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Chapter 1: The Problem

"Can you stop a bit ahead of our headquarters, at the Subway?" he asks Kwang-Beom. "I'm still a bit hungry."

***

"I've told you, lady, the CEO isn't here right now!" exclaims Executive Secretary Pyo-Chi-Su, staring down the determined woman who's appeared in front of his desk at Vast Headquarters.

Yoon Se-ri blows air out of her mouth in an irritated fashion, and then reminds herself of the old adage. Honey catches more flies than vinegar. She tucks a strand of her black hair behind her ear and straightens her navy-blue suit and pencil skirt.

"Pyo Chi-Su-ssi," Se-ri needles, flashing him her most winning smile. "Just tell me where he's gone. Or when he'll be back. I'm more than happy to wait."

Pyo Chi-Su doesn't seem impressed by her change in approach.

"I told you, I don't know when he'll be back. And even when he does come back, he's clearly said that he doesn't want to do interviews, especially with no-name papers that no one has ever heard of!"

"Hey!" No one insults her newspaper. Se-ri is seething. "We made the list of top ten rising media startups this year, for your kind information. Just because you are too dumb to read a newspaper doesn't mean that the rest of Korea is. "

Pyo Chi-Su groans at her insults and presses a button on his desk phone.

"Aigoo, Eun-Dong, why did you let this woman in here again? We talked about this!"

"Uhhh..." Eun-Dong's voice sounds flustered over the intercom. "I'm so sorry. But she looked so sad when I said I couldn't let her in, she looked like she was going to cry..."

Pyo Chi-Su squints at the smirking woman in front of him – not a sign of tears in her eyes. He sighs in a belabored way and presses another button on the phone.

"Ju-Meok," Pyo Chi-Su complains, "what kind of security guard are you?"

"I apologize," comes over the speakerphone, "But she really doesn't look dangerous. And she said she'd get me Choi Ji-Woo's autograph."

"I'm doing an interview with her next month," adds Se-ri helpfully.

"Ahhhh!" Pyo Chi-Su waves his arms in the air angrily. "What kind of idiot people does this company hire? Don't you know, when the CEO gets back from his parents' house, he's going to be so angry-" he gasps and slaps his hand over his mouth, but it's too late.

"Parents' house, huh?" asks Se-ri, leaning over the desk triumphantly.

Pyo Chi-Su looks very alarmed.

"I'll just be heading out then," says Se-ri, shooting him a smile. "I guess I have some research to do...but it shouldn't be difficult to find out where they live."

"You witch!" Pyo Chi-Su cries at her receding back, "If you go there, the security guards will get you! And they won't be as forgiving as Ju-Mook!"

She just waves at him without looking back, her sharp heels making small marks on the office carpet.

Pyo Chi-Su grips his forehead with his hands. "Aigoo, I hate this job."

***

When Ri Jeong-Hyeok walks out of Subway with his sandwich, he's greeted by the sight of more paparazzi than he can count. There are at least ten of them gathered around his black Jaguar with cameras, pestering a flustered Gwang-Beom. There are paparazzi lining the entrance to his headquarters next door, blocking the glass windows of the building, taking up the whole sidewalk and jostling to get closer to the door, where Vast's burly looking security guards are keeping them at bay.

"Oi!" cries a young photographer, pointing to Jeong-Hyeok as soon as he catches sight of him.

The entire crowd whips around, and Jeong-Hyeok does the first thing he can think of. He makes a mad dash back into the Subway, weaving through customers and pushing them to the side and heading for the door at the back of the restaurant, which has a secret entrance to Vast headquarters. He flings the metal door open and throws himself inside, finding himself inside a glass plated hallway on the first floor.

But it's really not his day, because what he hasn't calculated is that the paparazzi would be right on his tail – and when they get through the door, they'll have evaded the security guards, who are being kept busy at the regular entrance.

And that's how Ri Jeong-Hyeok finds himself sprinting through the first floor of his own building, twenty reporters behind him and a Subway sandwich clenched desperately in his hand.

Their voices are a din in his ear, with only a few loud phrases making their way to his ears.

"Ri Jeong-Hyeok!"

"Why did you break up with Seo-Dan?"

"Did you cheat on her?"

He finds the stairs at the end of the hallway and runs up those too, thanking God that he's kept up a steady fitness routine. Many of the voices behind him grow farther away, but he hears a few of the particularly tenacious ones following him up the stairs. This is getting ridiculous, he thinks, as he springs around a very startled old man who's clearly a VAST employee, and who was clearly not expecting this commotion during his lunch hour.

Jeong-Hyeok dashes out onto the next floor on the stairwell – he doesn't even know which one it is – and runs past rows and rows of white and glass offices, still hearing a few reporters calling behind him.

"Just one picture, sir!" calls one of them.

Damn them! If he could just get to his office...

His office, which is on the thirtieth floor, he realizes with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Suddenly, as if in answer to his prayers, he sees the elevator ahead of him, its clear glass doors on their way shut. Jeong-Hyeok picks up the pace and sprints to catch the elevator, shoving his hands into the door and forcing it wide open.

There's a woman in the elevator, he sees, and the adrenaline filling his body makes the moment slow down. She's wearing a navy-blue suit, not designer but certainly not cheap, with thick black shoulder-length hair framing her face.

And she's looking at him with wide eyes, as if she is not quite sure what she's seeing.

The shouts of the paparazzi rouse him from his reverie, and looking away from her, he sees them sprinting towards the elevator, security guards on their tails.

In another moment, he realizes, they'll be here, and they'll able to force the elevator doors open. And then they'll have him good and cornered. Him and this poor woman, who certainly doesn't deserve what's about to happen.

He needs to startle them, his mind tells him urgently. He needs to startle them so they'll stop for a moment.

The woman in the elevator clears her throat, and Ri Jeong-Hyeok turns his head towards her desperately. He needs a distraction. And an idea forms in his mind.

A very bad, very idiotic idea.

"CEO Ri?" the woman asks, looking up at him.

"Daepyonim!" shouts a paparazzo, closing in on the elevator. "Just one answer!"

And Ri Jeong-Hyeok makes a decision. He quickly grabs the woman and turns her away from the elevator door, bringing his lips down upon hers.