The boardroom on the forty-second floor of Hanseong Group Headquarters had the particular atmosphere of a room that was used to difficult conversations and had learned not to show it.
Floor-to-ceiling windows framed Seoul's financial district below — the city going about its morning with complete indifference to the tension sitting around the long marble table. Executives on both sides, laptops open, documents spread with the careful arrangement of people who understood that how you presented information mattered as much as the information itself.
At the head of the table, Executive Director Han sat with his hands clasped and his expression entirely composed.
The screen behind him displayed financial charts. Nobody was really looking at them.
"If this information becomes public," one of the older executives said, his voice sharp and controlled, "the media will dismantle us piece by piece."
"The Chairman's death already raised questions," another added. "Questions that haven't gone away."
Director Han's gaze moved across the table steadily. "Which is exactly why this conversation stays in this room."
Silence settled — the particular silence of people who understood an instruction when they heard one.
A younger executive leaned forward. "The rumors about the mansion robbery are spreading again. There are journalists asking — "
"Rumors," Director Han said quietly, "are meaningless without proof."
Another man hesitated. Cleared his throat. "The police never found the attackers."
The room temperature seemed to drop by several degrees.
Director Han rose slowly from his chair. Straightened his suit. "That will be all for today."
The chairs shifted. Files were gathered. The executives filed out with the subdued efficiency of people who had received a message clearly and intended to carry it carefully.
When the last of them had gone, Director Han remained standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back, looking down at the city below.
The rumors are spreading again.
He had known they would. Had been managing the distance between rumor and truth for the past weeks now — carefully, methodically, the way he managed everything. But managing distance was not the same as closing it. And some distances, he was beginning to understand, had a way of closing themselves.
Knock knock.
He turned.
His secretary appeared at the door, her expression carrying the particular careful neutrality of someone delivering news they were uncertain how to characterise.
"Sir." A brief pause. "You have a visitor."
His brow rose slightly. He had no scheduled appointments after the board meeting.
"A visitor."
"Yes, sir." The secretary's eyes held something she wasn't saying.
Somewhere on the other side of Seoul, Sora-Ara stood outside her apartment building and tightened her grip on the strap of her tote bag.
First day.
The morning air was crisp — carrying the faint warm ghost of roasted coffee from a stand down the street, the particular clean cold of a Seoul morning that hadn't decided yet whether to be kind or difficult.
She had kept the outfit simple. Loose beige trousers, a fitted long-sleeve blouse in soft white, clean sneakers. Her silk-pressed hair had been styled into soft bouncy waves that moved when she walked. She checked her reflection quickly on her phone screen.
Okay, Ara, she thought. You can do this.
She headed for the bus stop — but stopped first at the small burger stall she had noticed a few days ago, drawn in by the smell of meat on the grill and the very reasonable logic that first days required proper fuel.
"One bulgogi burger, please."
While she waited, two older men stood at the side of the stall, speaking in the low, easy tones of people who considered themselves simply having a conversation and not being overheard by anyone.
"...I'm telling you, that mansion robbery was strange."
Sora-Ara's eyes stayed on her phone.
"The Hanseong chairman case? The police closed it."
"Hmm." The first man's tone carried the particular weight of someone who had decided the official version didn't account for everything. "Robbers don't usually take down a man like that and disappear without leaving a single trace. Not one."
"Rich families have enemies."
"Maybe. But something doesn't add up. A man that powerful — " He shook his head. "These things don't just happen."
"Here you go!"
Sora-Ara took the burger quickly. "Thank you."
She stepped away, unwrapping it as she walked, and tried to organise her thoughts into something manageable.
The chairman. The same family her mother had worked for. The same name on the will. The same night.
Don't overthink it, she told herself firmly. Not today.
The bus arrived and she filed in with the crowd.
Seoul morning buses, she discovered, operated on an entirely different social contract from anything she had experienced in Jeju. She squeezed in, grabbed an overhead strap, and was immediately bumped from three directions as the bus lurched into traffic. Her bag caught someone's shoulder. Someone else's elbow found her ribs. The driver braked with the cheerful aggression of someone who considered it the passengers' responsibility to stay upright.
"Ah — "
A woman beside her grabbed her arm before she could stumble. "Careful."
"Thank you," Sora-Ara said, slightly breathless.
Seoul mornings, she thought. Not for the weak.
She saw the café from half a block away.
Hanul Garden Café.
The name in elegant gold lettering across the glass front, the morning sun catching it perfectly. Through the tall windows she could see the interior — warm wood, hanging greenery, marble counters where baristas moved with the practiced ease of people who had made a thousand drinks today and would make a thousand more.
Beautiful, she thought, stopping at the entrance to take it in. This place is actually beautiful.
She checked the time and she was right on time.
She went in.
The woman behind the reception desk looked up with the sharp, efficient gaze of someone who processed and assessed new information very quickly.
"Yes?"
"I'm the new staff member," She said politely. "Kang Sora-Ara."
Something shifted in the woman's expression — not warmth exactly, more like recognition followed immediately by a particular brand of skepticism that Sora-Ara recognised as the professional equivalent of we'll see about that.
"Director Han's recommendation," the woman said. It landed somewhere between a statement and a verdict.
"Yes, ma'am."
A curt nod. "Follow me."
She led Sora-Ara to the staff changing room without ceremony — uniform in the locker, black cap, white T-shirt with the café name embroidered on the chest, dark apron.You will be serving tables today. Any questions could wait until she'd proven she was worth answering them.
Sora-Ara changed quickly, tied the apron with careful precision, and looked at herself in the small changing room mirror.
First day. Survive it.
The café floor was busy. Properly busy — almost every table occupied, the low pleasant hum of a space doing exactly what it was designed to do. She collected her first tray, checked the order, and carried it toward table seven with the focused concentration of someone who was absolutely not going to spill anything.
She almost made it.
Her elbow caught the edge of a chair she hadn't accounted for. The tray tilted. One iced latte tipped — not entirely, not catastrophically, but enough. A small spill across the corner of the table.
She grabbed napkins before the glass had finished settling. "I'm so sorry — I'm so sorry — "
The sharp presence of the reception woman materialised beside her like a weather event. "I knew it," she said, with the quiet satisfaction of someone whose low expectations had been confirmed. "New staff always — "
"It's fine." The customer's voice was calm and easy, cutting through cleanly. He was already reaching for the napkins himself, dabbing at the small spill without any particular urgency. "It barely touched anything." He looked up at Sora-Ara with a mild friendly expression. "First day?"
"Yes," she said quietly.
"Don't worry about it. Everyone starts somewhere."
The reception woman made a sound that communicated volumes without technically saying anything inappropriate. "Counter," she said to Sora-Ara. "You're better suited there for today."
Sora-Ara nodded and walked to the counter, setting the tray down and exhaling slowly behind the cover of her own professionalism.
Okay, she thought. Regroup. You're fine.
"WAIT — WHAT?!"
She turned.
Standing behind the counter, eyes comically wide, apron slightly askew, was Min-ah.
For a full second neither of them moved.
"You work here?!" they said simultaneously.
Then they were both laughing — the helpless, slightly stunned laughter of a coincidence so complete it seemed intentional.
"Why didn't you tell me?!" Min-ah grabbed her arm.
"I didn't know you worked here!"
"This is insane!" Min-ah turned immediately to the two male baristas working beside her. "Guys! This is the friend I told you about — the one I met at the cinema!"
One of them looked up and raised a hand in an easy greeting. "Hey. Nice to meet you."
The other gave a nod and went back to his work with the focused calm of someone who had learned to exist serenely within Min-ah's energy radius.
Min-ah turned back to Sora-Ara and dropped her voice to a whisper that was not remotely a whisper. "Okay listen. I'll teach you everything. The machines, the orders, the regulars, which tables tip well." She glanced toward the reception desk. "And ignore the secretary. She does that to everyone for the first two weeks. It's basically an initiation."
Sora-Ara laughed properly — the tight knot of first-day nerves loosening all at once. "Thank you."
"That's what friends are for." Min-ah handed her a clean cloth and a position behind the counter with the brisk efficiency of someone who took her unofficial mentorship role very seriously. "Now. Let me show you how to make an iced latte without spilling it."
"That's not funny."
"It's a little funny."
The hours moved quickly after that.
By the time Sora-Ara stepped out of the café the sky had begun its evening shift — that particular Seoul orange that settled over the city like something deliberate, turning the glass buildings gold and the streets warm.
Her legs were comprehensively finished.
"My feet," she announced to no one, then to Min-ah who had appeared beside her. "My feet are gone. I no longer have feet."
Min-ah laughed loudly. "Welcome to café life!"
"I almost dropped three drinks today."
"Correction." Min-ah raised one finger with great seriousness. "You dropped one. Almost dropped two others. That's actually good for a first day."
The male barista who had followed them out nodded with genuine encouragement. "Honestly. The first days are rough. You did fine."
The evening air had cooled, the street filled with the after-work crowd moving in both directions with purposeful energy. Min-ah stretched both arms dramatically above her head.
"Text me when you get home, okay?" she said, already moving. "And eat something proper — not just whatever's in your bag."
"I will," Sora-Ara promised.
"Bye, Sora!"
She waved until Min-ah disappeared into the crowd — which took slightly longer than expected because Min-ah waved back the entire way.
Sora-Ara turned toward the intersection and waited for the light.
Across the street, catching the last of the evening sun, a glass tower rose above the surrounding buildings with the quiet authority of something that didn't need to announce itself.
HANSEONG HOLDINGS & CONSULTING.
Sora blinked.
"Ooh…"
It looked incredibly powerful.
She read the letters once. Then again.
Then suddenly she remembered something.
Her eyes widened.
"Oh my gosh!"
That's the building. The name on the business card Director Han had placed on her coffee table. The name of the company where Lee Jae-min worked
She checked her phone.
5:02 PM
Her eyes went wide.
The meeting.
Jae-min.
7 PM.
At my apartment.
She looked at the building across the street. Then on her phone. Then back at the building.
My apartment is a mess.
The light turned green.
She crossed at a speed that was technically still walking.
On the upper floor of that same glass tower, the evening quiet had settled over Lee Jae-min's office.
A corner office — glass walls on two sides, the glowing Seoul skyline filling the view beyond. Framed certificates arranged behind his desk with the precise spacing of someone who understood that details communicated character. His nameplate sat at the corner of the desk, polished, unassuming.
Lee Jae-min. Senior Strategy Consultant.
He was reaching for his briefcase when the knock came.
His secretary appeared. Her expression carried something she was being professional about. "Sir. You have a visitor."
He frowned slightly. His schedule was clear. "A visitor."
"Yes, sir. He said — "
The door opened before she could finish.
The man who walked in did so with the particular ease of someone who had never once in his life considered whether he was welcome somewhere — because the question had simply never been relevant. Tall. Sharp suit worn with the casual indifference of someone who hadn't chosen it to impress anyone. Cold eyes that moved across the room and catalogued it in approximately two seconds.
He walked to the chair across from Jae-min's desk and sat down without being invited to — leaned back, one ankle crossing his knee, entirely at home.
Choi Park-gu.
His cousin. The third grandson.
Jae-min set his briefcase down slowly. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
It wasn't quite a question.
Park-gu let the silence sit for a moment — the way he always did, as though testing the patience of whatever room he was in. Then,
"Family dinner. Friday."
"I know."
"Just making sure."
He stood as easily as he had sat. Moved toward the door with that same unhurried certainty, hands returning to his pockets. Then he paused beside Jae-min — close enough that his voice dropped to something quieter, something that wasn't quite for the room.
"Can't a younger brother visit his older brother?"
Jae-min frowned. "What was that?"
But Park-gu was already at the door. The faint smirk he left behind said everything he hadn't.
The door closed softly.
Jae-min stood in the quiet of his office for a moment, looking at the closed door with an expression he didn't entirely have a name for.
Then he checked his watch.
6:10 PM.
He picked up his briefcase.
He was running late.
And somewhere across the city, the woman whose life was about to intertwine with his was rushing home, unaware that tonight would be the beginning of something neither of them expected.
Author's Note:
I told y'all I was cooking something 😌
The pieces are slowly moving into place — and trust me, you've only seen the beginning. Chapter 12 is where things get interesting... 👀
Did this chapter had you curious?Chapter 12 is going to leave you wanting more🔥🔥
Don't forget to add to your library if you haven't already — you genuinely don't want to miss what's coming 🤍
— Teiprime