Unhealthy older brother’s friend

Seo-hye frowned as a splitting headache pounded in her head.

“Ugh…”

Groaning, she turned over in bed and suddenly realized that something felt different. Normally, her bed would creak with every little movement, but today, it was strangely silent.

Even the blanket wrapped around her felt unusually warm and soft.

Sensing something was off, Seo-hye slowly opened her eyes. As soon as she took in her surroundings, her eyes widened in shock. Looking around carefully, she quickly realized she was in a hotel room.

“Why am I here…?”

As she sat up, memories of the previous night flashed through her mind.

She had been working late at the office when Jae-gyeom walked in. Somehow, they ended up riding the elevator together. When he suggested having dinner, she followed along—only to end up drinking instead of eating.

“This is crazy…”

The last thing she remembered was enjoying the cocktails so much that she ordered several more. After that, everything went blank.

That meant… she had been drinking with her brother’s friend until she blacked out.

“Please tell me I didn’t do anything stupid…”

Seo-hye groaned and buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t afford to have made a mistake—especially not in front of Jae-gyeom. He wasn’t just any acquaintance; he was now the new CEO of her company.

“No, it’s fine. He’s the CEO. There’s no reason for him to meet an ordinary employee like me.”

Even so, the thought of embarrassing herself in front of him made her cringe. She kicked the blanket a few times in frustration before the sound of an alarm snapped her out of it.

Embarrassment was one thing, but work was work. She turned off her phone alarm and noticed a shopping bag on the nightstand. Curious, she peeked inside and pulled out a navy blouse and beige slacks.

“Did Jae-gyeom leave this for me?”

He was the only person who would have thought to prepare something like this.

Seo-hye quickly took a shower and changed into the clothes he had left.

Without even drying her hair, she rushed out of the hotel and barely made it to work on time. As she stepped into the office, her colleague, Team Leader Choi Yoo-jung, greeted her.

“Good morning, Seo-hye! Check the announcement. It just went up.”

“Announcement?”

Confused, Seo-hye quickly opened the company’s internal site. A new post about the organizational restructuring had just been uploaded.

A restructuring…

Even a simple team leader change could shake things up, but with a new CEO, the scale of changes would be much bigger. Still, she hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly.

She clicked on the announcement and read through the details. Departments were being merged or split, and one line in particular caught her eye.

[Overseas Business Department – Now Under Direct Supervision of the CEO]

It was an unprecedented move. Seo-hye stared at the screen in shock.

“The Overseas Business Department is now directly under the CEO. And Executive Director Choi got reassigned to the outlet division. He was terrible at his job, so this is actually good news.”

While Yoo-jung seemed happy about it, Seo-hye felt complicated.

“I really hope I didn’t do anything stupid last night…”

⸻

Meanwhile, Jae-gyeom was reviewing the latest sales reports.

A few days ago, he had visited the company’s main store and scolded the branch managers. Now, the numbers were in, and they weren’t pretty.

Annual revenue, which had once exceeded two trillion won, had dropped by nearly 300 billion won in just three years. Some stores were making money, but many others were running at a loss.

He had already informed the managers—if they didn’t increase sales by at least 20% within six months, their stores would be shut down. Keeping unprofitable stores open was a waste of resources.

As he flipped through the reports, his phone buzzed.

Bzzzz.

Glancing at the screen, he saw the caller ID. He sighed and switched to speaker mode.

[Executive Director Kwon Se-in]

Kwon Tae-min and Kwon Se-in—his half-siblings. They were the ones fighting against him taking over the company.
• “Jae-gyeom. You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

Jae-gyeom smirked.

“Oh? My ‘smartness’ made it all the way to you?”

His voice held a trace of amusement—but not the pleasant kind.
• “Yeah, you little punk. I heard you scolded the branch managers the other day. What if they all rebel against you?”

“If they were competent, they wouldn’t need scolding in the first place.”
• “You arrogant brat—wait. How do you know about that?”

It was obvious. His half-siblings had spies watching his every move, but they failed to realize he could do the same.

“Come on, Se-in. If you’re going to bribe people, at least be generous. You only gave them a single bill? So cheap.”
• “You—! Tae-min is furious. Do you think you can keep this up forever?”

One was ruining the department store business, and the other was abusing their hotel employees. At this point, their father, the chairman, was more likely to be angry at them than at him.

“Tell him I’m so scared.”

He mockingly ended the call, picturing Se-in shouting in frustration. Somehow, it made his earlier annoyance over the sales reports fade a little.

Knock, knock.

Jae-gyeom looked up as his assistant, Manager Kim, entered with a stack of documents.

“Sir, about tonight’s dinner with the Overseas Business Department—will you be attending?”

With everything going on, Jae-gyeom had almost forgotten about the team dinner.

“If you’re too busy, we can reschedule…”

“No, I’ll go. Things will only get busier from here anyway.”

“Understood.”

After signing off on the documents, Jae-gyeom leaned back in his chair. As he closed his eyes for a brief moment, an image of Seo-hye flashed through his mind.

Her pale face, her lips slightly red and damp.

The soft, fleeting sensation of her lips against his.

A kiss that had happened almost by accident.

It was brief, barely even a real kiss—but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

More than that, he kept imagining what it would be like to really kiss her. To take those soft lips completely.

This was ridiculous. He had never felt this way about any woman before.

Especially not about a friend’s little sister.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Frustrated, Jae-gyeom forced himself to refocus and returned to his documents.