Chapter Text
“Shouldn’t we support one another?”
“Are you intent on starting a business or becoming a charity? Focus on your own company. You’re barely making any profit.”
“Who says we have to be one or the other?”
“Says me! I’m your investor.”
“It does not mean you can be--”
“Dalmi-ya? Are we… can we…” Dosan fidgeted nervously with his hands, “Can we start the meeting? Chulsan has to go home soon because it’s his mom’s birthday and…” he trailed off, faltering at the intensity of the look that Jipyeong and Dalmi were shooting his way.
“Yes,” the latter turned and stomped towards the door, chin raised a little too much.
“Stop volunteering you and your team’s time to beta test,” Jipyeong’s voice was laced with his trademark tone of deceptively casual even though it was the exact opposite. No one has perfected that quite like him - that ‘I’m-right-and-you-are-wrong-so-you-will-listen-to-me’ tone that could you quivering in fear. She bet that if she looked back, he was already reading emails on his desktop as if they didn’t just have an argument. He always looked unfazed while she would walk away huffing and puffing, high on emotions and adrenaline. He was always much better at this than she was.
“Was he upset?” Chulsan’s question greeted her when she walked into the office, Dosan trailing behind feebly. She ignored his question and sat at the empty seat on the round table. “I knew it,” Chulsan sighed, wagging his index finger, white bulb waving in the air, unlit. “It’s fine. He’ll get over it,” she turned to Yongsan who was standing by the giant whiteboard, gesturing for him to start.
“So with the update…”
Dalmi shook her shoulders to get herself in the zone. Even though she’s been in the industry for five years, this was her first year as CEO and there’s still a lot of gaps in her knowledge of the technical aspect of the technology. Thankfully, the three engineers in Samsan Tech were always very kind and patient in explaining everything to her. But she liked to let them finish their presentation before asking questions, so she always had to be extra focused during these technical meetings, taking notes of terminologies and things she needed to clarify later.
“...the etymology is the only thing we need to fully test the feature before we can go beta.”
Dalmi nodded, pleased with the progress.
“How long until we can be ready for beta? I’ll draw up a launch timeline…” Saha asked, arms crossed in her trademark look of resting-bitch-face which really meant intense focus.
“That’s the thing…” Yongsan scratched his head, “The databases we got are really outdated and messed up--” he was interrupted by the collective groan from everyone else in the room.
Dalmi buried her head in her hands, already hearing the sound of Jipyeong’s voice prattling on and on and on about how this feature was not the best one to be added when they had just launched for less than a year. He hadn’t said anything when she updated him and Boss Lady (what they call Yoon Seon Hak, the CEO of SH Ventures, behind her back) but she knew that it was only because Boss Lady had been so supportive of their vision. She went on to explain how the number of medications she has to take just kept growing and this feature in NoonGil would really help. Dalmi was excited to receive such an enthusiastic green light that she scampered out of the room before Jipyeong could burst the bubble. But she knew exactly what he thought.
And true enough, a week later, she was proven correct when Jipyeong told her how this feature was a risky addition since it will not be beneficial or automatically used by all of their users. Not only that, the database of etymology will need continuous maintenance for it to be useful, which just means a lot of work for the team with little payoff, considering their app was still and will remain free. “You should focus on just marketing the app and looking for partnership abroad. Right now, this is not a very wise risk to take,” he concluded with his trademark tone of ‘this-is-all-very-obvious’ and dismissive eyes which did not deter Dalmi from retorting back a little too huffily, “We ran the numbers and this is the direction that we’re going.” He gave her a look which communicated how he knew she had not run the numbers, but when she didn’t budge, he sighed. “I’ll have Dong Cheon pass the number of a person who could give you some databases…” he relented. Dalmi’s smile had been wide at the time, glad to know that this update was progressing swimmingly, but now she’s not sure.
“If the database was gonna be crap, we should’ve done it ourselves instead of doing twice the work,” Saha grumbled.
Dalmi sighed and looked around at her team, trying to muster as much positivity as she could before saying, “It’s alright. We’ll divide the work so that we can meet the deadline. One month?” she gave Dosan a questioning look and he nodded.
“One month.”
The lightbulb in her index finger turned blue, an indication of the positive increase in her mood (though she noticed that the other team members’ lightbulbs had stayed firmly unlit). Thankfully, her CTO was a genius, and if anyone were going to get this done, it would be him and the rest of the Samsan Tech crew. So she nodded, determination renewed.
They can do this.
***
After another long day of phone calls, emails, and now sorting through a database of medications sold in South Korea, Dalmi was glad to be walking down the halls of Sandbox with Saha who was talking about a new modern fusion restaurant that just opened in Gangnam, which normally was not an interesting topic of conversation for Dalmi but she indulged anyway, nodding and yes-ing during appropriate moments. Saha was just talking about taking Chulsan there and Dalmi was containing her laughter, imagining how their very lovesick puppy engineer would probably balk at the presentation of the food when the elevator door opened and they were greeted by Han Jipyeong.
Dalmi quickly hid the lightbulb in the pocket of her blazer. The last thing she wanted was for him to make yet another comment about the favor she was doing for her friend’s new company.
“CEO Seo, is your company going to announce soon?” he asked, eyes trained forward and Dalmi could see the growing smirk from the reflection on the metal door.
“Announce what?”
“That you’re pivoting to a mood-detecting lightbulb company.”
Saha snorted while Dalmi took a deep breath. Of course, sensible Saha would not be caught dead wearing such a thing - especially after hours. But Dalmi had promised her friend she would give her feedback tomorrow and she’d like to be able to test the product as long as she could - that was why she put it on before leaving the office today. But now, she wished she hadn’t.
“Soon. You’ll get the invitation Director Han, don’t worry,” she retorted coolly but it only made the dimples appear more prominently on his face. He was clearly enjoying every moment of this, which filled Dalmi with both amusement and annoyance.
“You know, Director Han, you really ought to be more supportive of our endeavor. We are trying to be good neighbors, good people. Super Helpful. Isn’t that what SH Ventures stand for?”
He scoffed, “I think our CEO will take issue with your liberty of our company’s name, and besides, I am being supportive. I told you I would attend the launch of this new lightbulb, right?”
“I think Boss Lady will be very happy to see us help another startup - isn’t it in the spirit of this company?”
“To help start-ups, yes. Not to waste money on stupid technologies.”
“It’s not stupid,” she waved her index finger with the lightbulb attached, “It’s helpful! Some people aren’t very sensitive to the feelings of others. They need to help to know how others are feeling.”
“I don’t think I need a lightbulb to tell me how you’re feeling.”
“You--”
“I’m off. See you tomorrow, Dalmi-ya,” Saha nodded briefly to Jipyeong, “Director Han.”
They both nodded in acknowledgment before walking towards the other side of the parking lot.
“You are such an ass.”
“I’m just telling you. As an objective party--” Dalmi scoffed very loudly at this but Jipyeong pressed on. “As an objective party,” he emphasized, “There’s a reason why your friend’s company didn’t make it to Sandbox.”
“Because you guys didn’t choose them!”
“For a reason,” he started the car.
Dalmi strapped herself in, still huffing.
“You can’t honestly think this, ” he lifted her index finger up in the air, “...is a solution to anything .”
She pouted. She knew he was right - she just got carried away arguing with him, which happened quite often when it came to this man.
“Two-Two?” he asked.
The lightbulb turned blue and he laughed.
“Alright, alright,” he began to drive, “But for the record, I didn’t need that bulb to tell me that you want fried chicken.”
Their argument continued as they bickered over which fried chicken to get (Jipyeong: half-half, Dalmi: fried) and when they arrived home, they were in the middle of yet another debate about which fried chicken joint is the best (Jipyeong: BHC, Dalmi: Two-Two).
“Two-Two is one of the oldest franchises in the country. There’s a reason why they’re still around,” she said as she took off her shoes at the front door. “Just because something is old, it doesn’t automatically make it better or best,” he slipped into his house slipper and dropped his suit jacket on the couch. “That’s not what I said,” she followed suit, “I’m saying that there’s a merit in tradition and--”
“Yah! Will you two quit it? We’re at the dinner table,” Halmeoni barked.
“Yes, Halmeoni,” they said in unison.
***
This is how they met:
Seo Dalmi was a part of Sandbox’s 1st Hackathon where she became a part of a company as a Strategic Planning Manager. During Demo Day, after her CEO presented their app which would connect parents to private tuition or hagwon teachers, Han Jipyeong - SH Ventures’ newest Junior Partner who had made waves the youngest and fastest-rising VC in the industry - asked deep-cutting questions which left her CEO a bumbling mess that she ended up jumping on stage to answer the questions instead. Suffice to say, her company did not win on Demo Day but they also didn’t fail “spectacularly” as Jipyeong predicted.
But their relationship continued to be icy - they mostly ignored each other and they stayed away from one another’s path, though she sent death glares his way anytime their paths do cross in the Sandbox compound. She did, however, hear stories about the great Han Jipyeong. Everyone either feared him, respected him, or some combination of the two, but no one doubted his insight and ability.
It wasn’t until he saw her at her grandma’s hot dog stall, laughing in a way that she had never seen before (he had dimples! Two of them! She had never noticed until that afternoon) that she learned his story. He grew up in an orphanage and when he was 18, forced to leave the orphanage and find his own way, he met Halmeoni who took him in. He would sleep in the hot dog stall and help Halmeoni manage her business’ meager finances. This went on for a few years until he left for university and they lost touch. Halmeoni told her how he paid his way through university with scholarships and the money he made in investments. The rest she already knew - how he graduated top of his class in SNU and received a full-ride from Wharton. How, before he even graduated, he was sought out by virtually every VC in the country but he chose SH Ventures after one meeting with Yoon Seon Hak where the woman had taken him to a neighborhood kimchi jjigae shop instead of the fancy restaurants the other firms had taken him to. Hearing all of that made her see him with new eyes but whenever she saw him say something not-so-nice (but admittedly, almost always true), she’d get annoyed all over again, though perhaps with less intensity than before.
Han Jipyeong always knew that Halmeoni had granddaughters but he didn’t know much about them beyond their names in passing. From what he gathered, Halmeoni didn’t play a very active part in her granddaughters’ life save for the holidays. He didn’t know until a year ago when he reconnected with Halmeoni that her son had passed away shortly after he started university. So when he heard her call his name (rather rudely, he might add, based on how high the tone and volume was) as he was catching up with Halmeoni, he couldn’t hide his shock. His first gut instinct was to balk at how someone so wonderful could be related to someone so… fiery. But then he immediately corrected his assessment to a resounding ‘yes of course they’d be related.’ Where else could she have gotten it from if not the woman who had shoved the key to her hot dog stall into his unwilling palms in the middle of pouring rain? Nowhere else would she have gotten that spunk if not from one Choi Won Deok.
He had always found her fascinating - he had never met anyone with quite as much compassion and gusto as her. It baffled him that someone with her talents would be so loyal to a company that, in his objective expert opinion, was bound to fail. Over the past year that her company had been in Sandbox, he’d been at the receiving end of her death glares and though he usually ignored it, he couldn’t help but find it amusing too. She was fascinating, this Seo Dalmi. But once he saw her and Halmeoni, everything made perfect sense. Suddenly, he could no longer ignore the glares she sent his way. And since Halmeoni saw them working in the same place as an opportunity to feed him (which essentially means Dalmi being an unhappy mule for various boxes of banchans and snacks), they found themselves in each other’s orbit more and more. In other words, she has decidedly grown past the point of ‘Fascinating Person’ for Jipyeong.
Four years have now passed since that fateful Demo Day and a lot has changed. Dalmi left that company two years ago and started her own company with three plaid-wearing developers and a former lawyer-turned designer who looked like she should be on a runway instead of a shitty rooftop office. It turned out, one of the developers was a genius and had created the best AI solution in the market. Combined with her natural talents, they impressed everyone and was now one of SH Ventures’ most high profile investments. Jipyeong was no longer just a Junior Partner. When he was promoted to Senior Partner last year, he became the youngest Senior Partner in Asia (to celebrate, he bought the most expensive beef he could buy and asked Halmeoni to grill it for him at her house).
But some things stayed the same.
“I see you’re still running a charity,” he commented as he entered the elevator after her.
She rolled her eyes, “I see you got up on the wrong side of the bed today.”
“This is me in my normal state.”
“You’re right,” she handed him a lunch bag, “Grumpy is your state of being.”
The elevator door opened and she stepped out, “Wash the container before you return it tonight.”
Before the door closed, she heard him say, “What do you take me for? A monster?”
She shook her head as she walked down the hallway to her office, unable to keep the small smile off of her lips.
***
Jipyeong was on the phone when he heard the door to his office be burst open louder than usual. When he glanced over, ready to shoot whoever it was an annoyed-glare for being so noisy, he was met with a very angry Dalmi who was waving a stack of paper in the air. He quickly wrapped up his conversation and turned to her, who wasted no time in slamming said papers on his desk.
“What did you do?”
It took him a few more seconds to figure out what she meant and when he did, he instantly relaxed. “You have a funny way of saying thank you,” his voice level with a tinge of amusement.
She glared, chest still heaving, “I appreciate it,” she began, “I really do. But you know I hate it when you do this.”
“I do and it was worth the risk.”
She had been bracing herself in one of the empty conference rooms to make phone calls to a bunch of companies which had CSR money to spend. With NoonGil’s successful launch and stellar reputation, she was hoping she could raise more funds since they were quickly burning through what they had as a result of their growing daily average user. She had obtained this list from Dong Cheon who had become their company’s biggest cheerleader, especially ever since his geriatric grandfather became more active with the help of NoonGil. She didn’t mind doing these calls - she did it without hesitation for Saha last year during Sandbox - but these phone calls were exhausting. There was only so much politeness one could continue to do after being rejected over and over again. So she was preparing herself for a day of excessive niceties and politeness when she was met with an unexpected response in her first phone call. “Ah yes! We’re waiting for the term sheet. We’re just so excited to support NoonGil,” the woman had said. That was five minutes ago and now she was staring at the man behind it all, looking the complete opposite of how she was feeling.
She sighed, exasperated, “Please tell me before you do things on my behalf.”
“Would you have let me do it?”
“Of course not,” she tried to keep her voice from rising too much but had failed.
“See?” he said this as if he had won the argument, which just made her sigh even deeper.
“The point is that you can’t keep doing things secretly and quietly like this. I’m the CEO. Let me do my job.”
He eyed her for a moment before nodding, “Fine.”
This wasn’t the first time that he had done this - do some crazy, wild favour for her without her knowing. It was why she didn’t tell him that she had started her own company and had insisted that Jipyeong be kept in the dark about all of this. But of course he found out very quickly because South Korea was a small country and everyone knew everyone in the start-up community. This had led to an epic three-day fight because she refused to take a meeting with SH Ventures, insisting that she did not want to participate in nepotism. He had laughed, pointing out that it wouldn’t be one since they’re not related, and that she was stupid for refusing help. Of course, this did not go over well with her who was especially short on patience as a result of months and months of work at trying to get her company off the ground while still working at the coffee shop to make ends meet. They finally made up when he sent her an email with a list of reasons why Samsan Tech and NoonGil will fail - largely due to its non-profitability. He ended the email by saying that despite everything, they’ll succeed because she’s at the helm. Upon reading that, she burst into tears. The next day, she showed up at his apartment with coffee and their proposal.
So this tendency of his to interfere irritated her sometimes - not because she doesn’t like his help, but because she wanted to be part of it too. She knew he did all those things because he cared, but his lack of communication about… well… everything… was frustrating. The guy was terrible at talking to people, though he was good at telling people to do things.
In the present day, he stood up from his chair, grabbed his suit jacket, and asked, “ Kong guksu ?”