Sometimes, even if you are the boss, your employees don’t necessarily listen to you. The funny bit is that they choose to dish out their recalcitrance and utter insubordination when you are at your direst moments.

 

Take Jo Seulgi for instance, my most loyal employee, she’s practically family. Since I live away from my family, she serves as my mother when I need one, the older sister I never had because I am the eldest child in the family, and my shrink when I’m about to lose my mind.

 

She’s my secretary for almost three years now, but I’ve known her longer than that. I met her at the most unfortunate time, for her, that is. I met her at this convenience store in Berlin near my dormitory on the final year of my first college course. I was out for walk after my last class ended when it started raining so I didn’t have any choice but to enter the store, and to do that, I had to purchase a bagel so I could sit down to while the rain away.

 

I took a seat at one of the corner tables when I noticed this disoriented looking woman, hopelessly looking at her phone and saying several profanities in Korean. She looked like she was in deep trouble and I kind of felt bad for her, and the bigger reason is that I was curious about Korea in general. I understood Korean, well, a bit because I took it as an extra course when I needed to fill my schedule with another class, and I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to put it into use.

 

I just watched her for a while until she made eye contact. She looked like she was about to make the decision to approach me, but I took the initiative and took my tray to take a seat on her table. She graciously accepted and tried to speak to me in German, heavily accented and difficult to understand at first since she had the tendency to pronounce things wrong, but I understood her predicament.

 

“I speak English and a little bit of Korean, you know,” I told her and the look of relief on her face was just priceless.  I soon found out that she was a student on a scholarship program under a university in Munich taking business administration. She was only staying for roughly a month in the area, and doesn’t know her way around.

 

I say unfortunate for the fact that she got left behind by their school’s tour bus while they were in front of my university. If that isn’t bad enough for a foreigner in a strange land, she even left most of her stuff in the bus, her wallet included. On top of all that, her phone was long dead. No more buses headed to Munich. It’s late.

 

Through our conversation, I found out that she’s five years my senior. Since she didn’t have cash with her, she had nowhere to go, and she had been sitting at the café without ordering anything that when I offered her the bagel, she didn’t refuse. Girl had it rough, so I offered for her to stay with me at my dorm, not without a cross-examination of course. I even made a phone call to have her identity checked at their university. All’s good.

 

She told me she’ll pay me back, but I asked her to just tell me about where she came from in exchange for my help, but a few weeks later, a courier and money transfer service called me informing me that I had money wired from a certain Jo Seulgi.

 

We wouldn’t meet until three years later when I finally decided to go to Korea. We kept in touch through this instant message app, but we didn’t really talk much. It wasn’t even once a month. We just talked when we could, but while I was buying groceries, we met again and caught up over tea.

 

“What are you doing here?” she asked me when I walked into the office after lunch hours. “Did you forget something? You could have just told me.” That’s Seulgi for you, always taking care of her scatterbrained employer.

 

I pretended not to understand what she was saying and walked straight to her table, picking up her planner while checking my schedule on the cork board she had set up on the wall of her cubicle. “What’s my schedule for today? Don’t I have a meeting or something?” I asked even as I was already looking at the empty space where the date for the day was. I also knew I didn’t have anything to do. My week hasn’t been busy since I returned from Thailand, but I wanted some kind of excuse.

 

“It’s Thursday. You don’t have any until next week. I’m attending most of them for you since they’re minor things,” Seulgi told me.

 

“Can I attend them with you?” I asked hastily. Wrong facial expressions, I surmised, as she narrowed her eyes at me. “What happened?” Damn her and her mother radar more powerful than that of my real mom’s. Well, it’s kind of my fault cause I only ever ask to attend minor meetings with her when I have a problem with my personal life, which became a rarity when I ended my relationship with Sehun.

 

“Nothing. I’m just bored.”

 

“And attending an equally boring meeting is your solution?”

 

I walked towards my office without answering her question. She followed me. I’m not off the hook.  Well, above being my secretary, she’s my friend, and that cause she encroaches into my personal life when she wants to and I can’t tell her no cause she’s right most of the time.

 

“What is it?” she asked, closing the door to my office.

 

I smiled wearily at her. “It’s really nothing. I just miss Germany, I guess.”

 

She chuckled, taking the seat in front of my desk. “Already? I can book you another flight.”

 

I shook my head. “Nah. This will pass.”

 

“What brought it on? Trouble with Mr. Tuan?”

 

She just had to remind me again. At this point, I’ve managed to make things worse than they already were. I have a talent for ruining things recently. I just had to develop that talent instead of being a brainier business proprietor.

 

I think the last time I’ve seen Mark was a disaster. My plan to pretend like nothing happened when Jungkook dropped me off unceremoniously at GOT7’s dorm failed. Instead of acting indifferent to it, I lost it. It had been two days since that time, but I couldn’t get myself to just forget about it.

 

It didn’t end up with just the two of us since the boys were actually home. I had to stay for dinner after JB insisted on it. That guy scares me to death so I couldn’t say no. Wherever I went, Mark would be just by my side and that wasn’t the most annoying part. It seemed that everyone knew what was going on between us that they didn’t mind when he would hold me close to him while we were watching TV or when he would randomly just nuzzle the side of my head or my neck. It all seemed natural to everyone which got me thinking that they knew more than they should.

 

I would squirm and distance myself from Mark. I didn’t even meet his eyes once. Not once. When Bambam decided that TV was too boring and brought out their Jengga set, I took that as an opportunity to get away from Mark, sitting between Bambam and Yugyeom while he was left to sit with Jackson and their manager.

 

The sharp guy that he is, he noticed what I was doing immediately and pulled me aside to have a word with me.

 

“What’s your problem? Did I do something wrong?”

 

I shook my head, not wont to admit that I’m cornered. I didn’t want things to go like that, but I might as well go with it cause I didn’t have anything better in my head. It’s good that he started it himself.

 

“About last night –”

 

That’s when I snapped and just decided to hug him tightly to stop his progress and taking things under my control. “You know you’re special to me, right? You’re still going to be my best buddy, right?”

 

He tried to pry me off of him, but I did not. “Of course.”

 

“I don’t want last night to change anything between us…”

 

He was silent for a while, probably taking in what I just said, until eventually, he said okay and I had to walk away just like that.

 

I looked at Seulgi, trying to erase the mental image of what transpired that night. “Mark,” I corrected her to conceal the sudden surge of nerves. “We’re good,” I lied, distracting myself with the paperback copy of ‘Les Miserables’ I left by my computer. It didn’t escape her notice, but she let it slide and didn’t press. It doesn’t comfort me in the least cause she looked like she knew something I didn’t.

 

Just then, my phone rang. I didn’t answer it and just listened to it ring. Seulgi now had that challenging look on her face while I squirmed on my seat. When the ringing ended, she stood up from the chair. “Go home.”

 

“Fine, but whoever looks for me, tell them I’m engaged in something and they shouldn’t contact my phone either.” I also stood up and followed her out when my office landline rang. I gestured with my head for her to answer it.

 

“Hello? Yes, you have reached the right firm…Oh, Mr. Tuan!” I shook my head at her urgently, making a throat-cutting gesture. “Er, I’m sorry, sir, but she’s currently out right now and won’t be back ‘til late tonight. I can take a message for her…I see. You’re welcome. Have a nice day. Bye.”

 

Seulgi set the receiver down. “What is that about?”

 

“What?”

 

“He’s asking for your schedule today and you said –”

 

“I know what I said.”

 

“Are you avoiding him?” she demanded, and I shook my head. “Not just him. Everybody.” Stupid excuse again.

 

She arched a brow at me and crossed her arms. “There’s something up with you and Mark Tuan.”

 

I didn’t satisfy her with an answer, turned away and exited the office, but I felt like she had an evil plan up her sleeve. She could be meddlesome sometimes and most of the time, it saves me, but right now, I don’t want anybody, especially her, dipping their fingers into my business.

 

I came back to my apartment and my heart almost stopped when I found the very person I do not want to see at the moment due to utter embarrassment. I literally took a step back when I saw none other than Mark Tuan standing by my door, leaning against the wall while holding plastic bags. Food.

 

I had two plans. Either I would run away while he’s still looking elsewhere or I can just pretend like nothing happened and that we’re good. That way, I wouldn’t be totally lying to Seulgi. While I was deciding, he looked at my direction which forced me to pretend to be walking towards him.

 

“Hey,” I called out like I usually would although it sounded awkward cause I lingered too much on the last sound of that one-syllable word and my voice faded as I was saying it. “What are you doing here?” I asked, taking out my keycard.

 

Mark regarded me with a look which I didn’t really understand, watching me as I worked with the dual lock mechanism which needed both keycard and pass code. “I called you.”

 

“I was driving and I didn’t really check my phone.” I took the device out of my pocket and pretended to check. “Yeah, you did. Sorry about that.” I opened the door, motioning with my head for him to get in.

 

“Have you eaten lunch?” he asked.

 

“Yeah, but I could eat.” I took the plastic bags from him and walked to the kitchen. He followed after me and made his way to the kitchen like he owned the place. Well, it was like that for him and my other friends. I didn’t mind them going wherever they wanted in my house. It’s theirs as it is mine.

 

“I called the office.”

 

“Yeah,” I said, trying to make it sound both like a question and a statement just in case.

 

“Seulgi told me you were out at first and then called me back saying I might be an exception. She said you’re on your way here. What’s up with that?”

 

Some of the soup in one of the bo