Jennie Ruby Jane Kim has been a determined and hard-working person all her life. As the heiress of a rather huge Korean fashion company, she had been pushed into embodying these personality traits ever since she was little – success expected from her in everything she did.
She even had several nannies at the tender age of 2 months who were only employed to teach Jennie to speak Korean, Chinese and English as quickly as humanly possible. So, by the time the only child of the Kim household was three years old, she was already trilingual – getting tutored in Math and Culture before even starting pre-school.
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Therefore, graduating on top of every class, as well as her studies abroad weren't a surprise to neither Jennie, nor anyone else really. Nonetheless, her passing Business School at Harvard University with the highest marks by a woman within the past 5 years and her parents not even attending the graduation ceremony had been the first time in her life when Jennie had felt disappointment. She had worked her butt off for several years to make them proud – only to realize that her parents didn't even care, because she was Jennie Kim and this was expected from her, because it was the plan they had made for her even before she entered her mother's womb. She was a Kim, and she was obliged to succeed.
Naturally, like a real Kim, Jennie had swallowed everything down and eventually became Seoul's youngest co-manager – running the Kim-fashion-company alongside her father for some years before starting her own company as well, because she felt like working 12 hours every day wasn't enough. Her father pushed by telling her how he built the company by working overtime for 10 years and somehow Jennie felt like she owed him. Because besides all the harsh drills - Jennie Kim had led a luxurious and wealthy life, where she never had to worry about anything else but reaching the standards of her parents by being a well-educated, well-behaved, good mannered, beautiful and successful daughter.
And Jennie was all that, never doing anything thoughtless – always careful to be decent and unimpeachable.
So, it turned out anything but expected when her father had called her into his office this morning, only to tell her two little sentences, which Jennie wasn't able to forget all day.
You seem tense. You should loosen up a little.
Jennie swirls the olive in her martini glass and silently shakes her head. Usually, her father spoke in a very formal tongue – so for him to voice out these words in front of her, and in a workspace of all, was very uncommon for him. It made the whole speech weight even more and it made it all the worst that Jennie had no idea what he was trying to say to her.
Never in her entire life had Jennie heard her father tell someone to do anything else but work hard – and certainly not to 'loosen up'. It confused her so much that she felt like she needed a drink - even though Kim's don't drink. Not in public anyway. But maybe that was the kind of loosening her father hinted at.
"Can I get you another one?"
Jennie felt another presence beside her – much too close for her liking and the way he leaned back into the bar counter and somewhat slurred his words a little, made her cringe inwardly.
She averted her feline eyes, which only had a faint tad of make-up on them tonight and scanned his appearance. He was dressed classy – the black suit flattering all the right places, his smile bright and his eyes soft – but Jennie still silently shook her head.
