Work Text:
Mo Beijun had spent a long time mentally planning out his wedding.
He wasn’t actually a romantic enough person to have planned it from childhood or anything like that, but he had started planning it from the very first moment he laid his eyes on Xiang Fei.
It wasn’t actually the act of a lovestruck man, at least not entirely, he hadn’t thought to himself I’m going to marry that man. He’d just looked at Xiang Fei and mentally started planning a wedding.
It could have been due to the way he’d been raised. Mo Beijun was always taught the shortest and most effective ways to achieve his goals, his parents raising him with the sort of emotional cruelty that most would call abusive neglect. Or maybe Mo Beijun was just a strange person who didn’t spend enough time on introspection to understand his own emotions.
Mo Beijun would see a task, know that it needed to be achieved, and immediately begin a mental checklist of things that needed to be accomplished before it could be complete. Neatly dividing up each task into achievable chunks, deciding upon how he would delegate things, and leave the interaction with an actionable plan that he could begin at once.
By the time Xiang Fei turned his nervous smile to look directly at Mo Beijun, he’d already decided the style of the wedding. Having been initially torn between what sort of wedding garments would best suit Xiang Fei and also mentally calculating what he might prefer. By the time they’d greeted one another, Mo Beijun had a significant portion of the invitation list mapped out. By the time Xiang Fei was nervously scuttling away from the stiff greeting to return to his desk, Mo Beijun had decided the country and location.
None of this information was remotely portrayed in Mo Beijun’s greeting to Xiang Fei. From any outward observer, they might have thought that Mo Beijun actually really disliked his newest subordinate. On the most optimistic side, they would assume that he was apathetic to Xiang Fei, but just generally in a bad mood.
Mo Beijun’s eyes lingered briefly on Xiang Fei’s retreating form, an intensity in his gaze that was too much for it to be any positive emotion before he swept away to return to his office.
He had quite a bit of planning to do. The more he thought about it, the more weddings simply had too many moving parts to plan it entirely in his head. He’d also need to do more research on Xiang Fei, his family and his background in particular, to ensure that the wedding was considerate of his future life partners needs.
Mo Beijun never paused to think why am I planning our wedding or oh, I think I’m in love. He just started planning like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Worst of all, if a mind-reader had been able to ask him just why the wedding was necessary, it was unlikely that Mo Beijun would have been able to answer.
Xiang Fei had been working in Mo Beijun’s company for five years before the plans were completed to Mo Beijun’s complete satisfaction.
By that point in time, everyone knew Xiang Fei as being the employee that their normally level-headed boss very irrationally hated. Mo Beijun would micromanage sometimes, other times he’d just assign obscene amounts of overtime, sometimes he’d drag Xiang Fei off to business lunches without any forewarning, one particular occasion he sent Xiang Fei home early for seemingly no reason, and there were even times when Mo Beijun would just lurk in the office where all the employees cowered under his intense presence, but his glare was focused solely on the hunched form of Xiang Fei.
It was a bit of a mystery why Xiang Fei put up with it. Sure, for a year or two it would be good to stick around for your resume, but five years was a truly long time to endure being bullied so publicly by your superior.
People felt bad for Xiang Fei though, so outside of Mo Beijun’s rather intense attention, his fellow employees and direct supervisors were quite pleasant and patient with him.
Mo Beijun had spent a long time planning his wedding. And as such, the folder containing every single ornate detail was heavy and large.
When Mo Beijun stalked toward Xiang Fei’s desk carrying the large and intimidating folder, most shrank away at the sight. They might feel bad for Xiang Fei’s fate, but no one was particularly willing to take on whatever insane amount of overtime was contained inside.
Xiang Fei himself paled at the sight of it. It loomed toward him like a death-sentance, but he knew all too well by now that he wouldn’t and couldn’t refuse Mo Beijun.
It was a whole complicated thing that he didn’t really wanna get into.
Mo Beijun towered over his desk, glaring down at Xiang Fei with more concentrated hatred than anyone had ever seen before. Xiang Fei audibly gulped, concerned that perhaps the huge folder was actually a murder weapon rather than a new task.
“Review this.” Mo Beijun said in his normal clipped tone that managed to make him sound both angry and bored at once. “Report back to me if it is satisfactory by the end of the week.” Mo Beijun narrowed his eyes in a way that Xiang Fei had learned to fear. “Ensure that every detail is to your satisfaction and make the adjustments you require as necessary.”
The phrasing was a bit odd for a work task, but Xiang Fei was simply too terrified to do anything but nod hurriedly to his boss’s commands.
Without another word, Mo Beijun swept away with the regality of a king.
Xiang Fei stared after him for a moment before he sighed and looked at the horrible folder. The way that everyone in the office was avoiding his eyes meant that there was certainly going to be no merciful companion to stay late with him tonight.
And Mo Beijun was a very calculated boss. He always assigned the precise amount of time necessary to complete a task. There couldn’t be any hesitation or procrastination, or he seriously wouldn’t get it done in time.
With another resigned sigh, Xiang Fei opened the folder.
It took him a really long time to understand what he was looking at. Not because the information was difficult, but because it was so very unexpected from his normal workload that for a brief while, he honestly couldn’t even parse it.
“...huh?”
Wondering briefly if he’d fallen asleep at his desk, Xiang Fei numbly pinched his cheek with one hand as he turned the page with another.
The next page was even more boggling.
“Can I get a second set of eyes on this…?” Xiang Fei asked the air hopelessly, sort of needing someone to confirm for him just what the hell he was reading. He had to be hallucinating, right?
Unfortunately, his request only intimidated his coworkers further and they shrank away further, pretending not to hear him. If Xiang Fei was having such a baffled response to the work, it must truly be sadistic beyond imagination. Poor Xiang Fei, earning Mo Beijun’s hatred like this.
Xiang Fei turned back to the first page again and re-read it as many times as his brain could comprehend. The header of the title page still read the very same.
[Mo Beijun and Xiang Fei’s Wedding Plans]
Beneath it was a very clear to understand index with page numbers and related topics.
Feeling insane, Xiang Fei took a picture of it and sent it to a friend to confirm that he wasn’t crazy.
All the while Xiang Fei was genuinely questioning his own sanity, Mo Beijun sat in satisfied anxiety inside of his office.
He didn’t normally share his plans like this with other people, so the feeling of waiting for Xiang Fei’s judgement was a bit nerve-wracking. But since Xiang Fei was going to be his husband and partner in life, it was only right that Xiang Fei also had the opportunity to adjust the wedding plans as he wished.
Mo Beijun felt that they had started out their adventure into wedded bliss quite effectively actually.