Chapter Text
You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.
Sir Arnold Bax
Jimin’s heels scrape the bonnet of some rando’s car, feet apart and ready to launch a counterattack. She grips a windscreen wiper and it comes off with a crack.
“Get lost, you freaking hellhound!”
She aims it at the poodle. It’s got off the leash, a dusty pink, paw-patterned, damned thing. And the owner’s nasal voice echoes across the street. “Daisy, my cutie-patootie, my little baby! Can’t you see he’s scared of you?”
“Make it fucking stop, you idiot! It’s your dog! I’m going to sue!” Jimin yells, as the dog chews angrily at the wiper, pulling her off the car. The screech of heels turns many heads on the street. The owner grabs the dog, and it keeps barking in his embrace.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay...”
“It’s not! Help me down!”
The owner looks at her, then at the dog, and legs it.
“Piece of shit!”
She stands there, on someone else’s car, with the mangled windscreen wiper in her hand, formidable bresticles struggling against the buttons of her dress shirt. Oh well, if it ain’t the proper start of Monday! But then, the breeze on her derriere takes on a most anxious connotation. With wide eyes, she reaches behind and realises that where there should be fabric is instead flesh, for everyone to see. Her pencil skirt tore.
And thus stands Yu Jimin, the head of YuOil, with her red G-string facing the world.
*
She’s lucky a high-end store nearby sells coats. The worst part is that it’s exclusively coats, but there’s only so much choice for a bare-assed individual. They’re all fur coats, the kind rich men buy to woo a woman. She gets the ermine one. In fact, she slips it on instantly and comes up to the counter already wearing it. It’s as ridiculously huge as it is spenny, but whatever. It’s just to cover her precious buttocks, really. The sight is a million-dollar one, so the deal is sound.
Still “under the weather”, she walks into the lobby, only to see some girl she’s never seen before loitering by the water dispenser as if she doesn’t belong here. Jimin is good at spotting outsiders. They have a little dance studio for middle-aged women a floor above, and those schmucks are under the impression that they’re free to consume YuOil water. They’ll go out of business before October. She approaches the girl stealthily.
“Are you lost?”
The girl drops the plastic cup so hard she twitches. “It’s the YuOil, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m the new intern. I’m sorry, are you Mrs Yu?”
Jimin’s face softens. “Ah, Minjin, right?”
“Yes... Good morning, Mrs Yu. It’s such an honour to work here!”
The plastic cup lies on the floor, and the longer Jimin stares at it, the lower Minjin bends down to grab it. It’s funny.
“No, you take a new one,” she says at last, when Minjin’s fingertips make contact with it. “I’m not pressuring you or anything!”
With great effort, Minjin pulls out a plastic cup. It looks like she grabbed two by accident. In any case, she presses the button for hot water, but it only hisses slightly. Jimin stares at her, forearms crossed. She tries again, but still nothing.
“We’re out of hot water?”
Minjin laughs light-heartedly. “I think so!”
“I’ll quarter them.”
The girl’s face turns doughy.
“Idiots. They don’t know what I’ll do with their scalps,” she mutters, but musters the inner stoicism to put on a smile. It’s a newbie, after all. She deserves better treatment. “Follow me!”
Jimin leads her into her office, mahogany and premium down to the dustbin, and switches on the hot-water pot. “It’ll take some time to boil, hope that’s alright.”
“Of course!”
Hands clasped in front, Minjin stands by the door, eyes modestly down. In turn, Jimin takes her place in the gigantic leather armchair. It should’ve been a gift from her father’s if he hadn’t decided to give her a stool instead to keep her humble. ‘By putting me down, you’re obliterating and debasing the inherent hierarchy of nature,’ she said then, a nineteen-year-old girl, and completely redid the office to fit her status.
But then, the door opens with a familiar kick. The move almost punches Minjin off her footing. That’s Ningning’s quirk, to enter with a bang. She’s a fantastic secretary but a bad employee. Luckily for her, Jimin values competence over compliance.
“Good morning, Mrs—oh, Minjeong, what are you doing here? Already getting fired?”
“No..uhm... Mrs Yu is boiling hot water for me.”
“Oh, Mrs Yu just likes pretty girls, she’s like a mother to us!” Ningning grabs Minjeong by the shoulder and gives her a little waking-up shake. “I’ll take care of her, Mrs Yu. And you want tea too, right?”
Jimin nods absentmindedly, already neck-deep in business. Once the door clicks shut, she glances around and pulls the sweaty furs from beneath her prestigious glutes.
Pleasure before business.