The warm light of the morning sun peaks through No Eul's bedroom window, waking her up from the nights rest. She squints her eyes, trying to adjust to the sudden intake of light. She wasn't used to being woken up by the sun, her alarm clock was usually set for a time before the sun would make it's way to her window. That sudden realization caused Eul to scramble out of her bed, the sheets tangled around her legs causing her to fall right to the floor. Though it hurt, she didn't have time to wallow in her pain and bitterness. She lifted herself from the floor to look at the clock on her bedside table. She could tell from the way the display time was blinking on and off that the power in her studio apartment had gone out the night before. No wonder her alarm hadn't gone off.

Eul quickly reached for her phone to check the time. Her heart practically stopped beating when she saw how late it was. She only had thirty minutes to get to work, and with how bad traffic is in the morning, that would probably be how much time she needed to drive there.

Time couldn't be wasted because that wasn't something No Eul had in plenty. She immediately started to get dressed, nearly tripping over her own limbs in her rush. She didn't have much time to brush her teeth, so she quickly ran over it with a toothbrush, grabbed a piece of mint chewing gum, and got a cold bagel out of her fridge to eat on her way to work. It wasn't an ideal breakfast and she knew that for most of her shift she would have hunger pains, but there wasn't really anything she could do about that. Maybe she'd get lucky and a customer would send their food back to the kitchen. Her boss doesn't care if they eat food like that, it'd have to be thrown away anyway. She just couldn't afford to pay for the cooks to make her something to eat. Employees don't get free meals where she works. The food there isn't something you just give away, even to the people that keep the restaurant running.

A sudden realization made Eul's gut twist and turn. If her alarm hadn't woken her up, then her son's alarm most likely hadn't either. "Uri," she called out worriedly, "are you awake?"

"Yes, Eomma!" Relief set in when she heard his voice. It sounded like he had been awake for a while and was most likely getting ready for school. The thought that he knew about the alarm situation and hadn't bothered to make sure she was awake made her annoyed, but she didn't have time to scold him for that.

"Don't be late for the bus! I'm leaving for work." Eul chuckled lightly when she heard him mumble an unintelligible response, most likely because he has a toothbrush in his mouth.

Grabbing her phone and her keys, Eul makes a run out of the apartment complex and to her car, praying that today, the old piece of junk she calls a car will be nice to her, and the engine will start running on the first attempt at cranking it. She turned the ignition once, twice, then three times. On the fourth try, the car finally started properly. Though she would've loved for it to be on the first try, "beggars can't be choosers," she thinks to herself. At least it started today instead of her having to take the bus, or get a taxi.

The drive to work was anything but pleasant. Cars honked angrily at her terrible driving. Through the reflection in her rear view mirror, she caught a few people flipping her off, yelling God knows what at her, and banging frustratedly on their steering wheels. On any other day, No Eul would've felt sorry for being such an inconvenience to other people, but being late for her morning shift wouldn't fly over with her manager, and she just couldn't afford to lose this job. Not that it was the best paying job, but it gave her enough to get by. Anything less, and she just wouldn't be able to keep up with her bills.

As she pulls into the familiar grey lot and hastily parks her car, she brushes through her hair in an attempt to look presentable. The door chimes when she walks in and storms to the back to clock in with thirty seconds to spare. Her manager gives her a look.

"Slept in this morning, did we?"

"The storm blew out my electricity. My clock was reset, as was the alarm," she cringed slightly.

He nods in understanding. "The table in the back just got here, make sure they have their drinks."

"Yes, sir." She turns and walks in the tables direction, flattening out her apron, Eul sighs in relief that he didn't say anything worse. Her manager is actually very nice to her; nicer than any other manager she's worked with before, that is. He smiles at her when they walk past each other and he sometimes helps her carry large orders to her tables.

She's lucky to have gotten this job. It's a high end restaurant that mostly serves people with too much money than they know what to do with. Because of this, the majority of costumers are high and mighty about whether their crab was cooked too much, or if their drink was slightly watered down thanks to the ice they got five minutes ago. She does her best to let such things go even when most of the time she wants to shove their watered down drinks straight up their pretentious-

"Ma'am?"

"Hmm?" She snaps out of her trance to face the woman again.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes, you wanted to know if the Cavatappi is gluten free, right?"

She smiles and nods in response.

"Yes, all of our pasta can be gluten free at your request."

As she gets back into her routine of serving, she quietly hums a song, beginning what she knows will be a long day.

Hours pass and customers come and go. It's almost nine when her somewhat peaceful Tuesday is interrupted by what sounds like a small marathon outside. She turns to see a crowd of girls and boys surrounding the front door. They cheer and smile too widely as a pair of men make a path to the door. In walks a young man wearing a coat with the collar up despite the warmer weather and shades that he pushes above his head after he walks in.

His wavy hair is dyed so light it's almost white. His skin is a beautiful golden honey, and he has a tall and slender frame. She watches him take a breath and walk up to the counter only to be bombarded with another girl, a coworker, smiling brightly as she says how nice it is to meet him. The customers have all turned in his direction and she sees camera flashes from a few booths. He almost scowls at the attention. Eul looks over his face but doesn't recognize him at all, but due to the scowl on his face she doesnt like him already. "Hope he isn't assigned to one of my tables," she thought to herself.

There have been celebrities that have come here before, but usually they don't have an entourage with them. She takes one last look at the hoard of fans outside and turns back to cleaning up the plates the last customers left behind. "He does seem quite famous though, maybe I'll use that to my advantage."

After cleaning the plates, Eul walks up to the front of the restaurant where the hostess is. She remembered how the girl immediately recognized the famous man that had come in, so maybe she could help her out. When Eul makes it to the front counter, the hostess, Soojin, is already admiring the man who can't seem to eat his meal without being bothered. The scowl painted on his features doesn't seem to detract from her admiration for him.

"Who is that?" Eul inquires, her eyebrows creased and her head tilted slightly, showing her child-like curiosity.

Soojin finally breaks her intense and dreamy gaze from the idol to look at Eul incredulously. "Wait, are you serious?"

She nods at her coworker in response which causes an exaggerated gasp to sound from the girl who seems to be the founder of this guy's fan club.

"How can you not know V? He's probably the biggest singer in South Korea," Eul barely pays attention to what the girl is rambling on about, all she can think is how she's never seen Soojin look so animated. Normally at work, Soojin looks dead inside. Her pale skin and jet black hair adds to her edgy and angsty look. "His new hit Singularity is always playing on the radio. You can't tell me you've never heard it."

"The sound system in my car doesn't work," she admits sheepishly causing Soojin to give her a pathetic look. Soojin makes a snarky comment, asking if anything in that piece of junk works. Eul doesn't pay any attention to that, she has a mission and nothing can distract her from that.

On her way back to the dining area, Eul notices V's waiter coming back to his table carrying a plate of creme brûlée. This is her chance, one she can't let slip by, so of course she gives it her all. As soon as the waiter sees Eul running towards him like a maniac, he tightens his grip on the dish, a habit he's learned during his time working here. After you drop the first plate of piping hot food on yourself, it's a habit you pick up rather quickly.

"Jungkook-ah, manager Kwon told me he wants you to refill the drink station."

"I have to carry this plate out to Mr. Kim's table," Jungkook whines in protest, his pouty lips making him look even younger than he already is. Eul ruffles his light brown hair. If Jungkook had any hands available, he would use it to swat her away to prevent his hair from messing up, although Eul thought what she was doing made it look better since his hair is so straight and lays down so perfectly, it gives his head a coconut shape.

"Don't worry, I can take that for you," Eul flashes him an innocent smile, but that only makes Jungkook more suspicious of her intentions. He lifts an eyebrow and gives her a questioning look, but decides to give her the plate anyway.

"Whatever. Just be careful, Noona, the plate is hot." Eul carefully takes the plate from the boy. Before he walks away, he of course, has to make some smart remark. "I know it looks good, but this is for the customer, so try your best to restrain yourself." Jungkook winks at her which earns him a glare. If there weren't customers around, he would've gotten a lot more. Eul had long ago given up on scolding him for saying things like that to his elders because no matter how much she did it, Jungkook just couldn't get it through his head. She thought that Jungkook's head not only looked like a coconut, it must also be as hard as one.

Even if she glared at Jungkook for his constant teasing and occasionally flicked his ear, deep down, she enjoyed their relationship. Jungkook always covered her shifts if she couldn't make it into work, he did his job well, and sometimes would bring lunch for her.

"You ordered a creme brûlée?"

The man looked up from the screen of his phone to see where the sudden soft voice came from. He was expecting the boy who had been waiting on him earlier. For a split second, his eyes widened in surprise, making him look less harsh and cold, but as quickly as the expression came to his face, it disappeared. "Yes, I did order that, but that was about thirty minutes ago, Miss," he squints his eyes to read her nametag, "No Eul."

She swallowed nervously, hoping this wouldn't lessen the likeliness of him giving her what she wanted. She wanted to point out that it can take up to three hours to make a fresh creme brûlée, but the wiser part of her told her that wouldn't help in diffusing the situation. "Yes, of course! I'm so sorry for the wait. We just wanted to make sure we served the freshest food to you that we possibly could." Eul felt like she was reading off of a script when she said that since it was the same response she'd give to any customer complaining about the wait time.

He scoffs. "I'm not surprised at all to have you kissing up to me, after all, your manager probably wouldn't be too happy to lose a good paying customer like me. If I asked you to, you'd probably get on your knees and plead for my forgiveness so I won't complain to the manager." After he said what he wanted, he didn't pay any more attention to No Eul. Why would he? He didn't think she was being nice to him because she was a good person. Surely she knew who he was; she was only being nice to get something in return. That's the only thing he could expect from anyone around him. This is only something he's learned to expect over the years.

No Eul hadn't left his table yet. She was stunned, honestly. She couldn't believe the audacity of the man that was sitting in front of her. She no longer wanted to ask for his autograph, but she knew this would be her only chance, and she really couldn't afford to let her pride throw this opportunity away. She sucked in a deep breath and tried to stop herself from cringing at how much she was about to humiliate herself.

No Eul took out the notepad she uses to take orders and places it in front of him. She holds out a pen, squeezing her eyes shut hoping that her actions won't fuel the anger he already has. "Can I please have your autograph, Mr. V?" She's only greeted by silence, so she slowly peeks her eyes open and looks at the man before her. As soon as she does, she wishes she hadn't. The man is smiling, but it's not the welcoming kind. The glint in his eyes tells her that there's a fire-like anger boiling behind them and he could explode at any moment. The smile under those dangerous eyes makes it even worse. She wonders if she should just walk away or if she should just take what's about to come.

"Let me guess? You're my biggest fan, and you just have to get my autograph," he says with fake enthusiasm, "or your little brother is dying of cancer, and it's his dying wish to have something signed by me because I'm his hero." His forced smile drops as he throws her a nasty glare.

The girl's eyebrows crease and she presses her lips together. She doesn't like this guy's rude comment at all, and she decides that his swollen ego needs to be flattened.

"Actually," she flashes him a petty smile and uses the best passive aggressive voice she can muster, "I have no idea who the heck you are. I just saw you had fans and figured you're famous. I was going to get an autograph to sell for some poor sucker so I can pay off some bills."

No one has ever talked in a demeaning way to him. It was always so respectful, a hint of fear in their voice because they thought one wrong move would cost them a job, or it was nice, but in a "I'm sucking up to you because I want your money", or "I want to get in your pants" kind of way. This girl, she talked to him with no fear, and without a filter, nothing hidden, nothing faked, this was pure. He didn't know whether he wanted to splash his water in her face for the comment, or if he wanted to ask for her hand in marriage. His eyes were wide in astonishment and a smile started to show on his face. He decided to settle for what he thought to be a good in between of the two extremes.

"Come work for me."