"The meeting is over."
Yu concluded, scraping the chair and smoothing the lapels of his expensive suit as if our words had been nothing more than thin threads that were on his suit to be brushed away. He didn't glance back or throw another short remark before he crossed the door.
The glass door clicked shut behind him as if that mocked us. For exactly three seconds, nobody moved, and nobody breathed then.
"Han.Sung.min."
Bongseon chairs backward with a deafening screech against the floor. She sped towards me so fast that her bobbed hair swayed and whipped at the force, her eyes wide as if seeing me possessed by a ghost.
"Have you completely lost your mind?"
Her hand smacked flat on the meeting table that rattled the water glass on it, and she leaned forward. Her usual colour and composed self evaporated entirely. I have seen her like this before, maybe a few times, and now I had to cut this one too.
Minjae rubbed the bridge of his nose with a long, weary sigh before he lifted his head to meet my gaze.
"Hyung," he said slowly, as if explaining something to a child, "we already met him, right? He just said no, a flat-out no, in our faces. How could you…" He trailed off, gesturing at the empty doorway where Yu had disappeared, then back at me, his hand dropping weakly as if all his energy had drained. "…How could you promise that?"
I nodded once. Just one time. "Yes. We did. And he indeed said no."
"Then why?" Bongseon asked, her voice pitched higher, her fingers curling against the table as if she were stopping herself from throwing hands on me. "Why would you stake our entire recruitment process on someone who already rejected us?"
I stared at her, feeling a sense of self-deprecation as my heart jumped beneath my ribs.
"Because he refused an offer that came out of nowhere."
Bongseon blinked.
Junwoo, who had been silent until now, slowly unfurled his arms. His head tilted slightly, and his dragger-like eyes stared into my soul with a curiosity that made my skin prickle. He didn't speak, but I could feel the weight of his attention pressing down on me.
I persisted calmly, "I mean, maybe if we had offered him after analysing more. After understanding what he needed. After showing him why this position actually matters…" I exhaled shakily. "Maybe the answer would have been different."
Maybe not.
Bongseon's jaw dropped, literally dropped. Her eye darted toward Junwoo, then back to me, as if checking whether I was genuinely hearing the words leaving my own mouth.
"…What?"
I smiled bitterly. The kind smile that didn't quite reach my eyes.
"I don't mean...I mean maybe he needs time. Or maybe we needed to take time," I shrugged with uncertainty. "Instead of ambushing him with a proposal before he'd even seen our faces twice."
No one spoke after what I said. The silence stretched between us, so suffocating and uncomfortable.
Minjae broke it first, with his quieter voice, where the fight of proving a point was replaced with something I couldn't name. "But hyung…even if we had taken time…I don't think he would have said yes."
There was something beneath his words. A flicker of knowledge I hadn't expected. Of course Minjae would definitely know Joohwan through Taekwang. He'd seen that emptiness up close. Maybe more than I did. Maybe he understood better than the rest of us what we were up against.
My gaze flicked to Junwoo to see if he would question why and what Minjae was talking about, and I glanced at Bongseon; her frown deepened more at Minjae's words before I spoke up. "Who knows?" I paused, glancing down at the white table. The lights above us were reflecting off its glass surface, like stars.
"When I tasted his food...it felt like I had finally found what we've been searching for all these months. Like a memory I didn't know I'd been missing."
I lifted my head, forcing myself to look at each of them before continuing, "If we had tried more, maybe we could have reached him. But even if he'd said yes, we still needed to verify his qualifications, his experience, and everything that would've put him through the same evaluation as every other candidate." I paused, letting my words settle not just for them but for me too.
"So this week the focus is just time. Time to do what we should have done from the beginning."
Junwoo shifted in the chair, crossing his arms again but slower this time, more deliberate. "So you're going back," he finally said.
It wasn't a question.
I met his gaze. "I have to."
Minjae and Bongseon exchanged a glance. A long, searching look that passed between them like a silent conversation. When they turned back to me, I could see the question written straight on their faces: 'Is he serious? 'Are we really doing this?'
Then Junwoo did something unexpected.
He shook his head not in dismissal or in disappointment and let out a quiet laugh. The sound was low, almost affectionate, like he'd just found something surprising about an old friend.
"It feels good to see the old Han Sungmin-ssi again, dae-ri-nim," he said, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "It's been a while since I have seen you that stubborn again."
I blinked, caught off guard. I thought I had misheard, but no, he said what he said.
The old Han Sungmin.
Maybe I had buried that version of myself somewhere beneath the exhaustion that came from being an assistant manager. Beneath the endless reports and meetings. Maybe I had forgotten that I was the person who once guided these two without any hesitation. The one who had believed in Junwoo when he was just a shy novice intern, who had defended Bongseon when senior staff dismissed her ideas, and who had followed Minaje into this department with nothing but rust and a stubborn refusal to give up.
But now…
Now this was about someone who had convinced himself that the world no longer had a place for him. Someone who had walked away before anyone could even reach out a hand. Someone who had already been swilled by the same snake of darkness that had wrapped around Yoonsuh until there was nothing left to save.
If I walked away now, I'd be proving him right. I'd be proving that darkness always wins. That reaching out was pointless. That hope was just another word for denial.
And somehow…
Somehow, I couldn't accept that.
I straightened in my chair, letting the smile finally reach my eyes. "Yes," I said with a steady voice.
"I guess it's time to be who I am. I have to try. If I don't..." I stopped, swallowed, and pushed forward. "If I don't, then I am no better than people who just give up on small things and then show their power, right?"
These weren't my words; it was Junwoo's. It was the same words he told me when he defended Bongseon against a senior manager who'd tried to push her out of a project she'd poured her heart into. The same words that made me look at him differently than I did even before he was my manager.
He remembered too. I could see it in my eyes; his softened in an almost impossible relaxation of his shoulders.
"Took you long enough to remember," Junwoo said quietly.
Bongseon's face softened in a fraction of a second. Just enough for me to notice. Minaje let out a breath he seemed to have been holding, his shoulder finally dropping from his defensive mode.
"Then we'd better get to work," he said quietly. "One week isn't much time."
"It's enough," I replied with a grin. "It has to be."
Junwoo nodded once, a gesture of finality. "I'll clear your schedule, Han Dae-ri-nim, and yours too, Park Tim-jang-nim, just in case our dae-rim-nim needs help." His gaze swept from me to Minae. "Consider the rest of the week dedicated to this, rather than focusing more on your love life."
Minaje almost rolled his eyes, but his lips betrayed him.
"And me, Gwa-jang-nim?" Bongseon asked, her voice carrying the faintest edge of offence. "What am I supposed to do while those two are off chasing ghosts?"
"We could do some research work together, Miss Kang," Junwoo said, sweeping his gaze at her, and for the first time I had noticed a glitter in his eyes.
I blinked my eyes; I must have mistaken it for Bongseon's. I said to myself and looked at Bongseon and saw the twins. Yes, it is hers. I thought of nodding my head.
"We dig into his background with the help of Park Tim-jang-nim." He added and turned to Minjae, whose eyes widened in surprise.
"What do you mean?" Minjae asked almost like a whine.
"You don't always follow around Mr Han, Minjae-ssi. At the office, you could help us gather the background that we haven't found before the first meeting. Like his training, his work, any connections he might have in the industry."
Bongseon snorted, but she was already reaching for her phone. "Alright."
While Minjae looked like a defeated puppy with a handful. I couldn't help but smile in amusement. I know about Minjae's work. After all, he wasn't merely prompted to be our team leader for no reason. His ideas for projects are brilliant and help our company in many ways.
It's just that he acts all whiny sometimes.
"We have one week, Dae-ri-nim. Make it count," Junwoo said back with his business professionalism.
I met his gaze with a fullness of confidence. "Yes, Gwa-jang-nim."
Junwoo let out a steady breath and inclined his head, a gesture of dismissal and approval combined.
"Get to work, all of you." He said.
I rose from my chair, my legs feeling steadier than they had any right to. The meeting was over, but this…
This was just the beginning.