PROMPT: Lawyer Ha Chaeyoon is suddenly assigned to a drugs case, which violates a term in her employment contract.

She is forced to defend Min Taegu, a pompous yet achingly-endearing man, accused of being part of a drug cartel.

An old prompt of mine.
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Ha Chaeyoon released a telling sigh as she finally crossed the threshold of her apartment.

As a senior associate at Son Hyun & Ri LLC, Chaeyoon had the uncanny ability to feel perpetually tired.

She would be tired before the day even started, and she would be tired at night just thinking about tomorrow.

She shuddered a little as she laid motionless on her bed, wishing her clothes would magically turn into her sleepwear and the makeup on her face would remove itself.

Just as she was about to get up against her will, her phone suddenly made an unwelcome noise, signaling an incoming call. Looking at the name on the screen, Chaeyoon almost threw the damned thing on the floor.

What the hell was her boss doing, calling her on a Friday night? Wasn't it enough that she was the last one to leave the office? How many metaphorical fires had she already put out that week?

Inwardly feeling sorry for her cursed life, Chaeyoon hit the answer button with an annoyed tap followed by an irritated pull at her hair.

"Good evening, HCY," came the booming voice of Jang Youngnam, one of the senior partners at her law firm and the supervisor of the entire litigation team.

"JYN. What is it?"

JYN had, as expected, called to assign a new case to her that he classified as Urgent. To make matters worse, the case involved drugs which technically violated a specific term in Chaeyoon's contract that prevented her from handling such disputes.

But, much to her chagrin, her boss had precipitously invoked the Emergency Clause.

Just as when she was about to protest further, JYN had offered something to the table she simply couldn't resist.

If her boss were trying to catch a fish, the last line he dropped would be the final tug and pull before he successfully reeled in his senior associate. "If you do this, I will seriously consider you for junior partner next year."

Though red-alert signs kept flashing at the back of her mind, Chaeyoon, with her career goal in clear sight, found herself automatically nodding her head. "I'm in, sir."

Before her boss hung up the phone, she stopped him with one last question. "Sir, what is his name?"

The sound of the light shuffling of papers came on again before her boss replied. "Min Taegu. His name is Min Taegu."

Min Taegu turned out to be the very antithesis of Chaeyoon.

She was already starting to hate him the following day, though she hadn't even met him yet. He was late to their 10 o'clock appointment, and there was absolutely nothing she loathed more than having her precious time wasted.

The only thing that enabled her to keep her cool was the word partner echoing in her brain like an earworm.

And when he finally entered the conference room, Chaeyoon could already sense that this client of hers was a textbook narcissist with a troubling inflated sense of self-importance paired with a lack of empathy for others.

"Good morning, Mr. Min. You are ten minutes late," she greeted him with a hint of scolding in her voice.

Taegu didn't bother greeting her back, choosing to give her a smirk before plopping himself down a chair, crossing his legs and leaning back as if he were in his own living room.

In spite of the annoyance bubbling inside her, she still offered her hand. "Mr. Min Tae-gu," she said, trying to muster up even the tiniest hint of a smile. "I am Attorney Ha Chaeyoon."

"No kidding, you're my lawyer?" He asked by way of his reply, giving her a once-over that made the associate frown.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing. And by the way, I'm not late. You're just early," he replied, briefly shaking her hand before perching his elbows on the table and cocking his head at her, as if to challenge her to argue with his explanation.

"Well, the agreement was to come here at 10AM."

"I never agreed to it. It was your team who decided. I," Taegu stretched his arms tiredly for emphasis at this juncture before leaning back lazily on his chair and adding, "am supposed to be sleeping in."

His lawyer was having a hard time masking the scowl on her face, and he bit his lip in obvious amusement. But before either of them could say anything further, a ringing sound cut through the tension between them like a knife.

While Taegu spoke to someone on his phone, inadvertently disrespecting his lawyer yet again, the unwilling associate coached herself to keep her cool and to make better use of this idle time by browsing through his case files on the desk.

Just as she spotted something she flagged as highly substantial to his defense, Taegu put his mobile down the table and went silent.

Chaeyoon thought nothing of it, for the piece of information she was currently reading could be the basis for Taegu's entire defense strategy.

"Mr. Min," she said, peering at him while pointing somewhere on the opened folder in front of her. "It says here that your sister was the one who–"

"Leave her out of this," her client burst out suddenly with much force in his voice, the kind that told Chaeyoon he was not playing around.

She swiveled her chair to face him fully, to let him know that all her attention was on him. "I need to know everything if I am to represent you."

In an excruciatingly slow movement, Taegu lifted his head up and leaned towards Chaeyoon. He was too close for comfort, but she didn't flinch, not even when she could already feel his hot breath prickling the skin on her cheeks.

"I don't need you to represent me. I need you to defend me."

Chaeyoon moved back a fraction of an inch, suddenly distraught at the terrifying way he said those words, as if he could see right through her.

She looked back and forth between his eyes back and forth, and what she saw confirmed there was more than the ruggedly handsome, devil-may-care exterior this man was putting up.

And she needed to find out what it was.

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Photos from BAU by Bride and You & Loro Piana