The business day rudely interrupted their luncheon. No matter how enjoyable it was, time would not wait and, unfortunately, they had to get back to work. The magic of their comradery was broken by a knock at the door by an intern saying that some muck-a-muck upstairs needed an update on the Im project.

Seulgi sent him off with a piece of paper that had the updated information. So, she had won over yet another fan with a goddess-like smile. The intern went off with a star struck look in his amber eyes. No one in the office or amongst his coworkers and friends even thought to tease the young man about it because they understood exactly what he was going through. After all, they were guilty of the same thing after they met Seulgi for the first time. It was almost a company rite of passage.

As usual, Seulgi was totally unaware of what was going on around her. She understood the power of her face, intellectually. But, emotionally, she was still not used to it, even at the age of 28. She was in the prime of her life and she knew it. But all she wanted was to get on with the project in front of her.

So, she just ignored the going on around her and got back into her data and reports. It was simpler than trying to figure out what the fuss was all about. Many hearts were also communally broken by this attitude.

She had a small frown of concentration while thinking about what needed to be added to the next proposal. This one was a bit trickier than the Im proposal, which was near completion, she thought smugly. This one was for a foreign manufacturer that needed three separate parts, one of which they did not make. So, she would have to talk to the bosses about setting up a new factory line or subcontracting it out.

There are always pros and cons to involving other companies. They had less control over the quality of parts that they were dependent on if the subcontractors can produce on time and other various nuances. On the plus side, they didn’t have the headache of setting up a new line and did not have to shuffle manpower around to cover it, not to mention all of the cost of the changes. Shipping worldwide could always be done. She could literally make anything happen, so long as she got the bean counter’s approval.

Seulgi was typing away, her fingers on the keyboard were actually keeping up with the near mechanical precision of the clockwork mind. All of the people who had done their youthful military service were reminded of automatic gunfire.

Numbers, figures, calculations, suppositions, and dispositions, all flowed out of her hands into the report that was being born. After two hours, a nascent report was born. She needed to do some editing, reviewing, and a bit of tweaking, and the report would be ready to be presented to the pair of VPs responsible for the impending project for review.

Seulgi was getting ready to call Nayeon over when she saw a recently hired former intern, Min-jeong, looking like she wanted something to do.

“Hey, Min-Jeong!” Seulgi called.

Min-Jeong responded, “Yes, ma’am?”

“I told you to quit calling me ‘ma’am’. I’m only 28 and not that old.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Seulgi sighed and shook her head. This girl. She was so young and adorable, you could not get mad at her.

“You needed something, ma’am?” prompted Min-Jeong.

“Yes, can you take this paper over to the supervisor of the K line and ask him if he can get me the numbers of his production line? I need this as soon as possible, so be quick as a bunny, ok?” Seulgi said with a smile.

Seulgi noted that things got done faster when she smiled.

“Yes, ma’am!” Min-Jeong practically snatched the paper out of Seulgi’s hand and solidly ran into Jackson as she darted out of her office.

“Woah! Watch where you are going, Min-Jeong!” laughed Jackson as he caught her before she fell. Again, it was impossible to get mad at her for being overly exuberant in helping. Also, again, it’s completely understandable; Jackson knew the Seulgi Effect all too well. And, to be honest, he is still not quite immune to it after all these years.

He got a quick apology as she quickly faded into the distance waving a piece of paper.

“Whew. It’ll be Winter before she calms down, I suppose,” said Jackson to Seulgi. He took a brief moment to check on her ankle. It was still red and swollen. He did not think it was a sprain but knew it would be hurting for a while regardless. He told her to keep her leg propped up and that he would go get some ice and aspirin. He left the report he had for her on the desk and left for some more ice and another, dryer, towel.

Seulgi propped her leg back up on the box and then picked up the report and started reading. This had nearly all of the information that she needed for the new, yet unnamed, proposal. She amused herself by calling it ‘Project X’, but that was too cliché. Especially since they were all Project X until they had a proper name.

All she needed to do is wait on Min-Jeong to return from the factory floor so she would have all of the information that she needed. It was going to take a while, so she just settled in and got on with things.

While thinking about this, Jackson quietly returned, saw her leg propped up, and smiled. He knelt down, rewrapping her ankle with the towel before gently adding the weight of the bag of ice and setting the aspirin that was in a small Dixie cup on the desk. Seulgi quietly hissed in pain then relaxed. She even downed the pills, though she never fully left reading the report. One side effect of being clumsy is getting used to getting ice in various places. Frequently.

Jackson just smiled at her and left her office to get back to his duties while Seulgi was still off in her own world.

No one thought to make fun of Jackson being under Seulgi’s desk. Firstly, his attachment to his wife was legendary. Secondarily, No one would dare to disparage Seulgi as the entire company would lynch them. Thirdly, Jackson was known to be very protective of his girls and would give some ‘Wall to Wall Counseling’ to anyone who disrespected them.

Min-Jeong was back an hour and a half later, worried that Seulgi would be mad at her for the wait. It took time to find K Line's supervisor, tell him what was needed, who it was for (which is why she got back as soon as she did), get the data, and then get back. Min-Jeong cleared her throat to get noticed at the door.

Min-Jeong smiled and set the paper down when and where Seulgi nodded to her and pointed to where to place it.

Min-Jeong floated back to her actually assigned duties and got busy with a vengeance. She had her own quotas to meet as well. But her interaction with Seulgi made any potential troubles worth it. Still, she was a smart girl as well. This is why she was currently the youngest employee, she was both smart and talented.

So, before diving back into her work, she sent a quick message to her manager via MS Teams to explain where she was just now and whom she was doing it for. Sometimes the risk of getting forgiveness rather than permissions was a worthwhile gamble. This time, it was successful.

All was understood and forgiven and she was told to get back to work. Her manager just shook his head a couple of desks over and smiled because he had, not long ago, done the very same thing as she just did himself. He knew the power of Seulgi.

Seulgi compiled the data, organized it, re-ordered it, and neaten up the text by changing the entire document’s font to Arial and a uniform font size, then made sure it was presentable. This was going to the VPs before she started the actual work on the real proposal. So while it did not have to be perfect – yet – it does still need to be presentable.

She saved the presentation onto her desktop as ‘Yet Untitled Project’. She learned the hard way to save whatever she was working on and saved often. Several years ago, while working on an Excel document for over four hours, she had not saved it when her system mysteriously restarted itself. Four hours of work, just gone. She was so mad that could not even cry.

She put her document as an attachment into an email to Nayeon, Jackson, and Yeji to go over it to see if there are any glaring errors. While she was technically the boss, it was still good to have extra eyes look at it first. And she trusted these three clowns to get serious and professional when needed. They may be clowns, but they were her clowns and she trusted them.

While waiting for them to get back to her with updates or edits, she took a break at her desk to unwind a bit. Without even being noticed, Jackson had snuck in and swapped out the melted ice for a hot compress. That would explain why she was warmer than she thought she should be.

Seulgi made a mental note to buy Jackson a nice thank you token for all that he was doing that was not in his job description, for taking care of her. She tried to remember what his favorite drink of choice is so she could get him a bottle.

While thinking about getting her team a small cake on Friday to reward them for their hard work, the CFO wandered by seeing her staring off into space. He didn’t know what world she was in, but she looked amused, so he left her with it. He just wanted to see how she was, as the rumor of her ankle had reached the VP sections as well.

And thus, Seulgi continued until the end of the business day and she started to go home. She was dreading just what mischief Suki had been up to, but she would deal with it when she has to. She wrapped up her day and her ankle and then got ready to go home for the day. Wondering how she should get home, her daily workout was definitely out of the question as was walking home. So she started planning what to do for the evening, not knowing it was futile as her plans would be pleasantly destroyed within a half-hour.