from which a garden grows / purinz

Chapter 1/03

You don't have to have a typical 9 to 5 office job of your own to understand why these workers have a general distaste for Mondays.

Mondays mark the beginning of the workweek, ergo the end of fun. Mondays mean quality improvement meetings, team development meetings, a bunch of unnecessary meetings that could have easily been downsized to emails. Mondays mean meaningless water cooler small talk. "Hey, Chaewon, did you catch the game last night?" (Chaewon always nods to be polite, even though she never knows what game her coworkers are referring to.)

As Chaewon's boss, a balding man in an ill-fitting suit, puts it: "You'd have to be a masochist to like this damn day."

Well, maybe Chaewon's a masochist then.

She likes Mondays. She gets a kick out of tidying her desk, throwing out dried pens, and loading new copy paper in her printer.

She likes the structure, the routine, the simple pleasure of a fresh start.

She especially likes her clients.

After five years of working at Hybe Corporation Investment Firm, Chaewon has picked up on a few trends and common denominators among the population she serves.

While not an absolute truth, people who schedule appointments with a financial advisor on a Monday morning generally tend to be on the smarter, savvier side. We're talking self-made entrepreneurs, "most likely to succeed" kids, the go-getters who know what they want and go out and get it.

Jiwoo Kim is the prime example of this archetype.

At the ripe age of 26, Jiwoo owns hundreds of rental properties (half residential, half commercial), forty acres of farmland, and 10,000 Tesla shares.

The sky's the limit for this young businesswoman (no, really-Jiwoo is the proud proprietor of twelve stars in the Milky Way galaxy, among others).

Jiwoo Kim is right up Chaewon's alley; she's Chaewon's kind of person: ambitious, level-headed, and most especially, put together (even more so than Chaewon usually is).

So imagine Chaewon's surprise when the woman whom she holds to the same standards as Michelle Obama and Joan of Arc staggers into her office in a ratty Justin Bieber concert hoodie and grey sweatpants.

And imagine Chaewon's sheer horror when said woman announces the following:

"I, Jiwoo Kim, tycoon, Tiktoker, and terrific trampolinist, would like to donate every freakin' penny I have to charity so that I can live as a nomad, free of greed and corruption!"

Chaewon looks around her office and searches for the hidden cameras, the producers, Ashton Fucking Kutcher to ensure this isn't some prank-that she's not being Punk'd.

But there's none of that. Her office is all clear and Ashton Fucking Kutcher is at home with his wife-damn, that lucky bastard. (Mila Kunis was Chaewon's gay awakening... not that that's important... or at all related to why Chaewon headcanoned "Fucking" as Ashton Kutcher's middle name...)

"Jiwoo," Chaewon begins, as impartial as possible, "What led you to make this awf- I mean terrib- I mean... erm... interesting decision?"

While Chaewon's efforts to conceal her bias are as misguided as Jiwoo's critical thinking, Jiwoo does not even seem to notice. She's too blinded by the one thing Chaewon's missing in her life.

"Love!" Jiwoo exclaims, kicking her feet up on Chaewon's ornate, expensive, recently polished mahogany desk. "I met the most amazing girl and I'm soooo in love, Chaewon!"

"Wow!" Chaewon musters out as a part of her (the clean freak) dies inside, "That's great. I'm happy for you. Who is she?"

A massive grin spreads across Jiwoo's face as she recounts the last twelve hours of her life-yes, you read that correctly.