for the store or if we should sell our products in other major retail stores.

After I finish getting ready, I come out in a loose fitting tank top and sweats. Youjin has also changed out of his suit, wearing a t-shirt and basketball shorts. “Now, where were we?”

The meetings and discussions flew by quickly. It’s been a good five days of discussion and organizing. There’s no set date or location on where and when we should sell the products, but one of the ideas is to have a store either in Napa or San Francisco, though the latter is the likely choice.

Finally, it’s our free day, and despite telling Youjin that he was free to go around by himself, but he insists on accompanying me around the city. We don’t plan on going to Union City just yet, I want to head to Japantown and decide if the area would be a good location.

As I’m applying a light layer of BB cream, there’s a knock on my room, and I instantly say “come in.” Youjin opens the door, looking over at me.

“The Uber is coming in five minutes,” he informs me and I turn to him with a smile.

“Okay, I’m almost done,” I turn back to the mirror to apply the finishing touches when I notice Youjin’s gaze on the mirror. I look at him from the reflection, “what is it?”

“O-Oh, nothing. Forgive me, Ms. Jung.” He says quickly, about to close the door, when I stop him.

“Hey, Youjin? You’re technically off work right now… You don’t have to call me Ms. Jung,” I say, turned to him again. I could feel my own cheeks heating up, “you can say my name.” His head looks down as he moves his hand to the back of his neck and he laughs a little.

“Yes, of course, Ms--I mean, Minsu.” He says, still bowing politely as he leaves the room. Once, I let out a quiet groan, covering my mouth to hide the south. Honestly, I shouldn’t have done that. We’re supposed to keep the relationship between us professional. We’re not supposed to be on a first name basis like that, but… I like him. He’s a great person, quiet, intelligent, and every once in awhile, he would say something so outrageous that I almost can’t believe it actually came from his mouth.

I’m certain there’s so many aspects of him that I don’t know about, yet he knows so much about me. It’s like a really bad comic book love story, where the male lead is such a mystery and the female lead is trying to figure him out. I want to know more about him, but I can’t pass by that line of profession. However, I’ll sneak a centimeter in, just one centimeter.

I like the way he says my name.

I quickly finish applying my makeup before heading down for the Uber, that takes us to Japantown. It really is like a small town, and luckily for them, they have a few shopping centers from a supermarket to restaurants and luxury stores. We didn’t buy much, considering that the products here are a little more expensive than back home. However, I did grab a few treats to bring back home for mom and my brother.

Youjin does the same and I managed to discover something small about him. Whenever we came close to approaching a store that had an anime poster over it, his steps moved a little quicker. I watched his large figure walk around the store as he looked at all the different merchandises of anime. Honestly, watching him eagerly look around the store, take his time as he checked his budget and price, it was like seeing another person.

Who would have thought that my PA would be this huge nerd? He bought mostly stuffed dolls and Gundam figurines, we checked out the manga library downstairs but it was all in English and Japanese, there was no point in buying any of it.

With a few bags by our side, we decided to take a break and have some lunch. We wanted to see what else was available outside the mall and to our surprise, there was Szechwan restaurant across the street, and it was Korean owned. Though it would be better to eat at a restaurant with ramen and some other sort of rice bowls, it felt much more comfortable to eat somewhere where we can speak in our native language.

“The shrimp mushu and fried chicken is really good,” the waitress recommends to us as we struggled to pick the food to eat.

“That sounds good, can we get some white rice too?” I ask as the waitress writes it down, nodding her head. “Did you want something else?” I then ask Youjin, who’s staring intently at the menu.

He looks up at me and then gives me a shy smile, “ah, no, it’s a little expensive.” I wave it off.

“Don’t worry about it, what is it?”

He looks down at the menu again, showing the waitress, “dry fried scallops?” The waitress nods her head and collects our menus before walking into the kitchen.

“So,” I start, smiling at him as he nibbles on the kimchi, “I didn’t know you liked anime.” He looks up with his usually hooded eyes slightly widen.

“Ah, yeah. It’s something I never grew out of,” he says quietly, not looking at me as he says this.

“I wish I knew, I would have had someone to talk about with,” I grin at him, and now he was looking at me again, the same expression with eyebrows raised. His eyes seemed to almost sparkle and my heart was begging to come out of my chest to just touch his cheeks.

“Really?”

I nod my head. “I read shounen manga every once in awhile, since I’m more into shoujo, but I would say my favorite, currently, would be Fairy Tail.”

Youjin leans forward, his forearm, god those heavenly looking arms, rest on the table. “I’m honestly more into the older stuff. Have you heard of Rurouni Kenshin?”

“Of course,” I say excitedly, grinning at him. It wasn’t a preferable conversation, but he’s talked more to me like this than he’s had in the year he’s worked for me. I’m usually the one talking to him, ranting to him about all the troubles I’m having with the company, with my life, the pressure from my mother. Total rich girl problems and he always listened, gave his two cents when I ask. He has the most incredibly patience with me, and I was hoping that he would come to me just like I come to him. But he never does, even when I notice that he’s having a bad day. Maybe because of the professional relationship we have that he doesn’t try to talk about anything with me. Maybe this will open him up to me. Make him more attracted to me as a woman. I’m sure with him it’s a slow process, but I can wait. I can be patient.

After Japantown, we dropped off our stuff at the hotel. We didn’t have to take another trip with an uber driver to make our way around Union Square. We simply walked, stopping by the Nike store (I bought him a new pair), and into the Westfield Mall. It was mostly high end stores, and I tried to avoid a good majority of them and settled on clothing stores like Cotton On and H&M. I bought myself a few dresses for the coming spring season and I helped Youjin pick out a few shirts I thought looked good on him. And a few shirts he’d have no choice but to roll up or else they would look awkward (thank you fashion designers of H&M).

I also bought a few high end presents for mom and my brother at Nordstrom. As I was paying, Youjin stepped away when his phone began to ring. Thinking nothing of it, I leave him be and pay for my purchases. Once I step out of the store, I look around for him to see him near the escalator as he just hangs up, stuffing his phone in his pocket. I make my way toward him, “well, I’m pretty much finished with all my shopping.” I say with a little sing-songy voice. “Anywhere you want to go?”

He shakes his head, smiling at me. “Are you hungry?” He asks, holding his hands in front of him, his own purchases dangling in front of him.

“Yeah, let’s see what’s good around here,” I start to pull out my phone.

“Ah, I already asked someone. There’s a Mexican Bistro around here, it’s a little on the pricey side, but there’s also an American diner that’s much cheaper,” he suggests and I think for a moment, pressing my lips together in thought. Since we’re in America, might as well have an American dinner.

“Let’s go to the diner,” I finalize, going down through most of the floors of the nine-story mall until we take our exit (after asking a security guard where the restaurant is).

As we were walking, Youjin seemed to lag behind me a little bit. I had to wait for him every other block so he could catch up until we made it to the restaurant. There was wall of silence that had suddenly appeared. I mean, we don’t usually make small talk, and I would be fine with it. But when I would say something, there was an unusual lack of a proper response. Did something happen with that phone call?

I wanted to ask him, but I kept my mouth shut. I don’t want to intrude, what if it was something personal? However, after we had our orders, I did ask him one thing, “are you okay?”

He turns his head to me, giving a stiff smile and nods his head, “yeah, why?” I couldn’t say you don’t seem like yourself. I was too scared of what kind of response would come after that. It was too obvious, honestly. He doesn’t usually smile, his face is considerably cold sometimes, but his eyes didn’t have that shine, they were too hooded and seemed to darken his expression even more.

“It just seems like…” you’re pissed. Mad. Guarded. All things he was. All things he is. “Nevermind, it was just a feeling. Sorry.” I say and his shoulders (I hadn’t realized how tense they looked) slumped a little.

“No, don’t apologize. It’s… Just something personal.” That was the end of the conversation. That was the end of the possibility of having a personal dinner. Rather than talk about ourselves and other stories we have piled up, we were talking about what we should figure out and do once we get back to South Korea.

I hated it.

What happened? Everything was fine hours ago, we were laughing, engaging with each other about freaking comics. And now it’s all business again? I shouldn’t complain, I shouldn’t be upset, but dammit what was that phone call about?

Dinner ended almost too quickly, I couldn’t stand being close to him now that he was closing himself again. I know I’m being unprofessional, I’m acting like the spoiled rich girl I am for not getting what I want, but I don’t care. I’m ready for the day to be over already.

The walk to the hotel remained quiet except for small comments here and there to continue to put up the pretense that nothing is wrong. Once we were up in our room, I purposely let out a loud yawn, as Youjin set our shopping bags to a designated side in the room. “Man, I’m beat,” I say, stretching out my limbs and slipping my shoes off, neatly this time, I didn’t want him touching my other stuff at this point. Childish.

“Get some rest, Youjin, we have an early flight.”

“Should I wake you up?”

I shake my head, “I got it, don’t worry. Don’t sleep too long either.” I tell him, finally attempting to make my escape.

“Wait, Minsu.”

I stop. But I don’t look at him. I wait for him to say something in the long pause, I thought he had changed him mind.

“I was offered a job to become part of the Marketing Management Team for Korean Air.” He confesses and I snap my head up, staring at my door.

That’s what the call was about. “Are you taking it?” I ask, moving my hands in front of me as I try to keep them from trembling.

“... Yes,” he hesitates. Quickly, I turn around to face him with a smile on my face. I had to be quick.

“That’s great!” I say, running up to him and giving him a hug, his arms dangling by his side. “Korean Air is a great company,” I pull away, my hands on his shoulders now, squeezing them slightly. “You’re going to do great there. You’ve created miracles by my side, I’m so happy for you.”

And I’m so selfish.

“When do you start?”

“I don’t know yet; we were going to figure it out once we got back home.”

I pat his shoulder again, “if you need anything, let me know, okay?”

“Yes, thank you, Minsu,” he says softly as I pull away from him.

“Get some sleep, alright? Like I said, long flight tomorrow.” I give him one last smile before heading to my room, closing the door. I lean on it, listening for his footsteps and another closing door before slowly sliding down to the ground.

Of course. He wasn’t going to be my PA forever. Thinking that way was stupid and selfish. And it’s been a year, more than a year. He was qualified to work in different companies now a little bit easier.

And Youjin didn’t belong to just being a PA. He was capable of doing so much more than being my safe zone, than just making sure I eat, keeping my office clean and making sure I stay on schedule. I know that, but still…

I quickly move to the bathroom, turning on the shower and let out a shuddering breath. My cheeks were uncomfortably wet, and I’m sure mascara is probably running down my eyes. Ignoring the fact that the state was in a drought, I let the shower keep running as I removed what’s left of my make before hopping in the shower.

Shudders continue to leave me as I sobbed as quietly as I could. It’s so stupid. This isn’t the proper reaction to losing a co worker. A few tears maybe, but not full on sobbing until my eyes get puffy. It was a bad idea to develop feelings for this man.

Was it inevitable? Maybe only if I had hired someone else. That Heejun guy, he wasn’t so bad, and I probably wouldn’t think too much of him.

But he wasn’t Youjin.

I finish my shower, pressing an icy cold towel on my eyes to hopefully reduce the puffiness before continuing on with my nightly routine. Once I’m fully dry and dressed in the same tank top and sweats, I unlock my door (just in case he did need something) and make my way to bed. I take in a few deep breaths as I turn off the light and close my eyes to try and get some shut eye. I don’t want him to know I cried.

I couldn’t sleep anyway. By two in the morning, I was playing games on my phone. It was a pretty good distraction until I had to wait until my pastries were done baking. I was in the middle of looking for a new game when I hear a few light knocks on the door, making me sit up wondering if I had heard that correctly. After a moment, Youjin opened the door slowly, looking inside until his eyes land on me, “ah, I’m sorry,” he says in a hushed voice, closing the door behind him. “I just… I need to talk to you.”

He approaches my bed, gesturing to a spot on it, and I pull up my legs, wrapping my arms around it as he takes a seat. “What’s wrong?” I ask him, wondering if he’s worried about the job.

He silent, looking down as his folded hands, his thick and lithe fingers squirming together. “A month into the job, you were sleeping on the couch when I came into work.” He starts off and my eyebrows only scrunch in confusion. “It was when I first found out just how long you really stayed in the office. I made you a cup of coffee and got you breakfast.

“A few months after, the management team messed up on a graphic, I had to calm you down while we fixed the problem before the presentation. You didn’t blame them, you didn’t fire a single one, and there hadn’t been a mistake since. When someone said you should have, you just asked ‘why?’ I made a dirty joke, and I’ve never heard anyone laugh as hard as you did.

He made a list of what he remembers from the time he began working with me. From large projects to the insignificant details of how I unknowingly lower my voice when I talk to other marketing directors. With him being near me, my heart pulsed painfully inside my chest, and my hands move closer to my chest, as if to try and hold myself together. Then he mentioned someone who I hadn’t heard from in a long time.

“I came into your office one day and you smiled so brightly, with your hair tied up to show off these sapphire earrings Jihun had gotten for you. I thought they were the ugliest earrings I’ve seen.”

Before I realized that I had developed feelings for Youjin, I momentarily had a little… Thing with a man named Jihun. We merely talked for a little bit and he spoiled me quite a bit, but we knew that we weren’t properly compatible and the relationship ended quickly.

Youjin hadn’t looked my way the whole time he was speaking, and now he was, hand closed tight together on his lap. “I like working for you. I like helping you go through this. But you and I both know that I can’t stay in this position.” I look down instantly, my eyes glossing over as I urged myself not to cry. I felt the bed move slightly and his gentle and calloused finger push my head up to look at him. “Not only for myself, but so I can stand by you on equal footing.”

My shoulders hunch up, my body instinctively attempting to make itself smaller. “I know I don’t show it. I… I wanted to keep things professional between us. You’re still my boss. But,” he pauses, and I watch as his eyebrows furrow, “I want to stop resisting you.”

Slowly, almost hesitantly, my arms start to reach out for him as I prayed this wasn’t a cruel joke my mind or he decided to make up. The moment my arms began to outstretch toward him, he pulled me into a hug, taking me out of the warmth under the comforters and into the safe zone of his arms.

I felt so small compared to him, with his long arms encasing me, tight like rope that would never break. I’m pretty sure I’m crying and soaking his shirt. Attempts to remove the puffiness from my eyes hours ago wash away with my tears.

His breath tickled my neck as he buried his face against the nape, while his hands moved up to the back of my head, through my locks of messy hair, holding me against him just as tight. “How did you know?” I whisper. There was no way he could come in here with that confession without any idea of how I felt about him. His deep laugh rumbled against his chest and synchronized with the beating of my heart.

“You laughed way too hard at my jokes.”