Min-Joon stood motionless, grappling with the absurdity of the request. Kim Min-Joon, the Chairman, did not lift heavy drapes or clean up spilled water. He directed people who did.
"Hae-Rin, this is utterly ridiculous," he hissed under his breath, his eyes darting around the dusty, cavernous hall. "I have no idea how to reattach a... a historical textile. I will simply write her a check to hire a team of three conservators and a foreman. This is an inefficient use of my time."
"And she will thank you, but you will learn nothing," Hae-Rin whispered back, her voice firm, yet soothing like a distant melody only he could perceive. "The true heart is not bought, Chairman. It is earned through shared effort. Go. And, Min-Joon… try to feel the dust. It tells a story."
Driven by the strange, almost painful compulsion of Hae-Rin's divine presence, Min-Joon slowly walked toward the defeated woman, Ji-A.
Ji-A looked up, startled by the sight of the immaculate, intimidating man in the three-piece suit standing over her. His expensive shoes were dangerously close to the puddle.
"I—I apologize for the mess," Ji-A mumbled, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment as she quickly attempted to wipe the spilled water from the marble floor with a nearby, inadequate cloth. "The supports are weak. They haven't been updated in fifty years. I'm running out of time before the museum inspection next week."
Min-Joon cleared his throat. He had not knelt or physically labored since he was a teenager, and even then, only for school sports he despised. Now, following Hae-Rin's unseen command, he hesitated, then slowly knelt beside her, picking up a handful of dropped, tarnished brass hooks. The grit on the floor felt shocking against the fine wool of his trousers.
"You have the incorrect torque on the wall mounts," Min-Joon stated, his analytical mind immediately processing the structural flaw, bypassing the emotional mess entirely. "The weight distribution is uneven, causing the shearing force to exceed the anchor limit by a calculated 15%. This is a mechanical failure, not a simple detachment."
Ji-A blinked, surprised by the sudden, highly technical analysis from a man who looked like he spent his life signing multi-billion dollar deals. "I... I think you're absolutely right. I've been trying to fix it with just string and a ladder, trying to be gentle. I can't afford a structural engineer, let alone a team of them." A sigh escaped her. "I inherited this museum from my grandfather. It's a labor of love, but the repairs are bankrupting me."
Min-Joon stood up abruptly, his jacket feeling suddenly restrictive. He shed the blazer, tossing it carelessly onto a nearby velvet display rope—an act of sacrilege for him—and began rolling up the sleeves of his expensive white shirt, revealing strong, albeit pale, forearms. The simple act felt foreign and exhilarating, a physical commitment he hadn't made since he last adjusted his own tie.
"You don't need an engineer for this specific repair," Min-Joon said, his mind momentarily forgetting mergers, hostile takeovers, and stock volatility, and focusing solely on the pure, satisfying difficulty of the mechanical problem. "You need a rudimentary cantilever mechanism to distribute the weight laterally and relieve the pressure on the weak central anchors. And," he looked down at her, "you need someone taller than you to hold the drape steady while you secure the new anchor points."
He ignored the fact that he was the Chairman of the largest conglomerate in the nation. "I am taller," he stated, the words sounding like an order in a boardroom, but his tone was purely focused on efficiency. "I will stabilize the drape. You repair the anchors and apply the initial lateral tension."
Ji-A, overwhelmed by the sudden, intense presence of the commanding, yet now surprisingly practical, stranger, hesitated for a second, then nodded gratefully. "Thank you. I… thank you. My name is Ji-A. I manage this hall."
"Kim Min-Joon," he replied curtly, already moving to grab the heavy velvet drape. He paused, looking at the intricate, hand-woven gold thread. "Handle with care. It appears pre-18th century silk-velvet hybrid. The warp threads are brittle."
Ji-A stared. "How do you know that?"
"I read the auction history of the building before deciding whether to buy the land it stands on," he admitted flatly. "I specialize in knowing the value of things."
"Well, its value to me is priceless," Ji-A countered gently, pointing to the wall. "The old anchor points are right there. They'll need pre-drilling. Can you hold the edge, just a little higher?"
The next hour was spent in awkward, manual labor. Min-Joon, focused entirely on the physics of the problem, held the weighty, dust-covered drape, his expensive shirt quickly acquiring smudges of copper dust and sweat. He was forced to communicate with Ji-A in simple, direct terms about angles, tension, and the ideal placement of the screws—a collaborative effort completely devoid of corporate hierarchy.
"Hold it steady! Don't let the center sag, Min-Joon-ssi!" Ji-A called out, struggling to drill a hole just above her head.
"I am not sagging, Ji-A-ssi! The material itself is shifting. Compensate the angle by three degrees to your right," he countered, his voice strained from the unfamiliar physical effort. He felt a sharp ache in his shoulders, yet found he didn't want to stop.
Ji-A stopped drilling for a moment, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow with the back of her glove. "You're actually very good at this, Mr. Kim. Your grip is incredibly strong. You must work out often."
"I am used to lifting heavy burdens," Min-Joon responded, a faint, almost invisible smile touching his lips. It was true, but the burdens he usually lifted were quarterly reports and failing companies. "Though usually, the effort doesn't involve this much dust." He realized, with startling clarity, that this physical, creative effort was a thousand times more rewarding than signing a contract. He was creating stability, not acquiring it.
"Just a little more tension on the left side, hold it, hold it… Perfect! Anchor secured!" Ji-A shouted triumphantly, tightening the final screw. She stepped back, brushing the dust from her hands.
Min-Joon slowly released the drape. It hung perfectly straight, the massive folds of velvet now symmetrical and stable, the intricate gold thread gleaming under the weak ceiling light.
Ji-A stepped back further, her eyes tracing the line of the now-secured textile. Exhausted but triumphant, she turned to Min-Joon, whose white shirt now looked definitively gray.
"Thank you," she breathed, her eyes shining with genuine gratitude, not the perfunctory thanks of a subordinate. "You saved me a week of headaches, and probably saved the drape from falling completely. I really was fighting this alone." She paused, looking at his dusty figure. "No one has ever stopped to help me with the actual physical work before. Not like this."
"It was… challenging," Min-Joon admitted, the warmth of the physical exertion still in his muscles. He didn't offer a corporate platitude, only the truth of the effort. "The mechanical problem was straightforward once the necessary leverage was applied. You should reinforce the adjoining wall mounts next."
Hae-Rin, who had been watching from the doorway, allowed a subtle ripple of divine energy—a feeling of pure, simple fulfillment—to flow between the two. Ji-A immediately felt an overwhelming sense of trust and connection to the stranger, an implicit understanding of shared struggle. Min-Joon felt a profound, warm satisfaction—a feeling completely different from the cold pride of a successful merger. He had helped someone achieve their goal, without demanding ownership or profit. The feeling was light.
The encounter was a success. Min-Joon had engaged with sincere, physical effort, and the thread of destiny was successfully re-woven.