Work Text:
Walking their dogs each Saturday evening has become a bit of a cycle that both Seungcheol and Sojung don't mind.
Sojung's dog Meonji pulls his owner a little more than his friend, Kkuma, does with her owner.
Seungcheol laughs as he tries to catch up with Sojung, who won't admit that she is being dragged by a small silver dog.
This dog walk, although something that they have done many times before, feels more serene.
As if the ugly storm that was the year's earlier disastrous events had passed, and only good things were to come.
Sojung and Seungcheol initially only knew each other as their respective team leaders within their company. They only met at company meetings, but being in separate departments, they barely had any reason to interact.
Coworkers of Seungcheol's talked about how pretty Sojung was, and that if she wasn't working at their company, she would probably be working as a model or actress - or both.
But it's not like Seungcheol wanted that sort of connection with her. She was easy on the eyes but her presence never invoked any sort of reactions that his peers talked about. He respected her as a fellow leader of the company's many departments but that respect was never fueled by the many misinterpretations of romantic or sexual interest.
Sojung had also heard praises of Seungcheol: how composed and gentle he was, yet strict when needed. And to top it all off, handsome and humble. But Sojung didn't need him in that way either. She respected him as a fellow leader, and it was mutual. It seemed like the man was perfect.
So imagine her surprise when she finds Seungcheol out on a walk with a small white maltese one day. Except, he's not really on a walk. He's stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at the sole of his left shoe. And it's not nice words that leave his mouth.
Expletives leave his mouth - frustration from stepping on another dog's "pile of shit that some dumbass couldn't be bothered to pick up", as he labels it- and Sojung can't help but giggle at his misery. Just for a little bit, anyways.
They quickly bond over their adventures in raising dogs, not work, and that leads to more and more outings.
It's on their fifth outing as friends - not coworkers - that Seungcheol gets to see Sojung completely drunk, and far from the perfect goddess that others see her as.
"Y'know, 'Cheol," She slurs her words and puts an arm around him to stabilize herself, nearly tipping over.
"I hope you don't like like me 'cuz..."
Although Sojung is clearly revealing more than she wants and is getting into a territory that Seungcheol would rather not address, there is a childlike casualness in the term "like like" that Seungcheol hasn't heard in a long time.
"Okay, I gotta get you home." He says, signaling the bartender over so that their drinks can be paid for. But Sojung's leaning on him more than he would like. She leans her head towards his ear, and whispers.
I'm gay, is what she says, but her voice reeks of alcohol and such a carefree tone that Seungcheol feels like he shouldn't know this information.
She's drunk. Will she even remember? Would Sojung as her regular sober self trust him with this information? He pushes her secret out of his mind to focus on the main priority: getting her out of the environment before she does something else that she regrets.
But Seungcheol knows that it's not a pretty scene to see a man take a drunk woman out of a club to who-knows-where. So he does something else suspicious, yes, but not something nearly as suspicious.
He rummages through her purse, and finds her cellphone. It doesn't take many tries to figure out that her passcode is her birth year.
Her phone isn't full of anything unusual, he sees the common apps that he would assume a woman in her mid-to-late twenties would use. He runs through her contacts to see if there would be anyone this hour who could escort her home, or at least somewhere safe.
His finger lands on the name "Hwang Eunbi," going with his gut. He feels as if he's heard that given name before, and it's probably a coworker; her email address is an email issued by the company.
The number is dialed, and Seungcheol, with Sojung still leaning on him and spewing nonsense that he tuned out a while ago, waits.
"What?" The voice answers. She doesn't seem particularly pleased.
Luckily, Eunbi doesn't ask too many questions when she is asked if she could pick up Sojung from the club.
Seungcheol sees this "Eunbi" for the first time that night. Although she doesn't look like how he expects.
Dressed in an oversized grey hoodie, her hair messy, her footwear of choice was a pair of black sandals.
He guesses that she had been ready for bed, and threw on whatever she could.
Eunbi mumbles something when she sees Sojung practically clinging onto Seungcheol as they make their way to Eunbi's car.
"Ah, she really can be a handful sometimes. And she's supposed to be the older one..."
Seungcheol and Eunbi struggle to get Sojung into the car, with the taller woman so clearly oblivious of the trouble she has caused.
"Seungcheol..." Sojung giggles.
He hopes that when he leaves Sojung to ride safely in Eunbi's car, that she doesn't say anything similar to what she said earlier.
"Where are you going?"
"Home. And I hope you are too." He replies, looking genuinely worried for her.
Eunbi shuts the door on the passenger's side of the car, and looks confused when Seungcheol pulls out a bill from his wallet.
"It's for any inconvenience that this caused."
She waves away his offer, stating that he should keep the money for the headache that Sojung is bound to give him in the future.
"A-At least..." he stumbles on his words, trying to catch Eunbi before she drives home for the night.
"Text me that she gets home safely?"
Hey, is this the guy that Sojung's been bothering for the last few weeks? She's fine now. Delusional as always, anyways, is the text Seungcheol ends up receiving not too long after.
Seungcheol led a team double the size of Sojung's, but he felt that they shared about the same amount of work.
"Soonyoung, stop fooling around in that car. This is a set, not a race track."
Seungcheol was the head of SVT Inc.: "Specialized Videotape Technology Incorporated," a subsidiary of the company HYBE, which strangely was not an abbreviation of anything. The CEO simply thought that the name sounded hip and cool, for reasons that Seungcheol will never understand.
Maybe HYBE stood for "Hiring Young Bright Employees," but that wouldn't make much sense either.
Each little mishap on set leads to another, as Seungcheol is quick to stop another coworker from painting someone else the colour green.
It's never a boring day at work.
He sits in the director's chair, sighing. "Let's take five."
Seungcheol glances at the script that he had in front of him.
Was it not enough?
Again and again, thoughts of revision swarmed his mind.
He needed to come up with something new.
What he came up with was good enough for the company, but he wanted something bold.
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the building, Sojung also sat in an important chair.
"You mean to tell me that you lost interns...?" Sojung looks at her co-worker, Yuna, who glances back at her superior nervously.
"How do you lose...your interns?" She asks, flipping through papers on her desks that describe who, they had in fact lost.
"They didn't leave. I...physically lost them? They're somewhere in the building, I swear!" Yuna defends, although she feels like Sojung isn't the slightest bit convinced.
"Whatever," Sojung says in a disappointed tone that sends an uncomfortable feeling to the bottom of Yuna's stomach. "You're lucky that we don't have much work to do today. Use the rest of the team to round up the lost interns, then."
"But - "
Yuna considers herself to be tall, but when Sojung stands up, she knows who is really in charge.
"Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Sojung was in charge of the sole team underneath Source Music, also a subsidiary under HYBE. If Seungcheol's SVT team produced the videos then Source Music provided the music that accompanied those.
For such a small team of six women, they produced fantastic results. However, problems were sure to arise, and this was one of such instances.
The looks of worried interns catch Seungcheol's eyes when he sees them walk onto his set.
"Cut!" He yells, which startles the interns.
"Um..." Seungcheol starts, scratching his head at what would have caused this situation. "Excuse me, but we're in the middle of filming a project."
One intern, the sole one of them who doesn't look like he's about to shit his pants, speaks up and holds up his ID.
"We're looking for...Source Music?"
That would explain the plethora of instruments each intern held. A recording session, perhaps, was on the agenda for today.
Walking off set and going over to a computer, he manages to find a digital map of the company's building.
"Source Music isn't here. This is SVT. It should be two floors below." Although it was bad for the screen, Seungcheol traced his finger across the map, stopping when it hovered over the text that read "Source Music."
As the interns were about to leave, five women rush into the room.
Right on time, Seungcheol guesses.
"We're so sorry about any disturbance that our interns caused." the tallest woman of the group says.
He recognizes the woman as Yuna, who was high school friends with Seokmin, one of his colleagues at SVT.
Seungcheol shakes his head to indicate that it was not an issue.
Behind Yuna stands a woman with long light pink hair, a woman with long blonde hair, a blue-haired woman who was holding a pink recorder of all instruments, and a woman that he first met two nights ago - Hwang Eunbi.
She wasn't wearing an oversized grey hoodie with sandals combo, but given that they were at the workplace, such an attire would not be acceptable.
"Thanks for the other day, Eunbi."
What he doesn't understand is the look of confusion on the blonde-haired woman's face, which he quickly mirrors.
"Just call me SinB." Eunbi, now SinB, clarifies. "It's easier that way."
The Source Music employees leave with their interns and Seungcheol looks at the long day of work ahead.
When Sojung woke up, she didn't expect to be in her own bed. Someone else's couch maybe, or in the office, but she rarely spent her nights within her own apartment.
She looked up at the plain ceiling as she moved her brown blanket, littered with colourful images of M&Ms candies, over herself, trying to savour the warmth before getting out of bed.
It was 11:51am.
Great, it was almost the afternoon.
Eh, five more minutes, she told herself.
She spent the next five minutes scrolling through her social media feed, before seeing the text messages that she had received earlier that morning.
The first read from Seungcheol.
I hope you made it back home okay. We can go out another time...maybe without alcohol this time?
Oh, is that what happened?
Alcohol?
That explained the pounding in her head that was now further exacerbated due to awareness.
She closes her social media app, and makes a quick phone call.
"Yerin?" Her voice comes out as raspy from her state of half-awake and half-asleep.
"I'm taking a sick day, tell everyone to continue with their tasks."
Sojung throws her phone in her nightstand's direction, nearly lobbing the phone on the floor.
I'll figure out what happened later.
Sojung did not consider her to be a person who liked gossip.
Gossip was simply gossip. Unfounded. If it was verifiable, it would not be labelled as "gossip."
It would be labelled as truth or facts.
Her being in love was not gossip. It was the truth.
She did consider herself to be in love.
Are you and Seungcheol together?
Now that was gossip. No statements to corroborate the truth.
She simply smiled when people would ask her.
The idea was absolutely hilarious.
Mind you, she was aware that people might have come to that conclusion at any time during their friendship.
But it didn't bother her or Seungcheol.
People could believe what they wanted. Fantasy.
Besides, if anyone knew Seungcheol, they knew that he would always be stuck outside taking pictures or scribbling words on any piece of paper that he could find.
Sojung always believed that it was good to tell the truth.
And so she always did. It wasn't like her choices not to actively confirm or dispel those rumours showed that she was lying.
"I don't believe that questions about my love life were embedded in the contract that I signed with this company."
The first time she said that, people walked away.
But the first time she cracks...
The first time she cracks...
She cannot believe it.
It's because of a cactus.
That's right.
A damned cactus.
"I'm spending time with Paul tonight,"
The excitement in that expression made Sojung's ears alert.
"we've gotten very close since I started seeing him at work every day."
"Eunha, please. As much as I love hearing loud chatter when we're supposed to be working, save it for when your shift is over."
Sojung doesn't even glance up to know that she likely deflated Eunha's mood. It's a little harmless fun...right?
It's nine in the morning and she doesn't want to think that she's jealous of a plant.
Yes, a plant.
She glares at "Paul," a potted cactus on Eunha's desk, surrounded by tiny Kirby figurines.
The cause of her irritation.
She would do anything to get Eunha to stop talking about Paul as if Paul was her boyfriend.
Sojung has contemplated many times about throwing Paul in the trash, but the realization that her bitterness came from an inanimate object always made her embarrassed.
The bitterness tends to dispel when Sojung takes short glances at Eunha, which she thought was a dangerous move.
So dangerous that her brain would go haywire and her nerves would tense up. She's beautiful, Sojung would think.
Her mind would end up listing multiple synonyms that described how beautiful Sojung thought Eunha was.
Sometimes she needs that bitterness to balance out her stupid, stupid, stupid feelings.
"To be honest, I don't know what it's like to fall in love." Seungcheol tells Sojung when they're out having yet another one of their lunches together.
"Stupid feelings sound kind of nice."
Stupid feelings did feel nice at times.
Love is funny that way. It feels like pure joy wrapped with regret at times.
Seungcheol had always observed people and how different types of love motivated them.
He was a director, after all. It didn't take long to figure out that love sold. And love sold extremely well.
Love formed by respect from fellow peers.
Love formed by familial bonds.
Love formed by a close-knit group of friends.
Love formed by, well, lovers.
Would Seungcheol say that he loved Sojung?
Now that was stupid.
Love carried something strong.
People can't just throw the word out so easily.
If it's said so often, it loses its weight.
It loses its significance that makes it so special.
And the word felt weird on his tongue.
In most stories about romance, one would assume that a male lead and a female lead would have gotten together at this point.
Confessed their love underneath the stars, intertwined their fingers, and shared a magical kiss.
That was not one of those moments.
But he saw her smile, her laughter, the way her mood shifts into a child-like joy.
She was happy, and positivity tended to spread.
But he often wondered what it was about love, romantic love, anyways that people cherished so much.
When he says that those feelings seem "kind of nice," it's more out of curiosity.
What does it mean to have your heart rush when a special person is around?
What does it mean to figure out, "Oh." That moment when the world is supposed to turn into sparkles and shine an automatic veil of light on the one they love.
Sojung slumps over the small dining table in Seungcheol's apartment.
"Seungcheol..." She whines, before downing the wine in her cup.
"I've lost my job." She says.
Her eyes don't meet his, but he can see the sadness embedded in her through her fake grin.
She laughs, her fingers fiddling with her light pink cardigan which has now showed a splash of red from a wine stain.
"I've lost my job." She says again, slightly louder.
Seungcheol sits beside her, lightly placing his right hand on her left shoulder.
"Sojung, I'm so -"
"Don't fucking speak! You still have a job under that sad excuse for a company!"
The word dig into him like a wild bear clawing at his chest, and Seungcheol decides to be quiet.
Sojung never swears. Sojung never directs that sort of tone towards him. Seungcheol knows that she's more than frustrated.
The woman has lost her dream job - the job that she tirelessly worked toward and tried so hard to keep - all for it to crumble with little warning.
Just like that, she went from being one of the most important people in her position to nothing. She wasn't needed anymore.
But why? The company never gave her a reason that wasn't riddled with bullshit.
And Sojung couldn't let go of that but why feeling. Why did everything have to end like this?
"And it wasn't just me who lost their job. That damned company dissolved the whole department."
It proved to her that no one was safe. It didn't matter how much effort people put it, whatever results they churned out, or how much time had passed. Everyone, everyone, could be replaced easily.
Sojung was about to reach for another bottle; the other one that she brought over was now empty, the only liquids left in and on it were the condensation and some of Sojung's tears.
Seungcheol's hand grips the untouched bottle and slides it across the table, away from any persons in distress.
It was true that the company was not the best. It was not ideal. But Seungcheol and Sojung stuck through it, leading their respective teams within the company to successful results.
It's just that Sojung didn't expect her journey to end so soon.
"Sojung," Seungcheol starts again, hoping that she calmed down from her previous outburst.
That's when he can clearly see her eyes once again. Red and puffy and full of emotions that Seungcheol wishes that he will never have to feel.
"You did the most you could for your team."
Sojung mumbles some sort of response, but Seungcheol can't understand it.
She sighs.
"I didn't know who else to call. I couldn't call my parents."
Eventually, after some bickering and deduction that Sojung couldn't get back to her place safely at that hour, Seungcheol insisted that she stay the night.
"Seungcheol, wait." Sojung calls, after she lays down on Seungcheol's sofa.
I'm lost,
is what she says.
Lost. That's how everyone felt at that moment.
Four months.
Four months.
Four months.
Four months.
Four months and she was about to head into that damned building again.
She breathes in.
Wait, you're not supposed to be on these premises, they tell her.
A quick flash of an identification card issued to visitors, or temporary workers, shut their mouths.
It's not the same. She so desperately wants to press the button that leads to the floor where Source Music formerly resided, but no, this time, her time in the elevator leads her to a place two floors above where Source Music used to be.
Despite all her previous time in this building, she's never seen SVT. She always assumed it would be busy. She knew that its staff were very energetic people, and that they were always running around.
"There's my lead actress."
She wasn't visiting as Sojung, former Source Music employee. She was visiting as Sojung, an actress selected to be in SVT's latest production.
She is rushed over to the makeup artists, who start right away. She flips over the script once more, hoping that she does everything perfectly for the job.
She remembers how adamant she was to take this job. How she didn't want to seem desperate.
But Seungcheol told her it was only something to get her footing back. For her to test the waters, and see if this was a path that she wanted to take.
It's a small project.
Allegedly.
Did she feel like being reborn as actress Kim Sojung was the right choice?
Well, she had no time to think.
"And...action!"
When Seungcheol says "I love you," he still feels that weight.
But that's how he feels.
Sojung laughs? He isn't sure how to interpret it.
"You sap." She says, although he can see a tear forming in her right eye.
"You sap," she says again, pushing at his shoulder slightly. "you offered me this job because you love me?"
He raises his hands in front of him. Nope. How else would he have worded it?
"Not just that." He clarifies. "I believed that you would do a good job, and you did."
"I love you too, you dork."
Seungcheol grabs a pen and a notebook, anticipating whatever else was going to come out of Sojung's mouth.
"What? This is good script material."
"It's Saturday, you know?" Sojung reminds him.
She eyes their dogs playing the corner of Seungcheol's apartment, praying that they hadn't ruined anything.
"You can write your little script, but walking our dogs comes first."
When Sojung says "I love you," she doesn't expect to be greeted with "see you for our date next Sunday?"
I...what?
"Sorry, is your Sunday booked? Oh well, you can kiss me right now or when we have our first date."
Sojung blinks.
"Hold on." Sojung says, her mind running in multiple directions.
Eunha can't say that....surely?
She holds onto Eunha's hand, and doesn't know what to say.
She couldn't date Eunha, no matter how much she wanted. No, she understood where she stood - and that was at a position that would have rendered their relationship potentially unhealthy.
And then, their positions disappeared.
All she wanted to do was finally let go of how she felt.
It wasn't like they were employed at the same company anymore.
Sojung felt like she was free to say what she wanted, free from disrupting the workplace synergy.
Sojung was always a practical person.
But now Eunha has tempted her. Her lips, oh-so kissable. She wanted so so so much to kiss her.
Her brain has stopped working.
She doesn't lean in for that kiss. Her mouth is still trembling, trembling from the realization that as shitty as the last months have been...
It's that shitty situation that's allowed her to be here now.
"Sojung," Eunha giggles. "can I kiss you?"
And now she was really tempted. Oh my god, her mind screams.
The palm of Eunha's hand now rests on Sojung's cheek, and Sojung uses all of her willpower not to melt.
Oh.
Oh.
Am I doing this right?
What if she hates it?
I don't know how to -
All she knows is that it feels good.
"But wait," Sojung gasps after their lips part.
"I-I don't understand."
Her mind can't process what actions that she's done; everything that has happened within the last five minutes feels surreal.
"From what I understand," Eunha answers, "Is that you..."
Her finger pokes at Sojung's shoulder. Her pout damages her heart in ways that she wishes will never happen again.
"were too scared of making a move while we were working together."
"Oh, and you?" Sojung scoffs. "As if you weren't scared about making a move on your superior."
"Very true, but I heard that being unemployed brings out a special bit of courage in people."
They don't talk much for the rest of the night.
"Eunha, you're drunk." Sojung laughs, seeing her girlfriend act a little more touchy than usual.
"I am not! You're just so...goddamn gorgeous, you know that?"
Turns out, three bottles of wine does that to a pair. But it's okay. Sojung didn't mind being smothered in kisses.
Sojung laughs again. "There's no correlation between those two statements, but it's okay. You're cute."
Sojung drapes her arm around Eunha's shoulders and places a quick peck on Eunha's cheek.
"So, so, so cute."
Eunha snuggles into Sojung's neck, sniffing her hair.
"Your shampoo smells good!"
"..Yeah, you're drunk, Eunha."
This causes Eunha to reach for her phone, and stick her tongue out.
"I am not drunk." She states again, dialing a number into her cellphone.
"And to prove it..."
"Hello?"
Another voice can be heard on the other side.
"Please hang up, SinB." Sojung says, seeing their beloved friend and ex-coworker appear on the screen.
"Well, hello hello to you too, Miss Sojung." SinB mocks.
"Close the phone."
"Nuh uh, and miss my two favourite people in the entire world? Not a chance!"
Sojung wonders how she finally feels stable after some time.
For once, she thanks the universe for directing her to a new outcome she hadn't thought was possible.
When one door closes, another opens.
When Seungcheol first saw the credits roll for the production he pushed Sojung to act in, he couldn't believe his eyes.
It was finished.
Complete.
A whole labour of love.
But that was the start of the accolades. The short film was screened at festivals around the world, granting Seungcheol award after award.
The interviews started piling, and HYBE couldn't be more pleased by SVT's success.
Articles were full of critics shocked at "rookie actress" Kim Sojung's amazing performance as the leading role in Seungcheol's film.
It was a big break for both of them.
Of course Sojung branched off from HYBE eventually, as Seungcheol had promised her further affiliation with the company was only temporary.
She was only going up from there.
Would he have considered that she would have fit the role as the lead that he had written? In the past, probably not.
He barely knew her. They barely knew each other. But who knew that one pile of dog poop, many months and a couple wines later, er, not in that order exactly, would have lead them here.
"H-hey, wait!" Sojung almost screams as she was being dragged by Meonji.
Seungcheol and Kkuma run after the pair, and it was just another Saturday.
Just another Saturday, that they wouldn't trade for another else.
Brightly shining in the night sky
Is the sound of our song
The sound of our laughter
The fire keeps sparking
And I see our memories
Shining brighter
- Seventeen, Campfire
You are not alone
You can lean on me
It's okay to rest when you feel out of breath
Do you remember that it was because of you
That I was able to hold on when I wanted to cry?
- GFriend, You Are Not Alone