CONTINUED...

For the next three days, you lived in an alternate reality. When Jungkook returned from Incheon, you couldn't look him in the eye without flushing a deep, vibrant crimson. Every time he scowled at you, you didn't see a grumpy rival anymore; you saw a man hiding behind a literary mask, secretly translating your interactions into prose.

The tension built to a crescendo on Friday afternoon. It was the day of the AeroPulse All-Hands Presentation—a massive, company-wide quarterly review hosted on Zoom, with over five hundred employees tuned in across the global offices.

Because the CEO was traveling, you and Jungkook had been tasked with co-presenting the slide deck for the new product roadmap.

You sat at your desk, your headset plugged in, your eyes locked onto the grid of hundreds of tiny video squares on your screen. Jungkook was presenting from his private focus room down the hall.

"And that concludes the Q3 logistics pipeline," Jungkook's voice boomed through the high-quality headset microphone, smooth, professional, and entirely steady. "I'll hand the mic over to Y/N for the operational timeline."

"Thank you, Jungkook," you said, your voice shaking slightly before you found your footing. You clicked through the slides, speaking clearly, trying to ignore the little video box showing Jungkook's face. He had his glasses back on, leaning back in his chair, his eyes fixed on his screen as he listened to you speak.

You wrapped up the presentation at exactly 4:55 PM.

"Great work, team," the HR director chimed in over the main audio. "We'll conclude the All-Hands here. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!"

The screen began to flicker as hundreds of employees started dropping off the call. You clicked the button to stop sharing your screen and stretched your arms, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

But down the hall, in the focus room, Jungkook didn't realize that while he had closed the presentation window, his Zoom application was still running in the background—and his professional, broadcast-grade microphone was still completely live to the remaining fifty people on the call, including the entire executive team.

Suddenly, a heavy, ragged sigh echoed through the audio channel.

"God, she is going to be the death of me," Jungkook's voice muttered. It wasn't his corporate tone; it was the raw, deep, velvety whisper from the copy room.

You froze, your hand hovering over the 'Leave Meeting' button. The remaining employees in the chat box began to flood the sidebar: Wait, is Jungkook's mic still on? Who is he talking about?

"Jungkook," a senior manager tried to speak up, but Jungkook was already shuffling papers, oblivious to the world.

"Fourteen chapters," Jungkook continued, his voice echoing clearly in the ears of fifty coworkers. "I've written fourteen chapters about her, and I still haven't told her the truth. I'm supposed to be J.K. Evans, a guy who knows how to write a perfect confession, and I'm losing my mind over an Executive Assistant who wears yellow cardigans and puts smiley faces in project spreadsheets."

The chat box exploded into absolute, chaotic overdrive.

J.K. EVANS?!

JUNGKOOK IS J.K. EVANS?!

OH MY GOD, HE'S TALKING ABOUT Y/N!

Your heart stopped dead in your chest. Your face burned a deep, incandescent scarlet. You tried to find the unmute button to warn him, but your fingers were completely frozen with shock.

"If I have to sit through one more meeting pretending I hate her when all I want to do is pull her out of that office and kiss her until she forgets her own name, I'm going to lose my mind," Jungkook muttered, a soft, helpless chuckle rippling through the microphone. "I don't care about the book anymore. I don't care about the research. I'm completely, entirely in love with Y/N, and I have no idea how to tell her."

A heavy, absolute silence fell over the digital call.

Finally, down the hall, Jungkook must have looked at his secondary monitor. On your screen, you watched his video feed freeze. His eyes widened behind his glasses as he finally saw the active microphone icon flashing red next to his name, and the chat log scrolling at a thousand miles an hour with names of senior executives screaming in capital letters.

He had just confessed his deepest, most private secret—and his love for you—to the entire company.

Before anyone could say a word, Jungkook abruptly pulled his headset off, his video feed going completely black as he disconnected from the server.

The office outside your cubicle was dead silent for three seconds. Then, a collective, deafening gasp echoed from the surrounding desks as people began to realize what had just happened.

You tore your headset off, your heart pounding like a bass drum. You pushed back from your desk, your chair clattering against the carpet, and ran.

You ran down the exposed-brick corridor, past the kitchen where you had first fought over espresso, straight toward the private focus rooms at the back of the office. You pushed open the glass door of Room 4 without knocking.

Jungkook was standing by the desk, his laptop half-shoved into his backpack, his expression a mix of sheer, unadulterated panic and profound mortification. The unbothered, grumpy king of AeroPulse Tech looked entirely defenseless.

He looked up as you entered, his chest rising and falling heavily. "Y/N... I—the mic, I didn't realize—"

"Fourteen chapters?" you interrupted, your voice breathless, a tiny, uncontrollable smile tugging at the corners of your lips despite the madness of the situation.

Jungkook paused, his hand dropping away from his bag. He let out a long, slow breath, his shoulders dropping as he realized there was no longer any armor left to hide behind. He stepped closer to you, the familiar, intense heat of his gaze locking onto yours.

"Fifteen, actually," he murmured, his deep voice rough with vulnerability. He reached out, his long fingers finally closing gently over the sleeve of your yellow cardigan, pulling you a single, electric inch closer. "I wrote the fifteenth one in my head while you were presenting the Q3 timeline."

"You're an idiot, Jeon Jungkook," you whispered, your eyes shining with a sudden, overwhelming warmth. "Or should I call you J.K. Evans?"

"Call me whatever you want," Jungkook whispered, his dark eyes softening into an expression of pure, unadulterated devotion as he leaned down, his breath warm against your lips. "Just tell me you don't hate the ending."

"I don't know yet," you breathed, closing the final distance between you, your hands coming up to grip the lapels of his dark sweater. "You'll have to show me."

When his mouth finally met yours, it was a perfect, sweeping crescendo that completely eclipsed any romance he had ever written on paper—a messy, beautiful, live-broadcast reality that belonged entirely to the two of you.

THE END

OR YOU CAN SAY...

THE START 😉

***

PLOT TWIST: (For those who came here before reading the story🤭)

He is actually a famous romance novelist who took an entry-level corporate job just to do research for his next book and you are the main character.