~

“Are you sure you’re okay?” My mother asked for the hundredth time this morning. I sighed, it would have been a tad bit cuter and I would have appreciated it even more if her call didn’t wake me up at 5am.

“Yes mother, everything’s okay. I’m okay, Myung-Soo’s okay, the President is okay.” I yawned, “Honestly if you were this worried with all the countries you've visited you should have visited me by now. Your daughter has been in another continent for more than six months and you couldn’t spare two days to come and see her?”

“Honey, you know I want to, I just haven’t-”

“Haven’t got the time.” I finished for her, my family never really had the time and I had gotten accustomed to that, I don’t know why I was regressing back to my high-school days. “Yeah I know, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to let you know that I’m fine.”

“Alright then… Oh and by the way, you’ve had a few letters delivered from the dorm to our home in Busan.”

“Letters? Who from?”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t say honey. Want me to open it and find out? Or should I just post it over to you with a few other things?”

I thought about it for a while before giving my response, “No it’s okay, maybe just keep them for me till I get back?” 

“And when do you get back young lady?”

I smiled softly, “I’m not sure, I’ve just gotten a promotion so I’ve still got a long way to go to settle into that position and work my way up. Myung-Soo still needs to finish Law School and pass the bar... there’s still so much we have to accomplish.” I answered, expecting an immediate response from my mother but she didn’t say anything for a while.

“Hello…?”

“Hey honey, no it’s nothing. I just think it’s nice that you’re both looking out for each other out there.”

“Well, right now we’re kind of the only ones we’ve got.”

“I know and I think it’s a good thing you took the plunge to do what you really wanted to do. Your father and I are proud of you.”

I refrained from sighing, “And why couldn’t father tell me this directly?”

“You know he’s-”

“Busy, yeah I know.”

We were silent for a while and I was fighting sleep as my head rocked back and forth.

“I love you honey, speak to you later.”

“Love you too, get some rest.”

Hanging up the landline, I slid out of bed – quite messily might I add, and into the kitchen to grab breakfast before work. The apartment was built with a modern design in mind, so every room was pretty spacious which I didn’t mind but the kitchen was the only place that was a tad bit too big for a single person like me. Not that I’m complaining, I’ll take what I can get.

As I was munching on my granola on the counter top, I received a text message.

Jae-Oppa:

>Guess who’s coming back into town?

>Hint: it’s your fave person.

I snorted.

Me:

>No way, MJ is having a concert in LA?

I was expecting one of his lame texts back, but instead my phone started to buzz and I laughed upon seeing his name pop up.

“You were close, I’ll give you that one.” His voice sounded.

“I hope you’re not equating yourself to the great Michael Jackson, Oppa?”

“Hey, I said it was close. I know my boundaries okay?”

“Whatever.” I laughed, “So, you’re coming back today?”

“Yeah, my flight from Arizona leaves in like two hours so I’ll be back soon. Wanna watch movies tonight after you finish work? I bought some cool ones on VHS?”

“Sure, but don’t you usually do this with Myung-Soo?”

“Yeah, but he said he had other plans tonight so we’ll do some guy stuff over the weekend.”

“Guy stuff huh? What kind of guy stuff is that?”

“Bars, clubs of different kinds…”

Clubs of different kinds? “Oppa! Don’t you dare corrupt Myung-Soo, I won’t let you live if you do!”

His laughter burst through the speakers, “It’s a joke, jheeze! We’re going to wear our PJ’s and watch The Parent Trap.”  

“Yeah, not funny.” I sighed, “And the Parent Trap? Again?”

“It’s a good movie alright? Anyways, I’ll be back soon to spend time with my one and only cousin so see you later.”

I chuckled and bid him farewell. “See you later Oppa.” Seeing that it was still six am, I drank the remaining milk from my cereal and fought with whatever was telling me to get back into bed and got ready for work.

~

The work day was running the same way that it usually did, but today we were one staff short but with an increased work load. There was so much that needed to be done today that it didn’t look like it could be finished in time. Even the lunch that I usually took late was looking like a distant dream with the endless paperwork and floods of emails coming in.

When the desk phone rang, I speedily answered.  

“So-Hyun Kim speaking how may I help?”

“Hello, So-Hyun, we’re calling from the fifth floor. So, err, I know your promotion is supposed to come into effect next week, but would it be okay to speed it up a little?”

“Sure, how much is a little?” I asked, a little surprised by the request.

“Erm, a little meaning like now? Please?” The woman on the line said, her voice coming out quite shaky. She must’ve been nervous, but that wasn’t my focus what on Earth did she mean by ‘now’? I still had a lot of things to deal with down here, like client requests and VAT returns that somehow keep piling up.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do that. I’ve got a lot to take care of down here still. I can try and get everything done by say, Thursday?” I tried to bargain, today was Tuesday so it was one day earlier than originally planned so it would still be early. The other line seemed to go quiet for a bit and then I heard some scuffing sounds until her voice followed.

“Err, no can do…?” She sounded unsure herself.

“Pardon? No can do?” I repeated.

“Our Boss says to scrap whatever it is you have going down there and get up here with all your stuff… His words not mine.” She whispered the last bit.

I scoffed, very taken aback by the remark. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been promoted and all but I still have responsibilities here so I don’t mean to be stubborn, but I’m still contracted to this department until the end of this week which means I have a duty to fulfil so could you maybe relay that to the Boss? Thank you.”

The line clicked and I let out an exasperated breath. Is this the kind of boss I was going to be working with? Sure, I was probably being a tad bit stubborn and could have just ran up there like they asked, but we were short-staffed today as Stella was ill with the flu so if I was to just up and leave the rest of the unit wouldn’t get their objectives met today and I felt a little responsible for that.

“Who was that?” Kim asked.

“The fifth floor.” I said, my face still contorted quite disturbed. “The Boss expects me to just drop everything I’m doing down here and hurry up to them just because I was promoted.”

“And the issue is?” Kimmie asked, her eyes still focused on the account books.

“I don’t have to be there till Friday but he wants me to just flee without reason.”

“Do you know who the Boss is? He’s usually nice, doesn’t sound like him…”

I shrugged, I should have studied the rest of the employees but I stopped when I got to the fourth floor. My bad.

The phone rang again and I bit my lip already knowing who it was.

“Hel-”

“Miss Hyun, I don’t think my assistant made it clear what my request was on the phone earlier. We have a big conference to prepare for and we need to make sure we have our accounts in order to appeal to new corporations and brainstorm ideas so we’re going to need al