Cunning and Evil

RUMOUR HAS IT

A whisper between two women in the comfort room of the National Assembly Hall is where it all started. The news that was shared in confidence , now wandering aimlessly in an employee's mind, waiting to be blurted out as a casual topic of small talk with other people.

The workplace seemed so serious and the employees were craving even the tiniest excitement and amusement that any piece of juicy gossip or a rumor gets passed around almost efficiently, spreading like a sexually transmitted disease from one person's lips to another.

A young man in a suit ran hurriedly across the building, not minding the senior officers who begrudgingly shot him a look for running in the National Assembly Building. Couple of minutes ago the young intern was having dinner in the building's cafeteria together with the other interns of the other assemblymen, powering through the overtime, when one decided to share a news that he heard from somewhere who heard it from someone.

Now five doors away from their office, he hastened his speed to reach it quickly. Panting and out of breath, he counted into ten as he fixed himself and waited for his breath to get even, before opening the door leading him to the Chief-of-Staff.

He had to report everything he heard, because rumour has it that the speaker of the National Assembly will now informally endorse Rep. Ri Jeong Hyeok for deputy speakership.

If what he heard was true, they would have to face the aftermath of Rep. Yoon Seri's wrath, for that endorsement was initially promised to her.

Several moments later and the assemblywoman was practically seething with anger when the intern entered her office, his shaking hands slowly putting down the glass of water on her mahogany table in an attempt to calm her down. Meanwhile all her senior staff had their heads bowed down a little, afraid to look into her eyes. Yoon Seri was going on and on about how the endorsement is rightfully hers, how she fought tooth and nail to get that, and now it was served on a silver platter to that stupid assemblyman named Ri Jeong Hyeok, not letting her staff hear the end of it.

There are 300 people in the National Assembly, why in the hell does it have to be him?

Representative Yoon Seri picked her bag up, raised her chin and walked out of the room, refusing to take any of this shit.

***

"Sir, I'm sorry but she really won't take no for an answer." His staff pleaded, half panicked and half afraid of the assemblywoman bulldozing her way to his office. Her seething anger had dissipated, leaving traces of detest in her face in the form of her icy-cold aura. She looks scarier in this state, where her high heeled shoes kept click-clacking on the floor and her subtle winged eyeliner so sharp it could kill a man.

"Leave us and go home," Jeong Hyeok commanded. His junior staff was retreated after proving her boss' visitor with a beverage; relieved that she wouldn't get in the middle of the warzone. Closing the folder he was reading from and hiding it underneath all his files lest Seri tries to take a peek. "Please. Make yourself comfortable."

Pointing to the chair in front of his desk, his offer was met with graceful nonchalance as she remained standing up, poise and composure elegant yet motionless.

He shifted his seat on the leather executive chair, leaning back a little for comfort. "What brings you here?"

"You know why I'm here." The assemblywoman retained her ice-cold demeanor, threatening him wordlessly with her gazes.

A sheepish boyish smile crept up to his face, making the well-dressed man look like a bashful teenager teasing a girl, "I don't."

But charms never fazed her. "Cut the bullshit, Ri Jeong Hyeok. I don't have time to play games with you."