Jiah's POV
The following day, I saw several black jeeps parked outside the company; what was going on? Was it a politician? I kept wondering after seeing a line of seven black jeeps parked outside and some men in suits walking into the company. I watched the workers bow their heads in respect. Then I found myself forgetting a shy smile behind my mouth. My boss was among the men in suits. The suit had a good fit on him. No wonder Nara was all over him. Just as I got lost in my head, a hand pulled my head down without warning; it was my naughty friend Yula.
"Do you want to lose your job?" she whispered.
"Can you just stop it? Our boss, Sungmin, will never fall for a commoner like us. So you know, the lady you saw hugging him yesterday is his fiancée. Rumors have it that they will be engaged in no time. So stop dreaming. You and I are nobody! I am also in love with our boss, but who am I?" She said nothing but the painful truth. He was never going to look at us, let alone have an affair with any of us. It was then that it dawned on me that we were just cleaners. "I need to kill the feelings I have for him; Yula is right.
Minutes later, they had a short meeting. Kangdae stood erect as he announced the new manager and director of the Yoo family's company. I saw the excitement all over Nara; her man was now a step higher.
"I would also like to use this medium to announce the engagement of Sungmin and Nara," Kangdae said the words that tore me into shreds. "The event will be happening at the company's hall by 4pm tomorrow," he added. I saw the smile on my boss's face. Nobody appeared sad; it was as if that was the time they had all been waiting for. A loud clap filled the air without any interruption until Nara's disrupted manners.
"Thank you, Kangdae!" I was shocked. Did she just call him that? And no one saw that as inappropriate? As if that wasn't enough, she hurried to squeeze Sungmin in her arms. I fumed with detest at the sight of this. She was always too forward, I said in my heart before a hard slap revived my lost mind.
"I have been looking everywhere for you," I rushed to cover her mouth, escorting her away from the door.
"Bring down your voice!" I told her with a low tone.
"What if someone caught you peeping? You would be fired without delay!" Yula issued a stern warning.
"I know, you do not have to be so mean. We can leave now," I said before someone suspected us.
Yula's POV
That morning at work, I got a message from Hyejin. I thought it was something else until she told me to tell Ji-ah that she would be cleaning our boss's office at 7:00am every morning.
"That would help her resume early enough!" she added harshly. I told Ji-ah about it, and it looked like she wasn't happy with that, but I didn't ask why; I had a lot at hand.
"Sungmin is too rude! I can't be his cleaner at his table every morning," she said aloud as I was leaving. She's got some courage!
"Nobody must hear you call him by his name again. He is not your mate!" I snapped, slapping some sense into her wide skull. Ji-ah folded her palm playfully, ready to punch me in the face, but she refrained after I threw a stern look at her.
"Call him Master Sungmin!" I said, tapping her shoulder calmly as I left. "I will be attending the engagement party tonight. Meet me there," I called over my shoulder. Jiah let out a sigh.
Jiah's POV
I was done dressing up, wasn't convinced if I looked good, but I was comfortable in my dress.
"Wow! I didn't know you were this pretty," Yula said, looking around for a space where we would sit. "You are beautiful too," I said, returning the compliment. She had just proven me wrong by telling me that I was beautiful. I tried to feel happy, but deep down, I wasn't. Sungmin was getting engaged today. I shouldn't be feeling this way after all. I am just an employee who can always find a better man, I thought to myself if that would make me happy. We danced as if the party was ours, with a cup of wine in our hands. "Let's have more drinks," Yula said, her voice full of excitement. She was already getting drunk. As I left to get two more glasses, I collided with Sungmin, my dream man. I became anxious immediately; my palms began to grow hot suddenly, which was strange. The two glasses of wine I was carrying suddenly spilled onto his blue suit. Today, he wasn't in a black suit. His suit was navy blue. I quickly lost my balance, and then I felt my body dropping to the ground, but a hand caught me before I could hit the ground. I perceived that body fragrance. It was him. Nara witnessed this from where she was and couldn't believe it. The hall went silent immediately. Sungmin still had me in his arms, and I still held onto his suit. It was when the people exclaimed in surprise that I realized what was going on. I let go of his suit quickly and lifted myself. "I am sorry, sir," I said, feeling embarrassed. Confusion soon masked me. I didn't know what to do, and then I saw myself squatting to pick up the broken pieces on the floor, but he stopped me before I touched any. His palm was soft, and I noticed a switch in his expression. Something told me he was baffled by the hotness of my palm, but I didn't wait for him to talk. I quickly pulled my palm from his. "You look familiar," he said, noticing my face. He smelled differently now; my eyes turned silver in a flash.
"Huh!" he whispered, but I pushed him away before he did or said something weird. Then, Nara emerged from a spot I had not noticed and landed a threatening slap on my face. I did not want to look up. This created a chaotic scene in the public. She didn't even care about her reputation and that of her father. That didn't bother her. I saw flashes of lights. I knew that journalists were at work.
"Leave the scene. Can't you just leave?" someone mind-linked me. I began to perceive a strong smell. My rage fumed. I didn't know what got over me, but I felt like ripping Nara apart! "She is the mother of a witch!" she said aloud, perhaps wanting the media to carry that.
"Fuck!" I was mind-linked again. And then Yula appeared from nowhere and, disappointedly, dragged me out of the scene. "Feel like ripping your ass apart right now!" she mind-linked again.
"So it was you?" I asked back in the mind-link.
"I perceive a lot of questions, but it is not time for all these. Let's just get home first!" she responded in the mind-link. She didn't stop dragging me as if we were still in the hall. Then she stopped a taxi and pushed me in. Yula was serious and angry for the first time. Maybe it wasn't the first time, but that was the first time I was seeing that.
"Bitches everywhere!" I heard what the driver said in his mind. I expected him to look at us from the rearview mirror, but I was sure he avoided eye contact. I looked at Yula; it seemed like she didn't hear or notice what happened. The taxi driver stopped at the bus stop nearest to my house, and unlike Yula, she didn't come out to escort me home. She just sat there like a rejected soul, no mind-linking.
"Won't you at least see me off to the house?" I said in the mind-link, but she didn't respond. Maybe she gave the driver a sign because the speed he used in driving off before I could mind-link again was alarming. Tears suddenly gathered in my eyes. I just wanted to throw a frustrated self into my dad's arms. That man must not die now. If he dies, what would become of me?
"Appa! (Dad)." I leaned against his shoulder again, catching the scent of him. He knew I was a mess again anytime I cried on his shoulder. It always reminded him of the past. Sometimes Dad cried with me. One day I asked why he sometimes cried, and he told me he once had a lovely family, but wicked people existed among them who were jealous of his family. Since he lost his mom, everything fell apart. I was only 3 years old when I began to love the presence of my dad apart from my mother's bedtime song. He says right from when I was little, I would call out to him whenever I was sad or lonely. And sometimes I do this whenever I was scolded or bullied at school, or even at a friend's house. Now I am all grown up, and yet I keep running to my dad like the girl I used to be. Our bond became stronger after Mom's death. The story he had denied me of, saying I was too little to understand yet. But he told me the story of how he took me to work during school vacations, carried me on his shoulder, walked down the street after work, and prepared three different meals only for me to finally eat the last one because it didn't smell familiar. Dad adapted to my new behavior the hard way, especially after Mom's death. He said I became more selective at four. And I do not like to eat anything that smells familiar, and he didn't understand what I meant by that. He told me he had once taken me to see a doctor, but the doctor said I was medically fine, and then he gave him tips that he could use to cope with my extreme selectiveness.
The news spread like wildfire in the company that the boss was having an affair with me. I read an article online that called me a commoner. I knew the media wasn't dead; if they did not carry the news, what else would they? As I resumed work early that morning to clean his office, Hyejin called me into her small office. "How long have you been having an affair with our boss?" she asked with a sense of urgency, sniffing around me as if she smelled something.
"Not me," I replied innocently after gathering courage.
"So you are trying to tell me that I do not know what I am saying, right?" I nodded in disapproval.