The first course was salad. For the price of the set meal, it didn’t taste very good. Seungju half-heartedly moved his chopsticks around and stopped. Muyeon looked at him and said.
“You don’t like vegetables?”
“No. I hate orange dressing.”
“Me too. Oriental dressing tastes better.”
“I prefer sesame dressing. No, more than that, why did the two of us go to a second round?”
“Because no one else said they’d go.”
“……”
“Everyone seems to hate company dinners. What did our team people say, that company dinners going past 9 o’clock are beneath them.”
“People who like company dinners are rare.”
“Why do you think that is?”
At Muyeon’s question, Seungju was momentarily at a loss for words. Actually, Seungju wasn’t someone who hated company dinners. He liked free drinks and free food exactly as much as everyone else. And he was ready to blow through as much as possible when it was a meal eaten with the money of a company he hated without giving anything in return. What he hated was just the Director.
“In my case, it’s not that I hate company dinners. I hate the people.”
“The people.”
“Where would you find someone who likes eating and drinking with people they hate?”
“When you eat with people you like, you even pay for it, right?”
Muyeon smiles as if proud again. It was quite cute. Suddenly he remembered the fact that he was two years younger. Then his heart softened slightly.
Suddenly he remembered the conversation he’d had when he met Hyeondo the other day. Did he say I had everything you’d want in this company? The virtues of a diligent, obedient subordinate, that is.
Seungju didn’t deny those words. He was someone who could fit well into the rules of Korean society. To be precise, he was very accustomed to the hierarchy based on age or rank.
When he first joined the company, there were many female seniors younger than him. Also, around his second year, there were juniors older than Seungju who had joined earlier. In between, the concept of age had become almost hazy.
But Seungju still got tense in front of people older than him. And he tended to become generous in front of younger people. Looking at how his heart softened as soon as he momentarily forgot the rank of the man before him and thought of his age, human nature doesn’t go anywhere.
Seungju briefly observed Muyeon carefully. The reason he thought his age was hard to gauge was because of his tall height and broad shoulders. When he made a serious expression, it became even more confusing. But his large eyes seemed exactly like someone that age.
He made eye contact with Muyeon. He grins.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“When we were drinking, you said something, General Manager.”
“What did I say?”
“That I’m cu… something like that.”
“That you’re cute, Seungju.”
“Ha… I really can’t get used to this.”
Even after saying that, Seungju paused for a moment. He still wasn’t confident. Whether it was okay to speak as his heart led.
The next course was yusanseul. Muyeon picked up Seungju’s plate and served him food first. Picking out shrimp one by one to serve him, there was nothing he could do. As expected, it was cute.
Seungju eventually opened his mouth.
“So… I think you’re cute too, General Manager.”
“Is that why you were staring?”
Seungju nodded. Muyeon blinks. This time, the intention to look cute was clear. Seungju burst into laughter.
“That’s good then.”
“What is?”
“I like it when you look at me like that, Seungju.”
“How was I looking at you?”
“You know that kind of look? The eyes of someone who’s fallen for you.”
Even if that was true, he seemed to know no shame. How could he say such things so openly? Amazing confidence. And Seungju surrendered to that confidence.
“Does it show that much?”
“I’m good at knowing that kind of thing. Who likes me, who hates me.”
Seungju looked at Muyeon’s face for a moment. With that face, it seemed like he’d be liked by everyone. Or maybe because of that, he was even more sensitive to eyes that hated him.
“By the way, Seungju, that means you’re interested in me anyway.”
“……”
“Eat.”
“Tell me more about that time. So how did I get home?”
“You took a taxi. I said I’d take you home, but you made such a fuss saying no, it’s fine.”
“I’m a bit like that when I drink. I’m sorry.”
“I was worried so I told you to contact me when you arrived, but you only contacted me the next day.”
“I’m a man with all my limbs intact, why would you worry?”
“Yeah. As if I told you to contact me because I was really worried?”
Muyeon answered with a snort. At Muyeon’s pulling that was a bit more blatant than before, the corners of Seungju’s mouth lifted slightly. He’d openly shown that he was being pulled in, but he didn’t dislike it.
“Then… so that’s when you gave me your phone number?”
“Yes. Ah, then you won’t remember that either.”
“What?”
Muyeon, who had emptied his bowl, said while picking up his water glass.
“We agreed not to call me General Manager when we’re alone together.”
“I said that?”
Seungju let out a hollow laugh. This was something he really didn’t remember. He recalled the three characters “Baek Muyeon” saved in his phone. Could it be that after hearing he didn’t have to call him General Manager, he’d immediately saved it like that?
“So from now on, don’t call me General Manager.”
“You want me to call you Muyeon?”
“That’s why I’m calling you Seungju instead of Team Leader Seungju too.”
Ah. Seungju made a sound like something clicking into place. Something felt strange, and it turned out there was that difference.
Muyeon served Seungju some kung pao shrimp on his front plate again. It felt a bit awkward to be taken care of. Seungju also picked up the chopsticks serving food and put one shrimp on his front plate. Muyeon laughs. Thank you.
“What are you doing this weekend?”
“Just resting.”
“Perfect. Meet me.”
“What?”
“Should we watch a movie? Or we could go for a drive or something.”
“General Manager, you’re really amazing.”
“Not General Manager, Muyeon. And what’s amazing?”
“We have dinner like this today, lunch tomorrow, and meet again on the weekend? Aren’t you tired?”
“What’s tiring about it? If we see each other every day, isn’t that a good thing?”
“I don’t have that kind of stamina. That’s why I’m saying you’re amazing.”
Muyeon tilts his head slightly. That means he didn’t understand.
Seungju didn’t want to explain to him his pitiful daily life where he exhausted all his energy just by going to work each day. In front of someone who goes to the company with such a fresh face like it’s nothing, that would just be a shabby lamentation.
“So, you’ll meet me, right?”
“Let me think about it.”
“Okay, then.”
Muyeon nodded more easily than expected. It looked like an attitude of accepting if he wanted to push back after pulling. When you see that kind of behavior, this side inevitably feels regretful. But he was the one who pushed first. Seungju just nodded.
During the meal, Seungju was able to reconstruct almost perfectly what had happened last week. While drinking at that bar, the two had dropped honorifics and exchanged phone numbers. He said a lot of goosebump-inducing words had been exchanged.
Muyeon didn’t seem particularly disappointed by the fact that Seungju had forgotten all the clear interest and affection he’d expressed there. Rather, he found it amusing.
He remembered the phone call they’d had on Saturday. Did he say the one losing out from not remembering was him? Thinking about it now considering his attitude, those words seemed to have come from Muyeon’s endless confidence.
That very confidence kept stimulating the regret he’d felt watching him easily raise his hands and back off a moment ago.
The food was delicious as expected. It was worth the expensive price, so actually, before the last dish of jjajangmyeon came out, Seungju was already full. But because it was delicious, he ended up eating it all. Watching Seungju sigh that he’d overeaten, Muyeon laughed.
The two paid and left the restaurant. Unlike last time, since they hadn’t drunk alcohol, Muyeon directly took out his car keys.
“I’ll take you home.”
“……”
All along, Seungju thought about whether he’d shown courage or acted recklessly. The courage to develop the relationship.
He wasn’t someone negative about office romance. The Marketing Team Deputy General Manager and the IT Team General Manager also started as an office couple and got married, and they’ve been doing well at the company for ten years already. The Accounting Team Section Chief had done office romance twice, was it? Since both partners quit, this one probably wasn’t a happy ending.
Nevertheless, the reason Seungju didn’t consider office romance was too obvious. First, he didn’t want to leave even the slightest evidence that could lead to being outed. Second, he already had too much tension and stress from the company. If possible, he wanted to reduce things to worry about in the office by even one.
But it didn’t seem to be a strong enough resolution to kick away the opportunity that had fallen before his eyes. Now Seungju newly wished that Muyeon wasn’t the president’s son, or at least was a similar rank, or was someone from a different department who didn’t have to do the same work.
It’s a materialistic story, but that’s why Seungju calculated. Whether they could be in a relationship without lingering feelings even if they ended their fling, met a few times and felt it wasn’t right, or even if they dated and broke up.
That could depend on what kind of person Muyeon was. To find that out, they had to meet anyway.
In the end, it was attaching a good excuse to wanting to meet. Seungju knew he was desperately ignoring the option of stopping here. He was only calculating the risks of the option to move forward.
Even if this was the wrong choice, there was no way to control this clear pull of emotion and leaning of heart amid the pouring affection.
Seungju ultimately decided to pull him once more.
“Should we…”
“Yes.”
“Have one more drink?”
Muyeon turns to look at him. A smile spreads across his face. When he sees the smiling face, his heart starts to beat.
“Seungju.”
“Yes.”
Muyeon reaches out his hand. He lightly sweeps back the hair covering his forehead, hanging over his eyebrows. In that moment, Seungju realized something. What the touch, too restrained to be called skinship, intended.
“You really are cute.”
It was behavior coming from the unconscious wanting to draw out more than simple kindness and the resulting affection. The place where the fingertips brushed was minute and the moment was fleeting, but the surging sexual tension was suffocating. His heart pounds with a thump, and suddenly his body heats up.
Seungju, as if drawn in, opened his mouth honestly.
“You too, Muyeon.”
Then Muyeon’s hand comes down a little lower. Fingers that stroked his eyebrows, then lightly pinched his cheek. While doing so, he smiles as if melting.
Seungju thought: There were so many things he pretended for the sake of fitting into society, the company, daily life. In front of this man, he unconsciously puts down the words befitting his position and takes out his true feelings. Each time he does, he keeps getting closer to him. He couldn’t stop that entanglement with his own will.
If so, the day might come when he shows his bare face to this man.
“You’re tired, right?”
“What?”
“Let’s go home early today. I’ll take you.”
What Seungju had overlooked was that the man standing across from him was thinking the same thing.
