Seulgi made sure that her father had the password to use her Wi-Fi. She fluffed her cat. Grabbed a lunch for her and Yeji. She grabbed her briefcase, phone, earbuds, keys, and company badge before she even opened the door. Under her phone, she saw the card for a counselor that Wendy’s Mother suggested. She didn’t think for a moment that it was not Yeji who moved the card there as a subtle reminder.

  Seulgi was in a grey motif today. From head to toe, she was in a shade of grey.

  Yeji was in red. However, she had forgotten the rules for clothes when she had id hers out. So, her red outfit had not-too-subtle patches of white and grey mixed liberally with the red. She would be spending most of the day plucking the excess colors off her outfit.

  Yeji would also have that added joy and confusion of finding a piece bit of cat hair in her mouth about four hours after having left the apartment. Suki was indeed magical. In a Puck-ish sort of way.

  Then, to Seulgi’s surprise, Alfred sent her off with a kiss on her forehead and a pat on her butt, just like he did when she was eight. She heard the roar of his ughter as he saw the look of shock on her face as the door was closing.

  Seeing this, Yeji accepted the kiss to the forehead but blocked the butt pat. She knew that he was treating her as if she were his daughter, not trying to flirt with a much younger woman. Besides, they all knew that if Yeji didn’t break his hand, Seulgi would. If Seulgi didn’t, her mother most certainly would. And no one wanted that, including Alfred.

  Yeji looked over to Seulgi as they started walking. “Car?” she asked.

  “Car,” Seulgi confirmed.

  They linked arms and went to the elevator. They were OK on time, but Seulgi was still Seulgi and Things Happened. Besides, the elevator gave others less time to get in the car with them. They made it to the car park level without interruptions and made it to the car.

  When they reached the car, Seulgi noticed something in Yeji’s palm, but when she twitched her wrist, the object disappeared. Though tempted to ask what it was, she decided against it. Yeji would deny having had anything anyway.

  They got into her car, backed out of the space, and went to the office.

  Once parked, they got all their stuff and headed to the stairs. Up they went, meeting an occasional person. Seulgi saw a couple more wrist flicks but said nothing.

  About three-quarters the way up, they met Bhuwakul. He was waiting on the stairs with his back to the wall, waiting patiently. Yeji and Seulgi were both surprised and unsurprised at the same time. They wondered how he knew to meet them there, but chalked it up to Bhuwakul being Bhuwakul.

  He knew that they needed to talk about what they were going to say in the morning meeting, so he figured this would be a good pce to get their stories straight.

  Things to talk about:

  Jackson was found by the policeHe is fine and in the hospital with his familyHis kidnapper still not foundThings to NOT talk about:

  Seulgi’s near murderThe violent death of her near murdererAny association with the trigger finger of the person who killed her attempted murdererJackson was actually found by BhuwakulThey would leave any other details up to Seulgi to field on the fly. She sarcastically thanked them for their confidence. They both grinned in synchronized impudent innocence. She wanted to smack them both. She knew that the only way she would ever be able to smack either of them was if they let her. And that took the fun out of smacking them.

  She huffed up the rest of the stairs as they didn’t ever try to hide ughing at her reaction. And that annoyed her even further. The cycle continued. It was not their fault that Seulgi only got more adorable the more she got upset.

  Seulgi made sure to sm her office door as she entered it, timing it to be just in front of Yeji and Bhuwakul. He nearly got his finger caught as the doors shut. Instead of getting upset or offended, the Dastardly Duo just roared with ughter. This was the second group of people to ugh at her today. The first is her father.

  Seulgi squinted her eyes at nothing, thinking how this was shaping up to be one of Those Days. She sighed. She pulled out all of her daily office stuff and started powering everything up. Looking at the clock, she had about twenty minutes before people started showing up.

  She went to the break room and put her lunch in the fridge. Evidently, she had a frowny face because most people left her alone when they would normally be greeting her. While in the breakroom, she got herself a tea. Bck tea, two sugars this morning.

  She let the tea bag seep as she went back to her office. She made a concerted effort to loosen up her face and be more approachable. She made a deliberate attempt to smile and greet people on the way back. The people in the office rexed as well and the office brightened up. Maybe today would not be as bad as they were thinking that it would be.

  This time, when entering her office she left the door open. The Twins came in and started to set up the chairs for the meeting. They were quietly chattering like a couple of bright little jays. They were dressed in solids and pastels like bright little things, too.

  Soon, the rest filtered in. Everyone was chattering, talking about this and that, nothing specific. There was a stir in the outer office that they tried to ignore until the Big Boss showed up. Nayeon jumped up like a cat who got her tail stepped on. Everyone else stood up slightly slower than Nayeon. Nayeon ran over and got another chair as the boss took hers.

  Seulgi sighed and gred at the same time, but said nothing. He smiled like a small, portly, hellish cherub. Everybody but Bhuwakul sat straighter and got quieter.

  “May as well get started. Everybody OK?” Seulgi started in her usual way. She was answered by a chorus of responses, mostly good or positive.

  “OK. We have some good news today. But, business first. Nayeon, would you like to start?”

  Nayeon had an odd look on her face but started her report. Everything was running how it was supposed to, everything was within tolerance, despite a hiccup or two. And those would be fixed today. She looked to Yeji.

  Yeji cleared her throat, She acted like nothing happened yesterday. She was not in a potentially life threatening altercation and watched a man die, but that did not affect her ability to deliver a report.

  Seulgi began to wonder if this had happened before and it was easy for her to pretend everything was OK.

  Min-Jeong announced what she was working on. She then said that she was having trouble with a particur issue. She said that she had tried two ways to resolve it, but neither worked. She wants to try this specific third way but would like advice if this was the right way to approach it. They spent quite a bit of time talking back and forth on ways to address it.

  Once she had three or four ways to approach the issue, they moved on to Yeojin. She also had an issue. She said that she was having issues with dealing with a particur person. Nothing bad or objectionable, just that they were difficult to work with. The problem was that it boiled down to a personality conflict. They just didn’t like each other. That made it difficult to work together.

  Seulgi, taking the lead, said that this was a problem everyone dealt with. It was impossible to get along with everyone. However, this was a business and they were not there to make friends. So, she would have to find a way to deal with this person. They spent another length of time discussing ways to deal with contrary people.

  Seulgi made sure to give examples of how a recalcitrant employee might deal with an obstinate boss. She gave vish details without looking directly at the Big Boss in the room. He, on the other hand, was smiling with fiendish glee. Then, he spoke for the first time and gave a viable suggestion on how to approach prickly people and while you’ll never be friends, you can be acquaintances and have a smoother work retionship.