First Day at the Shinwol Foundation

Seol-hee felt like her whole body weighed a ton.

The chase between the two men the night before had drained her soul clean out of her. Her father had needed support just to walk home, but the moment he'd been chasing that bastard, he'd moved like a man twenty years younger.

Dong-chan had fled for his very life, and in the end they hadn't caught him. Still, it would be a while before he dared show his face in front of the house again.

Vrrrm—

Her phone rang first thing in the morning. Seol-hee lifted her eyes from the real estate book she was reading—she couldn't just sit around moping about failing the interview. A glance at the wall clock told her it was eight thirty. Probably another mart sale text, she figured.

But her eyes went wide as she looked down at the screen. She enlarged the message text in disbelief and read it again.

"Ahhh! Wow! Ah… Dad!"

Clutching her phone, Seol-hee flung open her door—and locked eyes with Song-geun, who had just stepped into the living room. She bolted straight for him and threw her arms around him.

"Aack! Oof, my back."

Her weight made her father sway. He blinked his sleep-crusted eyes, wondering what on earth had gotten into her this early.

"Dad, look at this. I got in!"

"What are you talking about?"

Song-geun managed to pry his eyes open and stared hard at the phone his daughter handed him.

"The Shinwol Foundation… accepted?"

"Yes! I got a supplementary offer. Look!"

After her interview, a position had opened up at the company, and she'd been accepted to fill it. It meant working in the Planning Team instead of the department she'd originally applied to, but that hardly mattered.

"Well, I'll be. You worked hard, my girl."

Her father combed a thick hand through Seol-hee's tangled hair. She was quiet by nature and always insisted on carrying everything alone, which worried him—so seeing her light up like a child filled him with joy.

"Should we grill some meat for breakfast, then?"

"Dad, your digestion. The doctor said no greasy food until your surgery, remember?"

After a moment's thought, Seol-hee clapped her hands.

"I'll make you beef and rice porridge. Me. I saw it online."

She pulled the rubber band from her wrist, tied her hair up high, and opened the freezer.

"Just you wait, Dad. I'm about to show you porridge that'll blow your mind."

Watching her hum as she rinsed the glutinous rice she'd soaked the night before, Song-geun smiled warmly.

"Should I help with something?"

"I told you to just sit there."

"Two people work faster than one, you know. My appetite's all fired up today."

Song-geun rolled up his sleeves and started washing a radish. Seol-hee, standing beside him, scolded him half-heartedly for not listening—but even that made him smile.

A week later. Her first day at work.

"Hello, I'm Woo Seol-hee."

Having joined the Planning Team at the Shinwol Foundation, Seol-hee bowed at the waist. Welcoming applause broke out here and there.

She'd worked countless part-time jobs, but this was her first real job—with benefits and insurance—so her hands trembled.

"Now, Seol-hee's mentor will be Assistant Manager Kang Da-yoon over there. Everyone, say hello."

At the HR staffer's guidance, she hurried over to the woman.

"I'm Woo Seol-hee. I look forward to working with you."

Da-yoon, whose face had a faintly shadowed look, only gave the slightest nod and said nothing more.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Yoon Ye-jun, assistant manager."

Ye-jun, with his genial Jeolla-do accent and crow's-feet eyes that looked especially gentle, offered the greeting first and held out his hand. She took it promptly.

"Thank you for the warm welcome."

"Ah, I'm the Planning Team 1 team leader. Im Chul-gyu. Let's do great work together."

Unlike the courteous Ye-jun, Chul-gyu—who looked to be in his mid-fifties—dropped straight into casual speech the moment he laid eyes on her. Out of respect for her elders, Seol-hee greeted him without letting a hint of displeasure show.

"Well then, I'll be off."

Once the HR staffer left, Seol-hee sat down quietly at the desk she'd been shown. Unlike part-time work, where the tasks were laid out for you, office life left her at a loss for what to do.

Beside her, her mentor Da-yoon kept her fringe half over her eyes and focused exclusively on her own work.

Seated across from her, Ye-jun knocked lightly on her desk.

"Feels awkward, doesn't it?"

"Oh, no, I'm fine. Is there something you need me to do?"

"Nothing in particular… Well then, could you take care of this? There's a meeting this afternoon. Ten copies each, filed and organized."

"Yes, understood."

Seol-hee got up right away and handled the task at the copier. The machine wasn't difficult—her short stint at a print shop had come in handy after all.

"Assistant Manager, here are the meeting materials you asked for."

She set the stack down beside his desk.

"Thank you."

Ye-jun's eyes crinkled slightly as he expressed his thanks, and Seol-hee returned to her seat.

Just then, Da-yoon slid a yellow sticky note toward her. Absentmindedly, Seol-hee took it. Wondering if she was being assigned a task, she checked it—

The blunt message left Seol-hee flustered. It was only her first day, so she let it slide and wrote a reply beneath it:

With prickly people, there was no better way to lower their guard than being easygoing with them.

Oddly, it reminded her of the one older woman in the Jin household who had ever actually spoken with her. Her mentor Da-yoon had that same strange, familiar feeling about her.

She discreetly slid the paper across the partition and set it by Da-yoon's desk. For a brief moment their eyes met—but that was all. A silence that bordered on being outright ignored stretched on all morning.

It was only thanks to Ye-jun chatting with her now and then that she could escape the awkwardness at all.

The morning wore on, and lunchtime approached.

"Um, Assistant Manager Kang?"

She'd hoped to close the distance over a shared meal, but Da-yoon shot out of the office like an arrow. Ye-jun and Chul-gyu likewise wished her a good lunch and promptly vanished.

This place is way too free-range, isn't it?

She was still puzzling over what to do about lunch when—

"Hey, the new girl on Planning 1?"

Seol-hee turned her head. Thankfully, the women from Planning Teams 2 and 3, seated right next door, were making an effort to be friendly.

"Want to come get lunch with us?"

"Um, well…"

"If you've got nobody to eat with, join us? We're heading to the kimchi stew place right out front."

There was nothing to deliberate over.

"Yes, I'd love to."

Seol-hee answered brightly and got up from her seat at once.

Lunch turned out livelier than she'd expected. After a quick round of introductions, they finished their meal and grabbed coffee at a nearby café—where, bless them, they treated her to the coffee purely because she was the new hire. She resolved to return the favor the moment her first paycheck landed.

"The vibe on Planning 1 isn't great, huh?"

At the question that came flying out of nowhere, Seol-hee blinked.

That vibe? You call that bad? Charitably, you might call it a team that respected everyone's personal space.

"Why even ask? You can tell just by looking."

"Right? Of all teams to land on—Planning 1."

"What's that supposed to…?"

At Seol-hee's question, the other three exchanged glances.

"I don't know if I should even be saying this…"

"Eh, whatever. She'll find out anyway. Bottom line—watch out for Assistant Manager Kang Da-yoon."

Seol-hee blinked, wondering what they meant.

"That team's Assistant Manager Yoon Ye-jun. The most popular guy in the whole Shinwol Foundation."

"Did you know Kang Da-yoon stalks Assistant Manager Yoon?"

"Excuse me?"

"The last new hire couldn't even last a year before quitting. Assistant Manager Yoon was nice to the new girl, and Assistant Manager Kang threatened her and… she's completely unhinged."

"Anyway—be careful."

In that instant, the note Da-yoon had passed her that morning flashed through Seol-hee's mind. The somewhat coercive instruction to get permission before leaving her desk.

On the walk back to the office after coffee, the chatter of the women beside her washed past her ears—gossip badmouthing Da-yoon, lamenting how poor Ye-jun suffered.

Is talking about other people really that entertaining?

One-sided stories could never be trusted on their own. There was no need to jump to prejudice. Some people suffered trapped inside a frame someone else had built around them—just as she herself once had.

The group filed into the silver-gray building of the Shinwol Foundation. Even waiting for the elevator, the women's gossip never paused. By now, Seol-hee simply let the office dramas and the talk of men flow past her like water.

"Hm?"

Just then, a cluster of people passed through the neighboring corridor. Her gaze drifted there naturally. Unlike the employees in their free-form office wear, they wore suits of refined gravity.

Her eyes followed one man walking at the center of the crowd surrounding him.

Mr. Shoes?

A man whose posture was impeccably composed, but whose face was handsome to the point of being practically violent. It was definitely him.

"Why is he here?"

Perhaps because she'd met a man she never expected to see again, in a place she never imagined—strangely, she felt glad.

As if possessed, Seol-hee slipped away from the group she'd been with.

"Seol-hee, where are you going?"

"Just a moment. Go on up without me."

She walked toward the corridor where he'd disappeared. The five or six people who'd been with him had melted away at some point, leaving the hallway empty.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, a spacious courtyard-style garden spread out below. Sunlight poured through the glass, flooding the corridor with light.

Her heart, which had been racing since she first spotted him, settled a little as she stood gazing at the scene, spellbound.

And at that very moment, a long shadow fell across her.

"Pleasant surprise, Miss Candy."

A low, quiet voice brushed the shell of her ear. Startled, Seol-hee turned her head to the side.

Her calm heart thumped wildly.

He smiled, radiant and bright.