Office Romance Scandal (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 12
As the atmosphere grew warmer, the team members’ faces turned increasingly red. So many liquor bottles crowded the table that they had no choice but to stack them under it.
Though few in number, this group was the golden table—the one contributing most to the restaurant’s sales.
“Manager Lee.”
Hae Jin called out to Byung Soo, who was just reaching for a side dish. She glanced swiftly around the table and underneath it before speaking.
“It seems like everyone’s been really looking forward to this team dinner.”
Hearing Hae Jin, Byung Soo also looked around and gave a soft chuckle.
“Yeah, maybe we should’ve done this more often earlier.”
Regret slipped into Byung Soo’s voice. Sensing the mood suddenly dip, Hae Jin quickly changed the subject.
“How long have you been working with the team leader, Manager Lee?”
“I’ve been in this industry for about fifteen years, and I’ve worked alongside the team leader for roughly five.”
Though he looked young, his unexpectedly long experience only deepened Hae Jin’s curiosity.
“So you’ve worked with the team leader for five whole years?”
“Right. I’ve been with him since his very first day here.”
Hae Jin snapped her fingers and pointed at Byung Soo.
“So you’re the legendary ‘team leader’s pick’ I’ve only ever heard about!”
Byung Soo was Hae Jin’s first target for winning over—the trusted second-in-command. His lips curled into an unconscious smile at her playful tone.
“Am I?”
He awkwardly scratched the back of his head and downed his drink in one gulp.
“Back then, we used to have team dinners all the time. He wasn’t always this cold-hearted.”
Surprised by Byung Soo’s unexpected comment, Hae Jin set down her chopsticks. Tae Hong rarely spoke about himself, and with team dinners so infrequent, this might be her only chance to learn more about him.
So she kept asking, growing more curious about the kind of person he really was.
“Really? I thought he’d always been this detached.”
“Oh, come on. Who’s like that all the time?”
Well, actually, people like that are often closer than you think.
“Up until that incident happened, he still gave off this fresh, youthful vibe.”
Incident? What incident?
Hae Jin shifted restlessly in her seat, leaned forward with her elbows on the table, and tilted her upper body toward him. Byung Soo, sitting across from her, pushed his glasses up and leaned backward.
Oh, this is making him uncomfortable.
Hae Jin calmly slid a side dish toward Byung Soo.
“Please eat more, Manager. You’re the backbone of Strategic Planning—you need to keep your strength up.”
Acting as if nothing had happened, Hae Jin returned to her original position, cleared her throat slightly, and secretly hoped Byung Soo would continue.
“Assistant Jeong.”
Byung Soo glanced cautiously around before leaning far forward toward Hae Jin.
Seizing the moment while other teammates were busy chatting among themselves, he beckoned her closer. Without knowing what it was about but checking others’ reactions, Hae Jin leaned in toward him.
“Since you’re basically the team leader’s designated shadow, I’ll give you one piece of intel.”
Hae Jin instantly tensed at Byung Soo’s hushed, secretive tone—it felt like he was passing on a top-level secret.
“There’s one question you must never, ever ask the team leader.”
“W-What is it?”
Hae Jin quickly pulled out her mental notepad, ready to jot down anything about Tae Hong.
“Never ask him about family or women.”
“Family and women?”
“Shh! Shh!”
Byung Soo swiftly raised a finger to his lips and scanned their surroundings. Luckily, no one was paying attention to them.
Family and women—so it meant not to pry into his private life.
Suddenly, Hae Jin recalled that day.
“You think you can accommodate any woman however she wants?”
“He may be my half-broternal brother, but he still carries the Yeon Chang Group bloodline.”
Could there really be some over-the-top morning-drama-level family mess? First, hints about a brother and sister, then his aversion to even the slightest mention of office scandals—it suddenly made sense why Byung Soo kept saying “shh.”
Seeing Hae Jin fall silent, lost in that memory, Byung Soo assumed she’d understood and returned to his seat.
“I’m sure you’ll handle things tactfully, but remember this well.”
At his firm, repeated warning, Hae Jin mimed locking her lips with an invisible key and stayed quiet.
“What do you mean, ‘tactfully’?”
Just as she was about to think deeper, trouble arrived in the form of Fox Kim. Her eyeliner was smudged and her lipstick had vanished somewhere—clearly very drunk.
“It’s nothing.”
Byung Soo subtly signaled Hae Jin and spoke in his usual tone. But the drunken fox wasn’t about to let it go.
“Nothing? I saw everything! You two were whispering secrets to each other.”
“Secrets?”
Hae Jin nearly snapped at Yeon Jung’s odd interpretation—but then remembered her opponent wasn’t in her right mind.
*Sigh. Patience. Patience.* While Hae Jin practiced internal mindfulness, Byung Soo helped Yeon Jung back into her seat.
“Manager Kim, you seem really drunk. Should I call a taxi?”
“Oh, come on, Manager. I’m not drunk.”
Hello? Drunk people never admit they’re drunk. Still, considering Yeon Jung was her teammate, Hae Jin placed a glass of cold water in front of her.
“What’s this? Trying to make me sober up with cold water?”
There’s always someone who twists kindness into an insult. Hae Jin shook her head.
“Manager Kim, it’s because your face is flushed—I’m giving it to you to cool down.”
“That’s the same thing!”
Yeon Jung’s sharp, high-pitched yell drew everyone’s attention to the two of them.
“Hey, Assistant Jeong Hae Jin.”
With all eyes on them, Yeon Jung, smug from the attention, gave Hae Jin a look of deliberate disdain.
“If you’re a parachute hire, then act like one—find your landing spot and stay quiet like a dead mouse.”
Hae Jin exhaled slowly, releasing the sigh welling up from deep in her abdomen.
“Once a parachute lands, do you think it knows how to fly back up again?”
She bit softly on her lower lip.
Look, I’m just fulfilling my contract with the chairman and getting paid—that’s all.
Not that I ever planned on rising anyway.
After one last breath, she gulped down the water in front of her.
“Manager Kim Yeon Jung.”
She called out to her after setting the empty glass back on the table. Instead of answering, Yeon Jung just folded her arms and glared at Hae Jin with a mix of mockery and contempt.
“Are you jealous of me?”
“What?”
Winning teammates over was one of Hae Jin’s key goals—but did she really have to win over someone who’d already judged her from the start? That question still troubled her.
“Or… are you afraid of me?”
Hae Jin refilled her empty glass and downed it again in one go. Both Byung Soo and Yeon Jung could only stare in stunned silence at her bold display.
“I didn’t actually plan to say this…”
But since you brought it up, I have no choice.
“Why did you only give me outdated materials—all of them?”
“Wha—what?”
Staying silent wouldn’t protect her. If this kept happening, the blame for any work-related failure would inevitably fall on Hae Jin. So she had to confront this head-on—just once.
“I—I gave you perfectly valid documents!”
Her shamelessness was sky-high.
“Ha! You only gave me old documents from the joint project with Dae Chang Construction and completely omitted the final-stage materials from the Dae Yang Construction project.”
As Hae Jin listed off the discrepancies, Byung Soo, Yeon Jung, and the other teammates stared at her, utterly dumbfounded.
“How… how did you…”
“So please don’t assume I know nothing. From now on, I expect proper cooperation in our work.”
She drew a clear line: Don’t think you can ignore me just because I’m a ‘parachute hire.’ Do you really think I’m just sitting at my desk doing nothing?
Even if you think I dropped in out of nowhere with zero skills, I absolutely won’t be careless about my work.
Having held back until now, her outburst came rapid-fire—but afterward, Hae Jin’s face was calm. Everyone else, except Byung Soo and Yeon Jung, wore expressions completely opposite to hers.
“T-Team… leader?”
Huh? Did these people eat something weird? Why is that title coming up in this situation? Hae Jin turned around, following their fixed gazes over her shoulder.
And sure enough—he was there.
“So this is where you all were.”
“T-Team leader! What brings you… here?”
Her shock made her words come out stilted and broken.
“I happened to pass by and recognized some familiar faces.”
“But this is the exact opposite direction from your meeting place.”
Tae Hong sat down naturally beside Hae Jin with a perfectly calm expression. Byung Soo quickly arranged a fresh set of utensils in front of him.
“I won’t be drinking.”
Byung Soo sat back down when Tae Hong placed his palm over his untouched glass.
“What were you all talking about? Everyone looks stunned.”
“Well, Assistant Jeong has really gotten a solid grasp of her tasks.”
Byung Soo explained to Tae Hong everything Hae Jin had figured out so far, sounding proudly like a mentor praising a new hire. Yeon Jung kept her head bowed low, while Hae Jin quietly shifted her chair slightly to the side, out of view.
“Maybe because Assistant Jeong Hae Jin majored in business administration—she’s got a good sense for understanding the flow.”
Hae Jin clearly heard Tae Hong’s quiet mutter. He tilted his head slightly, having taken in every word of praise about her, then fell silent again.
Though Tae Hong’s arrival seemed like it would prolong the dinner, surprisingly, it ended very early. Byung Soo said he was heading the same way as Yeon Jung and left with her, and the other staff dispersed on their own.
Only Tae Hong and Hae Jin remained.
“Team leader, I’m afraid I won’t be able to give you a ride tonight.”
“I know. I came here tonight to drive you home.”
Why? The words caught in her throat and were pushed back down again. Hae Jin had no choice but to follow Tae Hong, who was already walking ahead.
“Let’s get in.”
The passenger-side door—the one he always sat in—was opened. She had to get in, but was it really okay to? The longer she hesitated, the more awkward it became.
In the end, she had no choice but to get in. Even his courteous gesture of carefully closing the door for her felt strangely uncomfortable.
“You can sleep if you’re tired.”
He even added that oddly gentle remark.
“I’m fine.”
Her short reply was followed by heavy silence. She must’ve misheard.
“Actually, I don’t have a single backup file about you, Assistant Jeong Hae Jin.”
She definitely heard him say that. She remembered it clearly. Yet he already seemed to know everything. So how much did he actually know? Or rather… since when had he known?
That question, which had been nagging her since earlier and pulling her mood down, now needed a definitive answer.
“Team leader… how did you know I majored in business administration?”
Male lead fell into her trap — and shattered when she walked away
This is also on my reread list!
This one is a slow burn, but when it burns, it burns hard.
Definitely worth a read, y’all!
The story follows a thousand-year-old seductive spirit who, on a bet, sets out to charm the male lead—a once-promising but unfortunate cultivator.
But just when she succeeds in making him fall for her, she heartlessly leaves, driving him to madness.
Determined to find her at all costs, he captures her, keeping her by his side no matter what, even if she hates him.
I love this kind of trope—I enjoy watching the male lead suffer in agony.
The ending drags a bit with unnecessary filler, but that’s fine.
As long as I enjoy the beginning, I’m good.
Intro
As an enchantress, Su Heng possesses captivating eyes and charming beauty, easily manipulating the joys and sorrows of living beings at her fingertips.
But to enchant a god, making him taste the bitterness of love’s separation, long-lasting resentment, unattainable desires, and inability to let go…
Do you dare?
Su Heng assists a divine lord in his cultivation, aiming to make him experience all the sufferings of love, so that he can attain the Great Dao.
Only after being chased down from the heavens by the divine lord, confined and completely possessed by him, does she realize how successful she has been.
The once gentle and polite youth has transformed into someone she no longer recognizes.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
I like his honesty and my god there is communication.