38

Welcome to Haerin's exploration of new positions to fuck herself up over and over. Today's position: cowgirl, because I was riding my way to hell first thing that morning.

In the current task, I had received a threat from Mr Min to check what Seulgi did because he had a message from Jeon Jungkook to check with him immediately. Mr Min wasn't that fond of being subject to Jungkook's temper—which was honestly understandable—meaning, I was riding into the blazing sun with this one.

The entire situation and the problem are a big fucking joke, because what the hell? Why the hell was Jungkook involved in the bullshit of our team again? There was something seriously wrong with him, or he was in love with someone from the administrators on the sixth floor. That had to be it.

What actually hit the spot for me was when I enquired with Seulgi for the details of her fuck up. She had left her VPN access on when she stepped out with her laptop, making something blink in that IT head's control system or whatchamacallit. He was now livid at the constant stress we put his princess-head under. Bonus trouble? Mr Min didn't know about this yet. Only Seulgi knew. Yay, right? No, the fuck not. This burdened me ten times more than I was capable of. All of this suddenly became my fucking responsibility to resolve before news got to Mr Min and he exploded on me like someone's gender reveal gone wrong.

I stared at Seulgi's laptop, the Cirq message on display. Trembling, I tried to run my fingers through my hair.

Was it possible to choke oneself and die? Oh god, let an asteroid finish planet Earth because I wasn't ready for this again.

'Miss Kang, please report with your manager to my cabin in the next ten minutes to discuss this error before I officially release an email. I have requested Mr Min to report to me this instant as well.'

Fuck...

Seulgi and I shared the same surname and seeing that on Cirq gave me a full-on PTSD in a supercut. The cowgirl shit was getting serious at this rate.

Seulgi looked at the screen and then at me, "Haerin, Mr Min's going to kill me. He's going to kill me dead! Please can you do something? Please please please—I will owe you one big time please, Haerin, please please please—" she slapped her hands together in a prayer, bowing to me.

Fucking hell. Really.

My teeth hit my lip and I felt my stomach jiggle a little at how hard I was tapping my heel on the marble floor.

My chest was tight. And no, it wasn't the full set of boobs under my blouse. These days, my bra size was hurting me stupid, but that was an issue for another day.

Box breathe, Haerin.

It was box breathing or collapsing due to the stress. I had no fucking option.

"Haerin..." Seulgi latched onto my arm, "Please save me. Please save me, Assistant Manager Kang. I swear I will never get into this situation again. I'll be good. One chance is all I need, really."

I wanted to scream in the air and tell her to shut the fuck up, topping it up with my favourite curse word: bitch. But the concept of society had ruined me. I had to stay professional at all costs.

Public retaliation was one thing I feared in this asshole company. I kid not, I used to have nightmares that my team realised that I actually didn't know how to work and kicked me out and then I became a beggar on the street, asking alms from Mr Min because he was the only one ready to secretly help me. Well, fuck me because this was exactly where my life seemed to be going.

But no, Jungkook couldn't be the reason why it happened. No.

Get a grip, you bitch.

I squared my shoulders, the box breathing finally helping.

"Get your laptop." I surmised, more to myself than to her. "I'll go with you."

"Wait—" She huddled up to her stands, awkwardly gripping the back of the desk chair. "—wait, what? You're coming with me? To his cabin?"

My fingers clenched at my roots, my heart already thudding like I was being pounded mercilessly. These shitting comparisons in my brain needed to stop—because what the fuck?

"We don't have a choice." I forced a smile, making it my most trustworthy one ever. Nobody needed another HR meet and greet for me freaking out over Jungkook. Nobody needed that.

I grabbed my phone, smoothing my skirt to prepare my clothes because yes, that was what needed fixing Haerin. Am I dumb or what?

"I'll try to beg him not to kill us," I muttered under my breath. The joke didn't land and the passengers died in the crash of my humour.

Seulgi's hands flared over her things. She rushed after me. I paraded into the death march of my ego, towards the elevator shafts.

Maybe it was the suicidal panicked bitch in me who did it, but I tried to step into the shaft in a way that I could end up dead. Fuck, Haerin. No, please.

This was not just the whole scary-ass situation of our team getting under the bus anymore. This was my ego. My loud fucking mouth that always wanted to one-up him. Getting an earful from Jungkook was much worse than when he saw my lace bra. My ego. My sweet ego that I pomped at him would now be smothered. Fucking ash and vapour.

I had been trying so hard not to fall anywhere near his control. And this bitch just went ahead and ruined it for me.

On that note, I also had a meeting in about thirty minutes to discuss the management staycation with all the people involved in the fucking trip. I had to wrap this one up quickly before I was shot at by Mr Min for something else. To be honest, I hated that he scared me so much when he had been nice to me in the recent events of my life. But it was like hoping the ocean wouldn't kill you. Because yes it would. If it floods, it's going to hit me front and centre. So no. No trusting Mr Min's peace.

"Where are you both going?" A hand stretched out in front of me to stop us.

My glare shifted to Seokjin and his smile fell. "Oh god, did somebody die, Miss Kang?"

"Yes. You." Seulgi stepped ahead and slapped his hand out of the way. "Don't dig your grave deeper. We're busy."

We didn't wait because who had the fucking time to deal with Seokjin?

Actually, I did.

As soon as I saw his face, that weird brother of his popped up in my head like the answer to a test I had already submitted. After what had happened the previous evening, I wanted to talk to him about his brother, maybe politely tell him to relay that I wanted Taehyung to keep his distance. I had my baton ready to stick in his asshole if things went awry. But anyway, I had to concentrate on the current situation that was out of hand now.

So I flew for the elevator, pressing the button to highlight the number three. The figure of the number honestly looked like the bumps of my ass that was about to be fucked with a cactus. So woo hoo! Prophecy, I guess.

"Haerin, you've faced him before, right?"

Oh fuuuuuuccckkk.

My brain was kicking me in the shin every time she spoke.

"Is—Is he going to make this serious? I don't want to get into any serious trouble." Her voice was shaking now. Her fingers gripped the laptop tightly to her chest, eyes wide with fear so white that it matched her knuckles.

I cleared my throat, flashed by a sudden stroke of sympathy for her.

"I'll try to talk to him. Relax." I said softly, trying to use it to soothe her.

She nodded, not convinced yet. Well, don't be convinced, Seulgi. It's your ass that's going to be on fire. God, why was my butt smoking then?

When we halted on the third floor, my mission to save myself was on for war. The elevator doors slid open and we entered the Antarctic arena. My hands shook and I looked around for any signs of a familiarly tight butt.

Phew. Safe.

"D—Do you know where his office is?" Seulgi continued rapping behind me like we were in a nineties music video. "Is it here?"

I let her follow, arriving at that bastard's door too quickly for my health. I knocked once, pushing it open with all my strength. Everything was normal. Everything was fine.

Just kidding.

The cold from his air conditioner vents whooshed inside my skirt. My knees twitched and I lagged.

Bad move.

Seulgi's body thrashed into my back. I buckled and took her with me on the floor.

"Hae—!" That's all that Seulgi managed to say.

I had already accepted my fate I didn't even make a sound as I fell chest-first on the floor, saving my face by inches.

Fuck.

Fuck!

I elbowed myself up, still on my fours when I looked at the shiny shoes approaching us.

Oh, good lord.

Jungkook waited to lend his hand to Seulgi first. Seulgi. My eyes flashed at him because what the fuck? I was closer to him. I knew him better than Seulgi. Why the fuck did he help her first?

"Miss Kang?" His gaze shifted to my body which was still on all fours. "You need help too?"

I rolled my eyes, quickly getting to my feet and straightening my blouse and skirt. My bra had slipped a bit to the side and I fixed it. He noticed and blinked away, brows twitching as if he wanted to punch some realisation into me.

He walked back to his desk, pulling the sleeves of his shirt up. "Is Miss Haerin Kang representing Mr Min?"

I gulped, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear, "Yes. I'm here on his behalf. I—I hope you haven't released the email about the incident yet, Mr Jeon."

His gaze caught mine as if I had just grown a moustache on my face. "I said I wouldn't, to Miss Kang next to you."

Yeah, right bitch. I was just checking!

My head bobbed, my crotch already cold as fuck and my body taking the hit very well when I felt my jaw chatter. I bit my teeth, trying to contain it.

Seulgi lowered herself next to me, "Good morning, Mr Jeon." She politely began.

"Morning." Jungkook turned to his computer screen, relentlessly typing for a quick second. Then, his eyes shifted to me, and he raised a brow, "Good morning to you too, Miss Kang. It's going to get confusing with your surnames like this. Please find a way for me to address."

On second thought, I didn't remember a single time I had wished or greeted this man. Not that he deserved it but why didn't I ever even greet him?

"How about Kang-aroo?" I tried to laugh but it turned watery because the situation was clearly not it. "Shi—I mean, ugh. Nevermind. It was a joke. A bad one. Just—just Haerin is fine."

Seulgi was turning into pale ash with my first mistake. And she obviously had to because I was royally fucking up and I hadn't even started.

"Are you sure?" Jungkook's lips twitched. Something was obviously very funny to him. He needed that smile punched off his face real quick to remind him who he was dealing with.

"For now." I clarified, placing my hand on the desk between us. "Just, for now."

He blinked. Then, he didn't blink at all. For a second his eyes just sat there, pinning me in a strangely suspicious way.

Something weird happened in my belly.

He wasn't even glaring, just staring as if trying to tell me something with that look.

But I was not a fucking mind-reader so I just scowled, confused.

"Okay, Haerin." He said, slow and deliberate.

My face exploded.

Ah, yes. So this is what this bastard meant with those eyes. This felt way too personal for some reason. I shouldn't have done that but pregnancy had arrived. The child was already in my belly. I couldn't cry over spilt fuck-ups.

This motherfucking dog. He had to always make it sharper than it was supposed to be. Had Seulgi not been here, my sentences would have wrapped around his neck with at least three censored words by now.

I gulped, clearing my throat and pushing myself back in the seat, to get away from this dung beetle of a man. I tried to fan my face to beat the sudden heat.

"Miss Seulgi Kang," Jungkook leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk as his fingers laced together. "On the afternoon of yesterday, your device remained logged into Neureva's internal VPN from an unsecured network. Can you explain why?"

Seulgi visibly paled. "I—I didn't realise it was still on. I just stepped out—"

"For over three hours," Jungkook cut in, voice cool and slow. "Your VPN session remained active. That's three hours of open tunnel access into our core system from a location pinging as a commercial café. Do you understand the liability that creates?"

She blinked rapidly. "I—I wasn't working during that time."

"Exactly," he replied flatly. "Which makes it worse. You weren't monitoring the device. You weren't logged out. No endpoint lock, no kill switch. If that network had been compromised, our internal database could've been scraped without us knowing."

He turned to his screen and clicked through something with clinical efficiency.

Why the fuck was he in his scary mode again?!

"We've already revoked your session token and marked your login as suspicious. You're lucky we caught it before any crawl signatures were detected. That's not something I can say for everyone who makes a mistake like this."

A pause.

"You're aware this violates Network Access Policy 4.3, Section C—correct?"

Seulgi looked like she might faint. And I would recommend that she faint so that I could get the hell out of there.

"Y—Yes, I apologise for the trouble, Mr Jeon." She rushed to cover up.

"I am not who you need to apologise to," He sharply stabbed the hundredth knife in our egos. "This is reflective of incompetence on your part. If anything, I suggest you be apologetic to yourself. For the years of your hard work that were on the line right now."

Oh my god. Was he fucking crazy? What the hell was with this jab?!

Seulgi's eyes flashed with a shimmer and I knew that she had reached her limit in this conversation. I reached for her hand under the table and squeezed it, telling her to stop.

"Thank you for your timely action, Mr Jeon. I really appreciate it." I cut in and his eyes moved to me, the cutting glare simmering down a bit. "Seulgi has been fed this back upstairs, too, and I will make sure that she is careful about this. I have been through the training sessions for cybersecurity and that gives me the needed experience to guide her."

He didn't say a word. Just listened.

I cleared my throat, "I just have one request to make. Can you release the email about Seulgi's mistake only to me and copy Seulgi in on that?"

His brows furrowed, chin on his knuckles like he was posing for a wristwatch advertisement. "Are you telling me not to report this to your manager, Haerin?"

I jerked up to sit straighter like I had a vibrator in my ass. The sound of my name was horrible coming from his mouth. Horrible.

"Yes. I'll take responsibility for her feedback and her actions. Please can you only mark me for this email?" I blinked and then bit my lip.

He stared hard, probably judging and probably calling me all sorts of bitchy slang in his head but meh. Who cared if I couldn't hear them aloud? Not me.

His gaze shifted to something else. He didn't look that annoyed by my request. Just slightly alarmed.

"Haerin, you know that it is not—"

"Mr Jeon," I stressed and something flicked between us. My urge to use a bad word. That's what it was.

I turned to Seulgi, "Seulgi, please can you leave us and pass on this update to the rest of the team to keep their VPN actions in check?"

She hastily nodded and then bounded out of there so fast that I heard her breathing hard. Pitiful. I knew what it felt like to have made such a mistake, and on top of that, to face this bastard. I didn't have anyone else beside me to cover for me when he first launched his attacks at me. In retrospect, it was good that I didn't back down.

As soon as she left, Jungkook leaned back in his chair, peeling the snake skin off like second nature. He was more 'chaos' now. That bastard.

"Mr Jeon." I turned to him as soon as the door shut.

"Haerin." He rolled it off his tongue like he was reading a guidebook.

"No." I snapped. "That was only till Seulgi was here. Switch back to Miss Kang now."

"Miss Kang, your request is rather criminal." He continued in a deadpanned expression, sizing my face up now. "Not informing your manager about the mess your teammate made? Atrocious."

"Can you do it or not?" My brows twitched, my stomach gutted, my jaw tightened.

His eyes caught my fingers picking at his nameplate on the desk between us. Then, he looked at me.

"Is that a nervous tic or are you trying to steal my name?"

Ugh.

I rolled my eyes, pulling my hand away, "Please. The only time I'll steal your name will be for a restraining order."

He smirked, massaging his jawline as if it wasn't sharp enough already. "Your team member made a mistake, Miss Kang. This is the perfect opportunity for you to teach her the consequences of something like this. Why would you hide it from Mr Min?"

"I'm their manager," I cut in, "Assistant, but a manager nonetheless. Before they turn to Mr Min, they turn to me so I'm much more responsible for them than you think I am."

He tilted his head, eyes narrowing with concentration to whatever the hell I was saying.

"They're new, they're learning and they're going to make mistakes. I mean, it's not like I haven't." I chuckled awkwardly. "But—I can't stand humiliation. I'll murder them in private. I can't let them be discouraged. I'll reserve Mr Min's anger for me for now."

He stopped rotating his chair.

A pause. One longer than usual.

"You're weirdly...nurturing. Almost God-complex like."

I rolled my eyes again. "God-complex? Really? I'm perfectly capable of hearing a no so if you can't do it, just tell me, yeah?"

"Honestly, Miss Kang?" He said with a dramatically long face. "What you need is a rather big favour. The only reason I'd do something like this for you for free would be if I fancied you."

I scowled slowly, "So, you mean you need something in return?"

"Not unless you're offering."

My left eye twitched. This bastard was still getting on my nerves. The audacity. The sheer audacity of him.

"Offering what?"

He smirked, relishing my queasy situation. "Say three nice things about me. That should bag you this favour."

What the hell did he think this was, a Build-a-Bastard workshop?

"You're kidding."

I blinked.

"I'm serious." He folded his hands on his chest. "Come on. Three things. Shouldn't be that hard."

"You would think." I rolled my eyes. "Fine. Fine. I'll try...for my team."

"For your team." He nodded.

I gulped, stealing a glance at the nameplate. "I like this." I pointed at it.

"That's not me. So no, not working."

"Fine..." I growled, squeezing my knees together. My face was beginning to grow hot for a damned reason I didn't know. I gulped, opening my mouth, "You're...good at your job."

My eyes flicked to his face for his approval.

He was smiling. "Good start. Go on."

Ugh. This rascal.

"Um... you're intimidating in a good way," I explained, the sweat finally catching up on my warm face. "I mean, you know how to deal with people to get work done. That kind of thing."

"Mhm." He acknowledged. "Do I intimidate you, Miss Kang? Am I scary?"

My head snapped at him, "I said people. Not me."

"Right." He smiled. "Definitely, not you."

"And...the third thing..." I cleared my throat, my eyes involuntarily travelling to the tightly fit vest around his chest, the arms...and fuck. I looked away, flustered my own brain. "You have...good veiny arms—hands...I don't know what that part is called."

He stalled. His eyes grew wide and he leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk. His eyes were fixated on my combusting face.

Shit. I said the wrong thing. Kill me. Kill me, please.

"Veiny arms?" He lifted his hand, twisting it to show me the back of it as if re-verifying my statement.

"I'm talking about in a manly way!" I tried to defend and well, I certainly dug my grave deeper. "Like, your hands look like they could kill a man. With spreadsheets!" I rushed to defend.

He didn't buy it.

His smile grew knowing, "Would you like to be protected or destroyed by them?"

What the fuck—?

I scooted up, too flustered to watch myself being torn to pieces by him. "There's three things. I've done what you wanted so keep your end of the bargain. Goodbye—"

He chuckled under his breath. "Good work standing up for your team. You'll make a perfect umbrella, you know?"

I rolled my eyes, "And you'll make the perfect rain."

"Is that right?" He snapped his fingers. "I gotta be a bad boy, I gotta be a bad boy~"

"Argh! I'm done." I turned around and fled from there because I just couldn't take it that this bastard was happy.

Behind me, I heard him chuckle and say, "Careful, Haerin. That umbrella of yours is showing."

Son of a bi—