First Love

Chapter 24

Jae went to the Accounting Department, planning to send the disinfectant fluid that Aunt Ji forgot to take from the storeroom. That was when she heard the loud shouting of the infamous Yoo Myung Dae.

"Don't you know how to do things properly? It's brainless people like you who make everyone's life miserable!" he shouted. Jae walked nearer and saw Aunt Ji on the floor. Again, the rest of the people in the accounting went on doing their job like nothing happened. Were they all robots? Enough was enough and Jae couldn't take it anymore.

"Excuse me, what happened here?" approached Jae. She could see Aunt Ji, looking extremely haggard and she was close to tears. Her hand was absently massaging her left knee. Jae knew kneeling would cause pain to Aunt Ji. "Aunt Ji, let me help you up," offered Jae.

"She haven't apologized," stopped Yoo.

"For?" asked Jae.

"Why do I have to tell you? You're just as brainless as she is," responded Yoo haughtily. "You people do all this work because you're too dumb to learn at school. You're even too stupid to understand simple instructions."

"Excuse me?" Jae asked sharply.

"You. People. Are. Too. Stupid," Yoo pushed Jae in the head hard enough that she was reeling, enunciating each word that he said.

Jae saw red and as quick as he pushed her, she took that offending hand and twisted it.

"This is assault!" Yoo cried in protest.

"Correction. What I am doing is called self-defense," clarified Jae "What you did was actual bodily harm, as witnessed by everyone in the department. There's the surveillance camera too," Jae said with her voice dripping in malice, letting go of his hand. "I forgot, this department is practically empty." Jae laughed hollowly. "Every one of you should be ashamed yourself! You let people like him rule around and treat everyone else like a vermin. Aunt Ji is old enough to be your mother yet you let that tyrant bully her around. I'll file a report to my boss and tell my colleague that you can clean your department all by yourself. We stupid people just don't deserve to clean this high and mighty department," announced Jae.

"I want to see you do it," challenged Yoo. "You probably can't even write properly."

"What is this? School playground insult?" said Jae sarcastically. "Honestly speaking Mr Yoo Myung Dae, if your brains were dynamite, there wouldn't be enough to blow your hat off," quoted Jae. It was a line from Kurt Vonnegut, one of her favorite writers. "In case you have forgotten, we stupid people can file a complaint to the Human Resources too. In written form and verbally."

Every employee knew that the company is big on creating a conducive environment for people to work. They pride on creating a safe place for everyone to work in, despite of their ranks. Bullying and harassment were never tolerated. Jae didn't report it before as she didn't want to create that much of a problem and she thought someone would eventually report on Yoo. She was wrong. No one did and he went too far.

"Wait! We didn't participate with what he did!" protested a person near them.

"You didn't stop him either," returned Jae.

She went closer to Yoo and whispered to his ear. "Heard that you were behind with your payment. You are familiar with a Mr Nam and Mr Gil, right? Wonder what will happen when I tell that to your boss," Jae winked.

Yoo was gasping like fish and looked at Jae in horror.

It was a week ago when Jae was throwing the trash out from the restaurant that she saw Mr Nam and Mr Gil with some of their goons cornering up a guy. She was about to call up the cops if they went trashing the guy - guardian thugs or not, if that happened in front of her, she would still report it in. Then she finally saw the guy they were cornering. It was Yoo Myung Dae.