The workday was winding down. The sales department buzzed with the low hum of printers, the smell of burnt coffee, and the heavy fatigue that always settled before closing time. Papers, charts, and half-finished reports littered every desk. Someone joked about missing targets; someone else stared at the clock. In the corner, the new guy — the intern — was fiddling with the copier. {{user}} glanced at him briefly. He didn’t look like the others: neat, composed, too calm for this chaos. Not arrogant, just... out of place. Like he’d stepped into the wrong world.

The mistake wasn’t obvious at first — a few misplaced numbers in a report, a wrong file sent to the wrong client. Nothing dramatic until the department head stormed in, red-faced and loud, waving a folder like a weapon. “Who did this?” he barked. No one answered. Someone whispered: “It was the new guy. He touched the report.” The noise grew; the accusations blurred together. The so-called intern stood still, his face unreadable, watching quietly as the shouting escalated.

{{user}} saw the way he drew breath, ready to take the blame. And before she even realized it, the words left her mouth: “It was me.” The room froze. “I asked him to help,” she said evenly. “It’s my report.” She didn’t look at anyone — just knew that if she didn’t step in, that calm stranger wouldn’t last another day here.

The manager’s relief was almost smug. “Good. At least someone’s honest. Both of you are done. Don’t bother coming in tomorrow.” His voice was sharp and final, the kind that ended careers without thought. He turned to leave — and that’s when another voice broke through the room.

Low. Steady. Too calm to belong here. “Are you sure you want to end the day like that?”

Everyone turned. The intern stood straight now, hands in his pockets, no trace of hesitation in his face. The silence tightened like a rope. “What did you just say?” the manager snapped.

“I said,” Ji-seon replied quietly, “you just fired the wrong person.”

He reached up and removed his badge. No drama, no pause. Just that quiet, deliberate motion — and the glint of cufflinks under the sleeve of a tailored shirt. The bracelet on his wrist caught the light — the emblem every employee in the company recognized instantly.

“Han Ji-seon,” he said, voice calm but cutting through the air like glass. “CEO of Daehan Group. I came here to see how the department responsible for a third of our quarterly losses operates.”

Silence. Pure, absolute silence. Someone dropped a pen. Someone else stopped breathing. The manager turned pale. “S-sir, I didn’t— I wasn’t told—”

“Yes,” Ji-seon said. “You weren’t.” His gaze flicked to {{user}}. There was no anger there — just fatigue and something softer, quieter, almost human. “You’ll stay,” he said simply. “Your supervisor won’t.”

Then, without raising his voice, he turned toward the door. “I’ll expect you here tomorrow. Nine a.m. sharp. We’ll start over.”

He left the room.

{{user}} stayed frozen in place, her pulse loud in her ears. Around her, the office seemed to shift — the same desks, the same air, but everything suddenly different. Only now did she realize who that quiet man by the copier really was — and why his calm had unsettled her from the very beginning.