January 5, 2022 

Two days later, the majority of Seoul is still covered by a white blanket. Fortunately, the sky had cleared today and hopefully most of the snow would be melted by night time. Nabi has had multiple horror filled experiences with snow when she was younger and has hated it ever since. 

Besides, what's so enjoyable about the cold anyways? 

Nabi sat in the overcrowded bus and rested her head against the ice frosted window. She held her bag close to her, wanting to relax but couldn't due to the amount of people overcrowding the bus. 

It is the first day of work of the new year. 

The back to normal life day. 

The kind Nabi disliked the most. 

There were people standing in almost every free spot to the point that Nabi had thought that it wouldn't be surprising if the bus suddenly started overfilling and people would end up spilling out. 

Most of the passengers aboard were wearing coats or down jacket, men holding briefcases in their hands while the ladies held handbags or tote bags with them. Some had gloves on, other had boots while many wore scarves around their neck for warmth. Nabi herself had a scarf wrapped around her neck, hoping it will conserve her body heat within. 

The man sitting next to her sniffed for the nth time, scrunching up his nose as he pushed his eyeglasses up his nose, shifting in his seat, making Nabi scoot more towards the window. 

At least she was lucky enough to find an empty set before all the rush hour. 

Nabi internally sighed and closed her eyes, once again leaning her head on the window of the bus, not minding if the cold from the window was making her own skin ice cold. 

Choi Seungcheol. 

That's his name. 

Nabi's boyfriend's name. 

Nabi missed him. Even when she closed her eyes, she could only picture him, smiling, laughing, holding her close to him. 

The two have been together for ten months now, happened to have begun dating in March of last year. Even though sometimes it felt more like regularly hooking up with someone than normal dating. 

Then again, their dating situation isn't exactly in Nabi's hands because Nabi's boyfriend isn't just any other ordinary man. 

He's a celebrity.

An idol to be precise. A famous one too. 

They first met at a cafe, as cliche as it sounds. 

Nabi often works at a cafe on the ground floor her workplace, but is mostly preoccupied with her cup of coffee and the laptop screen in front of her. When Nabi works in concentration, she tends to shut the entire world away. 

It was an understatement to say that Nabi never noticed the man who came in almost every day, ordering the same coffee and sitting next to her table each time. In fact it wasn't until Nabi once dropped her pen on the floor and the man picked it up for her that Nabi first acknowledged the presence of the unique stranger. 

When she walked in the next day, Nabi saw that exact same man sitting in at the exact same table, wearing the exact same black beanie and black mask. Slowly Nabi began to notice his presence everyday but only minimized his presence to be just another regular customer like her. 

About a week later, the man approached her table instead of sitting down where he usually does. Nabi looked up in confusion and curiosity, wondering if something was wrong. What he asked next was something Nabi had not predicted at all. 

"Do you mind if I sit here?" 

He was pointing at the chair across from you, indicating he wanted to share the same table as you. Nabi had looked down at the table and then back up at him. 

She had wanted to say no. Nabi had no interest in conversing with a stranger, especially one where you couldn't even see his face and she had a ton of work she had to get up. However Nabi is also terrible at saying 'no', whether it is to her friends or to random people. She's one of those people who bullies at school love to exploit just because they know that the person is never going to say no to them. 

And next thing Nabi knew was that a man was sitting in front of her, looking around the cafe. Nabi wanted to ignore him and go ahead with her work but she could also practically feel the awkwardness in the air. 

So she swallowed her shyness and put away her laptop, grabbing the stranger's attention and smiled at him. 

The man, who Nabi found out is named Seungcheol, asked for her number before he left and that was how it all started. 

Even though Scoups is the one who asked Nabi out first, it is safe to say that Nabi's the one who's head over heels in love with him. The more time she spends with him, the more she finds out what an amazing man he is. 

Nabi sometimes wondered how in the world she, a plain looking, boring and uninteresting person managed to get into a relationship with such a famous person. She wondered what he possibly even saw in her. 

She was broken away from her thoughts by the man, who was sitting nearby her, falling into her. 

She grimaced as Nabi hit the side of her head on the window harshly and the man quickly said, "Sorry. Sorry." 

Nabi only gave him a little nod to acknowledge his apology. Maybe taking the train would have been a better option.

When the bus driver announced her stop, Nabi got up from her seat and made some few "sorries" and "excuse me", forcing her way through the mob of people in the bus. Nabi let out a very relieved breath as she stepped off of the bus, feeling as if she can finally properly breath. She isn't asthmatic, but she was sure that if she staid any longer on the bus, she would become asthmatic. 

And that's another set worry she doesn't need on her plate. 

Nabi dully walked towards the tall, window covered, twenty floored building in front of her.

Nabi wasn't sure how to describe her job. 

To put it simply, she worked in a publications start-up company. The company signs contracts with amateur and aspiring writers and Webtoon artists and assists them in self-promoting their stories on social media and provide advertisements and also in self-publishing their stories on the websites, Webtoon and WebStories.  

Although the company don't have much power in directing the plot-line of the authors that are signed to them, the editors and the publishers do have rights to reject the stories they find boring or to guide the authors in their story writing. They basically read the stories or the Webtoons and when its deemed ready, they sign the contract and help publish the stories. 

Many people get confused as to how this allows for Nabi to earn money. It really is simple. In turn for publishing their stories on the websites, the company takes 60% of the copyright while the writers received 40% of the copyright. It really is a luxurious deal for the writers, as in the traditional publishing industry, writers only get about 5% to 10% of the copyright whereas in Nabi's start up company, they earn 40% of the copyright. 

Nabi herself is assigned to two writers, Mia and Jay. Mia is a Webtoon comic writer, with amazing amazing drawing skills and mediocre dialogue wiring skills. But her visuals attract a lot of readers and her stories to generally well. They aren't best selling but they aren't massive flops either. As long as Mia sticks to the genre she is skilled in, both Mia and Nabi earn money. 

Jay, on the other hand, is an egoistical, self obsessed writer who loves to draw violent scenes, especially Zombies. Jay may have a jerk personality but he is also rich and pays extremely well and so Nabi simply shuts her mouth away and works along with him quietly. 

Not to mention that Jay is one of the top earning writers of the company. If he gets Nabi money then that's all she needs. 

Since it is a start-up company, there really are only nine employees and one boss. So really, only ten workers in total, five editors, four workers in the marketing team and one boss.  It may seem small, but due to the small number of employees, the work environment is very free and comfortable and the boss to employee relationship is also very comfortable. 

In fact, there were only five workers in total when Nabi first joined the company, around two years ago now. Back then, it was the only employer willing to hire Nabi despite her lack of education. 

Nabi was a very bright student and an extremely hardworking student and worker as well, however due to financial issues, she had to drop out of university in the middle of her third year, just before she was about to turn twenty one. 

Since she didn't finish her degree and had no plans of finishing it either, Nabi was rejected countless times from companies and had to live an entire year off of multiple part time jobs and multiple extra shift.

 After the death of her father, Nabi became the head of the family and staying unemployed just wasn't an option for her since she not only does she supports her self, but she also supports her younger brother, grandmother and mother financially. 

So when her company offered her a job, she took it without any hesitance. 

Beggars can't be choosers anyways. 

Nabi stopped by the cafe on the ground floor of her cafe before heading towards the office. She never has breakfast at home in the morning so Nabi always picks up a cup of coffee and a simple egg and cheese sandwich. Since the cafe is part of the office building, which actually houses multiple start up companies, the employees working in the offices get a thirty percent discount on all items. 

Most of her co-workers had yet to arrive at work by the time Nabi walked into her office, but she wasn't too surprised. Nabi was usually one of the first ones to show up at work. 

The office was placed on the twelfth floor of the building, and used up half of the floor, the other half being used by another company. It was mostly divided into two sections; the editors and the marketing team. 

After sanitizing her hands at the entrance and checking her temperature in the automated machine, Nabi walked over to her designed desk, which was by the window and offered a generous view of the Han river. 

"Nabi! Good Holidays?" A booming voice asked, making her turn towards its way. 

Nabi smiled at Jang, the owner and the boss of the company, and said," Yes. You?" 

"Great! Great! I ate so much that gained around four kilos," Jang said as he walked around the office. 

"I'm sure you'll loose it in no time," Nabi told him, sitting down on her chair, still smiling, removing the scarf around her neck at the same time. 

Jang is the CEO of the company Nabi works at at and is the most unique person Nabi has ever met.  Jang is barely over the age of thirty and is already married with a two year old baby. He wakes up every morning at five to job and then attend yoga classes and has in fact already won a couple of marathon contests as well as he's a major movie geek and writes reviews for media companies in his free time. He is actually an app and website developer and works as a freelancer to fix bugs and in fact opened up this publishing company as a side hobby. 

Jang comes from a rich chaebol family, so money was never an issue for him. Because of his bubbly and outgoing nature, Jang has created a very fun work environment. Nabi sometimes felt she was at a playground instead of her job. 

Logging to the desktop in the computer in front of her, Nabi pulled out her planner from her bag at the same time. She took the small desk calendar on her desk and checked if all the important dates were in sync in both her calendar and planner. 

Nabi noticed that she had a meeting with Mia in the afternoon tomorrow, reminding herself to check up on Mia's progress before their meeting so that it would go smoothly. 

"Hey Nabi," A female voice called and Nabi looked up to see her co-worker, Yoon, walking in. 

Yoon is another editor at the company, just like Nabi, however usually dealt with the fantasy genre while Nabi dealt with writes in the thriller genre. Yoon is two years older than Nabi and does have a rather sharp tongue, but she's always been nice to Nabi. 

"Happy new year," Yoon said.

"Happy new year unnie," Nabi smiled at the older woman. 

"How were your holidays?" Yoon asked. 

"Cold," Nabi answered, "But I bought a better heater so its warmer now."

"Yeah? That's nice," Yoon said, "By the way here you go. I went to Jeju over the break so I got everyone some oranges." 

Yoon walked over and placed a mid sized pack of oranges at the edge of Nabi's desk and Nabi turned away from her computer and picked up the pack of oranges, saying, "Oh my, really? Thank you so much."

"No problem," Yoon gave her a pretty smile. 

Yoon wasn't actually her real name but she preferred to use Yoon over her real name. Neither is she friends with Nabi, however the two had a good co-worker relationship and Nabi always felt secured with Yoon around.

Mostly because she knows that Yoon will not hesitate to literally kick anyone's ass if they mess with either of them. 

Nabi turned back to her desktop to begin her work for the day when she got interrupted again, this time by another male co-worker, Shin. 

Shin is another editor in the team. Shin is a year older than Nabi but he is also at a lower rank since Nabi joined the company before him and has been working longer. Sometimes Nabi felt that the fact she was at a higher rank within the company despite being younger than Shin ticked him off at times. 

Although he remained friendly most of the time. 

"Sup Nabs," Shin called as he stopped directly in front of her desk, smiling like a creep.

"It's Nabi," Nabi muttered so quietly that no one heard her. 

"What was that?" Shin asked, frowning as he genuinely believed that Nabi was talking back to him. 

"How was your break Shin?" Nabi chose to say intsead. 

"Oh it was alright," Shin said, "We were supposed to go fly to Bali for the break but Omicron happened so we ended up just taking a week long vacation in Jeju. It was alright. I've been to Jeju so many times that it ended up being boring in the end. And then my mom was being so stubborn. She wanted everyone to eat together all the time to spend some quality family time."

"Jeju," Nabi raised her eyebrows once, "I've never been to Jeju."

Nabi also didn't see anyone from her family over the break. She spent the holidays all alone, not that she wasn't used to it already. 

"You haven't? Well I guess it's alright in the first visit," Shin said, "What about you? Did you meet your boyfriend?" 

Another important fact to note about Shin is that he is extremely nosy and loves to gossip too. Nabi was texting Scoups one day and happened to be smiling at the same. Being eagled eyes, Shin quickly noticed this and managed to fish out of Nabi that she is dating. 

"Not really," Nabi mumbled. 

"Really?" Shin sounded a bit surprised but quickly returned back to what he was asking, "Come on. Tell me his name." 

Nabi had managed to hide most facts and details about her relationship away from Shin but he never refrained from asking her and was always pressing Nabi for more details. If Shin wasn't a year older than Nabi and if its wasn't for the stupid cultural respect Korea has for elders, Nabi would have probably told him off months ago. 

Nabi was about to open her mouth and feed Shin some excuse but someone else beat her to it. 

"Stop pestering her Shin," Sehun spoke with his deep and masculine voice. 

Sehun is another one of Nabi's co-worker, and probably the best employee in the company, having four writers assigned to him whereas Nabi only has two writers. Sehun is quiet and mysterious and mostly keeps to himself and whenever he does speak, he uses that extremely low voice of his. In fact the first time they met, Nabi could barely hear him due to how low his voice is.

Not only that, Sehun is also very tall and has such a manly appearance overall that he often attracts gazes from both women and men. 

"I'm not pestering her. Isn't that right?" Shin addressed the last question to Nabi.

"Um. . ."

Sehun took one small glance at Nabi and told Shin, "If she wanted to tell you then she would have told you the first time you asked. Get to work already." 

Shin irritatedly rolled his eyes but nonetheless listened to Sehun and went back to his seat. 

Another thing Nabi found mysterious about Sehun was how everyone automatically listened to him. Nabi wasn't sure how he did it. Maybe it was the cold and quiet aura that surrounds him or maybe it was the fact that he was the best employee in the company that had everyone listening to him. Either way, Sehun is mostly definitely the company's most intimidating worker that even Jang has a hard time saying no to him. 

The four of them, Sehun, Yoon, Nabi and Shin were the company's top editors with Sehun having four writers, Yoon three, and Nabi and Shin having two writers assigned to them each.

 Together, along with the other writers and the marketing team, the four were probably the most reputed employees in the company. Shin also liked to call them the Fab Four but no one ever laughed along with him so he soon dropped the idea. 

Out of all the workers, however, Nabi is probably the only one with the lowest certification of education. Although she did attend University, she never graduated from it so really Nabi is nothing but a high school graduate. 

Hello. 

I'm sorry that the second chapter took so long to upload but I didn't have much time juggling schoolwork and my other stories as well. However now that is done so I have all my focus on Hidden Love. For a month the updates will not have a regular schedule, meaning that I will upload whenever. Don't worry, I will make sure to update at least a month but starting from April I will have a fixed weekly schedule. 

Have a great day : )