Devil

Lee Siyeon

Don’t forget your sixth-month evaluation is today at 11 a.m. Don’t be late.

Nothing filled your day with an intense sense of dread more than talking to one of your bosses, Lee Siyeon. On her worst days, it seemed like it was easier to deal with Satan himself.

There were a lot of words to describe her, most of them unpleasant. Your boss was unappreciative of you and your team’s constant hard work, demanding, rude, and expected the impossible.

You and Bora did the work of a ten-person team in half the time, only to have your workload doubled before you could even finish it without such much as an ounce of encouragement.

Checking the time on your monitor it showed ten minutes before the clock would strike eleven. You took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Better to be early than give up a chance to provide more ammunition.

After locking the door to your office you were met with a friendly face, Kim Bora.

“Good morning!” she beamed. “Why do you look like you’re heading to a funeral?”

“It’s that time again.”

“Evaluations?”

“Afraid so.”

“Ah, my condolences. Well, Gahyeon had hers last week and she didn’t leave her office crying for once. Maybe you’ll catch her in a good mood for once?”

“I don’t think she even knows what a good mood is,“ you said.

“Well, regardless of what happens you can always meet me in the janitor’s closet for a little stress relief if you need to,” Bora said with a wink.

“I might need a double dose this time.”

“Whatever you need I’ll help you with. Good luck!”

“Thanks, I’ll certainly need it.”

You stared at the placard to Siyeon’s office door for several minutes as if you were about to enter the gates of hell. You knocked carefully twice and took a deep breath.

“Come in.”

Just two words were intimidating you. You breathed in and exhaled loudly, grabbing the door handle and expected it to be burning hot. Swinging the door just enough to let yourself in, you shut it behind you and felt the room shrinking as you greeted the raven-haired woman behind the large L-shaped desk with a polite bow.

“Morning, boss.”

“Good morning. Please sit,” she replied in her unique deep voice, the expression on her face blank as usual. You took a seat in the leather chair looking across her large desk. You couldn’t help shake the feeling that you were just a small prey being prepared to be hunted by a large hungry animal.

Siyeon rested her elbows on the desk as her hands were folded as she started.

“Our company has grown quite a lot in the past six months. Your own personal team has grown from three members to twelve, which can be quite an ordeal to manage. You and Bora have been handling them all since the start. Everything is going smoothly I assume?”

“Yes, boss. There are no problems to report. Bora is a great co-manager and helps out tremendously.”

“I see. Now tell me, does she help out before or after you’re fucking her?” she abruptly said.

“Sorry, boss?” you nearly choked.

“Don’t play dumb, I know everything that happens around here. I know you’re fucking those three little sluts on your team, and I haven’t needed to step in because it’s only a problem when the work stops getting done.”

The change in her tone was obvious, and this was not how you had expected this to start out.

“Boss, they aren’t sluts - well maybe Gahyeon is, but they’re valuable members of my team I can assure you.”

“That remains to be seen. Lately, there’s a lot of work not getting done here. Our earnings are down ten percent, and that’s unacceptable. I understand one of your main team members just came back from hiatus, but you’re gonna need to make up for that and get back on track. If your whole team has to start coming in on weekends, then so be it.”

“Boss, we work until the daylight runs out as is. We’re working ragged here.”

“I don’t recall asking for your excuses. If the work isn’t getting done then work harder.”

So much for things going well.

“We’re doing the best we can, boss. We’re understaffed and overworked, none of us have had vacation time in months. Cut us just a little bit of slack.”

“Oh, so now you need more time to take it easy? “ Siyeon said, staring daggers at you.

“As much as I would like to, I don’t run this entire company by myself, I also have people to report to. So when your team has poor performance it looks bad on me, and I can’t have that anymore.”

“Boss-”

“This isn’t up for a debate, you’re lucky I haven’t terminated you and your entire team by now. If I knew I was hiring a bunch of promiscuous women who can’t keep their legs closed I would have picked better resumes.”

“Boss, what I do with my team members doesn’t affect my work performance. If anything we’ve done what we can to keep it discreet.”

Your response caused a burst of laughter from Siyeon’s chest. ”I didn’t realize hearing your intern yelling ‘ fuck me harder, daddy’ across the entire office at four in the afternoon constituted as discreet.”

You felt the color leaving your cheeks. “Message received, I’ll be more careful.”

“I really don’t care who you stick your dick in but when it hurts our company’s bottom line that’s when it becomes a problem. Maybe I should fire those three whores and have you demoted back to the second floor.”

“Boss, please don’t. I’ve worked hard to get here and my team depends on me. We’ll get the work done, I promise.”

“I’ve heard that before. I’m not doing this because I enjoy being a tough boss, I’m doing it because it gets results, and results benefit everyone from the top down.”

Siyeon rubbed her temple as the dark aura around her only got worse.

"I have some things to think about. We’ll continue this evaluation later. Get out.”

That was not how you wanted it to go, not that anything with Siyeon ever went well. This was exceptionally bad. The door harshly shut behind you with a loud slam and you let out a frustrated sigh as you headed back to your office.

You ignored eye contact with your team and Bora thankfully was preoccupied with something else as you didn’t spot her anywhere. You didn’t feel like explaining things to her or anyone else.