Chapter Text
No, I'm not afraid to disappear.
The billboard said, "The end is near".
I turned around, there was nothing there.
Yeah, I guess the end is here.
The end is here.
Honeyglass.
I first thought of the word months ago, testing it in my head like a new strategy pitch.
(Yup, that’s me in the middle.)
God, it suited us so well.
Sweet on the surface.
Fragile, beautiful. But dangerous if you came too close.
That was us.
The nine of us.
The firm.
I remember how the office never truly went quiet.
Even at two, three in the morning, there was always that electric hum of the servers breathing and the city lights pressing against the glass like they wanted in.
I liked it that way.
No small talk, just the work. I rewrited realities for people who could afford to buy new ones for a living.
We were so fucking good at it.
The best. Or, at least, the highest paid in Seoul.
I helped Jihyo build that firm with blood, sweat, tears and one or two stunts. Those included sleeping with powerful people, or going over someone’s head if necessary.
We understood that success, the real one, wasn’t ethical.
Our team worked a lot, but the rewards were juicy.
But let’s rewind, from the beginning:
Everything started with Jihyo and me.
Well, Jihyo started it first, but I was her co-founder later.
We met at Konkuk University, Jihyo in Business and myself in Comms, but we spent more time talking about starting our own firm than studying.
After graduation we worked at a couple of big agencies, learned how things really get done, you know, the parts they don’t teach you in class.
We got tired of doing it for someone else. So we quit, started small, and built this place from the ground up.
I am the head of Strategy.
Jihyo’s Managing Partner and Team Lead now. She runs the day-to-day, keeps the clients happy, and makes sure everything stays on track even when she’s running on fumes.
Jeongyeon was one of the first people we brought in.
She studied psychology at Yonsei and then did negotiation at Harvard. She’s always been the calm one in the room. Partner now, same as me. She’s our crisis de-escalation lead, something as the fixer. She also was willingly in charge of keeping our office neat, but she wasn’t paid for it. It was simply natural.
Sana joined a year later.
She’s Japanese, grew up in Osaka. Did journalism at Korea University with an exchange year at Columbia. She’s Head of Media Relations. She has this way of talking to reporters that makes them do what we need, and we had to fight for her against bigger companies, but she joined us because “she thought Jihyo would make a hot boss”. Everyone likes her. She collects favors like other people collect business cards.
Dahyun came straight out of KAIST.
Statistics and computer science undergrad, then an MIT master’s in data science while she was already working part-time for us. She’s Lead Data Analyst. Quiet, straightforward, never wastes words. She turns numbers into answers no one else can see.
Chaeyoung studied visual communication design at Hongik.
Spent a year at RISD. She’s Creative Director. Her work is bold, sometimes too bold for the clients, but when it hits, it’s perfect. She fights for her ideas and usually wins.
Mina’s Japanese too, also from Osaka.
Political science at SNU, then security studies at Georgetown. She’s Senior Researcher. Doesn’t talk much in meetings, but her reports land on your desk and change everything. She finds things you didn’t even know to look for.
Momo came on board a few months ago.
She’s from Kyoto. International relations at Ewha, exchange semester at Sciences Po in Paris. Started as junior client liaison, moved up to Senior Strategist. Clients adore her. She’s the one who makes panicked people feel safe. She remembers how everyone takes their coffee, and gets it it right every time. And by everyone, I mean myself. But I will dive into her later.
And Tzuyu.
She was the youngest. Law and diplomacy at Yonsei. Already standing out, Strategist, working under me, but it didn’t seem like it. No, Tzuyu was built different. She asked the hard questions and pushed when others would have stopped.
Nine of us.
One firm.
Everything seemed to work, until it didn’t.
Someone has died.
I dreamed of the blood for 99 days...
They called it an accident, but I didn’t believe it.
Not for a second.
Because if it wasn’t an accident,
someone here did it.
Someone I sat across from every day, and, definitely, someone who knew exactly how far a push could send a body.
I knew it was her.
Who? I simply wasn’t sure. But I had to find out.
In this world, you eat or you watch yourself get eaten.
In a place that manufactures truth for a living, the real ones cut deepest.
And once you start looking for them,
you can’t stop.
Even when the reflection (whose?) looking back starts to scare you more than anyone else.
Honeyglass,
Coming soon!