For all intents and purposes, Lee Suho knew nothing about having a proper family. His father, a famous actor, was always absent. His mother, a kind, gentle soul, passed away from cancer when he was a teenager. His sister, who had been his only rock, eventually left too to live her own life.

Lee Suho would have been lost as a teenager, had it not been for Mr. Bang, the grumpy old comic bookstore owner. Suho had a great love for comic books. Particularly horror comic books. He would spend hours and hours on end in that store reading, nay, devouring every single comic Mr. Bang's shop had to offer. There weren't many customers around so Suho's time there was always undisturbed. As Lee Suho spent more and more days at the shop, it became a second home to him, and he old man a second father.

"Shouldn't you be getting home now?" Mr. Bang would often inquire with his glasses hanging low in his nose. Suho tended to spend his time at the store till the man pushed him out at closing time.

"Five more minutes please." Lee Suho would request. "I really want to finish this chapter." He held up the Junji Itou comic.

"Tch!" The man would make faces and click his tongue in annoyance, but still kept the store open just a little longer for Suho. "You young'uns need to get out more. Play in the sun. What's this new trend of reading in my dull store? Tch!"

Suho would grin. That old comic bookstore owner always scolded him; for spending too much time reading horror comics, for being too skinny, for choosing to hang out with an old man instead of people his own age. The scoldings would have irked anyone else. But for Suho, who had barely had any parental figure at home, it was something he cherished.

As neglected as he was, Lee Suho was a wise and bright boy. He knew the value of good role models. Especially since he never had one. And the comic bookstore owner was just that. Which is why when the bookstore went out of business, it shattered him. Outside the death of his mother, this was the thing that shook him the most. Not his father's scandals with his co-star, not his sister leaving home, but the loss of the only thing close to a parent he had in those days.

"Harabuji, you can't just close the shop!" Suho had argued.

"I have to, son. I don't have any money to run it. You're the only customer I have these days."

"I'll buy all of the comics then. I'll buy it all." Suho had declared.

"Tch! Don't you dare! Wasting your money like that. What are you young'uns coming up to? Go save your money and spend it on yourself! I'm too old for working in a shop anyways." Even as the old man said this, Suho could see that the loss of his small shop worried the old man. It had been his only source of income. The man's children had married and moved on, but he still had his wife to care for. And both of them were too old to do much else.

"Harabuji. Let me work at your shop. Let me run it. Just for a week. I promise to not bother you again if it doesn't work out." Suho had claimed boldly to the perplexed old man who didn't yet know why the young boy cared so much.

"Alright fine! Gah! But don't make me lose more money or I really will spank you."

Suho had asked the kids at his school for help. Suho knew he couldn't do it alone. None of them had agreed, seeing the task as unnecessary and boring. None except Kang Sujin.

"Don't misunderstand!" She had declared. "This isn't for you. Its for that old man."

"You don't even know him."

"Shut up."

It was here that Lee Suho had discovered his ability to make failing businesses work. In just a month, Lee Suho helped Mr. Bang make not only enough to keep the shop open, but enough profit to help the man invest into another store location. Of course, Kang Sujin played a huge role too. She was the one to push him into working on the counter, using his looks to attract girls to the store. Which attracted the boys who came for the girls but stayed for the comic books. Lee Suho managed the store, helped the old man manage his finances and save wisely and even invest in some stocks for a little extra cash. The old man had cried when he had seen how full of kids his shop now was. He had hugged Lee Suho, declaring him as his own son.

In the following years, Lee Suho would work with a lot of the local shops and stores in his area and would gain a reputation as having a golden touch in consulting. Eventually he would start a company right out of high school, going to college much later than everyone else. That company would later get bought up by Move Conglomerate and become one of the leading consulting agencies in South Korea. He would move on from local Mom and Pop shops to big corporations, global empires who would seek out his help when their profits would start to dwindle.

Suho was grateful for having such success at such a young age. He knew better than to take anything as granted. But lately he had felt that something was missing: in both his life and his work. The hole in his life was finally filled by the kind and humble Lim Jukyung, but the hole in his work still persisted. Funnily enough, it was Jukyung that had presented the solution to that as well.

"I have a proposal." She had sounded so terrified at the team meeting where he and Sujin let everyone pitch in with new ideas for the company. Suho still remembered how shyly she had raised her hand like they were in school, asking for permission to speak.

"Yes, Jukyung?" Sujin had prompted Jukyung to present.

Jukyung's idea had been simple. To restart the company's community service program that had been shut down a couple years back by the board of directors. She supported her argument by pointing out the recent image problems the company had been having. Move Consulting's reputation among their clients was stellar. But there was a sentiment among the common public that companies like Move Consulting were only helping the rich and richer and taking away the opportunity from other, smaller, companies.

"I propose that we show the people that we are not just about helping muti-million dollar businesses. We are also concerned with other local companies from our local vicinity, the ones that make up our community. I think if we show the community that we care, then they will stop criticizing us as being a catalyst in increasing the wealth disparity."

Jukyung's speech made Suho realize what he had been missing in his work. Fulfillment. Working for these self-serving corporations was the opposite of why he had started this company. His true purpose had been to help people like Mr. Bang, who cared about the lonely kid that read comics all day in his shop, who acted like a father to every boy he met. Somehow, along the way, Suho had lost that sentiment. But now, he had it back and he felt sure that Han Seojun was the right person to restart Suho's journey to going back to his roots, to people like Mr. Bang.

And he knew the perfect person to help him.

Now, Lee Suho looked at Sujin expectantly, waiting for her response. She stood there, first blankly looking at him, then at Han Seojun, then finally at Lim Jukyung. Something changed in her expression when she looked at Jukyung. Her stony face became dark and then back to its stony setting—reserved and guarded.

"No." She said simply and left without a word.

"Just-um... I um... wait here please." Lee Suho made an apologetic face to Han Seojun, embarrassed at Sujin's behavior. He went after Sujin.

"Sujin stop." He sprinted after her.

"No." She called back, briskly marching forward. Suho grabbed her arm and yanked her back.

"You were incredibly rude to Han Seojun-si just now." Suho said in his soft-spoken voice.

"I don't have time for this. Or," she jerked her chin towards Suho's office, "that. Get some intern to work on—"

"Having interns take on our community service initiatives was the reason that program was shut down. We kept giving the small companies over to inexperienced kids—"

"—because they don't generate any revenue and wasting an experienced employee's time would be throwing money down the drain."

"But what went down the drain was our reputation. People thought we couldn't even handle consulting a small café."

"You remember what the board members said. We're not doing business just so the doorman's niece can run a café. We work with multinational companies. Giants. We can't stoop down to that level and—"

"What happened to you, Kang Sujin?" Suho looked at her, disappointed. "You used to be the one to bring on the small businesses."

The suppressed anger on Sujin's face faded as she stared into Suho's eyes. Did he really not realise that this wasn't about taking on small businesses?

"We both know that this was Lim Jukyung's idea."

"So?"

"So when I brought you that lady that was running a salon for dogs—"

"That business was going nowhere and you know it."

"Or the fruit vendor—"

"The board made me turn that down. You know that."

"They'll turn this down too."

"I'll convince them."

Sujin bit her tongue, literally, to keep herself from saying then why didn't you convince them about the fruit vendor? She sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "You know how busy I am already making sure that our high priority clients—"

"We're done with the Samsan Company revival and we just handed over the final deliverables of the Namjin Group project. Kyungsoo is handling Golden Closet Entertainment. The rest of our high priority clients don't need much hands on work right now."

"I still have to oversee operations and make sure that everyone handles their clients properly."

"They always do. You can make time—"

"You do it."

"You know I can't. I have to take my father to Japan for the next two months. I already coordinate with the foreign clients online. But I can't manage this remotely."

"Let Lim Jukyung do it. This is her idea."

"She's coming with me." Suho said simply.

There was a pause. Then Sujin's anger flared up again. Her eyes glared and her mouth curled. "You want me to waste my time on some charity case so that you can go travel with your stupid girlfriend—"

"Shhh!" Suho put a hand over her mouth. They were right by the cubicles of the data analyst team. There were employees around them, milling about within earshot. Suho said in a low voice, "Keep your voice down! You know me and Jukyung are a secret."

"Why the hell would I care?" She hissed.

"Because you're my best friend. And you've always cared about the things that I cared about." Lee Suho reminded her. She seemed to be forgetting this fact a lot recently. Lee Suho wondered what her problem was, but that was a conversation for another time.

Something changed in Sujin's face. It became even more reserved than before. Her jaw clenched and her nostrils flared. "Well what about me, huh? What about what I want?"

"And what is it that you want?"

Suho could see, that it was on the tip of her tongue. But she didn't say anything. Her anger simply simmered down to a low frown.

"Why me? Why not some other consultant."

Suho ran a hand through his hair, exhaling deeply. "I want the board to see the value in taking on free local clients. This company's purpose was never to help other companies make money, Sujin. You know this better than anyone. It was to make a better economy in which everyone, from you, me to our doorman's niece could live a good life. Ah-nee, don't you remember how every new business wanted to open their store on our street because they thought it was blessed? That didn't happen because we made some bigshot chaebol happy. It's because we worked with people like Han Seojun to help make the community better. I wanna do that again. I wanna revive the community service program. But that can't happen if the board things its a waste of time and money. I need them to see that doing this will help us and I think this flower shop is the perfect opportunity. If this works, then we can take on all the free clients we like. We can even take on your fruit vendor."

Sujin considered Lee Suho for a full minute. Then she looked back to Lee Suho's office where Jukyung and Seojun were avidly watching the two of them.

"Was I really that rude to Seojun-si?" Sujin suddenly asked softly.

"You were appalling." Suho said. But he was smiling. He could tell from Sujin's relaxed shoulders and eased up expression that she would do this.

She made a face and groaned, much like a six year old who was forced to do chores they didn't want to. "Uuuuuuugh! Fiiiine!" she whined. "But listen here, Lee Suho. You owe me. Big time." She jabbed her finger in his chest.

"I will do anything you ask." Suho flashed a brilliant smile that made all of the girls in their vicinity swoon quite audibly.

"I doubt that." She said, then muttered under her breath. "Not unless I change my name to Lim Jukyung."

Kang Sujin stalked back into Lee Suho's office. Lim Jukyung and Han Seojun had been pressed to the glass walls of the office, seeing the argument between Sujin and Suho unfold.

Sujin burst into the office. "You. Follow me." She pointed to the very confused and slightly offended Han Seojun. "And you," she said to Jukyung, "next time you keep your bright ideas to yourself."

Suho, who had been right at Sujin's heels, watched her as she marched towards her office and shook his head with disappointment. He stopped Han Seojun who was following Sujin out.

"Forgive her. She's rude but I promise, she's brilliant. Just trust her." He assured then let Han Seojun go to Kang Sujin.

"I think she hates me now." Jukyung said dejectedly to Suho once Seojun had left.

"No, she doesn't hate you," he assured. "Did you know she's the one who fought to hire you? Literally. There was a fight. But Kang Sujin was adamant that you were the best candidate out of everyone that applied. She sees your potential, Jukyung-ah. That's why she's hard on you." That last part was a speculation. But Suho felt that if he believed it, then it would be true. It had to be. Because otherwise Sujin's attitude towards Jukyung made no sense to him.

"She did? She fought for me?" Jukyung asked, surprised.

"Yeah. I'm the one who actually rejected your application."

"Yah!" Jukyung punched his arm lightly.

Suho laughed. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I made a mistake."

Lee Suho didn't know, but Kang Sujin thought the same thing when she thought about hiring Lim Jukyung.