Work Text:
Kang Eunyoung had always liked her job.
She liked the way the firm buzzed in the early hours, when sunlight spilled in through the wide windows and the first cups of coffee steamed across drafting tables.
She liked the rustle of blueprints and the hum of brainstorming sessions where concrete dreams took shape. Most of all, she liked that she got to design buildings that didn’t make people’s eyes bleed.
Her cubicle overlooked the indoor courtyard, the unofficial heart of KM Architecture, and she had a tiny plant on her desk that miraculously hadn’t died yet. The coffee machine on her floor was decent. The chairs didn’t suck. She got to build cool things. And her boss?
Well. Her boss was a riddle.
Kim Mingyu wasn’t what you expected when you thought “CEO of a mid-sized but rapidly growing architecture firm in Seoul.”
He was tall, for one thing—unreasonably tall. He had a face that belonged on a billboard, a wardrobe that looked like he accidentally shopped from both a luxury brand and the hoodie aisle at the same time, and a kind of energy that reminded Eunyoung of a puppy let loose in a modernist furniture store.
He was almost too charming, in a way that made it hard to dislike him. He didn’t bark orders. He didn’t do the “call me sir” thing. He knew everyone’s names, birthdays, and bubble tea orders.
It wasn’t normal.
He ran the firm with a mix of brilliant chaos and surprisingly methodical organization. His design notes were always messy, but insightful. His presentations were a little disorganized, but somehow dazzling.
And despite his CEO title, he frequently wandered the design floor, crouched next to interns to look at their models, and dropped random compliments like “This color palette made my serotonin spike.”
And yet, despite his openness—his willingness to share half his lunch or overshare about the fact that he cried watching a subway dog rescue video—nobody knew a damn thing about his dating life.
Not one thing.
He didn’t flirt with anyone in the office. Never mentioned exes. Never talked about “someone special” or “a date last weekend.” In fact, the only person he mentioned regularly—aside from clients, engineers, and the barista downstairs—was Jeon Wonwoo.
“Come on, Eunyoung, he’s definitely dating someone,” Mina from admin said one morning, leaning close as they peeked over their mugs of coffee.
Across the breakroom, Mingyu was delicately spooning sugar into someone else’s cup. Not his own. His was untouched on the counter. His smile was soft, lopsided. Private.
Eunyoung squinted. “Maybe he just really likes dogs.”
“Who’s he texting at nine a.m. with that face?”
“Maybe a group chat?”
“That’s not a group chat smile,” Mina declared. “That’s a ‘thinking about you’ smile.”
Mingyu sent the message, leaned back on the counter, and grinned at whatever came next. Then, as if he could sense their scrutiny, he looked over and raised his cup at them in greeting.
Mina raised a brow. “Tell me that’s not a man in love.”
Eunyoung had to admit the smile was…suspiciously fond.
Still. No one knew anything for sure.
Except one thing: the only constant variable in Kim Mingyu’s life—besides the aforementioned bubble tea Fridays and his unholy obsession with acrylic models—was Jeon Wonwoo.
The friend. The roommate. The enigma.
Wonwoo dropped by the office at the most random times. No schedule. No warning. Just… appeared.
Sometimes in suits, sometimes in sweaters that swallowed his frame, but always looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. He never stayed long. He’d walk past the receptionist, mutter a short greeting, and make a beeline for Mingyu’s office.
He rarely spoke to anyone else. Never smiled at small talk. Wore so much black that the design interns once whispered, “Is he in the mafia?”
“No,” someone had replied. “He’s in tech.”
“Same thing,” came the dry response.
According to the few confirmed facts floating around the firm, Wonwoo worked for the country’s top software company. Something to do with systems layout. Or maybe machine learning. No one was sure—anytime someone asked, Mingyu would just smile and say, “He builds little robots in his sleep.”
Eunyoung wasn’t sure if that was literal or metaphorical. Both felt equally possible.
“Childhood friends,” Mingyu had said once when asked. “He basically lives in my kitchen.”
A statement that answered absolutely nothing and raised ten new questions.
If they were such close friends, why did Wonwoo never join them for team events? Why did Mingyu never refer to anyone else in his life the way he talked about Wonwoo? And why—why oh why—did he smile at his phone like that?
Eunyoung filed all of it away under Odd Boss Behaviors and got back to work. Mostly.
Until it happened.
Until Ring Day.
It was a Monday.
A perfectly ordinary Monday. No fanfare. No warning. Just the usual low-level office chaos: coffee spills, print deadlines, and the marketing team arguing about font weights in the conference room.
Eunyoung was sipping her first iced americano of the day when Soojin hissed her name.
“Eunyoung. Look at his hand.”
She blinked. “What, does he have a cut—”
“ No, the finger. The finger. There’s a ring.”
A ring?
Curious, Eunyoung leaned slightly to the left in her seat, just enough to peer through the slats of their open workspace. Mingyu was standing near Seungcheol’s office, gesturing with a folder in one hand, his long fingers moving as he explained something.
And there it was.
The ring.
Left hand. Fourth finger. Silver. Clean lines. No flashy design. Just… there.
Subtle. Elegant. Purposeful.
It was not an accessory ring. Not the kind you wear just for fashion. Eunyoung had a brother and a roommate who both wore rings, and none of them looked like that.
Her jaw dropped. “Oh my god.”
“Right?!” Soojin whispered back.
“Do you think it’s what I think it is?”
“It has to be. Why else would he wear it there?”
“Oh my god.”
Eunyoung was not the last to notice after all. But by lunchtime, she was one of the last to catch up.
The entire design floor had noticed. The admin team was whispering. The interns were practically vibrating with questions. Someone had already made a chart on the whiteboard titled “Mingyu’s Mystery Fiancé.”
Guesses ranged from “a secret actress” to “a foreign architect he met in Italy.”
Not one person had guessed the truth.
No one said anything to his face, of course. You didn’t just ask your boss if he got engaged over the weekend. That required someone with no self-preservation instinct.
Kang Taehyun, from project management, fit the bill perfectly.
Three days after Ring Day, he cornered Mingyu in the breakroom and said, way too loudly, “So boss, uh. That ring. Someone finally decided to lock you down?”
Mingyu didn’t even blink. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?! ” Taehyun’s voice cracked. “Okay, who’s the lucky person?”
Mingyu sipped his coffee like this was the most boring conversation in the world. “Jeon Wonwoo.”
The room stilled.
Eunyoung, who had just taken a bite of her sandwich, choked.
“Jeon… Wonwoo? ” Taehyun echoed.
Mingyu nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
Wonwoo?
As in, Wonwoo Wonwoo? The guy who spoke in full sentences only when he was talking to Mingyu and treated everyone else like they were technical glitches? That Wonwoo?
Taehyun, bless him, looked like someone had just told him the sky was green.
“Wait—like, our Wonwoo?”
“Your Wonwoo?” Mingyu raised a brow. “Didn’t know you two were that close.”
“You know what I mean! Jeon Wonwoo?! The tech guy who hangs around here sometimes and hacks into our printer when it malfunctions?”
Mingyu sipped his coffee. “That’s the one.”
“No offense, boss,” Mina interjected from the corner, “but there’s no way that guy is your fiancé.”
“None taken.” Mingyu shrugged. “But he is.”
And just like that, Kim Mingyu left the breakroom—calm, serene, and smug.
The minute the door closed behind him, the room exploded.
“That was a joke, right?”
“He has to be messing with us.”
“No way Jeon Wonwoo is even capable of affection.”
“He glares at his own reflection in the elevator.”
It didn’t feel real.
So naturally, the team did what any group of curious, caffeine-fueled professionals would do.
They started Operation: Prove They’re Not Engaged.
It started, like most disasters, with denial.
“Look, I’m not saying he can’t be gay,” Soojin clarified over lunch the day after The Ring Revelation, “I’m saying he’s not. There’s just no way.”
Eunyoung frowned. “That’s kind of the same thing.”
“No, no,” Soojin insisted, waving her chopsticks. “I’m just saying, look at him. He’s—he’s like a robot. Has anyone here ever seen him so much as glance at another man? Or anyone, really?”
“He has an asexual vibe,” said Taehyun, nodding. “Or like… ultrafocused tech monk energy.”
“He once stared down our contractor for mislabeling a steel grade. That’s not gay, that’s homicide.”
Mina chimed in, “Plus, he only wears black. Like… only. That’s not gay, that’s—”
“Techcore goth,” Eunyoung finished for her.
They all paused, chewing silently.
It wasn’t even about Mingyu, anymore. Not really. If anything, the team was more obsessed with Wonwoo.
“Maybe he’s aromantic,” someone had suggested.
“Maybe they’re in a tax-saving arrangement.”
“What if this is, like, some kind of long-term prank on us?”
Eunyoung watched as the theories piled higher than the mood board wall in the studio. The skepticism wasn’t rooted in malice—at least not overtly—but in something subtler, and frankly, more insidious:
He didn’t look gay.
He didn’t act gay.
So how could he be?
They started collecting evidence.
Taehyun, who had always secretly believed he’d missed his calling as a private investigator, took the reins first.
He turned one corner of the design studio’s whiteboard into a so-called “Observation Log,” and began charting every one of Jeon Wonwoo’s appearances with military precision.
He marked the calendar dates with thick red Xs, then drew arrows and annotations like “Carried something??” or “Smiled vaguely — suspicious?”
“Not smiled at someone,” he clarified one afternoon to a mildly horrified Mina. “Smiled to himself. Probably a code compile. Or a cat video. Definitely not because of Mingyu. Right?”
Mina rolled her eyes, but contributed a post-it that read, “Wore the same boots three times in a row. Unbothered king or psychopath?”
Soon, other employees began adding to the whiteboard—half in mockery, half in morbid curiosity. One intern sketched a cartoon of Wonwoo as a cryptid labeled “The Myth of Gay-chu Picchu.” Someone else added a list titled “Signs He Is Straight” which included:
- Has never complimented my hair
- Talks like he’s narrating a sci-fi audiobook
- Looks allergic to eye contact
Mina, meanwhile, went full gossip-mode, whispering around the office like it was high school and not a salaried position at a respected architecture firm. She asked probing questions to anyone who had ever interacted with Wonwoo, no matter how fleeting the moment.
“Did he ever compliment your earrings?” she asked a bewildered intern from HR.
The girl blinked. “He told me to move my drink off a stack of paperwork once.”
“But how did he say it? Gently? Did he look at your nails?”
“...I think he was frowning?”
“That doesn’t disprove anything.”
Her greatest disappointment came after cornering Minjun, the IT technician, who had been troubleshooting Mingyu’s server the previous week while Wonwoo happened to be in the office.
“He helped me figure out a subnet routing issue,” Minjun said. “He’s a genius.”
“Right, right. But did he say anything suspiciously stylish? Or, I don’t know, express concern over your skincare routine?”
Minjun just stared at her. “Are you… okay?”
The entire floor buzzed with conspiracies. People whispered during lunch breaks, messaged each other screenshots of suspiciously matching outfits from past office events, debated whether Mingyu’s fondness for oat milk lattes was his own or an influence.
They even reviewed security footage once—just for a glimpse of a lingering glance. Nothing.
And through it all, Eunyoung kept her head down. She didn’t join the betting pool Mina organized ( “Will Wonwoo touch Mingyu’s back in the next 7 days? Yes or No?” ). She didn’t weigh in when Taehyun drew up a theory about Wonwoo being aromantic and Mingyu simply confused.
But she watched.
She listened.
They tried setting traps. Subtle ones.
It began with a sticker.
Someone (no one confessed, though Mina looked far too smug) placed a small, tasteful gay pride flag on the communal whiteboard beside the week’s design deadlines. No caption. No explanation. Just a gentle little provocation, sitting there between a CAD meeting and a client pitch reminder.
Wonwoo passed by it the next morning. His eyes skimmed the board, paused on the sticker for half a second, then moved on.
No change in expression. No flinch. No comment.
“Did you see that?” Mina whispered, scandalized. “He just— ignored it.”
“Maybe he supports it,” Taehyun muttered, “but he’s not in it. ”
So they escalated.
Two days later, Taehyun changed the background on the shared break room computer to a shirtless Junho from the GQ Men of the Year shoot. The kind of photo that made people choke on their iced americanos. Subtle? No. But apparently, desperation breeds creativity.
When Wonwoo strolled by to refill his water bottle, the image was glowing on the screen. Bold. Provocative. Skin and lighting and attitude.
He didn’t even blink.
“Nothing,” Taehyun reported that afternoon, looking almost wounded. “He didn’t even flinch.”
“He didn’t even appreciate it,” Mina muttered. “My god. What is he?”
“Maybe he’s—like—so gay he transcends thirst,” someone whispered.
“Maybe he’s broken,” someone else whispered.
Eunyoung wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or maybe both. She sat back in her chair that afternoon and stared at the ceiling, listening to the murmur of another meeting being scheduled. The light buzz of artificial theories. The low hum of collective denial.
It felt like they were trying to force a reaction out of a mirror.
Or a myth.
Then, one day, Jeon Wonwoo showed up with a paper bag.
It was a Tuesday, gray and drizzly, the kind of day where time moved slower and everyone’s motivation sank somewhere between their knees and the nearest space heater.
When the elevator doors dinged open that morning and Wonwoo stepped out in a dark sweater, slim jeans, and the same black boots from three Wednesdays ago, the office shifted like a flock of birds sensing danger.
No one said anything. But every keyboard slowed. Every head tilted.
He said hello to the receptionist—quietly, politely—and then walked straight to Mingyu’s office with the kind of ease that made it look like he owned the place. His stride was unhurried, like he wasn’t aware of the way twenty pairs of eyes tracked the crinkle of that brown paper bag in his hand.
Mina leaned toward Eunyoung, breath sharp with tension. “What’s in the bag?”
Eunyoung didn’t look away. “Why would I know that?”
“I’m betting a USB full of code.”
“Or a bomb.”
Taehyun: “Or a code that is a bomb.”
Seungcheol walked by them at that moment, holding a tablet and looking half-amused, half-sleep-deprived. He didn’t slow down.
“It’s probably lunch,” he said.
They watched Wonwoo knock once and enter Mingyu’s office without waiting for a reply.
The door closed.
The blinds were drawn, but the muffled sound of voices came through—low and steady, then interrupted by laughter. Not polite laughter. Real laughter. The kind that made your eyes crinkle and your shoulders shake.
Eunyoung stared at the door. Something warm twisted in her chest.
When Wonwoo emerged twenty minutes later, the paper bag was gone. Mingyu’s desk, briefly visible through the open door, held two takeout containers and a set of chopsticks.
Wonwoo didn’t look at anyone else.
He just walked out again, quiet and composed and entirely himself.
Unapologetically. Unbothered. Like the eye of a storm that never needed to rage to be powerful.
The silence in the room afterward was almost reverent.
The next morning, Eunyoung found a sticky note on her chair. Tidy handwriting. Slanted right. Familiar.
“FYI: Wonwoo’s lunch recs are better than Michelin. Ask him next time.”
It was signed with a doodle of a dog paw.
Mingyu.
She sat there staring at it for a long time, heart ticking a little too loud.
They had all been looking for signs.
But maybe the signs had always been there.
They just refused to see them because they weren’t wrapped in rainbow flags and glitter and stereotypes.
Maybe quiet affection didn’t need proof. Maybe truth didn’t need volume.
And maybe—just maybe—Jeon Wonwoo didn’t need to perform anything for them to believe who he was.
For weeks, the atmosphere at Mingyu’s firm had been electric with disbelief, quiet speculation, and countless whispered debates. Everyone had their own theories—none of which involved accepting the truth.
That is, until the day Mingyu called a company-wide meeting.
Eunyoung heard the buzz through the office grapevine first. “He’s wearing it again,” Mina whispered as she passed Eunyoung’s desk, eyes wide.
“The ring?” Eunyoung raised an eyebrow.
“The engagement ring. The real one. Not the costume jewelry.”
When Mingyu strode into the conference room, calm and poised as always, a clear silver band gleamed confidently on his left ring finger. The room fell silent, the usual hum of typing and murmurs halted by this quiet but undeniable statement.
Then Mingyu spoke.
“Thank you for coming,” his voice was steady, commanding but warm. “I know there’s been some... curiosity about my personal life. I want to clear that up today.”
He turned his hand slightly, making sure everyone saw the ring.
“I am engaged. To Jeon Wonwoo.”
The reaction was instant—and volatile.
Murmurs erupted, eyes darted to Wonwoo, who stood patiently near the back, looking calm but approachable. Some faces registered shock, others incredulity. A few smirked in disbelief.
Taehyun was the first to speak—though not to deny. “But... Wonwoo? Are you sure? I mean, no offense, but it’s hard to imagine.”
Mingyu just smiled serenely, like he knew he was about to win an argument against a brick wall. “No offense taken. I know it’s hard to change your assumptions.”
“Because,” Mina said seriously, “Wonwoo isn’t... you know. Like the men we think of as gay.” She made air quotes. “He’s quiet. Reserved. Like a chess master in a library.”
Eunyoung blinked and finally couldn’t hold it in. “Wait, what? Are we seriously basing this on some secret checklist for ‘gayness’?” She gestured wildly. “Is there an official manual or something?”
There was a pause, then muffled laughter. Even Seungcheol, who rarely cracked a smile, looked amused.
Mina, undeterred, pressed on. “Look, people expect certain behaviors. Certain styles. Wonwoo just doesn’t fit the stereotype. He’s the guy who’d bring you coffee without saying a word.”
“And,” Taehyun added thoughtfully, “he’s definitely the guy who won’t complain about your playlist at the office.”
Eunyoung snorted. “So basically, you don’t believe he's gay because Wonwoo isn’t dramatic enough?”
“Exactly!” Mina said triumphantly.
Mingyu cleared his throat and lifted an eyebrow. “Wonwoo is himself. That’s all that matters. I’m proud to be engaged to him. We don’t need anyone’s stereotypes to be happy.”
“Alright, alright,” Taehyun grumbled. “Show us some proof.”
Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for—an invitation to prove it.
Mingyu smiled, flicked his phone screen around so everyone could see the picture he held up: a candid photo of him and Wonwoo at a small beachside restaurant, arms around each other’s shoulders, laughing with bright, genuine smiles. The ring glinted on Mingyu’s finger.
“That was last weekend,” Mingyu said softly. “We celebrated our engagement quietly, just the two of us.”
Taehyun squinted at the photo, muttering, “They look happy. Weirdly… real.”
Mina, ever the skeptic, raised her hand. “Okay, but that’s one photo. Could be staged.”
“Then you’ll want to see this.” Mingyu pulled out a second image—Wonwoo’s laptop, playing a heartfelt video message where Wonwoo thanked Mingyu for being the best partner ever and promised a future full of love, laughter, and late-night debugging sessions.
Someone gasped. The room grew quieter.
Eunyoung caught Seungcheol’s eye. He nodded slightly, his expression softer.
For the next hour, Mingyu delivered everything—the texts, the inside jokes, the accidental couple selfies Wonwoo never meant to send.
Slowly but surely, the room’s collective disbelief melted like butter on hot toast.
Taehyun finally shrugged. “Okay, fine. Maybe it’s true. But I still can’t believe Wonwoo is gay. Like, at all. He’s too quiet about it.”
Eunyoung laughed. “Maybe being gay just means you have good taste in coffee and terrible poker faces.”
And just like that, Operation Prove We’re Engaged turned into Operation Accept That People Are Weird—and That’s Okay.
After the meeting broke up, most employees returned to their desks, buzzing with new perspectives. Eunyoung lingered near the conference room door, talking quietly with Mina and Taehyun.
Seungcheol approached, hands tucked into his jacket pockets. His face was earnest.
“I gotta say,” he began, looking around to make sure no one else was listening too closely, “when Mingyu first told me he was dating Wonwoo, I thought the same thing you all did.”
He paused, searching their faces.
“I thought, ‘No way.’ It just didn’t seem possible. I mean, Mingyu’s always been a private guy. Wonwoo’s the quiet, logical type. I couldn’t picture it.”
“But then,” he said, voice softer now, “I started seeing how they looked at each other. The way Mingyu’s eyes softened when Wonwoo spoke. The little things Wonwoo did—like bringing Mingyu coffee exactly how he liked it, or sitting just a little too close during late meetings. It wasn’t flashy, but it was real.”
Seungcheol smiled faintly, a trace of nostalgia in his voice.
“I thought maybe I was just reading too much into it. But then, after that dinner when Mingyu told me he proposed—I believed. Not because of any grand gestures, but because I knew Mingyu wouldn’t settle for anything less than real.”
Eunyoung felt a warmth spread in her chest. She glanced around; others nearby had stopped working to listen.
Seungcheol shrugged, grinning a little sheepishly.
“So yeah, I doubted it too. But now? I’m glad I was wrong.”
The weeks after Mingyu announced his engagement to Jeon Wonwoo were… something else.
At first, the office was like a soap opera on fast-forward. Everyone was low-key obsessed, sneaking glances at Mingyu’s ring like it was a rare Pokémon card. Eunyoung half expected someone to start a betting pool on when the “wedding” would happen.
But the strangest thing happened. The engagement ring stopped being the subject of whispered conspiracy theories and became just… part of the scenery. Like that weird abstract art in the lobby no one really understands but pretends to like.
One day, Eunyoung caught Mingyu and Wonwoo exchanging a glance so subtle, so ridiculously cute, it could have melted an iceberg. She blinked and whispered to Mina, “Did you see that? They’re definitely up to something. Or maybe they just really hate Mondays.”
Eunyoung noticed the change most keenly in herself. She realized that all along, the problem hadn’t been about Mingyu and Wonwoo. It was about their own need to categorize people, to see the world in predictable boxes.
And Mingyu and Wonwoo refused to fit into any.
They were simply who they were. Together.
And in that simple truth, the office found something unexpected—a reminder to look beyond appearances, and to believe in the quiet power of love that doesn’t have to prove itself.
The real kicker, though? The office finally had to face the biggest scandal of all: admitting Wonwoo might actually be gay. And not just gay, but Mingyu’s fiancé.
Cue the chaos.