Eunha came rushing inside Sowon’s office, looking a little disoriented because of the archival work she and Sinb were buried into, with news from the Human Resources Management Section about an interview schedule. She knew she was no secretary of Sowon and yet, there she was knocking like a polite understudy. It was only a request of the HR personnel to deliver the information to Sowon since their division was two floors up.

And when she was near their division that she realized the personnel can call their chief using their local number. More so, she realized what fool she had done herself when she can call Sowon through her phone.

My, my.

Sowon opened the door and saw Eunha looking a little bit disheveled. “What happened to you? You looked like you got some rendezvous before coming here.” She chirped. It was a first for her to see Eunha in that state—blazers lightly smudged with dust and polo hanging loosely.

Eunha blushed in embarrassment and slapped Sowon shoulders. The word ‘rendezvous’ sounded very dirty and not that she mind the lame joke, some thought just entered her already brain-dead mind.  “Shut it!”

Sowon gave a hearty laugh and gestured Eunha to come inside her office. But Eunha just waved her off. “I still got tons of paper to examine with Sinb. I just came here to inform you that you’re needed for new applicant’s interview.”

Sowon was not listening entirely to what Eunha said and chose to just stare with fond eyes for her junior workmate. She really got a soft spot for Eunha ever since they came to work together in the events team. Well, who wouldn’t be?

To Sowon, Eunha’s sense of responsibility covering and handling work was enough to appreciate the bob-haired woman in her efforts to maintain their division’s rating. Plus, she was not entirely able to monitor her employees since she was always designated to work overseas. Having Eunha around makes her work much easier.

“Are you even listening to me?” Eunha’s brow creased as she adjusted her glasses. “You look like a dunce there.”

Sowon sheepishly grinned and hugged Eunha. She forgot about the interview for their creative arts personnel.  “I forgot a about that! You’re such a life-saver!”

“Why don’t you get yourself an assistant to help you in schedules?” Eunha replied, feeling sorry for herself that she had to run two floors just to deliver a message. Truth be told, running errands for Sowon was really out of her line as the supervising chief, but what could she do?

“Why should I when you’re here?” Sowon happily remarked. “See you later baby!” She then released Eunha in her arms and rushed to get out of the office to sit inside the meeting room where the interview was.

Eunha froze from the spot when Sowon hugged her and then sighed. Oh, how many times does she need to remind that dork chief. “Don’t call me baby and I’m not even your secretary, Kim Sowon!”

She heard snickers and giggles from their other division employees, and she knew she would be the center of gossip today. She glared at them and pretended to slam the wall of one work cubicle. “Can people go back to their work already?”

-oo0oo-

“Ahoy there!” Yuju’s greeting echoed in the dimly lit archive room. She knew she was late in their scheduled archival retrieval of documents about one historical event that they were about to cover. But why would she care? She is Yuju, the great archiver! “How’s work, Sinb?” Yuju asked her junior researcher amidst the mountain of books on top of Sinb’s table.

“Don’t even start to annoy me,” Sinb flatly said as she tried to jot down notes while reading a 1930’s newspaper. Her long sleeves were not even helping the already humid room, add that a certain Yuju appeared out of nowhere and have the guts to ask her if she was okay. “Where did you go? Did you know Eunha was here helping me when it should be you?”

“Really,” Yuju started to yawn. “You really got no regard for your superiors eh?” She lazily flipped one book that was near her, giving little help to the already annoyed and immersed junior workmate in front of her.

Looking for old files were not really a thing of interest for her. It always makes her sleepy.  

Sinb rolled her eyes. Yuju was great at researching, someone she should follow, but Yuju only works when she feels in the mood. And when is that mood? Sinb doesn’t know. The woman was practically unreadable, like she’s always going with the flow. And it is that recipe that spelled doom for Sinb.

“You should drink coffee so you won’t sleep. Oh, I could get you one!” Yuju chirped as she jogged away from Sinb, obviously looking for an excuse to get out of her assignment “What do you want Sinb?”

Sinb was dumbfounded. Really? She really wants to sneak out of her freaking assignment? She looked to where Yuju was heading to and shot a glare. “So, you won’t help? Really?!”

Yuju giggled and dared not to look back while sprinting. The answer’s too obvious. “Oh, I know! Americano would be great for you! Tell Eunha I’m on my way to Starbucks to buy you both coffees, Ciao!”

“What the ?” Sinb cursed. Maybe having her hair dyed red speaks too much of her mood right now. She leaned her tired back, expecting there was a back rest in her chair. But there wasn’t, and she came tumbling down on the floor along with  the books and newspapers that were piled up beside her.

“Just what the ?!”

My, what a life.

-oo0oo-

Sowon blinked multiple times and retracted her steps to check if she was in the right room. She looked for the sign that read, ‘Meeting Hall for Applicants’. Oh. So, she was in the right room.

Then why does she hear shouting inside?

She peeked inside the room and sighed heavily. She didn’t expect that their two directors, Jessi Ho and Jae Seok Yoo were to witness the interview of the applicants. But what she was most surprised was that both were there for the interview.

“Jessi, come on!” Jae Seok pleaded as he only wanted to ask the applicant, but Jessi was busy asking questions not related to the work being applied for. “Let me ask her a question too!”

Jessi put her hand on Jae Seok’s face and dismissed his request. “Don’t mind this old man beside me, Umji. Now, where does your father work? Can I make an appointment?” Jessie even leaned too much in her desk just to ask the applicant a out of the world question.  

Jae Seok swatted Jessi’s hand on his face and sighed exasperatedly. Really, he will go crazy with Jessi’s antics. “For once Jessi, come on!” He growled in his famous comedic exasperated tone and everyone couldn’t help but laugh at the little commotion.

“Aish no Jae Seok, come on!” Jessi replied in her loud head voice and eyes wide. “What’s wrong, I’m only asking her a question? What is it with you and controlling the interview?”

“I’m controlling the interview?” Jae Seok sounded astonished. He scoffed jokingly and laughed. He could not let the applicants get stressed as they were now, so he tries to put up with his annoying colleague. “You were the one who kept blabbing and blabbing things on Umji!”

Sowon sighed and went to look at Umji who was trying hard not to laugh at how immature the directors were. My, what immature directors, she thought. Every meeting she got herself into that a Jessie and Jae-Seok is present always spelled chaos. The two would literally bicker at almost anything.

Sowon rubbed her temples and took a deep breath. What better way to pass the time? Oh, right. She could just read each applicant’s resumes. She took a red folder in front of her desk and read Umji’s profile. Oh wow, she thought. The kid got a serious resume, bearing her training at Disney.

She blinked multiple times and stared at the seeemingly polite Umji who was still trying hard not to laugh at their directors’ antics. It would be great if Umji is in her team. She should have her in her team.

-oo0oo-

“Oh, where is Eunha?” Yerin asked Sinb who was still annoyed that Yuju left her alone. Yerin put Sinb’s coffee on the busy woman’s table and took a seat on a stool beside her workmate. “Yuju said to give these coffees to you and Eunha and said she have some errands to do.”

Sinb scoffed and looked at the coffee Yerin brought. “Errand herself.”

Yerin chuckled at the way Sinb was very annoyed by her superior and flicked her forehead. “Yah, don’t talk to your superiors like that.”

Sinb covered her forehead and glared at her bestfriend for not even siding with her own misery. “As if she’s acting like one. Heck, I’m always doing the work.”

“Well, we’re the staff here.” Yerin said back and she stretched her back and arms. “Just move on with it. We know how Yuju can be carefree. Plus! You look cute while working!” She cheered.

Sinb’s face blushed a little bit at the compliment but pretended to hate it as she put on a smug face and groaned. “What. Is that a joke?”

Yerin laughed at the reaction and pinched Sinb’s cheek. “Aigooo, look who’s cute!”

Sinb swatted Yerin;s hand away from her face like a toddler and was about to shoot a glare again. “Got no job to do today, eh? You and Yuju are annoying.”

 Yerin laughed at the sudden rant and clicked on her camera she was carrying around. Sinb blinked and glared again at her.

“Can you keep your camera away from me?”

“Why? You look cute when you rant. I, Jung Yerin can’t let that pass, you know?” She teased as she examined her shot. She was surprised when Sinb tried to grab her camera and delete the photo. “Ey! Yah!”

“I bet you’re going to store it again in that freaking album!” Sinb ranted as she tried hard to get a hold of the camera. She was referring to the album she found accidentally when rummaging through Yerin’s computer when they were covering an event. The album got the file name, ‘stolen’ and when she opened it, she found lots of her photos with the others in their most candid shots. She even saw a photo of her sleeping with mouth wide open!

So embarrassing!

Yerin stood up to lean away from Sinb and not letting the photo get deleted. “Ey! Stop! Those are memorable you know? It always makes up for a good laugh!”

Sinb glared. “Yah! Give it to me!”

Yerin ran towards the shelves raising her hand with the camera when Sinb lunged at her. “You’re determined, aren’t you? What is it with the photos?”

Sinb made an ugly face as she pinned Yerin on one of the shelves and pressed her body just to get the freaking camera. “What if you’ll blackmail me? Oh no Jung Yerin, that’s not gonna happen! I know your antics!”

Yerin laughed as she held her hand high. She remembered the time when one of her stolen photos of Sinb got presented in the middle of Sowon’s presentation in front of the directors. Holy Cow, Sinb literally spanked the hell out of her for a week, threatening her to delete her album already!

Sinb got more annoyed as she could not reach the camera. How was that? They’re just the same height! Why is it so hard to grab that freaking camera?!

She pressed herself more to grab even the lens and maybe break it into two. Yeah. That’s how annoyed she was because of a photo. Then she felt Yerin’s breath close to her jaw. She could also hear how ragged it was.

Wait.

She looked at Yerin with brows furrowed. “What’s going on with you?”

Yerin hitched a breath and tried to widen her eyes. “W-what? Nothing!” She tried to push Sinb away from her to avoid blushing any further. “Will you get off me now?”

 Eunha then suddenly entered the room and was shocked to see how compromised her juniors’ position were. “Really? Inside this humid room? My, will you all get a life?”

-oo0oo-

This place again? Yuju thought as she remembered traversing that dreamy mountain again. She panted hard that she stooped and saw her boots smudged with mud. She remembered running fast just to get on the mountain top with a mound of stones piled together. But what she does not understand was why is she running to get on the clump of stones in front of her now.

She took a seat on one of the stones and tried to catch her breath. She has been running on the same place again and again and it felt like she was running in loop. How will she ever get of this mountain?

She poked a small flower sprouting from one of the edge’s stones when a gust of wind blew her way.

“This place is quite dangerous for you.” A voice said.

Yuju looked around, curious of where the voice came from. Out of the many times she kept returning to the place, it was her first time that she heard a voice speak to her. “Where are you?”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

Yuju was confused that she her dry lips. She remembered that she hasn’t gotten a sip of water ever since running on what seemed to be a loop. “Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of not getting out?”

Yuju was silent. Truth be told, she was afraid of not getting out of what seemed to be an endless journey, but she was determined not show it to the voice. What if the voice was some kind of enemy?

Though the tone the voice was giving her rings of allure and she felt calm, she felt hypnotized at the same time. She was not sure either to trust the voice or not.

“I bet you’re hungry.”

She knew she was not but her stomach suddenly growled. How was that? Was she really hungry or was her body being controlled? Yuju tried not to think of the latter. She looked around for something to eat, but the trees are not growing anything, even leaves. The ground didn’t have grass either.

It looked like the place was dead.

And if she couldn’t find herself anything to eat nor something to drink, she was afraid she would end up like the trees. Is this a nightmare? Yuju’s mind frantically thought. Until it clicked on her. “Are you the one who killed this place?”

“It’s not me. It’s you.”

Yuju stood up and took a step back away from the mound of stones. Is that true? Did she really kill the place? She looked around once more and thought that maybe it was the reason why she could not get out. She felt like choking at the thought. She couldn’t do that.

“If I were you, I’ll not run away anymore. Maybe then, you’ll find the answer.”

--ooOoo--

Chapter 1 down! There are some things lacking in this fic, but I hope you all enjoyed reading this one out. Thank you, and take care!