The audacity
Kang Tae-jun was a national treasure.
To the millions of fans who wept openly during his interviews, he was a shy, sensitive soul with a god-like physique, a face that launched a thousand luxury campaigns, and a boyish, vulnerable charm. When he flashed his trademark hesitant smile and ducked his head, women swooned, completely convinced he needed protecting from the harshness of the spotlight.
Behind closed doors, however, Tae-jun was an insufferable, demanding tyrant whose ego required constant, breathless inflation. He was unnecessarily cruel to his entourage, treating stylists, publicists, and drivers like disposable furniture. Everyone in his orbit walked on eggshells, terrified that a single misplaced syllable would prompt him to snap his fingers and end their careers before lunch.
On this particular morning, his cruelty was on full display in the dressing room. He stood with his arms crossed, staring at a trembling senior stylist.
“Do you lack basic cognitive function?” Tae-jun whispered, his voice dropping into a venomous, silky purr that made the woman’s eyes well up with tears.
He pinched at the lapel of his jacket.
“It’s wrinkled.”
The stylist looked at the perfectly pressed fabric before quickly lowering her eyes.
“I’ll steam it again, sir.”
“Do it right this time if you don’t want to be jobless by noon.”
“Yes, sir.”
The stylist fled the room in tears, leaving Tae-jun to sneer at his reflection.
That was right when Shin Hana walked in.
Mid-twenties, a brilliant polyglot fluent in six languages, and ruthlessly competent, Hana was the invisible spine keeping Tae-jun’s multi-million-dollar career flowing seamlessly. More importantly, she was the single person on earth who didn’t care for his nonsense. She didn’t fear him, she didn’t stroke his ego, and she looked at his dramatic outbursts with the profound, detached weariness of someone watching a toddler throw a tantrum over a bruised apple.
She stepped past the sobbing stylist without blinking, dropped her tablet onto the marble counter, and began organizing the day’s documents with crisp, unbothered precision.
Tae-jun watched her through the mirror, his jaw tightening instantly. He hated her. He hated that this woman refused to break, that she never talked back with emotion, and that she didn’t flinch at a single piece of psychological ammunition he threw at her.
“You’re late,” Tae-jun snapped, pivoting sharply to loom over her.
Hana didn’t look up from her screen.
“I’m ten minutes early.”
“I said you’re late,” he insisted, his voice rising with petulant fury.
She completely ignored him, smoothly clearing her throat and launching right into her job, her voice clinical and even.
“Your first car departs at 9:00 AM for the interview with Seoul Times, followed by the brand lunch at twelve, and the script read-through at three. If you want to keep your current schedule, you need to finish buttoning your shirt.”
Tae-jun’s blood boiled. He loathed her calm. He loathed her maddening indifference. He wanted to shatter that impenetrable shell, to make her cry, to force her to look at him with the same desperate awe as everyone else.
That chronic, grinding hostility made what happened the following Sunday entirely unsurprising to anyone paying attention.
Hana’s phone buzzed aggressively against her coffee table while she sat quietly sipping black coffee and reviewing a translation contract. She glanced at the screen, saw his name flash, and let out a soft, measured sigh before swiping to answer.
“Mr. Kang,” she said, her voice entirely devoid of the frantic subservience everyone else reserved for him.
“Bring me the manuscript for Lovers on the Edge,” Tae-jun barked, his voice dropping the melodic, soft-spoken register he used for the cameras, replacing it with the sharp, entitled snap of a spoiled prince. “I left it on the office desk.”
Hana didn’t blink. She took another unhurried sip of her coffee.
“Um… it’s my day off,” she replied evenly.
There was a fraction of a second of dead silence on the line, the kind of absolute stillness that usually preceded someone losing their entire livelihood.
“And?” Tae-jun demanded, the word dripping with incredulous fury.
“And you have two options,” Hana answered, her tone as clinical and detached as if she were reading a weather report. “You pay me triple my daily wage, or you go get it yourself. Seeing as I have no interest in selling my day off, I guess you’ll have to go get it yourself.”
A sharp intake of breath hissed through the speaker. In his universe, people didn’t negotiate with him; they wept, apologized, and scrambled to obey.
“You’ll do it, or you’re fired,” he snarled, every ounce of his manufactured charm evaporating into raw, ugly malice.
“Well, I won’t,” Hana said smoothly.
“You’re fired.”
“Ok.”
Click.
For the next three days, Tae-jun’s professional life unraveled into a chaotic, amateurish nightmare. Without Hana, his meticulously curated schedule collapsed like a house of cards.
The cracks showed immediately. On Tuesday, he missed two crucial Zoom calls with international reporters because a temporary assistant couldn’t manage time zone conversions, leaving a stream of furious foreign journalists staring at an empty virtual waiting room. That afternoon, he walked into a high-profile table read proudly holding an unread, outdated script version because no one had vetted the revisions. By Thursday, he was consistently showing up late to his photo shoots because the temporary fill-in failed to update the driver on last-minute location changes, leaving him stranded in traffic while a full crew waited. To top it all off, his response to a major French interior design house regarding an endorsement collaboration stalled completely, because finding a competent French-speaking coordinator on short notice proved impossible for anyone else. His schedule was a smoking ruin.
While Tae-jun’s professional life descended into chaos, Hana enjoyed a blissful, unbothered week. She didn’t care about being fired; she was exceptionally qualified, fluent in six languages, and knew she could secure another high-paying position in the blink of an eye. Instead of scrambling, she decided to take a full week off just to enjoy life, sip coffee in peace, and sleep past six before ever looking at the offers already piling up in her inbox.
During her time off, she even accepted a date with Kwon, Tae-jun’s co-star on Lovers on the Edge. Kwon was the complete opposite of Tae-jun, sincere, grounded, and entirely true to himself. Hana had resisted him a few times, viewing a date with her workplace associate as a potential conflict of interest, but decided a pleasant evening out was well deserved.
Unfortunately for Tae-jun, word traveled fast through the studio makeup artists. When he heard the news, his fury reached a fever pitch.
She’s dating Kwon? Him?
Back at the agency, Tae-jun’s manager threw his hands up in exasperation, staring down his star client.
“We have to bring Hana back.”
“Absolutely not,” Tae-jun snapped, his jaw tight. “I fired her.”
“We went through four attempts at replacing her, and each one was worse than the last. Your schedule is a disaster.”
“I said no.”
“I get it, man. You don’t want to look like you want her back,” the manager sighed, rubbing his temples. “So, tell you what, I’ll call her. I’ll do all the heavy lifting, and you can just continue with the it’s against my will act.”
“It’s not an act. I don’t want her.”
“She’s coming back, or your professional life is going to take a permanent hit.”
Ten minutes later, the manager’s phone call landed on Hana’s phone. He offered more money. She hesitated. He sweetened the pot further, offering more days off and a significant pay bump. Hana considered the numbers, weighed her options, and accepted.
On Monday morning, Hana walked into Tae-jun’s luxury apartment like she owned the place. She dropped her bag, walked straight to the kitchen counter, and started the coffee machine.
Midway through, a strikingly attractive young woman emerged from Tae-jun’s bedroom, smoothing down a silk robe with a flustered look.
Hana didn’t so much as blink.
“Coffee?” Hana asked politely, not even looking up.
The woman jumped, her cheeks flushing crimson.
“Um… sure.”
“Don’t worry, I’m his assistant,” Hana said smoothly, reaching for a mug. “One sugar or two?”
“None, please.”
Hana poured the black coffee, handed it over, and watched the poor girl take a sip. There she stood, probably over the moon about spending the night with the most desirable bachelor in the country, completely unaware that she was just a disposable body used to warm his bed for a single night.
A moment later, the woman grabbed her things and hurried out the door. Hana immediately set to work organizing the day’s tasks.
Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall as Tae-jun emerged from the bedroom, wearing only his pajama bottoms, his hair artfully messy.
“You’re far more devious than I expected,” Tae-jun spat, his voice dripping with venom. “All this just to engineer a raise. You staged the whole walkout just to get more money.”
Hana paused, slowly zipping her tablet bag.
She looked up.
“Um… no,” she replied flatly. “I didn’t ask to come back, nor did I ask for more money. But I would have been an idiot not to accept it when your panicked management shoved it in my face.”
Tae-jun narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as a dark, cynical smile touched his lips.
“You played your hand well.”
“You’re the only one playing around here,” Hana sighed, rolling her eyes with utter disdain. “I just live my life.”
That nonchalant dismissal snapped whatever thin thread of control he had left. His face contorted with bitter, mocking disbelief.
“Suuure you’re not playing,” Tae-jun snapped, his voice tight with bitter sarcasm. “You even went on a date with Kwon to irritate me.”
“Only you would think that my private life has anything to do with you,” Hana replied, her voice flat and unimpressed.
“So you went on a date with him because… you like him?” Tae-jun scoffed, letting out a sharp, ugly laugh. “Sure. I’ll believe that, never!”
Hana didn’t blink. She didn’t flinch, and she didn’t take the bait. Instead, she straightened to her full height, her eyes locking onto his with a chilling, clinical precision that instantly wiped the smirk off his face.
“First,” Hana said, her voice dangerously calm, “it’s none of your business who I go on dates with or who I like. That’s my personal life. I don’t comment on the parade of model-like girls leaving this apartment every single morning, it’s not my place to feel bad for them, or to comment on your complete lack of depth.”
Tae-jun’s breath hitched, his mouth opening slightly in pure shock as she pressed on without missing a beat.
“Second,” she continued, stepping a fraction closer, “I don’t do anything, outside of what is strictly required of me for this job, for you or to influence or bother you. That is childish, and frankly, you don’t interest me on that level.”
She paused, letting the crushing weight of her words settle over the stifling room before delivering the final blow.
“And finally… what you believe or don’t believe is none of my concern.”
Tae-jun stood frozen, a cold fury burning in his chest. He couldn’t stand how matter-of-fact she was, how utterly unbothered by his existence.
Fine.
If she was back, he would make her regret that decision.
Hana zipped her tablet case, mentally rearranged the day’s schedule, and wondered, not for the first time, how one man could possess so much talent and so little emotional maturity.
