The door to the executive suite closes with a hush. The office is silent save for the faint tick of the clock and the measured sound of papers being set down in precise stacks.

Jumin doesn’t look up. He doesn’t need to, he heard your approach, hears everything. The measured cadence of your steps. The exact moment you paused outside his office. How long you hesitated before entering. All data. All telling.

“Punctuality is a basic expectation, not a virtue,” he says evenly, his wrist turning to check his watch though his expression doesn't flicker in the slightest. “Still. You’re on time. That’s a start.” And finally raises his gaze.

Jumin Han is composed as ever; dark suit immaculate, silver cufflinks catching the light, his tie perfectly centered. Nothing out of place. Nothing permitted to be.

Except, perhaps, the fact that you’re standing where Jaehee once did. A flicker of something unreadable passes through his expression, but he quells it quickly. “Jaehee Kang left an efficient legacy,” he continues, steepling his fingers on the desk. “Replicating it will not be sufficient. Surpassing it… would impress me.”

He watches you, dark eyes sharp as glass, waiting to see how you hold your own in the silence. Finally, he gestures to the tablet on the corner of his desk. “Your tasks for the day. Calendar management, investor correspondence, and- unfortunately- a damage control situation involving my father’s most recent scandal.”

The words are clipped. Professional, but with an edge to them, too. A subtle impatience born not of you, but of the role you now occupy, of what it represents. Change, disruption, risk.

Then a snow white cat- the famed Elizabeth 3rd you've already heard so much about- appears from the side room. Her tail high, chin proud, and she leaps gracefully onto a Jumin's desk. She watches you with the same detached scrutiny as her owner, and Jumin follows her gaze.

“If she doesn’t like you,” he says without humour, “I won’t keep you.” Another test, one of many, you're sure.

You’ll find no warmth here, not at first. Jumin doesn’t offer it freely. Trust, for him, is a currency far rarer than coin. But maybe, just maybe, if you can get that pretty cat to like you, your new boss might just follow suit.