Ten Rules of Business, MARK

03

RULE #03: NEVER be too trusting for your own good

Kwon Aera was a fool, Mark thought. She was a fool for trusting him so easily. Granted, he had no plans to take advantage of her, and yes, he did agree to help her out, but if it was any other person, it wouldn't have worked very well in her favour.

He disliked how quick she was to trust him, making it so obvious how desperate she actually was to get to the bottom of this case. He thought she'd know better as a business major, and as the literal daughter of an entrepreneur. The third rule of business is to never be too trusting for your own good.

The next day, the pair was seated in the same room as they were before, Mark typing away rapidly on his keyboard for new information.

It was revealed by Aera that the company had been passed over to her mother after the CEO's passing, which of course came to no surprise. What did surprise Mark was the mention of a third party.

"Who is that?" He asked.

"Kwon Jeongil, my uncle. Half, uncle, actually," Hwang Aera quipped. "After my father passed, he began to oversee the company with mum, which I thought was weird considering I rarely see him. He manages his own company," she added.

"Apparently, his name was written in my father's will," she continued after a while. "I don't know. I don't think they were ever close apart from having a strictly business relationship, so it feels kind of suspicious," Aera voiced out her thoughts. "What do you think, Mark?"

He paused, not expecting for her to throw the ball to him. "Yeah," he answered. "It's fishy."

Aera rubbed her eyes. The pair had been hunched over the table for a few hours, looking through statements and transactions that had been made over the past year. It was a lot of work, definitely something that couldn't be crammed in a day.

"Before we wrap up," Mark said, sensing that the girl was beginning to get restless. "My payment."

Kwon Aera stared at him in response, lips parted slightly as she took in his words. "Oh, right."

She got out of her chair, heading towards the small kitchenette at the corner of the room. She had been frequenting the fridge quite a lot for energy drinks and bottles of coffees the past two days, but it had just only dawned upon her that it was lacking the one thing vital for her to fulfil her end of the payment.

"Um, Mark?"

"Hm?" He hummed distractedly, the sound of his chair soon scraping the ground before he found himself behind the girl, who was peeking into the fridge.

"Ingredients," she blurted when she felt Mark's chin hover above her shoulder. "We have no ingredients."

Mark remained silent for a while, his eyes scanning the empty fridge. "That's fine," he said finally, arm stretching out to grab a container of what seemed like kimchi. "We have ramen."

The sudden contact between his chest and her back had made Aera freeze momentarily, though his warmth was quick to leave just as it came. Mark didn't seem to notice though, his actions relaxed as he proceeded to rummage through the cabinets for the instant noodles.

Clearing her throat, Aera closed the fridge door as she went to stand next to Mark. "I'll take it from here," she suggested when he finally retrieved the two ramen packets.

He nodded as he made his way back to his workspace, ready to pick up from where he left off.

Aera casted the boy a small glance, seeing his figure hunched over the table as his eyes focused solely on the screen before him. She didn't know Mark very well, but weirdly felt comfortable enough to share her family's deepest, darkest secrets.

She wasn't sure if it was because they were working together, or if it was because he was the closest thing she had to a friend right now. She knew it was a high chance that Mark didn't feel the same, but she sought comfort in the small possibility that he did.

Growing up, Aera had been secluded from the outside world from her parents—  being homeschooled her whole life, college was her first ever shot at a social life. Though, it didn't seem to be working out very well for her.

When the news of her father's death broke out, Aera had taken two weeks off school to mourn. She never really had friends who stayed before— most of them coming and going after taking advantage of her riches— so dealing with her loss was a lonely process. She learnt to deal with the sympathetic looks given by her classmates when she returned, deciding that she would rather be alone than to be pitied.

Who's to say that Mark wasn't the same? She remembered thinking. But in the short while she had come to know Mark Lee, she realised that he was the first person to not have given her the look of pity she knew all too well when she told him about his father. Unlike her past friends, he didn't want her money. Mark Lee was different, she thought, a new kind of different. She could only hope it was the good type.