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"Good morning, CEO Jeon."

Jeongguk places a hand on his chest, startled by the sudden address to him, "Secretary Kim? What are you doing here?"

Secretary Kim points at his car, "Did you forget that you don't have your car? A pickup service."

"I have my bike, subway."

"I wouldn't want you to face any inconvenience." Secretary Kim clasps his hands in front of him and bows. Jeongguk sighs, walking to his car and sitting in the backseat. He shifts around until he finds a comfortable position.

"I forgot how it feels to sit in the back seat. It's been so long that someone drove for me."

"Didn't you sit in the back yesterday? In the cab?" Kim looks at him through the rearview mirror.

Jeongguk blinks, "Right, I meant— to the office, yeah, to the office. "

"Anyway, I am here to also discuss the proposal of Persona magazine with you."

"You could have done that in my cabin."

Secretary Kim stops at the red light and turns to look behind at Jeongguk, "You said we'll discuss this first thing in the morning."

"So it could have been in the lobby." Jeongguk shrugs. "You didn't have to come all the way down."

"Sir. You already have a breakfast meeting scheduled the moment you step inside the head office, I had to follow your orders, 'first thing in the morning'." Secretary Kim looks in front, driving the car again.

"How diligent..." Jeongguk mumbles. "So what about Persona's proposal? Are they looking for a collaboration?"

"No."

"Huh?" Jeongguk tenses in his seat.

"I heard an interesting thing at yesterday's dinner party."Jeongguk is taken aback by the amused tone of his secretary instead of his usual monotonic one, and if he's not wrong there is a hint of annoyance in it.

"As expected from a company like ON. Mr Park's secretary is very resourceful. She told me about Persona magazine's downfall."

"Downfall?"

"Apparently, no one buys or reads magazines anymore which makes sense since we have blogs and articles available on the phone so their sales have been pretty low in the US."

"So is this the way they plan to increase their sales?" Jeongguk says, eyes squinting.

"Bingo! But there's a catch." Secretary Kim says. " They have tried giving columns to foreign makeup artists from Europe, UK and India before and also the model in Korea I told you about? But their sales only grew 2% from what I can see on the graphs. I personally think they have understood that nothing they would do would cause a stir and have approached us."

"Okay, and how did we come into the picture? And why is nowhere mentioned a collaboration?"

"Tell me, CEO Jeon, what do you think would sell more?" Secretary Kim smiles, a knowing tone lacing his words. "Two business rivals who are dating, collaborate over a project or two business rivals who are dating, compete over a project."

...

"I have decided to take up the Persona proposal. Send the approval mail to them and get the concerned teams ready." Minhee tells Dahyun as both of them walk inside the Wings head office. "Also, get me a list of trending models."

Wings, as per Yoon Daejun's dreams, is a company that allows people to dream and hence it's 103 storey structure that leaves no bounds for someone's ambitions. Minhee's cabin is situated in the topmost possible floor, the 99th.

The rest four are an observatory, terrace, a cafe and a network accessing space. Minhee thinks her father was very smart when it came to 'promoting' makeup. When people refused to open their hearts to makeup, he opened observatories and top notch cafes in the building itself for people to get a reason to visit Wings.

When people visited, came across visually tempting products, they slowly started seeing makeup as something more. Now, with three observatories, multiple cafes and restaurants, sleeping pods and facilities—Wings stands as the most visited building during the tourist months.

"I have come to see CEO Min Yoon Hee! I won't go until I see her, how many times do I have to repeat myself?"

Minhee stops to see the commotion happening on the outside of the building. A few guards are trying to hold a man back who keeps shouting.

"Your CEO has crushed my life and yet you have the nerve to tell me to get out!"

...

"Is this the product you are referring to?" Dahyun asks the man who was causing the commotion.

To know what the commotion was all about, Minhee allowed the man to talk to her and let her know the issue. The first thing he did was to accuse her of being the reason his family got crushed and they should stop making products.

They are sitting in the conference room with the man, their managing director and his secretary along with a few staff from the customer service team.

He then takes out his phone and shows a photo of a woman. She had brown hair, heavily tanned skin and dark spots that enhanced the wrinkles of her skin. "This is my wife." he shoves the phone in Minhee's face who instinctively flinches back.

She balls her fists at the rude behaviour of the man but observes the picture, confused. Then he takes his phone back and scrolls past his photos and shows another picture. Minhee observes the picture. Black hair, lighter shade of skin without any wrinkles or spots.

It's the same woman but she looks younger and fairer.

"This! Can you recognize her?" the man yells.

"So you're telling me, that you saw this picture on our page and asked her to have...sexual relations with you...thinking that she was a random stranger and not your wife?" the managing director says, baffled. "Are you hearing yourself, Sir?"

"Yes, so? So what? Huh? What about it?" the man provokes. Minhee exhales, she is barely hanging from a thin thread of patience left in her. Dahyun holds her head in her hands. She can't believe what she is hearing.

"She had come here to buy something and ended up taking part in a survey. You guys released that photo without her permission. It's a scam! Your products! The whole makeup industry should burn! I am even about to lose my kid to her!"

The man fumes and looks at Minhee. Minhee smears down his nose, eyes piercing through the man, "Is anyone speaking rudely to you here, sir?"

He cocks an eyebrow, "Is it important if i speak politely to you about it? Fu—" the man stops when Minhee slaps her hand on the desk.

"Managing director, ask the wife's picture to be taken down including this man's comments as well."

The man scoffs, "What's the use of taking it down now? My family has already fallen apart! I am not going to just let this go! If you don't compensate me properly, I am going to report and expose all of you to the media and sue you!" He stands up, pushes the chair so hard that it topples down and walks out of the room.

"And now we have to worry about a person's fallen marriage." The managing director raises his hands in disbelief, "Does that make sense?"

"Are we going to compensate him? He looks like he will really sue us." one of the staff from the customer service asks.

Minhee hums, "Pictures from the survey were definitely released without their permission. Even though we had taken their picture with permission after sampling our new services, the fact that it was uploaded by us is true."

"But a victim was produced from this breach of privacy, we definitely shouldn't compensate him." the managing director's secretary says.

"Are you implying that only ethical things should be protected when it comes to privacy?" Minhee raises an eyebrow and the secretary shrugs. "I don't agree but I do agree with your point of not compensating him."

"But what if this affects us negatively when we are trying to enter the foreign market?"

"The service did infringe on their privacy but it wasn't intentional and dealt with immediately. I don't want to create a precedent of compensation." Minhee shakes her head.

"Still I think it would be better for us to compensate for what has happened to safeguard Wing's image," Dahyun says. The others voice their opinions in agreement.

"I understand your point and accept your opinion. But this fight is where we won't be disadvantaged in through the law." Minhee stands up, leaving forward on the table using her hands, "We will not compensate him."

...

"What do you think, Secretary Kim? We have to send a confirmation mail to Persona magazine within the next hour, should we do it or not?" Jeongguk asks, tapping his pen on the table, lost in thought.

"I made a list of pros and cons of deciding on to take up the proposal." Secretary Kim says and unlocks his tab. Jeongguk smiles in disbelief and amusement.

"If you were to agree to this proposal, our finances will shift 3% down due to the cost of hiring a model, photographer and stylists. Moreover, if this indeed is a competition like we suspect, our efforts might go to waste if we lose. The chances of winning are 50%, however, knowing the influence of Yoon Daejun, we might be at disadvantage here. People will also start questioning your relationship with Ms Yoon Minhee—"

"Alright, alright, Secretary Kim. I can see there are a lot of cons to it. What are the pros?" Jeongguk intertwines his fingers and places them under his chin, propping his elbows on the table.

Secretary Kim adjusts his glasses and continues, "Pros include getting into a record of being the first Asian company to have been on the cover of the magazine. We expect our sales to increase threefold if we win, and can saturate the market with our products in the initial phase of blow up—"

"Alright, Mr Meticulous. Now, what do you think?" Jeongguk interrupts Kim, making the latter exhale." I made a list of pros and cons of deciding on to take up the proposal."

"Secretary Kim!" Jeongguk whines.

"I think it would be a good opportunity," the older man says, sighing, "However, we would have to be very careful with everything. It's only our first impression."

"Alright, send the confirmation mail to them and prepare for a meeting over the proposal."

"Right away, Sir."

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literally forgot to update yesterday, but wishing you all a very happy new year! i won't be able to update this week most likely but let's see if we can sneak one ;)