10 rules of a Secretary chapter 8

While quietly waiting for the high-rise elevator, I turned my head at the presence next to me. It was a colleague from the marketing team.

The dark circles reaching his chin and his bloodshot eyes looked pitiful. I offered words of comfort.

“Yeah. We need to earn money.”

“If that’s what you call comfort, you’d better keep your mouth shut.”

“How many days?”

“Three. I can’t do more. If I do, I’ll get divorced.”

I remembered this colleague had just gotten married last month.

Instead of enjoying his honeymoon, he had been working nights every day after being away for two weeks.

He hadn’t been home for the past three days.

I took out a can of Coco Palm from my backpack and handed it to him. It was also a form of comfort.

“Drink.”

“Are you trying to kill me?”

“This won’t choke you.”

I had seen news of people dying from falling coconuts, but never from drinking Coco Palm.

I urged him to drink, and he reluctantly accepted it.

“You always carry two cans, don’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“Who doesn’t know, you idiot?”

I squinted at my colleague, wondering if the fact that I was a Coco Palm evangelist was such significant news that the whole world needed to know.

He straightened the creases on his dirty shirt sleeves and neatly folded them before stepping into the arriving elevator. I followed him inside.

“Don’t tell anyone I gave you a can. I don’t want my life to become more complicated. I just want to return safely to my beautiful wife who’s waiting for me at home…”

The narrow elevator was filled with his frequent sighs of regret. Come to think of it, he was an alpha too.

“Is your wife an omega?”

“No, she’s a beta.”

“Why did you marry a beta? What about your ruts?”

At my nonchalant question, he paused while opening the can.

His glance back at me was gloomier than ever.

“What can I do? I love her. I’ll deal with the traits gradually. Nowadays, there are good medicines… The ruts are manageable too.”

“Didn’t you ever consider meeting an omega? From the start?”

“You’re really fixated on traits. You’re a beta too. What would you know about this world?”

Shaking the can roughly and drinking the beverage, he looked relieved as the sugar hit his system.

“Pheromones can be controlled if you suppress them well enough. I take my medicine regularly. This way, even if it’s not as good as being a beta, I won’t be ruled by my traits.”

“…But it’s tough.”

“It’s hell. Sometimes I wonder if this is really living. But I love her, so I endure.”

Watching him smile bashfully, I murmured to myself that I didn’t agree with his opinion. Love has an expiration date.

No matter how intensely you love, no matter how madly you devote yourself, there is always an end.

Having seen it up close, I knew well the short and intense end of that expiration date.

“Hang in there. Like you said, there are good medicines these days.”

“What happened to your face? Did someone hit you? Are they still alive?”

If not alive, would they be dead? Glancing at him as he made such fierce comments nonchalantly, I watched the numbers change.

“If they weren’t alive, they’d be dead. CEO Han hit me. Look, I even bled a bit here.”

“So even CEO Han is at the point where he hits you. Must be pretty urgent.”

“Considering it’s been happening for more than a day or two. But this was the first time I got hit. Oh, I’m getting compensation for it. Capitalism is the best.”

Laughing at me, he pressed lightly on my swollen cheek. The white patch I had put on in the morning felt cool.

“Why are you going to work at this hour?”

The elevator reached the 13th floor where the Marketing Team 2 was located. Waving lightly at him as he returned to the office, I flashed a capitalistic smile.

“Pulled an all-nighter. I have nothing to worry about these days.”

“Take care. Survive. Achieve the 20-year long-term project. Absolutely.”

No matter how solemn he sounded, with bloodshot eyes and holding a Coco Palm, he couldn’t be taken seriously.

He was just pitiful. I waved at him again as the elevator doors closed, then hung my employee ID around my neck.

Inside the scratched plastic case was a photo of me with a blank expression. It was taken eight years ago, and my face looked so young.

I considered asking the HR department to change it, but I never got around to it. Getting older was already painful enough; changing the photo felt even more unfair.

At the large door right in front of the elevator, I scanned my employee ID and fingerprint.

The door opened to reveal a desolate reception desk and two more doors on either side.

One led to CEO Han’s office, and the other to the office where the secretaries worked.

Officially, CEO Han’s secretarial team consisted of me as the personal secretary, six in-office secretaries, and two assistant secretaries, making a total of nine.

Usually, a team of 2-3 personal secretaries works together, but except for me, they all quit. During my eight years of service, no secretary lasted more than two months.

As a result, I led a life without weekends.

Fortunately, a decent secretarial team was formed two years ago, but that didn’t bring any comfort to my mind.

This cursed job as a secretary didn’t guarantee personal life or a five-day workweek.

It was a job based on a grand alchemy of exchanging body and mind for money, requiring you to memorize the company’s entire business plan and status.

Movies portray secretaries as glamorous and impressive, but in reality, it wasn’t so. I happened to meet a relatively decent and slightly flawed boss, but most were not.

Some bosses made you clean their chamber pots, secretly attend to them at night, manage their various lovers, or sometimes threw things at you if a calendar wasn’t flipped or yelled at you to immediately correct a PDF file.

Surprisingly, despite rumors that CEO Han might embody all those negative traits, he was actually quite clean. If you dig, you might find just a speck of dust.

Standing silently in the empty lobby, I entered the room used by the secretaries.

“It’s quiet.”

It was early, so there was no one around. Near the entrance, there was a large potted plant with broad leaves. It was the office mascot, a bird of paradise plant named “Heavenly.”

Including myself, the secretaries called it “Heavenly.” It grew tall enough to reach the ceiling with just regular watering and was responsible for purifying the air in the office.

I turned my gaze from the plant and began sorting through the stacks of documents on each desk.

Although most of the printed documents weren’t confidential, it looked messy, so it was better to organize them.

As I gathered the papers neatly, I accidentally cut my finger on the edge of one.

“Ouch…!”

A deep cut instantly oozed blood. Of all fingers, it had to be my ring finger. Sucking the blood from the wound, I continued sorting the documents with one hand and paused in front of the nameplate labeled “Seonyul.”

On the white desk were three old succulent plants, a pen, a pencil, a highlighter, and a thick company-branded diary.

There was also a yellow chick blanket I received from the Marketing Team 2 for my birthday.

I hadn’t used any of these in a long time. Instead of writing on paper, I mostly organized and reported work using a tablet, so it was natural.

I chewed a herbal medicine and swallowed it without water. After taking it, I felt a little more inclined to see the CEO. Thinking about taking a vacation made me feel bitter, but it couldn’t be helped.

If you’re an underling, you must do as told. Moreover, I was a thorough underling who couldn’t afford to quit the company.

After watering the succulents a little, I put my phone in my back pocket, grabbed my USB, Coco Palm, and tablet, and left. Standing in front of the CEO’s office, I took a short breath, scanned my fingerprint, and entered.

A cool breeze from the air conditioner greeted me. I briefly wondered why the air conditioning was on, as it should have been on automatic power-saving mode when no one was around.

Following the sound of typing, I moved forward.

There was CEO Han Doha, sitting at his desk with sunlight behind him. His desk was piled high with documents he had reviewed overnight, and his attire was unusually disheveled.

The sunlight softly rested on his pale hair, giving the illusion of a bridal veil. The sunlight poured entirely onto him.

His solid forearm was visible under his rolled-up sleeve. His prominent veins and knuckles on the back of his hand stood out.

“If you’re here, come closer.”

“……I’m sorry, sir. I’m late.”

“Who’s more pitiful: the secretary arriving later than the boss or the boss who stayed up all night?”

The words “obviously the secretary” rose to my throat, but I held them back.

Instead, I smiled and quietly placed the Coco Palm drink I was holding at the edge of his desk.

“Maybe a bit of something sweet will help. I’ll share my precious provisions with you.”

“……Take it away.”

“Really?”

As I reached out to take it away, the CEO snatched the Coco Palm. Pretending not to like it but taking it anyway. I felt a sense of satisfaction knowing I’d turned him into a fan of Coco Palm.

“Good, right?”

I asked as he opened the can and took a sip, but the only response was a deeply furrowed brow. I figured that everyone expresses enjoyment differently, so I just smiled.

Some people react that way when they like something.

A prime example was my boss.