Chapter Text
Within Taeyang, no one could say no to Assistant Kim. Not even the chairman.
Taeyang Holdings’ headquarters stood on Sejong-daero, the grand boulevard cutting through the heart of central Seoul, stretching from Gwanghwamun Gate toward Seoul City Hall, with Gyeongbokgung Palace visible along its historic axis. As Taeyang’s number one assistant, Kim Gaon left his apartment at exactly 6:45 a.m. After exiting his neighborhood, he turned left and merged onto Omok-ro, the pale morning light catching on distant glass towers as traffic funneled steadily toward the Han River and the long, disciplined approach into the ever-awake city.
By 7:40, he was stepping into the seventeenth-floor suite of Taeyang’s commercial tower. The entire floor belonged to the chairman. There was only one true office—the chairman’s—shared in practice, if not in title, with Gaon. The remaining space consisted of conference rooms and a private lounge rarely used except for late-night strategy sessions.
The cleaning lady was already vacuuming when he entered. She glanced up at the sound of the door and offered a quick smile.
“Good morning, Assistant Kim.”
“Good morning,” Gaon replied with a small nod.
Their office suite was large without being ostentatious. Gaon occupied the outer office; Chairman Kang worked from the inner room beyond a closed door.
Kang Yohan was not a man who barked orders from behind a desk. He read every briefing Gaon prepared, marking the margins with a fine mechanical pencil. His questions were practical, grounded in numbers and consequence. When displeased, he did not raise his voice. He simply went quiet. Silence meant recalculation. Silence meant he expected better next time. There was nothing theatrical about him, only a man who understood the weight of decisions and expected the same steadiness from the one who stood between him and the world.
By eight o’clock sharp, Gaon had settled at his desk. In thirty minutes, Oh Jin Joo from the General Manager’s office would likely stop by to review the next three days’ arrangements and collect any documents requiring circulation. He adjusted the stack of files before him. On the third folder, he placed his first signature of the day. The cleaning lady finished shortly after and left, the suite returning to silence, broken only by the low hum of the air conditioning.
At 8:35, hurried heels echoed down the hallway before stopping outside the door. A knock followed.
“Come in,” Gaon called, finishing his signature.
Oh Jin Joo entered carrying a stack of documents in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other. She smiled the moment she saw him.
“Good morning, Assistant Kim. Here’s the proposal for the Chwe acquisition—and your caramel latte. There’s a sandwich inside too.”
“Thank you.” He took both the bag and the documents before handing her a neatly arranged stack in return. “These are signed and approved. Please review them once more for discrepancies before putting them in motion.”
“I don’t need to look. I’m sure they’re perfect,” Jin Joo said lightly, though she accepted the files anyway. Then she lowered her voice. “Is 회장님 (Hwejang-nim) still not in?”
Her eyes flicked once towards the closed door.
Gaon rolled up the sleeves of his shirt as he crossed to the partition and pushed the inner door open.
The office was empty.
For a brief second, he simply stood there.
Coffee cups dotted the floor beside the desk. Papers were strewn across the carpet in loose drifts, some annotated, others abandoned mid-thought. The sofa had disappeared beneath stacks of reference books and crumpled paper balls, as though someone had been arguing with the numbers long past midnight and lost patience with them.
Gaon exhaled quietly.
Without comment, he stepped inside and began gathering the cups first, stacking them carefully. He straightened the files on the desk, smoothing the edges as he went, restoring order with practiced efficiency. This was not the first time.
Behind him, Oh Jin Joo hovered at the doorway.
“Hwejang-nim worked overtime last night,” his voice was even as he crouched to collect a scatter of documents. “Push all his morning meetings to the afternoon.”
“He was scheduled to meet the mayor after lunch,” Jin Joo replied, already sounding strained.
Gaon rose, aligning the papers against the desk edge with a light tap. “Then we’ll keep that one. Move everything else around it. I’ll sit in for the internal briefings first and narrow down what he actually needs to hear.”
She pressed her fingers to her temple. “That’s four departments.”
“Tell them to condense their proposals to five minutes each,” he said. “If they can’t summarize it, they don’t understand it.”
He crossed to the window and cracked it open slightly, letting in a thin ribbon of cold morning air.
“And ask the ahjumma to air out the lounge,” he added, quieter. “The chairman is sensitive to smells.”
“Okay, Assistant Kim.”
She hesitated for a moment, glancing around the wreckage of the office as she muttered to herself, “Does he sleep at all?”
Gaon didn’t answer immediately. He picked up a crumpled page, smoothed it flat, and studied the dense handwriting in the margins.
“…Probably not much,” he said at last, his voice calm but not indifferent.
Then he set the paper aside and reached for the next one, already reorganizing the morning in his head.
Jin Joo offered him a thumbs-up. “That sounds like our boss.”
Gaon let out a short laugh as he steadied a leaning stack of books on the sofa, separating reports from reference volumes with quick, practiced movements. Jin Joo noticed how his hands never paused once during the entire conversation.
“Maybe you should get a secretary,” she said, watching him crouch to retrieve a file that had slid halfway under the coffee table. “Chairman Kang would definitely approve if you asked.”
She had brought it up before. More than once.
Gaon only smiled, straightening up with a book tucked under his arm. “And do what with one?”
“Delegate. Sit down once in a while. Eat on time,” she replied. “Normal human things.”
He slid the book back into its proper place on the shelf. “I’m fine.”
Jin Joo narrowed her eyes but didn’t push further. She knew that expression—polite, immovable.
“Do whatever you want,” she relented with a sigh. “At least the boss was smart and adjusted your salary early on. Otherwise, what if you ran off to a competitor? That would screw us over twice. Royally.”
Gaon’s hands slowed for just a fraction of a second before resuming their rhythm.
Even if the salary hadn’t been raised, he would have stayed.
It wasn’t that Chairman Kang refused to assign additional staff. On the contrary, Kang Yohan had offered more than once. But Gaon had declined each time with careful reasoning about efficiency and streamlined communication.
The truth was simpler; and far less professional.
He wanted to be the only one sharing this space with him.
The only one who understood the rhythm of the chairman’s silence. The only one who knew which drafts were frustrating and which were breakthroughs. The only one who could step into the inner office without knocking when necessary.
Selfish, perhaps.
But he had never claimed to be entirely impartial.
Kim Gaon was reviewing a contract on his monitor when Kang Yohan arrived at 11:15.
He heard him before he saw him—the steady cadence of footsteps crossing the marble floor outside. Unhurried. Even. Controlled in that way that seemed effortless, much like the man himself.
Assistant Kim's ears ran a little hot at that thought. He didn't bother lifting his head when the man walked through the door; just glanced at him through the corner of his eye and threw out a perfunctory greeting. “Good morning, Hwejang-nim!”
Kang Yohan passed by without breaking stride, his suit jacket folded neatly over his right arm, the sleeves of his dark shirt rolled back with precise cuffs that suggested he’d been working long before coming here.
“Morning,” he replied, voice low and steady.
The inner office door closed with a soft click.
For a while, there was only the muted rhythm of drawers opening, a chair shifting, the faint rustle of paper.
At exactly 11:30, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee creeped into the outside space.
Gaon allowed himself a small breath.
That was his signal.
He saved the file, straightened the documents beside him, and stood up; already organizing the morning’s summary in his head before stepping toward the partition.
As he did every morning, Kim Gaon stood with his notepad in hand and delivered a precise report on the day’s work. Kang Yohan listened without interruption, offering no objections. There was no doubt that Gaon was the most suitable person for the position. The chairman trusted his decisions implicitly. Eight years was more than enough time for the two of them to develop a seamless understanding of one another.
“Ah—one more thing,” Gaon added just as they were about to conclude. “The chairman of NEX has invited you to a golf outing next Thursday. I’ve reviewed your schedule—you only have the routine subsidiary check that day. Should I accept on your behalf?”
It was an incredibly trivial matter. Kang Yohan could have decided immediately, yet he hesitated. Assistant Kim knew exactly why : the chairman felt such engagements were too troublesome.
Just as Yohan lifted his head to answer, his gaze landed on Gaon’s face.
His brows were drawn together, expression unusually tense, as though they were discussing matters of national importance rather than a predictable round of corporate socializing. The words Yohan had intended to say lodged in his throat.
He couldn’t help but notice that his assistant had never looked this concerned over something so minor.
Another thought surfaced.
𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰.
With that realization, Yohan altered his response at once.
It was a perfectly ordinary thing to do. Kang Yohan had always been willing to accept Kim Gaon’s reasonable suggestions. There was nothing strange about that at all.
Within Taeyang, no one could say no to Assistant Kim. Not even the chairman.