Only the fierce sound of rain hammering against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the massive building filled the empty office with an eerie presence.
In the dim space, there was only one desk. Only the monitor gave off a pallid glow. The hands of the clock were crawling heavily toward midnight, but the endless formulas filling the document on the screen showed no sign of shrinking.
“Haa.”
Harin clutched the back of her neck, stiff as a board, and let out a deep sigh. It had already been several days of murderous overtime. Her incompetent and vicious direct superior had dumped all his own mistakes onto Harin, a newly hired employee, then fled the office before evening as if making an escape.
Injustice and anger. And a dreadful fatigue that seeped into her bones were gnawing away at Harin’s reason. Out of habit, she reached for the smartphone lying face down in one corner of her desk.
When she turned on the screen, the affectionate couple photo set as her lock screen came into view. At the farthest, most distant southern edge of the country. It was Kim Junho, her longtime lover, who had been assigned there and left.
Only a few months ago, the two of them had spent every day and night together, promising each other a future. They had believed without a doubt that everything would become perfect once they crossed the threshold into employment. But the company had cruelly split them apart, one to each end of the country.
The tenderness of the beginning was helplessly worn down before the terrible weight of reality. The time they had to throw away on the road every weekend just to see each other, and the considerable transportation costs. Even when they faced each other, drenched in exhaustion, they were busy fighting off the sleep that poured over them. In the end, the number of their meetings became grotesquely fewer, and now even the calls asking after each other had turned into obligatory homework.
With trembling fingers, Harin pressed the call button. Even one minute. No, even ten seconds would be enough—she desperately longed for Junho’s warm voice to comfort her. She wanted to erase the dreadful sense of isolation, the feeling that she had been completely abandoned alone inside this enormous concrete building, with her lover’s voice.
A long, dry ringing tone pierced her eardrum.
Please pick up. Oppa, please, just this once.
Harin begged hundreds of times inwardly as she pressed the smartphone tightly to her ear. But what came from beyond the receiver was not her lover’s warm voice.
The customer is unable to answer the phone at this time.
The moment the mechanical voice rang out, Harin’s vision twisted grotesquely.
In a city at the southernmost end, Junho was trapped in an oppressive, nauseating department dinner. He was losing consciousness as he accepted bomb shots poured out by his superiors. His smartphone had long since been shoved onto the damp floor in the corner of the barbecue restaurant, holding its breath in silence.
“Seriously. What am I even doing here...?”
Harin set the phone down roughly and buried her face in both hands. Hot tears forced their way through the gaps between her fingers. The lover far away was of no use when she was collapsing so miserably like this. The enormous void created by physical distance. It was a fatal and perfect lack that could never be filled by something as conceptual as love.
The rain beat even harder against the windows.
It was in that very moment of despair.
“Employee Seo Harin. What are you doing still here at this hour instead of going home?”
The sound of dress shoes came from beyond the dark partitions, and a low, leisurely male voice split the office’s silence. Harin, startled, raised her tear-wet face.
A huge man in a perfectly tailored, top-class suit entered her sight. He was Park Minhyeok, the young division director, the absolute power of this enormous company and the man who held every employee’s life and death in his hands.
Overwhelming wealth and status. And with wild, cold features, he was the secret object of admiration for every female employee in the company. A being above the clouds whom a mere new employee would not dare even meet eyes with.
That man approached with silent steps and set down a warm can of coffee on Harin’s desk with a soft thud.
“Manager Kim, that bastard, dumped all the filth on the new hire again and ran away, didn’t he?”
Minhyeok glanced over the documents on Harin’s monitor in a single second and perfectly grasped the situation. A cold, fishy sneer spread across his lips.
“Turn off the computer and get up. The company won’t recognize you for clinging to trash documents like these. I’ll personally grab Manager Kim by the collar on Monday morning and attach support staff to the rest of it, so pack your things immediately.”
It was the perfect lifeline, dropped like lightning at the most despairing and terrible moment.
Instead of a powerless lover who was so far away that even contact could not reach him. An absolute power that descended into the reality before her eyes and controlled and saved the entire situation with a single word.
“Director. But this has to be done by tomorrow morning.”
With reddened eyes, Harin tried to stammer out a protest. But Minhyeok placed a hand on the back of Harin’s chair and bent his massive upper body sharply toward her.
The suffocatingly rich and sensual scent of a man’s cologne, mixed with the lingering trace of the finest cigar, fiercely invaded the tip of Harin’s nose. Without realizing it, Harin sucked in a breath.
“My word is law. Employee Seo Harin only needs to follow my instructions. Stand up.”
A firm, arrogant command that allowed no refusal. As if bewitched, Harin rose from her seat. In her hand was the warm can of coffee Minhyeok had set down. The fierce warmth the man had left behind seeped into her frozen palm.
Minhyeok slowly left the office, matching Harin’s pace.
Inside the private elevator headed for the underground parking lot.
In the narrow sealed space, only the breathing of the man and woman crossed each other precariously. Harin kept her head lowered, staring only at the tips of her old shoes with their worn-down heels. Minhyeok’s handmade shoes and the perfect fit of his trousers beside her formed a grotesquely perfect contrast with her shabby circumstances.
“It’s raining hard. I’ll take you home safely.”
“No, Director. I can just take a taxi by myself. It’s already more than enough that you’ve shown me this much consideration.”
“At midnight on a rainy Friday night. Do you think you’ll be able to catch a taxi in the company complex?”
At Minhyeok’s bone-striking brutal truth, Harin was left speechless. Her meager shield was as powerless as a sheet of paper before this overwhelming predator.
The elevator doors opened, revealing Minhyeok’s massive black sedan. Minhyeok personally opened the passenger door and escorted Harin in. After hesitating, Harin finally pushed herself carefully into the gaping maw of the great beast he had opened for her.
The moment the car door closed, the noisy sound of rain outside was completely cut off as if it had been a lie.
The highest-quality leather seat enveloped Harin’s exhausted body softly, like a cloud. Inside the car, Minhyeok’s rich and sensual scent, the one she had smelled earlier in the elevator, was even more thickly imbued.
With a smooth engine sound, the sedan began to glide along the dark road.
Outside the window, a torrential downpour fell as if it would swallow the world, but the air inside the car was unbelievably calm and warm. Within that perfect comfort, Harin felt a strange sense of immorality. The overwhelming taste of capital, something she had never once felt in the passenger seat of her lover Junho’s cheap used car. It was the strongest drug, paralyzing Harin’s reason.
While they waited at a red light, Minhyeok, holding the steering wheel, broke the silence in a low voice.
“Employee Seo, do you not have a boyfriend?”
A private question that struck without warning. Harin flinched and fidgeted with her fingers.
“I do. He’s my boyfriend, one year older than me.”
“I see.”
Minhyeok looked out at the night view beyond the window and drove the coldest, cruelest dagger into Harin’s chest.
“Then why is that young boyfriend of yours not coming to pick you up when his woman is trapped in an empty office late on a rainy night, being tormented by a wicked superior?”
“That’s... Oppa has been assigned to a distant region and went down there. The circumstances aren’t good.”
Harin hurriedly defended Junho. But her voice was already stained with uncontrollable disappointment and misery. Minhyeok perfectly caught that fine crack and smiled faintly.
“When distance grows far, the heart grows far as well, and so does one’s sense of responsibility. If it were me, I wouldn’t leave my woman to work overtime late at night in tears. But even if that did happen, I would come running no matter what.”
Minhyeok’s arrogant, conviction-filled voice.
Harin bit her lip hard. Her mind was shouting that she had to deny Minhyeok’s words. But in the deepest part of her heart, a terrible agreement had already begun.
That’s right. Oppa wasn’t by my side when I was having the hardest time. He didn’t even answer the phone. The one who saved me and put me in this warm car wasn’t Oppa, but this man.
The direct charge of a perfect male wrapped in capital and power. And the dreadful lack of affection created by physical distance. The sound of an irreversible crack forming in Harin’s once-solid morality rang out clearly through the rain.
The sedan stopped in front of Harin’s shabby studio villa.
The dark, narrow alley and Minhyeok’s top-class sedan created a grotesque sight that did not match at all.
“Thank you, Director. Thanks to you, I came home very comfortably. I’ll see you on Monday.”
Harin unfastened her seatbelt and hurriedly offered her thanks. As she tried to get out of the car as if fleeing, Minhyeok’s rough, large hand suddenly snatched her slender wrist.
“Ah.”
Harin drew in a startled breath. Still holding Harin’s wrist, Minhyeok slowly turned his head and stared straight at her reddened face.
“On Monday, after Manager Kim’s matter is finished, come up to my office separately, Employee Seo Harin. Instead of overtime pay, I’ll buy you dinner myself.”
It was not a simple dinner invitation. It was the most fatal and explicit hunting signal sent by a perfect predator before tearing into the nape of its prey.
Harin could not avert her gaze from Minhyeok’s dark, fierce eyes. The man’s hot body heat against her wrist raced through her blood vessels and made her brain boil madly.
“Yes. I understand, Director.”
The warning of reason telling her she had to refuse had already evaporated without a trace. Without realizing it, Harin nodded and took a step of her own toward the swamp of corruption.
After getting out of the car, Harin ran into the villa entrance without even opening an umbrella. As she watched the red taillights of the sedan recede, Harin’s heart pounded as if it would burst. The perfect void created by the cruel time lag of a long-distance relationship. The velvet trap of the absolute power that had slipped into that gap was already tightly ensnaring Harin’s ankle.