The Captain & The PA Lady - Jo Yeong & Myeong Seung-ah

First encounter in the palace

It was 8 am, she was standing in front of the Royal Palace and was equally nervous and ecstatic: today would be her first day working at the Royal Public Affairs Office – a job she had been dreaming of for years, and the reason she had moved back from Canada where she had left her family behind. Finally she was where she was meant to be! She took one last deep breath and started walking towards the gate.

After the guard inspected her ID, her official employment invitation letter, and he liaised with the RPA Office to make sure her manager was ready to welcome her, Myeong Seung-ah was let through the first security check. She was then escorted through a meander of alleys leading from one courtyard to another; at regularly spaced security checks, another guard looked at her ID and took over from the previous guard to walk her to the following checkpoint. After walking like this for what must have been ten minutes, she was finally escorted into a building.

She was asked to remove her jewelry, put it into a tray, place her purse on the x-ray machine's conveyor belt and step through the metal detector gate. Even though she knew she had no reason to worry about security checks like these, she always felt like a criminal and couldn't help imagining that members of a special agents troop would jump out of every corner to neutralize her, throwing her onto the floor, securing her hands behind her back and the whole package.

And of course, it didn't fail: as soon as she walked through the gate, it started beeping and her heart rate jumped up. She turned around to look at the guard in charge: there was nothing left on her that could have triggered the metal detector, or so it seemed. At her expectant look, he replied, "The security procedure orders for a pat-down." He picked up the phone, probably to get a female colleague to come over and perform the procedure. He made several unsuccessful phone call attempts before telling the other male guard that no one was picking up.

After looking at each other for a moment, seemingly unsure, one of the young guards announced, "Madam, please stand here, raise your arms to your side and spread your legs apart."

"Excuse me?" Myeong Seung-ah couldn't believe her ears. She was in the Holy of Holies and was being ordered by two men to spread her arms and legs so they could pat her down! "Absolutely not! Is there no woman around who can perform the task? What would you do if Prime Minister Koo was standing in my place right now? And don't answer that you would tell her what you just told me because we both know that wouldn't go down well with her!"

The two men looked embarrassed and started trying to justify themselves: they hadn't been working in the palace long, had never been confronted with a similar situation, and so on and so forth, each of their excuses making them sound more incompetent by the second.

"What is going on here?"

She instantly recognized the voice. How could she not? It was him: Jo Yeong, the captain of the Royal Guard, who had recently appeared in front of her as she was sitting at a coffee shop and asked for the pictures she had taken at the rowing competition. If she had already been in fangirl mode before that encounter, since then her imagination had known no boundaries anymore.

Yes, Captain Jo's deep, authoritative and sexy voice was right behind her. She briskly turned around to face him with a smile. "Jo daejangnim! Hello!"

"What are you doing here?"

"I was on my way to my first day of work at the Royal Public Affairs Office when your two little guards here suggested I spread apart my arms and legs so they could pat me down," she replied matter-of-factly with a tint of sass.

Captain Jo turned towards the guards who were looking at their feet. "I will deal with the two of you later." Looking back at Myeong Seung-ah, he said, "You, come with me." And with that he turned around and started walking.

She squinted at him and said, "Because he wants to perform the pat-down himself?"

He stopped dead in his tracks, collected himself, and turned around. He looked first at the two guards in the back to make sure they hadn't heard what she had said – they most definitely had heard – and then at her to scold her with just one look. She innocently replied, "What?"

"Once again, Ms. Myeong, I can hear you."

"Oops?" Myeong Seung-ah replied apologetically. "But really," she added in a whisper, "are you going to do it yourself?"

Jo Yeong didn't reply nor did he show any emotion before he turned back around and started walking again. She followed him until he stopped in front of a door. He opened it, stood to the side to let the doorway free, thus indicating she was requested to go inside. This was enough for her wild imagination to be unleashed and her heart rate to increase again. That is, until she heard a woman's voice say, "Ms. Myeong, please stand in the middle of the room so I can perform a security check."

Myeong Seung-ah's shoulders dropped in obvious disappointment. She turned around to look at the door and saw Captain Jo looking straight at her, one eyebrow raised with what seemed to be a very subtle look of amusement in his eyes. She was pretty certain it was the first time she had seen something else than his stoic face. She couldn't help but beam while he disappeared behind the closing door.

Author's notes:

This first scene is an alternate to their first encounter at the palace. It's not that I didn't like the actual scene – I did –, but for some reason this is what came to my mind when I rewatched some scenes and stumbled upon Prime Minister Koo's security check scene.