Chapter Text
Not enough coffee in the world is going to wake you up.
But you're still grateful that Mark has a massive, massive cup in his hand as he waits for you in the lobby of the ONEOH building. In his other hand, he's holding a hand-drawn sign that says BEANIE BABY, with a huge heart off to the side, sporting arms and legs and a smile.
You got about fifteen minutes of sleep on the eleven hour flight back to Seattle - one that landed through a massive storm, and you are not in the mood for any of this. Though you’re… really happy to see Mark. Two weeks away was hell on earth without his annoying voice in your ear every minute of every day at your house.
He hands over your tablet as soon as you walk by and syncs his steps with yours. Since you're at work though, and not at home, you forgo the hug in lieu of a ruder greeting, “Ugh, what hell have you prepared to unleash upon me today?”
“Fun way to say Hello Mark, I missed you and I brought you a very fun magnet from Seoul, where I was visiting my robot fiancé!” he quips, taking your bag and your drenched raincoat and passing them off to the receptionist who will deliver them to the seventeenth floor for you.
Like you said, annoying.
“Here’s your goddamn magnet.” Through your grumbling, you reach into the side pocket of your Prada briefcase and shove the carved outline of the Seoul skyline into his hands. You get a different one for him every time you go, your refrigerator is just littered with them now.
“Seriously, you’ve been my best friend for so many goddamn years and I don’t meet him once?” Mark's comment spurs you into speeding up, and of course you can’t because of the ridiculously high heels you’re wearing. That means you get a subtle poke in your side, and an eyebrow wiggle that conveys the latest Markism - his conviction that your fiancé isn’t a real person, just an AI you dreamed up to get him off your back about dating.
“Schedule, now,” you demand. You didn’t pull a shit ton of favors to hire him as your personal assistant just so you could gossip 24/7.
He rolls his eyes then adopts his snooty work face and voice, “Well, we conveniently timed your flight to miss all of your meetings and a board presentation. All you have left is the Ong merger paperwork, the new hire mixer, and then you’re free to tell me about seeing Jung—,”
“The new hire mixer you said? Goodbye, Mr. Lee!” You change course on a dime, head away from the elevator (away from Mark's need to gossip), and wave childishly as he gets caught up going the wrong way and growls when he can't stop you.
Even though it's a better option than listening to Mark, you don’t want to greet the class of new ducklings, either. The ridiculous jet lag and the compounding exhaustion slash bad mood is not going to be pretty, not to mention you can't even remember the last good night of sleep you’ve had. Right on cue, there comes the excited buzz of the fresh college hires, plus the smell of the nacho cheese that is always served at these things, and you have a splitting headache as soon as you step inside.
See?
Ten is there at the very first table, suit jacket missing alongside his tie and sleeves rolled up in casual comfort. He’s so blended into the crowd, you think that either no one has spotted him amongst their peers or no one has gathered the balls to go up and talk to the CEO.
Dropping your briefcase on the table, you steal the glass of scotch he was about to drink, swig from it, then mutter, “Korea was a shit waste of time. Nothing good for us there.”
Despite your attempt at being professional, Ten doesn't follow your lead. Instead, he just gives you a sly smile and an even slyer, “Ah, not even visiting the mister?”
You were there in Seoul to see if there were any corporations worth acquiring or investing in during the second quarter… but Ten somehow found out you were also seeing your fiancé while you were there. That was all he could think and talk about leading up to your departure. He predicted it down to a T - the nice time you and Jungkook were going to have together, the hometown he was taking you to, the dinner with his parents in which they approved of you and of your plans for marriage, the swoon worthy kiss at midnight on the new year.
All of it happened, and you know Ten wants to hear that he was right.
But your boss cares more about this shit than you do. You were just pissed that none of the hospitals in your fiancé’s network needed investors.
“I allow my employees to be in relationships, you don’t have to hide it from me,” Ten chides your soured, downturned expression. “You know I’m engaged as well.”
Yes, your boss and his fiancé are perfect and flawless - a venture capital CEO and a Dior model together leaves the rest of you behind in the pathetic dust. Of course, Ten likes to remind you that you’re the youngest executive at the country’s top venture capital firm and your fiancé is the top plastic surgeon in Korea, but that comparison is apples to oranges.
“My privacy is not exclusive to you, sir,” you quip mildly, after years of him tugging at you to open up and failing. “I need some signatures of yours before I get—,”
Your conversation is interrupted by an overzealous interjection - a hand stuck between you for Ten to shake and some of the smoothest ass-kissing you’ve ever heard in your life, “Ah, CEO Lee, right? I’ve been waiting to meet—,” before it gets caught up in a staggered breath, and finishes on a broken limp, “—you. Oh.”
This person is meeting the head of the company, the owner, the founder, the legend himself, and that’s all they could come up with? Pathetic.
You hold back the gross eye roll and instead give a half glance to the side to try and conceal the disdain. But when you make eye contact with the person who interrupted, you’re flash frozen in the middle of the floor with no avenue to ever unstick yourself or control the erratic escalation of your breathing. And it looks like the exact same thing is happening to that person, they’re wholly surprised to see you, the face… they’re… he’s straight up fucking shocked to see you're there.
What is he doing here?
“Right, indeed!” Ten is too nice, you always tell him this. He takes the flub with ease, shakes the other man’s hand and says, “Welcome aboard, what’s your name?”
You cannot. You cannot hear it.
You insert yourself into the conversation, the grace of the universe unfreezing you so you can stick your tablet out and request, “The signatures?”
The look of shock on the man deepens, burns a hole straight into the side of your neck and past the rose gold chain of your necklace. You can feel it singeing you up little by little as Ten sighs and caves, scrawls his signature across three or four different slots on the screen.
“Here you go, go off and do my things for me.” Ten shoos you when he’s done, not realizing he's actually helping you out, before he turns back to the third party to discuss you, “Don’t mind her. I can’t imagine what being an executive at her age is like, but maybe one day you can get there too, Mr.—,”
The fleeing escalates, leaving the single syllable of the man’s last name lost to the winds of your retreat. The footprints of your past have come to mark up your present in an unknown, fear-laden, unanticipated direction and you have to protect yourself. You have to.
—
The head of HR sees you coming through the glass and begins packing up her computer even faster. In turn, you speed up so you pass through the threshold right at 4:59, making you in the right on a slim technicality.
Jennie doesn’t care. She really doesn’t give a shit about anything except making your life hell for no reason, see: the six months she took getting Mark through the system and approved as your assistant. You’ve never really gotten over that or understood why she holds a grudge. Maybe it's because you’re a year and a half younger than her? You thought everyone was over the fact that you were so young.
Again, she doesn’t care about being snarky in her opening, “I understand you have a packed schedule, but dropping by when I’m about to clock out is not good etiquette.”
You don’t ever do this, but you’re about to pull rank and every sort of privilege you have right now, “I need a new employee to never be placed on a team of mine moving forward.”
“Why?” she sarcastically asks as she rolls her eyes and sits back down in her chair, gathers the paperwork to pretend to do what you want. You can’t believe you have to be here in the first place, more so can’t believe he’s here in Seattle and forcing you to do this. You can’t risk Jennie leaving this around for six months, this has to be done now.
You reach over, snatch the papers yourself, and brush the question off, “I will obviously fill out the paperwork and you will find out then.”
Not like you can say it out loud, really. Thinking of the way you’re going to have to describe this in one hundred and fifty words or less for that little summary box is making you ill.
“It’s part of the procedure,” she recites, snatching the papers back. “You have to give me a verbal affirmation of your written statement.”
You cannot believe she’s being serious, you half think she’s playing a prank just to get fresh gossip to spread to Rose Park in accounting and Momo Hirai in legal as soon as you’re done here. But when you were hired, you had to fill out a form and verbally agree to a number of stipulations even back then, so this must be part of the employee protections Ten put into place. The ones you used to appreciate, the ones that made him so renowned as a boss. Fuck.
You’re going to have to say this, and you can’t… you can’t.
“They are a person that I had a relationship with,” you state, words catching in such a foreign place of your chest. “Not currently, five years ago.”
Five years is fudging the timeline in a huge way.
And a relationship… that’s just, that is not even close to what it was.
Jennie can’t read the room and continues on droning, “I’m sensing this is going to be a problem for you?”
You’re struck with a blow of nerves that is so toxic you feel like you’re back in grad school again, withering away under thousands of strands of venom. Of course it’s going to be a problem, you couldn’t even look at him at the mixer without being a step away from unconsciousness. There’s no way you could operate around him in a sound manner, professionally or emotionally. You hate that she’s making you go through this, experience this, relive this. And you hate him for all the same reasons… yet you don’t.
“Yes,” you grit. “It ended terribly.”
Terribly isn’t close either, but you don’t know a word that can be worse than terrible.
Her eyebrow raises and you can just imagine the group chat firing up. “How so?”
You’ve had enough.
“You think I would be petty about something like this to get a new hire off my team? Please,” you scoff, digging into the trough of haughtiness you rarely feel comfortable in. You are the youngest executive in ONEOH’s history, you have a reputation for a reason, and that did not involve playing favorites or being sneaky. Or lying, which is ironic.
Jennie freezes, snarkiness silenced by your sharp words, and she hovers in her seat, papers in hand, trying to figure out what to do. And you’re not… you’re not going to blame her, because the reason you’re here has nothing to do with her - she’s not the one making you go through this, experience this, relive this.
He is.
So you give her what she fucking needs, at great personal cost, “It ended so terribly I dropped out of business school. Put that on your goddamn form.”
—
You don’t know how the fuck he knows to be waiting by the executive exit when you leave, but that lurking presence is something you would recognize even if you were blind. You’re going to be forced to do this. There’s no other way to get out of here, the door behind you is now locked.
The sound of your shoes catches his attention, and when his unforgettable gazes levels towards you once again, you flash your engagement ring right at him. The proud, extravagant, bigger-than-his-filthy-rich-existence-could-fathom diamond sparkles despite the clouds, and you’re immediately brought to a halt by the intoxicating sound of his deep, brooding laugh. Perfect and unchanged and the exact way you remember it.
“Wrong finger.” The familiar way he dips into banter when it’s just you two alone is something that should be aggravating... yet only presses familiar pressure into your eyes.
“Don’t talk to me,” you mutter, striding right past him, leaving enough space to ensure no physical contact is made. You’re no longer at work, you have no reason to hold back from being sharp and rude and straightforward with your loathing. Because he’s not above slipping into his old self and his old feelings and you still walk the precipice of that too many times for your own comfort.
He pushes his hand through the same black perfection of his hair. The glinting silver ring on his fourth finger matches the chain around his neck and the coolness in his words, “You’re finally making an honest man out of somebody, I was waiting to see the day.”
The honest man was supposed to be him, and it almost was him so many times. Why is he making fun of you like this.
“I said don’t fucking talk to me,” you exclaim, escalating this straight into confrontation. “Is it still so hard for you, even after all these years, to respect what I want?”
You told him time and time again to stop this, to stop wanting you, to stop needing you, to stop marking you as his when you couldn’t be, and he never respected that, never. You wanted not to want him and he could never oblige.
“Is it Doyoung?”
The question stings your heart with more toxicity, pointed and loaded, and recalls the thought that the mere idea of you moving on would make him angry for forever. The cut of his jaw tells you that this is still true, five years later. He can't stop the onslaught, “Or Hoseok? Or that random hookup guy from school? Or… what was the other one’s name? I don’t think you had a chance to tell me that one.”
There is nothing that can come close to the horrid feeling of being able to do nothing while your ex-boyfriend lists out all of your other ex-boyfriends. The ones he knows you specifically dated to get over him.
“Oh, no, wait. Wait, wait, wait. Even better.” He backs up with a cocky shake of his head and his mouth spread in an unfamiliar, sarcastic smile, then wonders, “Is that engagement ring from my best friend? It can’t be, right? There’s no possible way you two could’ve started things up again. You wouldn't dare do that to me for a second time, would you?”
No. No, no, no, no. Why did he have to go there?
Your throat closes up and makes you blurt it with no pretenses, “What are you doing here?”
“I work here now," he answers coolly, gesturing to the badge on his suit pocket. You can see that, you can see his ID and his perfect picture and your proud company logo and his name you almost shared. He works here with you now.
“What are you doing here?” The last word of your question doesn’t quite break, but it comes out with a knowable tremble that says it all. You came to Seattle, to the furthest place away from where he was, simply because it was the furthest place away from where he was. And now he’s two feet in front of you, once again.
The bolus of outright, plain emotion from you is enough to compel his own words catch a little in return, “I… I don’t know.”
This is pure agony, the kind that you haven’t experienced in such a long time. The kind you thought you ensured you’d never experience again.
“I advise you to figure it out," you grit.
He doesn’t recognize your evolved emotional coolness, and that gives you the briefest of moments to step away and escape without losing control. And t hat advice is not only to… to him… to Jaehyun, to the man that you once thought was the love of your life, it’s to you. You need to figure out what the hell you’re going to do now that he’s here, and you need to do so fast. Every second you wait pushes you back towards the old you that you thought you erased completely.
Or maybe you didn’t do as good of a job of that as you thought.
—
Jungkook lets out a sigh and that’s not enough to get you to stop typing.
When he does it again, it’s gross and exaggerated and annoying and you give up on the spreadsheet to pay attention to the FaceTime. This was supposed to be one of those exist on the phone because we miss each other calls, while he was at lunch in Seoul and you were finishing up today’s work here, but it’s clear he wants to talk… and you don’t.
Your fiancé sees that you’re finally paying attention, and starts the conversation up for real as he unpacks his rice, “Everything okay over there? Jet lag bad? Lee giving you a lot of trouble?”
“It’s been a week, my jet lag is all gone,” you respond, already itching to get back to work. “Lee’s Lee, he’s happy with the merger and we’re moving on.”
“Why’re you all quiet then, lover?”
Your thumb idly presses into the sharp edge of your engagement ring, and you try very hard to not reach for the chain around your neck right after.
“Just busy.”
“I picked the only person in this whole world that works harder than me to be my wife, funny.” Funny. It really is funny how things work out.
You pretend not to be bothered by his light chuckles and try to divert to a safer subject, “When are you coming here?”
“End of February.” Jungkook looks at you through the screen with his sweet little face then and apologizes, “Sorry, ‘m gonna miss Valentine’s Day.”
He has nothing to be sorry for. It’s not like you’ve particularly cared for that day since it was ruined, maybe for forever, by your own hand. And not just that day... that whole week, really. Maybe it’s good Jungkook won’t be back until the end of the month, it’ll just mean February will be over and you’ll have eleven more months to prep for that week coming around again.
“Yo, yo! Beanie baby!” Your best friend’s loud ass voice echoes through the space before you can warn him, “You’ve been silent all week, were there any hotties for us at the new hire mixer?! I made friends if you wanna hear!”
Not like you were ever going to tell Mark about running into your ex-boyfriend at said mixer, because you’ve been trying to forget that even happened. It's been a handful of days since, and you haven’t seen Jaehyun at ONEOH again. You've been stuck with the insipid hope he quit upon seeing you, but you also sort of know the world hasn't ever been that kind.
You quip lightly, “Say hello to Jungkook, Mark.”
Your roommate sees himself in the background of your phone call, realizes he just said some off-color shit that he shouldn’t, and makes an ugly, ugly face at you. He is still not acknowledging your fiancé as an actual person until they meet face to face, which is a whole other issue. You’ve been dating Jungkook for two years, been engaged for one of those years, and you’ve kept them separate for who knows what reason.
Actually, you know. If they meet and Mark likes him, that’s going to be hard to ignore.
“Hello, Mark.” Jungkook is polite and unbothered enough to give you a flirty wink when he looks over and innocently wonders, “I’d like to know about the hotties too, anyone catch your eye?”
No.
Mark is loyal to you and you only, sidesteps the question with ease to get back on his agenda, “Jungkook, are you even a real person?”
Your fiancé plays along like the sweetheart he is, not wanting to rock the boat instead of arguing - a welcome change from certain others, “Of course I am, Mark! They took out my robot parts long ago,” before he blows a kiss to you across the ocean and signs off, “See you soon, lover. Love you.”
You don’t say it back. You never do and he’s never commented and you don’t feel guilty because you’ve never said it to anyone since the last time you did… over two years ago.
Not five, two. An important, pathetic distinction.
Mark flicks you on the cheek and starts babbling, “Okay, I’m going to pour a glass of wine, and we are going to recon the hotties you can’t cross paths with but I can… Because you had to go and get yourself a job so high up on the pyramid you can’t even smell them.”
You manage a small chuckle, give him the wine that you already poured to save him a trip, and wonder, “You’re in a good mood. School okay?”
He decided to finally get his undergrad degree at Seattle University this year, and his entire first semester involved you helping him study for tests like you did back when you were at UPenn. Now, you’re not sure if you’re going to be able to handle that kind of nostalgia again.
“Night classes only so I can be at your beck and call,” he drawls, putting his feet up on the glass table like you’ve told him so many times not to. “Oh, speaking of, I was going to throw a little get together for the people in my department. Not the eighteen year olds who think I’m a loser, but the people my age. Can I do it here? Show off?”
The lofted cathedral ceilings, floor to ceiling glass windows, leather furniture, gold accents, lack of color, this apartment is the antithesis of the dream you had once. To live in a home so cute and charming and tiny you could feel the love cooked right into the floorboards. This place is untouchable and cold and sterile to the point that it makes up for you not having have any kind of family to live here with you, except for your best friend.
“You live here,” you sigh. “You don’t have to ask.”
“My friends are fun, you could meet them and also have fun,” Mark tries to entice you into joining in his shenanigans as he always does and that sounds like the opposite of what you want to do. You try to get back to work, but he pokes your side and tries to pry, “What’s wrong with you.”
It’s been so long since this phantom habit of yours has come up that you don't think Mark will notice you slipping your fingers into the chain around your neck.
Your next inhale is gross and thick and kind of really, really hurts, and then you just say it, “Um, I saw one of them the other day.”
“What? Who?” he garbles through a mouthful of wine. When you peel your eyes away from your computer, and to your utmost horror, there’s the faint dew of beckoning tears in your eyes, he recognizes them immediately, “Oh. Oh, fuck, shit. Shiiiit. Which one? The breaker or the breakee?” Mark knows the whole story. Every single horrible detail, with none of it left out like you did with your parents. You never told him the names and he came up with this on his own - the breaker and the breakee.
The boy who broke your heart, and the boy whose heart you broke.
“The breaker, unfortunately.” You don’t crack, you don’t, but the second part of the sentence, the hard part, it still has to come, “He brought up the breakee though, which was… it… it…”
“Wait, wait, am I hearing this right?!” his loud gasp only adds to the worsening feel of this moment. “You not only saw him, you talked?!”
“Yes,” you mumble. You saw Jaehyun, you talked, you argued, you felt things, and you… wanted it to end, you made it end, and you didn’t linger. That’s a victory, that is a fucking hard-fought victory.
“What in the fuck is going on?” Mark is just dumbfounded, and that makes you even more emotional. You finally have someone in your corner when it comes to this. You’re not alone, after years of feeling like you would for the rest of your life. “Beanie baby, are you going to see him again?”
Yes.
“No. No, I'm not.”
The lie is fine - you dealt with HR and there’s no reason to get Mark involved... because you’re choosing to believe that Jaehyun quit. That's the only choice you have. You’re not sure if Mark believes you, but he lets it go to plan his party instead. And for once, you don’t have to pretend you’re interested, you sit there and pick out kegs and snacks from Costco since focusing on the planning means you can’t focus on everything else.
You don’t sleep well that night, not at all. Not like you ever do though. You don’t think you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep in five years.
—
Half-past midnight is the only time that the ONEOH building feels like home. There’s no one around as Ten has been asleep in his house for two hours at the minimum, so there's no pressure or pretending. You can sit there at your desk with your boots off, socks in the air, glass of wine in hand, and maybe do slightly less work than you intend—,
“Uh, hello?”
Or not.
Or you could just experience generic horror as you watch Jaehyun in his perfectly pressed grey work suit - it must be new, you don’t recognize it - step off the elevator. His jaw parts in awe at the distinctly decorated executive floor you spend all your time on, the luxurious furniture, the open layout, the lounge and huge TV and distinct lack of chaotic cubicle arrangements. He has the top few buttons of his shirt undone, and you have to look away from his neck and necklace and everything.
“Hello,” you echo coolly before you make a distinct gesture to the elevator doors. “I’d suggest you get back on the elevator and get off my floor.”
There’s no reason you should be alone with him, and you don’t want to be alone with him. For many, many, many reasons.
“I had to come and get files from processing before I left—,” His explanation dies when he takes a second look around the space and once again centers on you in the middle of it, “This whole floor is yours?”
The top six floors of the ONEOH building were reserved for the five executives on the board, plus Ten. When you were promoted last spring, the seventeenth floor was outfitted in the exact way you wanted - sparse and cold, just like your home. There's not a single personal photo to be found anywhere in here.
“Yes. Processing is on sixteen,” you inform him of the error as curtly as possible.
Only… Jaehyun doesn’t look embarrassed or twisted up that he made a mistake. He must’ve known. His team lead Junho rarely, if ever, makes a mistake, which means he was told processing was on the sixteenth floor, and the executive floors were usually off-limits.
And he’s here.
He shuffles lightly in his spot with his hands stuffed in his pockets, a stance so familiar your throat starts to close again, and then says, “I just wanted to apologize for my behavior the other day. It’s been a weird time for me, didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
There’s nothing you can say to respond to that. A 'weird' time indeed, really fucking weird.
“And it was… it is. Really nice to see you. Always is," Jaehyun speaks the phrase with such odd intention… and then he smiles at you for the first time. Pretty and perfect, dimples plucked to a specific ripeness that has gone wholly unchanged over the years.
You don’t smile back, how could you?
You pick up your tablet after the shortest nod of acknowledgement and get back to whatever you were doing before, finding your positioning and mindset and energy all off. On the inside, you can't help but think about how nice it is to see him. You won’t go into the reasons, won’t go into the emotions, but it’s… it’s always nice to see him. It’s not a crime to think that about a person who used to have such a hold on your life.
Jaehyun does not dare to approach. Instead, he leans against the back of the lounge couch and asks, “How long has it been? Five years now?”
“You don’t have to ask. You know,” you retort.
The air slithers around, gathering up tension and projecting it into both of you. His stare hardens with disdain at your sharpness and you don’t want anything to do with his hypocrisy. He knows it was five years ago, and then four years and seven months ago, and then two years and a month ago.
But the hard stare may have been been misjudged, was carved out of much softer emotion instead. His words certainly are, “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that summer. I think that was the last time I was actually happy.”
One shredded corner of your onyx heart fades into grey. Happy seems like such a foreign concept now.
“Well, I generally like to forget that I was stupid enough to let you fuck me for weeks after your family humiliated me,” you respond, eyes glued to the tablet in your hand and not at any reaction you may inspire. “Then, to add insult to injury, I found out your wife was pregnant at the end of that, so......”
Just saying it out loud took legitimate effort, repeating the plain and simple facts without injecting your bitter bias or florid feelings. The last time you made yourself remember was when you told Mark the entire story for the first time, back when you had just met and weren’t even friends yet. Time has not dulled the sharpness of remembrance. Jaehyun and his family humiliated you at school, you let him continue to sleep with you for weeks after, and then you found out he and his wife were having a baby. That was it. That was what happened.
Of course, that is not what happened, but that is all you’ll allow it to be.
You flick to the next spreadsheet on your screen, flick those feelings away, and finish, “So, that summer doesn’t exist, and neither do the two times we saw each other after that.”
“I never apologized for—,”
A sorry won’t make up for a damn thing.
“The second time was probably the worst day of my life, so the sentiment won’t be appreciated,” you dismiss him with a wave like he’s just another lackey of yours.
Which he is.
Which he isn’t.
Jaehyun isn’t just another employee of yours because regular employees don’t make the layers of ash around your heart peel back into the sooty silver of forgiveness. You finally glance up and see the legitimate stress in his handsome face, the diamonds of remorse in his eyes, and y ou think about accepting a sorry. Saying sorry in return.
But you’re not kidding when you say that the second time you ran into him after your relationship ended damaged you in a way you’re unsure you can fix. You don’t know if… or when… you’ll ever be over him being the one who did that.
“I—,”
“Mr. Jeong, that's enough,” you cut him off with full authority. That’s the only title you’ll allow yourself to use around him, the only nickname, the only version of his name that isn't yours.
He finally realizes you want no part of this conversation, lets the smile fade, and backs all the way off, “Yes, ma’am.”
The power change, that’s the weirdest thing about this. May as well use it to your goddamn advantage.
“I think we’re old enough to no longer be delusional about… everything.” About the feelings you shared, about your wasted plans for the future, about the reality of your present. “So again, please do not speak to me at work and I will return the same favor to you. I will not be a blockade to your professional development and will assist you when necessary. I hope you understand you will not be able to work directly with me, and will not be placed on any projects I am in charge of.”
You can’t be objective about Jaehyun at all, can’t not wonder why he’s here at ONEOH when he was being groomed to take over as CEO at his father’s company. His whole marriage was riding on that, you've never forgotten. You can’t remember how smart and accomplished he was and how much you liked that. It would be unfair to him, and it would be fucking unfair to you.
You finish with utmost professionalism, “If you have concerns with any of that, please speak to Human Resources.”
There’s no need to add on the stipulation that he better exercise the utmost discretion when discussing your past - Jaehyun is intelligent enough to know that it is to his benefit to keep his fucking mouth shut.
He bows his head with the slightest respect, then evens out his voice and his face and his existence, “Of course, that is all logical and understandable.”
Existing in separate worlds is doable. You can do that, you were doing that before, just across the country. The bubble you were in together was popped too many times, there’s nothing left to rebuild it back from.
“One final question.” You peek at Jaehyun and he’s waiting expectantly for you to have the last word, eyes honed on your face like they're trying to get their fill of you. Your fingers twirl around your engagement ring, and the question arrives, “Did you know? That I’d be here.”
You don’t mean here on this floor, or even here in this building.
You want to know if he… if he. If he left Philadelphia and came to Seattle after hearing impossible whispers of where you were. If he let his heart brew with an ache that wouldn't stop until you were together again. If he looked up your company to feel pure pride that you accomplished all the dreams you talked about together. If he laid in bed with his head on a pillow that smelled like the sweetest sour lemon, looked out the window past the shadow of his wife, and saw the same stars you were staring at through your own sleepless night.
“No.” Good, good, that’s the right answer, the answer you need—, “But I hoped so.”
“Mr. Jeong," you warn. He cannot do this, you will not allow him to take a dip into dreamily spun words that caught you in his web in the first place.
“I think I can be honest when it’s just us.” Jaehyun really saved the best for last, saved the voice he used to use when it was just the two of you in that perfect little bubble, “I hoped you would be here. Like I do everywhere I go. Goodnight, ma’am.”
I looked for you everywhere I went, too.
—
“Fuck my ass! Let’s fucking gooooooooooo!”
Your ears are blasted out with obscene obscenities the moment you step off the elevator, and not even the darkened, pressurized glass of the door can keep the booming music at bay. Even in freaking Korea, Jungkook can pick up on how wild it is, “What is all that noise?”
“Mark, he—,” you groan deeply, having forgotten what day it was and what would be going on when you got home. “He invited his department over for their start of semester party or whatever.”
You are both almost thirty goddamn years old, you’re too old for this.
“To my house?” Jungkook puts a bit of purposeful, flirty cheekiness on the middle word.
“My house,” you correct.
It is your house - you bought it with your own money, only your name is on the lease, and this is the place where you are going to live for the rest of your life.
Just you, only you.
“Right, right, when we’re married and live together, I’ll have to buy my share off you, blah blah, I know.” He’s been through this song and dance before with you many times and has learned to just brush it off.
As long as Jungkook is fine with having a perpetual roommate, you’re alright with him living here in the place you own. You get that your fiancé should take priority, but Mark will never leave you alone, and you don’t want him to. You’re sure you’ll all be fine once you get over your trepidation of having the two of them meet. And what the hell are you going to do with six bedrooms anyways?
Apparently, the answer is throw a massive fucking rager every day. You’ve never seen this apartment so full of people, and so loud, and with so much alcohol that isn’t from your wine fridge. You almost want to go get a hotel room just to be in peace and not have to watch people have sex on your expensive furniture.
There’s a man twerking on your kitchen island and you can barely hear Jungkook laughing when you turn the camera so he can see, and you’re just… lost for words, “I thought I was late enough to miss it but they are really going at it.”
Oh, and there it is, a couple making out on the leather couch you had imported from Milan. Nice one, Mark.
“You’re really not having fun with them? Boo. Workaholic buzzkill, Workerella,” Jungkook taunts, waving his fingers into the camera to try and shoo you off into joining the debaucherous celebrations.
He’s going to make fun of you with that nickname you hate? Fine, two can play at that game. You give him a good show of exposed neck in your black, uber tight work dress as you sidestep a man running with a beer bong, and lower your voice so the sultry R&B music heightens the seduction, “I was thinking about getting in bed in my new pajamas. You really want me to party instead?”
Jungkook’s mind is changed in an instant. You see him reach behind his desk to close the door of his office, and the spicy glint in his eyes is there when he’s back looking at the camera, “Oh. Might that involve lace at all?”
Guys are so fucking easy.
“Admit I’m not a buzzkill," you beckon.
“Furthest thing from it, lover.”
His lip quirks, and your eyebrow lifts, and you both know what sort of mood this night is lending itself to. You have to fight the crowd at your own house to get to the hallway leading to your room and walk even faster when your fiancé starts to take his white coat off. You make aggressive bodily contact when you run into someone who leaps to avoid a glass of beer shattering over the floor, and your first instinct is to yell at them for not watching where they were going. But you don’t… you don’t get mad, because you. You. You.
You know that based on the breadth of the chest and the burst of sparkled cinnamon that slogs through the air, there’s only one person it can be.
Your phone is somehow still in your hand, so you mumble into it, “Jeon, I’m going to call you back in a second,” and then hang up. You can’t be on a phone call with your fiancé when you grin up at someone that isn’t him with the stupidest little smile possible, and find that their face is outlined in the same stupid surprise and delight.
Making a big show of rubbing your fingers in your eyes, you use a sarcastically shocked voice that feels appropriate for this stunner of a moment, “Who is this? Are my eyes working?”
Is that really Johnny Suh standing in the middle of your Seattle apartment, looking exactly like you remember him from grad school? Tall and handsome and just bursting with the same honeyed kindness that you've never forgotten?
“Hey, college girl. Long time no see.”
It is.
tbc.