At the same time, in Obisidia's building.
Maxene had arrived at the break room to see how the progress of her plan was coming along.
Her efforts to taint Lina's image had gone according to her expectations until now and she was excited to see how they were reacting at this moment.
'My spy informed me that Lina has arrived at the office.' She smiled as she entered the break room.
Just as she had entered the room, her feet halted when she heard a single sentence being spoken by one of the younger employees.
"You were all wrong when you judged Miss Lina! Now you know the truth don't you feel ashamed for talking trash about her these past few days?" A young lady in her earlier twenties scoffed at the older women.
She had been silent all this while when the rumors were getting out of hand because she had no way of washing away the dirt that had been splashed on her Fairy.
But now, they knew what the truth behind Lina's constant disappearance was and she couldn't stop herself from giving them a piece of her mind.
"I told you that Miss Lina is not such a bad person as you were making her out to be. Everyone ignored her when she entered the office, don't you think she must have felt bad!?" She continued pouring her heart out.
The young woman glared at these people who were her colleagues and then turned to walk away.
Once she faced the door, her sight fell on the woman who had caused this entire mess in the first place.
"Miss Kang, I had told you that you should not be so worried about Miss Lina's presence…" She stopped herself from going any further.
She did not want to make it look like Maxene was the one who had caused all the trouble for Lina but somewhere in the corner of her mind, she knew that this lady was the root cause of it all.
"Be careful what you say and think twice before you say it." She lectured Maxene and stepped out of the room.
In her opinion, though Maxene had not done it on purpose, she had created a misunderstanding which had led to the mess that they were in right now.
Maxene gritted her teeth when she was so casually reprimanded by a mere child who had not been here for long.
'How dare she speak to me in this manner!? Who does she think she is?' The fire inside her heart made her glare at the back of the woman who was striding away from where she was standing.
Taking a deep breath in to collect her thoughts, she turned around and entered the room.
"Break time is over." The leader of the group of women declared, making everyone else nod in compliance.
The women who had been seated inside all rose from their seats and left the room without giving her a chance to speak.
Maxene was bewildered as to what had happened in the past hour that they were treating her in such a frigid manner.
Staring at the empty room, she stomped her feet and then made her out as well.
She looked around and when she found a young man looking in her direction, she signaled for him to follow her.
After entering her office, she locked the door behind them and asked him to take a seat.
"Why is the office so chaotic?" She inquired while putting on an innocent face.
The young man had no clue of what had happened in the breakroom between Maxene and the other women, hence he was happy to fill her in on the details.
He made sure to give her a detailed and enthusiastic report of the sudden storm that had taken over Obsidia.
The more Maxene heard, the more she felt the rage building in her heart.
'Everything that I had planned for and worked towards in the past three days was swept away in the matter of a few hours?' She growled in her heart as there was someone else present in the room.
"Thank you. You may leave now." She smiled at him as she politely asked him to leave her alone.
The young employee nodded and went his merry way as his work here was completed.
Maxene sat inside the room and the pen that had been twirling around her fingers snapped in two when she recalled what he had just said.
The credit of this sudden and unexpected reversal was all given to the one and only Stephen Jin who had thought up this great plan to save his Noona.
___
Yesterday evening,
When Vivian had agreed to help him out, Steph did not waste his time and explained what they needed to do to revive the good image that Lina had in the past.
"They say that Noona was a slacker who takes time off work and doesn't take the company seriously, right?" He smirked and then leaned closer towards Vivian and Supervisor Tim.
Upon hearing the strategy that he had come up with, both Vivian and Tim were impressed and immediately got to work.
They assembled the remaining interns that worked for Steph and inquired whether they would like to help.
Though they did not have many options with Steph glaring them down into submission, they nevertheless wished to help the good lady who treated them with baked goods every so often.
After receiving a positive reply from them, Vivian took it upon herself to take charge of this operation and assigned the interns their roles in this mission.
"So tomorrow morning, we shall commence mission 'Save Fairy' and defend Miss Lina's honor!" She valiantly announced which brought a chuckle out of the interns.
Embarrassed at the sudden enthusiasm that she had displayed, she turned towards Supervisor Tim with pouty lips.
Once again Tim felt an arrow shoot throw his heart when he saw her turning towards him looking for help when Stephen was also present in the room.
Not wanting to give up on this opportunity to stand up for her, Tim glared at the interns who had been giggling at Vivian's expense.
"Mission 'Save Fairy' begins tomorrow morning so be here on time!" He instructed in a stern voice which brought their laughter to a standstill.
Vivian smiled at him gratefully and then turned to walk in the direction of her desk.
'Idiot!' He chided himself when he caught himself staring at her back in a daze.
Pushing the spectacles higher on the bridge of his nose, he turned around only to find that Stephen had been staring at him with a playful smile.
"So she's your type, huh?" He commented as he patted his Supervisor's shoulder as a gesture to show his sympathy for the poor man.
Tim stood frozen in his spot when he realized that Stephen Jin had seen through his heart.
"Good luck with that…" Stephen's mutters as he walked away fell on Tim's ears which extracted a flushed smile from him.
'What have I gotten myself into?' He covered his heated cheeks with his palms and decided to take a break to cool himself down.