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Chapter 5
Back at her desk, Han Bom finally lost her patience. She pulled off one of her shoes, thrust it toward Seol Tae-geon, and jabbed at the color chart on her phone with fiery conviction.
“Look. Cherry Red, Chili Red, Vivid Pink, Dusty Rose, Brick Rose, Peach Beige. My shoes aren’t just red. They’re Brick Rose.”
Faced with her intensity, Seol Tae-geon quietly wheeled his chair backward.
“See for yourself. It’s a calm, lonely red, isn’t it?”
“Why on earth is that important right now?”
“Of course it’s important! I can’t believe you didn’t even know the ATO Beauty color chart. I’m shocked.”
The word shocked pricked his pride. He had been too caught up in company matters to bother about colors. And now she was belittling him just because he’d called red red?
He shot up from his seat.
“Fine. I’ll memorize the entire chart in one day. But you—don’t you ever wear those red shoes again.”
“Not red.”
“Right, right. No more B-R-I-C-K R-O-S-E.”
“U-n-d-e-r-s-t-o-o-d.”
Her response was calm, firm, almost mechanical. That quick submission after such heated arguing made him blink.
“Then I’ll take my leave. And do make sure to memorize that chart. Make su~re!”
Bom bowed, turned, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Out in the hall, she clutched the doorknob, biting down hard on her lips.
‘If not for work…’
Her hand trembled on the knob. Rage simmered inside her at an environment that even tried to strip away her personal style.
‘Calm down. You have to manage your image. Breathe.’
Just as she steadied herself and turned around—
“H-Han Secretary, are you all right?”
To her surprise, some staff were still there, clutching wallets and jackets. She’d assumed everyone had left for lunch.
“We were waiting to go with you, remember?”
“You and the Vice President actually argue sometimes?”
At someone’s tactless remark, Jung Joo-eun jabbed the speaker in the ribs to shut them up. Bom squeezed her eyes shut. The thought of bickering about shoe colors, and loudly at that, made her burn with embarrassment.
*
After lunch, gathered at a café, the secretarial team’s topic was, of course, Seol Tae-geon.
“The Vice President went too far earlier.”
“Totally. I knew he was picky, but scolding someone over shoe color? This isn’t school.”
“Honestly, only Han Secretary could put up with him. I’d quit in a day.”
Everyone nodded in vehement agreement.
“Usually he isn’t that bad,” Bom tried weakly. “He was probably just tired.”
Her attempt at defense only drew pitying looks.
“You’re still covering for him?”
“Unbelievable. You’re actually defending him?”
Bom waved her hands. “No, no, that’s not it—”
“Sure it is. You know you’re always voted No. 1 female ‘company wannabe’ every year on the employee community site, right?”
Bom blinked. She had no idea what they were talking about.
“You didn’t know?”
She knew the company had an online board, but she barely had time to check her phone at work. And after work? There was no such thing as after work for a secretary. At home she buried herself in writing web novels, her only escape.
“That’s so like you. If it’s not work or the company, you don’t care.”
Next to her, Joo-eun sipped her iced Americano and teased, “Pretty face, great figure, graceful yet charismatic—of course people admire you.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“It’s rare for women to admire another woman. But maybe your biggest charm is that you don’t even realize it yourself.”
Laughter and applause followed. Bom smiled awkwardly.
‘Me? A wannabe?’
She hardly saw herself that way. She wasn’t glamorous—she was someone clawing through life, supporting her younger siblings, repaying her father’s debts, and searching for her missing mother.
Her only true reprieve was writing. Stories gave her breath. Reading novels had once been her refuge—now she created that refuge herself.
And when she wrote 19+ scenes, her whole body tingled like electric fireworks. Her stress from work simply dissolved.
Perhaps that was why her writing had flowed so easily ever since she started working as Seol Tae-geon’s secretary.
“By the way,” Joo-eun leaned in. “Did you do something to make the Vice President dislike you?”
Before Bom could ask why, the others waved it off.
“No way. Bom could never get on his bad side.”
“Exactly. She’s achieved Zen enlightenment just by working under him.”
Yet Joo-eun shook her head. “Something’s off. Think about it—Han Secretary, you haven’t been attending his golf or breakfast meetings for about a month, right?”
Bom nodded. Normally she always accompanied him. But Chief Secretary Choi had volunteered to join those outings instead, giving Bom rare free mornings.
“I heard the VP dragged him along even when he didn’t want to go. These days, late-night calls too—always to Chief Choi.”
Now that they mentioned it, the constant summons that used to interrupt her days and nights had stopped. She’d noticed, but brushed it off.
Another colleague raised her hand. “And remember the AI skin diagnosis results presentation a month ago?”
Everyone nodded; Bom remembered too.
“During the developer’s PPT, the VP kept glaring at you the whole time.”
While the others looked confused, Bom alone stayed composed.
‘So he was glaring then too.’
She’d always known Seol Tae-geon didn’t like her. She spoke her mind when others bowed, and that naturally rubbed him the wrong way.
She recalled Chairman Seol Gu-cheon’s words:
‘Bom, you know Tae-geon lacks flexibility. He’s never lost, so he doesn’t know how. You’re the only one who can stand up to him. Be that person for him.’
‘I’m not fit for that role, Chairman.’
‘You underestimate yourself. That’s why I value you. You make the people beside you shine. Can’t you use that gift—for Tae-geon?’
Bom had never thought of herself that way. To her, she was only a cursed being—
‘A worthless wretch who never should’ve been born.’
Her father’s voice from the past still cut deep.
“Han Secretary? Are you listening?”
Im Hyun-joo shook her arm gently.
“Sorry. I was lost in thought. What did you say?”
“I asked if you remembered what the VP missed that day.”
“Oh, right. He’d told me to collect the clinical trial reports from the lab while he was out.”
She had gotten the printouts, turned around—and found him gone. She’d rushed into the hall just in time to see the elevator doors close with him inside. Their eyes had met, she was sure. Yet he denied it later.
“That’s the thing,” Hyun-joo whispered. “I was inside that elevator. He saw you and slammed the close button like his life depended on it. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Bom’s expression hardened.
‘So he lied to me.’
Her hand curled into a fist under the table.
“Are you sure nothing’s going on between you two?” someone teased.
“Maybe you’re just too good at your job?”
Another chimed in, “Chairman Seol adored you. When I joined, I honestly thought you were his daughter. He bragged about you constantly—even in front of the board, even in front of Vice President Seol.”
Bom gnawed on her straw, replaying Tae-geon’s strange behavior. For nearly a month, he had been avoiding her. Never before in five years had he done that.
She glanced down at the striped slippers she wore instead of her Brick Rose heels.
‘He hasn’t picked fights with me lately either… almost like he can’t stand being near me.’
As these thoughts spun in her mind—
“Enjoying your tea time?”
The women’s eyes lit up with awe, gazes fixed on someone behind Bom.
She turned—and locked eyes with Seol Gi-hyuk, his crescent-shaped eyes warm and refined.
“Secretary Bom, it’s been a while.”
His gentle, sunlit voice melted the tension coiled inside her. Heat flooded her cheeks.
