To celebrate the restaurant’s 3^rd year anniversary, Jessica held a mini celebration at a bar for all of her restaurant’s employee as well as her close friends. Jessica came late as she needed to finish something in her office, then met her few of potential business partners for collaboration. When she arrived there, the situation has already chaotic. Most of her employees were already drunk, lots of empty bottles of alcohol already scattered on the table. Jessica smiled at the sight. She didn’t mind at all, she liked it when her employees were happy and relax like this.

Jessica looked around, trying to find where Yuri was. Her blood boiled when she found Yuri in the corner of the bar table, drinking and giggling happily with Victoria. Jessica saw Yuri whispered something to Victoria and Victoria laughed as she slapped Yuri playfully and let her hand lingered on Yuri’s hand. Jessica always had suspicion that Victoria liked Yuri, but she just wait until the right time to flirt with Yuri. But, in all professional manner, both of them were her employees, it was impossible for Jessica to just jump on Victoria or slapped her. Besides, Victoria looked drunk.

Jessica then turned her body around and she found a couple who were busy making out in one of the sofa. It was Taeyeon and Tiffany. She rolled her eyes and scoffed, then quickly came towards the love birds.

“Taeyeon! Stop making out! Gross!”, Jessica yelled while smacking at Taeyeon’s head.

Taeyeon was startled and looked at Jessica with her annoyed face. “Yah!!! I can do whatever I want with my girlfriend. Besides, I have to do it, I need to distract her otherwise she will keep drinking again.”

Taeyeon pointed out to Tiffany and Jessica could see that Tiffany was already super drunk. Her body moved like jelly and already uncoordinated.

“Hiiii Jesiiii!!”, Tiffany jumped and hugged Jessica suddenly when she found Jessica was next to her.

“Omg, Tiff! Your smell like alcohol!”, Jessica quickly pushed Tiffany and the girl just fell back to the sofa easily.

“Let’s drink Jessiii!”, Tiffany poured another drink to her glass and raised it in front of Jessica. She gulped it in one shot.

“Fany – hey don’t ---“, Taeyeon paused when she saw Tiffany’s eyes grew bigger and it looked like Tiffany was about to throw up.

“I’ll take her to the restroom.”, Jessica quickly lifted up Tiffany and dragged her. But instead taking her to the restroom, Jessica came towards Yuri and tapped her shoulder.

Yuri jolt in surprise when she saw Jessica’s face and quickly made a distance from Victoria. “Aah – Hey Sica – You – you finally came—“

“Here. Please take care of Tiffany. Take her to the restroom.”, Jessica quickly shoved Tiffany in front of Yuri.

Yuri still could not move and still confuse, and in a merely a second even before Yuri could think of anything, Tiffany already threw up precisely to Yuri's chest, resulting Yuri's clothes now all dirty covered by Tiffany’s vomit.

“Oh my God!!! What the ---?”, Yuri lifted up her arms, still shock when Tiffany suddenly just throw up at her.

Jessica smirked in satisfaction. Of course, she did it on purpose.

Serves you right, Yuri-ah. This is what you get if you dare to flirt with someone else – Jessica.

“Ew gross!! Yuri, you better bring her to the restroom, you need to wash your clothes too. Then you should give her a water.”, Jessica instructed.

Yuri was still stunned, before finally excused herself to Victoria who looked at her with a pity look.

After Yuri helped Tiffany and brought her to the restroom, Jessica went back to the sofa. “Come with me, let’s dance!”, she said to Taeyeon.

“What? What about Tiffany?”, Taeyeon asked worriedly.

“Relax. She threw up but I already asked Yuri to bring her to the restroom and take care of her”, Jessica replied then dragged Taeyeon to the dance floor, not giving anytime for Taeyeon to protest further.

Both of them just dance lightly, moving themselves following the beat of the song. Jessica actually missed Taeyeon, both of them were dating with someone else now and sometimes she missed having a quality time with Taeyeon.

“Miss me?”, Taeyeon winked. Jessica chuckled, Taeyeon really could read her mind.

“A little bit. How are you and Tiffany?”, Jessica asked.

“Going well. How about you and Yuri?”, Taeyeon asked her back.

Jessica smiled. She caressed Taeyeon’s cheek. “We’re great. You’re glowing Taeyeon-ah. You're really happy.”

“And you are too. I am glad you finally found happiness with that dark kid.”, Taeyeon replied. She also genuinely happy to see Jessica. It has been a long time since she saw Jessica this lively. They’ve made the right choice. Jessica would’ve not be this happy if she was with her. “We should go on a dinner date again sometimes, just us. You know, to catch up. I miss gossiping and just chit-chatting random things with you.”

Jessica nodded, agreeing Taeyeon’s suggestion. It became a habit that the four of them hangout together these days. It was fun of course, but sometimes you just want to spend time with your best friend only, right? Where you can talk about your significant others too with your best friend.

Meanwhile, Yuri has accompanied Tiffany back to the sofa. Tiffany was half sleep half awake and she leaned her head on Yuri’s shoulder.

“Tae – why you suddenly become bigger and ---- dark?”, Tiffany slurred, still not completely sober.

“YAH! Fany-ah, wake up. I am not Taeyeon.”, Yuri protested. Tiffany tried to open her eyes wider and chuckled when she finally realized it was Yuri who sat next to her.

“Oopss.. Sorry, Yul. But where’s Taeyeon anyway? I want my Tae-tae ---“, Tiffany whined, which made Yuri cringed. But she soon realized and tried to find Taeyeon and her Jessica too. She lost Jessica after she was tending Tiffany’s brutal vomit in the restroom. “Eh is that Taeyeon and Jessi ---- what are they doing dancing like that????”, Tiffany suddenly awake abruptly when she saw a glimpse of her girlfriend and Yuri’s girlfriend.

“What the---?”, Yuri gritted her teeth. The view of Jessica and Taeyeon danced together closely clearly not amusing for her. She quickly stood up from the couch and moved towards Jessica, quickly tapped Taeyeon shoulder.

“Yah!! Mind if you give me back my girlfriend??”, Yuri scoffed. Jessica and Taeyeon just giggled. “And Taeyeon, your drunk girlfriend is looking for you!”

Yuri quickly shoo Taeyeon away and grabbed Jessica’s waist to dance with her. Seeing Yuri’s dark expression, Jessica knew it. Yuri was sulking and she must be jealous of Taeyeon.

“No need to get jealous over Taeyeon, Yuri-ah.”

“I am not.”, Yuri lied. She felt uneasy, she trust Jessica of course and she and Taeyeon also became closer since they hangout together a lot lately. But she didn’t like it if Jessica looked too romantic with Taeyeon sometimes.

“Just admit it.”, Jessica giggled.

“Fine. The way you dance just ---- too close to my liking.”, Yuri looked away, embarrassed when she finally had to admit that she was jealous.

“So you don’t like it when I am too close to someone?”

“Of course not. Eventhough it’s Taeyeon, still – you are mine, Sicababy.”

Suddenly Jessica stopped the dance and smacked Yuri’s chest. “That’s why you also cant get too close to someone!!! You know how it feels now, right?!”

“W—what are you talking about?”, Yuri gave Jessica a puzzle look. Confuse of the sudden change of Jessica’s behavior.

“Victoria was flirting with you and you let her!!! Do not get too close to her and don’t you dare flirting with her, do you hear me??!!! You are mine!!!”

“W-whaat?”, Yuri still trying to process what Jessica said and suddenly she remembered when Jessica earlier found her when she was with Victoria. “I was not flirting.. I don’t even like her – I ---“

“Btw, you smell like vomit. Ew, let’s just stop this dance.”, Jessica cut Yuri mid-sentence and just free herself from Yuri. She left Yuri to go to the couch, joining Taeyeon and Tiffany. Yuri just stared at her dumbfounded.

This Jung was really something. Weird --- but yeah she’s definitely different. – Yuri

In the couch, Taeyeon was having difficulty to explain to the drunk Tiffany. Tiffany kept accused her of missing Jessica too much. 

"You still love her do you? Or you miss her kisses??? I hate you!! I hate you!", Tiffany blabbering non-sense and smacked Taeyeon's arm repeteadly. 

"N -- No.. Ppany, listen to me -- I told you not to get jealous over Jessica. We were just dancing --"

"I dont care!! I hate ---"

Taeyeon didnt know what to do anymore, so she just did what she could do the best. Silencing Tiffany with a kiss.   

**

After the super fun party, the next day all of Jessica’s employee went back to work. Some of them were still hungover and half of them already wanted to pass out. If it’s not because Jessica’s demand to have an early meeting, they would probably already fell asleep.

Jessica was having a headache for these past two-three months. She noticed that customers who come to the restaurant were much lesser and just one week ago she started to dig and check if there was something wrong. She found that there was a restaurant critique that left a bad review about her restaurant in one of the magazine, and he specifically mentioned about their signature dish. Further to that, she also found that the restaurant’s review on the food online website also went downhill and got lots of bad reviews. Jessica was confused, it was fine before and their review was always excellent. What went wrong?

“We got bad reviews. Some of the reviews said that the food quality was bad and not as good as before. Then the services is super slow. Do you notice that our customer is reduced considerably?“, Jessica said in a low voice and stared to each of her employees. Everyone just looked down, didn’t dare to face their boss.   

“Alright. One by one. Heechul-ssi –“, Jessica called her restaurant manager. “Do you know when is this Choi Mino --  Minho – whoever his name was – this food critique came here? Did anyone recognized him when he came?”

“I swear I don’t know, Jessica-ssi. I remember one or two guys came here and asked a lot about our ingredients and our wine. But I never ---“

“Alright then forget it.”, Jessica cut him. “We need to do damage control. I need to go to my office first but I will come back later in the evening. When I get back, Yuri-ssi and Victoria-ssi, everytime you finished making something, let me taste it before it goes to the customer.”

“W- what? You don’t need to do that.”, Yuri said, there was a slight annoyance in her tone. It seemed that Jessica didn’t trust her. Yes the bad reviews came when she was being the head-chef, but it didnt mean that it was all because of her. 

Jessica glared at her. “Do I need to repeat? I - want - to taste it - before - it goes out.”, Jessica said, she spelled the words slowly one by one.

Yuri didn’t like it sometime when Jessica was all too bossy with her at the restaurant. But Jessica always told her that she needed to maintain her professionalism when it comes to work. The employees seemed to know and accept it that their boss and their head-chef got really something going on. Jessica realized this and she had to treat everyone equally, she had to show to her employee that Yuri was not special in this restaurant and she was no different than the others.

“And Yuri-ssi, why people said that the service is slow? Did you manage your time to prepare the food?”

Yuri sighed. “I did. I always did. There might be one or two times a bit slower but it happened only when we were packed.”

Jessica then continue talking to their other employees, trying to figure out what went wrong. She checked all the ingredients, making sure all of those were still in a good condition. She checked whether all of the furniture, the restroom were all cleaned and spotless.

When she came back in the evening, to her employees, Jessica became so annoying today. She was counting the time to see whether the food was prepared on-time, she will tasted every meal before it went out to be served and sometimes she asked to add this and that. Yuri was no exception. Jessica already made her re-make some of the dish when she thinks it didn’t taste perfectly good. It was chaos at the kitchen.

“The sauce. Yuri-ssi. The sauce. Why it taste like this?”,  Jessica frowned after she taste the sauce of their signature dish.

“Like what?”, Yuri asked back innocently. She was getting tired, the restaurant was getting busier as it was dinner time already.

“It's too bland. Did you forget to put something?”, Jessica asked again, there was a demand in her tone.

“It taste fine. I tried it. Maybe it taste a bit different but it’s fine.”, Yuri protested.

“Everytime you cooked it, the taste of our signature dish was not consistent. And a little bit different is not acceptable.”, Jessica retorted.

“Geez, Sica! It’s still taste great anyway! Oh my God, why are you so dense? Besides, you were rushing me to cook. Lots of people order this and I –“

“It called quality control, Yuri-ssi.  Stop making excuses.”

“Why are you blaming all of this to me??”, Yuri started to get annoyed, her tone went to another octave.

“I am not. It’s my restaurant. If it got bad reviews it is my fault, my responsibility. And you’re not helping.”, Jessica stated coldly.

“I ---“, Yuri put her palm on her forehead and clicked her tongue. She was frustrated. She was human, she could not make a perfect dish everytime. The bad reviews on the restaurant made Jessica change into this crazy anxious person and she became too much to handle.   

“Yuri-ssi, re-do the sauce. And I want you to do it. I do not want to serve this to our customer.”, Jessica demanded.

“W – what? No! It will take time to make the sauce. I need to cook for the other orders.”, Yuri groaned and refused.

“Don’t argue with me!!”, Jessica pressed. She tried to calm herself down but it was difficult, especially because this was Yuri, her own girlfriend. Being the girlfriend maybe sometimes made Yuri forgot that she needed to obey Jessica in the kitchen.

Yuri suddenly threw her a napkin harshly to the table and she went out to the backdoor kitchen. Jessica sighed, then she followed Yuri outside.

“Come back to the kitchen, Yul. Please. ”, Jessica asked her softly. She knew that now nobody were near them, she could at least, changed to a sweet girlfriend for a while for Yuri.

“Stop embarrassing me in the kitchen, Sica!! I know what I am doing and I am the head-chef!!”, Yuri shouted, she flung her hand pointing to the kitchen.

“I am not trying to embarrass you. We all in this together and I need everything to be perfect.”, Jessica tried to hold Yuri’s hand.

Yuri chuckled sarcastically. “I am sorry I am not perfect, Sica. But I did the best I could and you can’t even see that.”

“You are a great chef, Yul. How many times should I said it?? But you didn’t only cook for me, you cook for the whole restaurant. And I need to know that I can count on you!”

“How come you can count on me if you didn’t even believe me? You didn’t even trust me that I can make a good dish. Just because some bad reviews came now and you blame everything on me???? And stop bossying me around like I am some kind an amateur chef in front of them!!! Please respect me because I am also your girlfriend!!”, Yuri bawled and then sighed loudly.

“In case you forgot, you’re still my employee here.”, Jessica said in a flat tone. “Or maybe --- maybe it is not good mixing business with pleasure. Look what happen here.”

“W-what? What do you mean by that?”, Yuri bent her brows, she stared at Jessica, her eyes full of rage.

“If you cant even separate your position as my girlfriend and my employee, then maybe we should stop dating!!”, Jessica finally let it out, half screamed as she could not hold her calm anymore.  

Yuri just kept quiet. There was hurt in her eyes. She could not believe that Jessica was that easy to even think to give up their relationship because of this stupid fight about the restaurant.

“I need you to get back to the kitchen.”, Jessica said again, her voice was deep and stern. She stared back at Yuri.

Yuri finally looked away, avoiding Jessica’s gaze and sighed again. “Fine.”

The rest of the day, both of them just work together awkwardly. Yuri just did whatever Jessica asked her to do, and Jessica seemed didn’t care. For Yuri, all Jessica care was only the restaurant.

**

*somewhere in Seoul, two people were talking on the phone*

“I saw the reviews. Good job!”

“I am sure that the restaurant lost its customer after the reviews.”

“Yes, it does. And it reduced their profit a lot too. I knew she already make a proposal and met with some new investors. We’re getting closer.”

“Do you need anything more?”

“Just keep doing the bad reviews. Thank you for your help. I will start doing my thing.”