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“Can I sit here?” A voice begins from his left, startling Sangwon out of his thoughts. He turns, nods, scooting inside, leaving space for the man to sit. “Thanks.”
Sangwon shrugs, “sure.” He looks back down to his tablet, stylus moving distractedly on the pdf.
The word frustration couldn’t begin to explain what he was feeling right now.
His university is shit.
He needs to burn that place.
He’s willing to be convicted for arson.
He could be in the library right now, preparing for the interview like every normal person there. Except they don’t allow him such liberty so unlike his peers, he’s stuck waiting for the bus for a last minute interview his university sponsored for him.
He wasn’t being ungrateful.
His university sponsored interviews for almost all the students if they applied for it. Sangwon did, he was supposed to have been assigned for a normal timeslot like everyone else, but they half-assed his - so now he’s on his way to the middle of nowhere with less than 50 pages of reference materials.
50 pages of nothing, by the looks of it.
He’s unprepared, tired and sleep deprived, and he will definitely kill that lady at the internship office when he sees her next time if he ends up doing shit at the interview.
Who even gives someone a one day heads-up on such a big scale interview. At a rising powerhouse in the making, the dark horse among all the top enterprises.
Sangwon is not passing this. Matter of fact, he’s going to get blacklisted.
He’d finished reading all 50 pages of this terribly organized mess the office gave him, and he’s yet to receive the additional pages they promised him by 8 today.
It was already 9:23 AM.
He was going to mess up the interview. And he was going to get blacklisted for embarrassing himself, and he’ll have to live with it. All because his university never thinks for him, because he has it all perfect, all the time. So it’s fine if he endures this. Let it be a forgotten matter that he works like a madman for the results he’d received.
“Your documents are a mess.” The man next to him comments offhandedly.
Sangwon bristles, fingers pausing on the sentence he was outlining with red question marks. Breathes out. It wasn’t his document anyway, and the guy was right. The documents were a mess, the order was making it hard for Sangwon to understand what they were even trying to let come across with these jumbled sentences.
“I know.” He replies, not looking at him. “What do you know about fashion technology though?”
“Enough to know it’s a mess.” He stops there, and so Sangwon straightens and tilts his head, flicking away the strand of hair that falls over his eyes to look up at the other man so he completes his sentence. “See, you can look at me after all.”
The view wasn’t so bad. The man in front of him had striking looks.
“I’m trying to finish this.” That’s why I’m not looking at you.
“You seem to have already finished it though?” He points out, then, “quick reread? revision?”
This guy had deep eyes. So deep and full of intense colour it infuriated Sangwon a little.
“Do you truly know anything about Fashion tech or were you just commenting to comment?” Sangwon asks.
The man smiles, “I know a little here and there. Your documents don’t seem to be about that though.” He hums thoughtfully, “business research? Company research? Let me guess, you have an interview coming up?”
Girl.
Sangwon tries to not scoot away.
“What’s your name?” He asks, curious.
The man smiles, looking pleased. “Did I get your attention?”
“No, what.” He looks around, confused, returning his gaze back to the strange man, “Are you f - no, I’m just trying to see if I know you. You feel familiar.”
The man purses his lips, visibly trying not to laugh, “I hope that wasn’t your best attempt at a pick-up line.”
Be serious. “I promise you, I am not interested.” He deadpans, scooting away a little pointedly, “what even gave you the idea that I was into men?”
The man looks him over, eyes lingering at his chest, down to his legs and his boots. Sangwon manages to not shift under his heavy gaze, “I wonder.”
“No, really - wait, no, we’re trailing off.” He squares his shoulder, “what’s your name?”
“What’s your name?” The man asks instead.
Sangwon squints. “What’re you playing at, I asked you first.”
“I’m definitely going to give you my name, because you can tell I’m interested in you.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth, “you, on the other hand, could just leave without telling me yours.”
He stares at the other, how’d he know? “You offend me.”
“I’m taking precautions.”
“You talk like a fucking tycoon.”
The man pauses, trying to hold back his laughter again, “that was a compliment, right?”
Sangwon returns his attention to his tablet, “did it sound like one?”
“I’d say so.” He looks amused, as if he found a plaything that was particularly interesting, “Kim.”
Sangwon feels a prick of annoyance, “Kim. Like the other ten million people in Hanguk?”
“Exactly. What about you?”
“Lee.” He smiles emptily at the fucker, “good luck finding me with that.”
Kim must realize Sangwon was growing impatient, so he changes the track, “so, business research, interviews?”
Sangwon scrolls on the tablet mindlessly, checking his notification to see if he received the pdf files yet. “Yeah.”
“Department?”
“Brand Management.”
Kim makes a considering noise, “why do you sound annoyed about it though, isn’t it great to be in the shortlist for a position so high up so early in your career?”
Sangwon sets down his tablet, “can you tell how old I am or are you truly a stalker who’s finally managed to catch up with me and is pretending to be a stranger to hit on me?”
Kim laughs, and the sound is rich. Sangwon’s heart does a thing at the sight of his dimples. Why the fuck does he also get to have dimples. “Your mind amazes me. But no, the 17th page of the file you were perusing through, you highlighted one paragraph with a big, and I quote, ‘I graduated two fucking months ago’.”
An enviable physique, a handsome smile (voice) and a fucking smartass.
He saves Sangwon from feeling embarrassed with an easy, “so why do you sound so annoyed?”
“They set me up for failure with this by informing of the interview last minute.” He explains, because no, unlike what Kim thinks, they aren’t going to meet again. Sangwon don’t believe in fate when it’s only once. He only believes in fate if it’s twice.
If it happens twice.
“When does your bus get here?” Kim asks, a far topic from where the one they were just saying.
Sangwon’s brows fly up, and he glances at the time, “10 minutes. Why? You’re - “ he does a pointed look down over Kim, clad in untouchable garments, “ - taking the bus?”
“You just stereotyped me.” Kim replies. Then carries on, “are you worried about the interview because you feel unprepared?”
Sangwon’s brain takes a second. “Do you always go from one topic to another like that?”
“Sometimes. They call me an impatient bastard where I work.” He says, then gestures expectantly, “Unprepared? Because you don’t look it with your gorgeous fit and the fifty pages of company research which you seem to have abused with all the annotation you’ve done.”
Sangwon tamps down the warmth in his chest at the praise, “my fit gives me no points, not at a company like this. And the file is actually pretty useless. I think I already knew everything in this, and you said it too - that it’s a mess.”
Kim raises an eyebrow, looking cryptic, “did you make that?”
“No? I organize better than this, this was a last minute effort they made for me.” Sangwon explains. Sighs, “but like I said, I already knew most of this.”
“About the company?” He leans into look at the document, “it is about some company, yes?”
“Yeah. I knew everything about the company because it is one I’m aiming for later on in my career.” He clears his throat, fighting against the smile that threatens to show, “except for the bit they added about the director.”
“If you knew everything they gave you that you deem the entire thing entirely useless, then doesn’t it actually mean you’re well prepared?”
“Well,” he tips his head back, leaning back against the glass, “probably. But it isn’t how I do things, so it leaves me feeling a little helpless and unmotivated.”
Kim flicks away the spec of dust they both see on Sangwon’s pants. The brief touch burns and Sangwon tries to not move, “you need to adapt to abrupt notices like these if you’re entering the industry, don’t you think?”
“Not when I’m just starting out.”
“Hm.” Kim turns to him, quiet.
Sangwon tilts his head to the side to look at him, taken aback by the sudden silence. Catches himself unable to look away from the intensity in the other’s eyes. He stabilizes his voice to the best of his ability before asking, “what?”
“No, I’m just wondering about these clauses in the place I work at.”
“What clauses.”
“The director recently just abolished the clause on office relationships the other week, we’ve all been wondering what that was about. Probably because he was growing sick of all the pining he had to witness, which led to what he concluded as the actual disturbance.”
Sangwon does not understand. “Why are you thinking about that now?”
“I’m thinking it would be great to have you where I work, with the ban on office relationships lifted and all.”
Sangwon fails to hide his smile, “you’re so fucking weird.”
“So they say.” He shakes his head, then, “what was the bit they added about the director in your document?”
He is not getting used to the way this man talks ever. “The topic we were on 3 hours ago?”
“3 minutes ago.” He corrects, then lifts a brow, inquiring.
“They said he’s a real piece of work to impress.”
“Are you sugarcoating what’s in there?” Kim asks, amusement colouring his tone. And before Sangwon replies, “why, do I seem like the type to not engage very positively in boss… bashings?”
“Bashings?”
“You called me a tycoon for wording something differently earlier, and it wasn’t a compliment, was it?” He carries on when Sangwon shrugs, “you stereotyped me again, by the way.”
“Bashings is worse.”
“Okay so. Criticizing.” He makes a thoughtful expression, “why are you being difficult.”
“I’m always difficult.” Sangwon returns, “do I look like an easy person to handle?” He waves a hand down his chest, full of flair.
A smile tugs at Kim’s lips, “hm.”
Sangwon hugs his tablet to his chest, “you sound like a fucking boomer when you do that.”
The smile doesn’t die out, “what, when I hum?”
“Hum as a response. Be normal, say something.”
Kim leans back, “I’m not responding to anything. I’m just making a mental note to myself when I do that. Why would I reply to everything someone says?”
“You’re… one of those guys.”
“What guys?”
Sangwon bunches up his shoulders, feeling a lot looser than he had when he arrived at the stop, “I don’t know. I just said it.” He beats Kim to it this time, “they said you could do the first hundred tasks he assigns you and he still would fire you if you do one thing wrong. Especially if you work in the higher departments.”
“And apparently, he’s really young. So he acts up a lot for someone who just started out three years ago? I don’t know much about him other than what I read here, he stays scarce from the media. Although there are talks about him appearing for the Summer Line Collection in New York this autumn?”
Kim’s lips twitch, “who said that?”
“Vogue, according to the document. Anything they wrote down about him here, I didn’t take seriously. Most of it’s without source, and I don’t take seriously empty words.”
“But you’re still scared of him?”
Sangwon blinks. Clears his throat, “he’s young, and I’m not scared of him. He just has a reputation, okay? Far as I’m aware, he could be younger than me.”
This gets Kim blinking, a little something passes in his eyes. “How old are you.”
“That’s creepy, don’t do that.” He checks the time, “4 minutes.” Turns to Kim, “why are you curious about my age?”
“Are you a late graduate? Because if not, you’re what - 22? 23?”
“I’m not confirming that.”
Kim nods, as though a huge barrier was lifted, “you’re definitely not 24.”
“What does my age have to do with anything.”
“I’m 23.” Kim says.
Okay. “Was that a tactic you just used there?”
“Yes, it worked, didn’t it?”
Sangwon sniffs, “momentarily. And me too. I’m 22, turning 23 next week.”
Kim smiles, “that’s nice. May 7th?”
“8th.” He says then pauses, why did he correct that. “You can send a wish to me in the air when the day comes around.”
“You seem confident we’ll never see each other again.” He remarks, with the glint in his eyes of someone upto something.
“We’ll see.” He points at Kim, “if you play fair and don’t follow me, and we still meet - I’ll give you my number immediately. I’ll even invite you back to my apartment.”
He laughs, full, eyes crinkling. Bites his lip, “you’re betting it all, aren’t you?”
“I don’t believe in first time fates.” Sangwon says simply.
Kim doesn’t look away from him, smile pursed. Watching Sangwon. “Even if we meet sometime between this year and the next, the moment you see me, you’ll give me your number, and if I ask you for it, you’ll invite me back to your apartment.”
“Sure. You’re hot and everything, if I didn’t like the eyes you’ve been making at me the entire time, I’d have called the police on you before you even knew it.” He adds as an afterthought, “my apartment is a rundown mess though. And I have three roommates.”
“Are you implying that you’d just like to come over to mine instead?”
Sangwon smiles at him, bright, “you’re not dense after all.”
“How’d you guess mine isn’t rundown, or that I don’t have roommates like you do.”
“You’re a silver spoon, I’m not blind to the signs.” The way you talk. The way you carry yourself, the way you dress. “But I’m not interested in all that.” He gets up when he sees it’s one minute before his bus arrives, “you’re charming. I like your smile, and the way you talk, I guess.”
“Whole time you were at me for the way I talked like a ‘tycoon’ when it was getting you hot?”
Sangwon laughs, derisive, “not that far. Yet.”
He stands up, and Sangwon’s heart kicks when he has to tilt his head up a little to look at Kim, “we can work out the details later. You,” he pokes a finger to Sangwon’s cheek, “have an interview to ace.”
“I’ll tell you how it goes when we meet five years later.”
He laughs, and seeing it up close, feeling his breath hit Sangwon’s hair almost gets him to reconsider leaving without getting Kim’s number. “Do you drink wine?”
“Just those very expensive, exclusive ones.” Sangwon responds, though he’s never really even tried those. Just to be brat about it. “Why?”
“I host my guests with wine.”
He backs down, “I don’t like being drunk.”
“Hm.”
Sangwon smiles this time, shouldering his bag when he sees his bus approach, “mentally noted?”
Kim smiles, shrugging. “Something like that.” He pinches Sangwon’s cheek, patting once, “do well. Get hired. Just go at the panel interviewers with all your knowledge.”
“Except the ones about the director?”
He pulls a face, “except those. I don’t think he’d appreciate hearing them in front of his employees.”
“Hm.”
“Noted?”
“Something like that.” Sangwon repeats.
His bus stops.
Sangwon considers it for less than a second before going on his toes to kiss Kim on the cheek, “five years.”
Kim only laughs, nodding, accepting.
★
“One hour.” He says to the air when the bus takes off, he stares hard enough to notice Lee doesn’t turn around.
He calls his secretary, “send me the list of candidates for the interview, I want to confirm something.”
★
“Lee Sangwon.” Geonwoo reads, brow lifting at his list of qualifications and certificates, “this is the one my sister told me about last week, yes?”
Junseo hands him another file, “yes, Miss Kim recommended him personally. He’s from the same university you said you wanted a hire from too.”
“Do I have anything for 11?” He flips through the page, seeing everything he already read a few days ago but didn’t notice the name of.
“Just a conference call. We have an acquisition meeting you need to be at by 1, the remaining 7 hours are packed with other non-negotiable obligations too.”
Two hours.
“Arrange it so that the candidates who the managers deem a pass is redirected to my office.”
Junseo is quiet.
Geonwoo looks up from the file to regard him with a questioning look, “do you want to ask me something?”
“Yes, sir.”
Geonwoo considers it, then shakes his head. “Later.” He switches on his computer, “you can leave. Send Miss June to my office, tell her to bring her team.”
“Is this about the project proposal?”
Geonwoo doesn’t look up this time, tone unchanging but emphasized with a slight heaviness, “why the many questions today?”
“I’ll let them know.”
Junseo leaves.
Geonwoo looks down at Sangwon’s photo, smiling absently at the reminder of the kiss, and everything else he’d said.
He wasn’t all that wrong about Geonwoo. Nor were those documents.
He was a real piece of work once he clocked in.
June and her team files in. She takes the empty seat across him and the others stand behind her, waiting.
“The project proposal you sent in yesterday,” he begins, opening the file on his computer, “how many days have you been spending on it?”
“Three weeks, sir.”
Geonwoo’s finger twitches. “Three weeks.” He hums, “and all six of you thought this was a good pitch?”
He knows it unsettled them when he didn’t look at them when he spoke.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at them anyway.
The proposal was a disaster - slides lifted straight from another firm’s pitch deck. Half the text mismatched fonts. The rest, paraphrased enough to fool no one.
He reminds himself to breath.
Amateurs with apparent experience were gambling with his name.
This was why he foresaw every new employee that was greenlit to join the company.
The group that was transferred in at the request of the board has been messing with him for three months now.
“June, hand in your notice.” He switches off the tab so it doesn’t ruin his mood entirely, “the rest of you will go sign up for personal evaluation and task handling. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. You can follow June out.”
They scramble to bow and ensure they would do well, leaving hastily at the unspoken dispersal.
“You want us to get embroiled in a controversy so early in the season?” He asks June.
“Sir.”
“Don’t.” He regards her long last, voice quiet, “notice. You know when it’s due.”
“Yes, sir.”
She leaves.
Smart.
He so badly wants her blacklisted in the industry for risking everything he’s built up from the bottom of the fucking barrel.
He sighs.
Sangwon made him smile too much today.
In turn, either they were going to make it hell on earth for him, or he was going to make it hell on earth for them.
★
Sangwon passes the interview with the intrigued eyes of all four of the panelists following him out the door.
They’d begun the interview with them literally pointing out the intricate details of his outfit.
The questions were fairly very complicated but he manages.
Kim was right.
He just had to be overly excessive with his show of knowledge.
They seemed to like it.
Especially that one woman at the end of the table who seem to take it as a personal accomplishment everytime Sangwon answered a question exactly the way they all wanted to hear it.
He follows the tall, well built man (totally his type) who claims to be the secretary of the Director to the private lounge, where he tells him he had to wait.
“Refreshments will be with you shortly.” The secretary says, gesturing for Sangwon to sit.
Sangwon stares at him blankly, not moving, “I’m sorry, is this. Normal procedure?”
The man smiles, and his whole demeanor changes. He looked warm, soft. “Why, are you scared? We try to welcome rookies with exaggerated enthusiasm to scare them into doing well.”
“Refreshments? Alone? In this lounge?” He asks, planting his feet firmly into the ground so he didn’t follow the man when he made to leave.
“He’ll join you soon, he just wanted to talk.” The secretary looks at the time, “10 minutes probably. He has a meeting.”
“Was I supposed to understand that?” Sangwon asks, voice meek.
The space intimidated him a little.
How is this the place someone self-made out of three fabrics and 10 staff members three years ago.
He sits down, scratching at the cut in his oversized jeans, the skin underneath his skin reddening.
Did he actually make it? He was hired?
It was that easy?
The interviewer had mentioned someone recommended him last week because of his known competence but that didn’t make sense to Sangwon.
No one outside their university walls knew of Sangwon’s capabilities.
He can’t have already gotten hired.
Were they… testing him out.
Is this the part where he gets assigned a hundred tasks and where he messes up one and gets chewed out by their freak of a director.
He takes out his phone, wanting to call Leo to share the good news. Anxin and Leo were the victims of his outburst the entire evening yesterday, trying and failing to calm him down and still sending him off with a smile this morning, as if they knew he was going to make it and he was causing a fuss out of nothing.
Which he was, now that he’s here.
He guesses it only took the confident words of someone from Kim’s caliber to set his records straight to himself.
He wonders why.
Five years.
He grins, tapping his feet to the ground.
He’ll have made a name out of himself by then.
“Why’re you smiling like that?” Sangwon almost falls off of the recliner, heart beating wildly at the voice.
He refuses to turn around.
He knows he didn’t hear that.
A laugh follows.
Sangwon knows he isn’t hearing it right.
The footsteps are louder on the marble floor and then quiet when Sangwon can tell he stepped on the plush rug.
Sangwon shifts away a little when he feels him approach, hands unusually damp.
What the fuck.
The incredulous laughter that’d risen gets stuck in his own throat.
A finger brushes under his chin and tips his face up. Sangwon swallows when he sees Kim staring down at him, amused.
“Lee Sangwon.”
Sangwon’s toe curls. This fucker. “Kim Geonwoo.”
His brows rise, thumb brushing softly at Sangwon’s cheek, “you know my name now.”
Sangwon tries to pull away and fails, “how are you here.”
There’s a hand wrapping around his arm and holding him up to stand, Sangwon’s bag slips down his shoulder to the floor.
“Your number, sweetheart.” Sangwon’s heart drops to his stomach when he hears Geonwoo’s voice dip to murmur into his ear, tickling. “We can work out the details during lunch.”
He needs to know. “Did you know - when you approached me?”
“No.” Geonwoo replies, short but honest. “I sat next to you and sent my driver away when I saw you, a pretty little thing, sitting at the bench, yes. But I didn’t initially know you were getting ready for the candidate selection interview here until after you began to share the details.”
Sangwon stares at an off spot on Geonwoo’s neck.
“Are you mad?” He asks, and Sangwon wants to kick him when he wounds an easy arm around Sangwon’s waist, pressing closer.
“Workplace harassment.” He manages to get out.
“This?” Sangwon finally looks up at him, feeling ridiculous when the other’s smile actually manages to excite him, gut twisting. “Does it count? When you’re coming back to my apartment with me tonight?”
“We didn’t - “
“Work out the details during lunch, right?”
“Actually - ”
“You know what was harassment? You kissing me without my consent.” Geonwoo says.
Sangwon blinks, parting his lips, trying to come up with something. “You smiled when you received it, that doesn’t count either, you fucking - I mean, it doesn’t count. Obviously.”
Geonwoo smiles, leaning down and bending Sangwon back a little, “are you going to play nice with me because I’m your Chief Executive?” He nips at Sangwon’s ear.
Sangwon pushes at his chest. “You like me mouthy.”
“Depends.” He kisses a spot near his ear again, “I like them behaving when I take them home.”
Sangwon ignores that, breathing out loudly, stuttering, and trying not to feel embarrassed about it. He clutches at Geonwoo’s arm, wrinkling his well-ironed silk shirt, “what time’s lunch?”
“2 for me. Which means, two for you. But you can go out at 1, if you’re done being showed around by then.” Geonwoo replies easily, “will you come back to my apartment with me tonight?”
“Are you really the tyrant they say you are?” He asks instead.
“Possibly. I’m just efficient.” Geonwoo’s tone changes just a little.
Sangwon moves his arm so it’s wrapped around Geonwoo’s shoulder, lips brushing against the soft sharpness of the taller’s jawline.
Geonwoo’s arm tightens, bringing them impossibly closer. “You’re into that.”
“Not really.” He whispers, “Just into you, I think.” He breathes in Geonwoo’s cologne, smiling, “I’ll come back with you to your apartment, yes.”
Silence.
And then Sangwon pulls away to smile up at him, slipping in his card into Geonwoo’s pocket, “does it show that I’m intimidated by you?”
Because he is.
He can’t believe what he’s doing as much as he can believe what he’s doing. If that made sense.
“He said you had a meeting.”
Geonwoo closes his eyes around a sigh, “is it time already.”
“Yes.” He actually just wants Geonwoo away for a bit so he can think. But the other man doesn’t need to know that.
Geonwoo pulls away a little to check his watch, “I thought you were lying but you’re right. I need to go now so I can get there in time.”
“You are efficient.” Sangwon comments. Nobody who took what they do as a joke could build up a place like this anyway. “We’re talking about everything we talked about at the stop again at your… during lunch later, by the way. Fact checking. I’m sure you lied about a lot of things.”
“I lied about nothing. But yes, we can.” He withdraws from Sangwon’s space, pausing for a second to place a brief kiss to the corner of Sangwon’s lips, tongue teasing. Sangwon is horrified, looking up around them with the anxiety of a startled cat, “Relax, there’s no cameras in the lounge.”
“Don’t just do that - “ Geonwoo kisses him again, silencing him. Sangwon’s breath is pulled straight out of his chest at the sudden force, his teeth barely pulling at Sangwon’s lower lip before he pulls away.
“Lunch?” He asks, casual.
Sangwon is better than this. He’s been with a lot of men, he’s been everywhere. He knows his way around everything.
But he still looks away to hide his face anyway, unusually flustered.
“I’ll have someone bring you to my office.” Geonwoo says, tone full of laughter that was being held in. “You’re cute.”
“Shut up.”
“Hm? What was that?”
“Sir.” He adds, closing his eyes and winging it.
“We should try that again tonight.” Geonwoo pinches Sangwon’s ear, “I need to go, I’m definitely going to be late if I linger.”
Sangwon nods, not turning around yet.
He feels bipolar. One second he was out of it, the next he’s initiating, and the next he’s reduced to a shy mess.
Everything about Geonwoo felt electric.
He was not going to win this one.
“Second time fates.” Geonwoo says, and Sangwon snaps his head up to meet his eyes across the room, “did I get your attention?”
You’re awful. “I’ll take the wine, by the way.”
Geonwoo smiles, and the little something in his face this time Sangwon is able to read.
Fondness.
“I’ll have it arranged.”
Sangwon doesn’t know what to do with all this.
Geonwoo leaves.
★
Second time fates.
Five years.
Two hours.
★