Assistant Manager Kim also looked back and forth between the copy paper and Wooyeon’s face. Judging by the reaction, it seemed like some kind of mistake had been made, but she decided not to deliberately point it out.
“You got home okay yesterday, right?”
“……Yes.”
“Did the Executive Director take you home?”
At Assistant Manager Kim’s question, Wooyeon’s pupils rolled around within his large eyes. Soon, Wooyeon slowly nodded and moistened his lips.
“How many rounds did you go to yesterday?”
“I left pretty quickly. We went to the gopchang restaurant Department Head Jung mentioned for the second round, then my husband called me. The other team members probably went to a third round.”
“I see……”
It was probably a question asked more to endure the awkward atmosphere rather than from genuine curiosity. Assistant Manager Kim, who had more experience in corporate life than Wooyeon, couldn’t have missed that. She decided to stop rattling on about yesterday’s company dinner.
“Oh right, there was a call from the Executive Director’s office earlier. Did you know?”
At the mention of the Executive Director’s office, Wooyeon’s shoulders flinched. The copy of the contract under his thumb crumpled slightly from the pressure. Wooyeon’s consciousness, which had been momentarily shaken by the sudden ringing of the telephone in the office behind him, returned.
“From the Executive Director’s office?”
“Yeah, they said he had something to discuss regarding the fourth quarter sales proposal.”
“Ah……”
For a normal reaction, his face was strangely awkward. His face, cast in shadow, had a forlorn atmosphere that made one’s heart ache. Beyond the distinction of male and female, this must be what people mean by a beautiful face. To Assistant Manager Kim, whose gaze was captivated as she looked at Wooyeon, Wooyeon smiled clumsily.
“Understood, thank you.”
His face, like a smoothly carved doll, was smiling expressionlessly.
* * *
“Executive Director, Assistant Manager Seo Wooyeon from Planning Team 2 is here.”
「Tell him to come in.」
Through the gap of the heavily opening door, Wooyeon’s pale, thin face was revealed.
Wooyeon had expected Jeonghan to be alone, but the first person to make eye contact with him wasn’t Jeonghan. An attractive woman with bewitching looks and black hair that fell to her waist passed by Wooyeon with a confident smile. The clicking sound of her high heels mixed with what was probably her perfume scent reached him.
As her footsteps grew distant, Jeonghan, who had been standing by the window, turned to look at him, and only then did their eyes meet. With the sunlight spreading from beyond the large window behind him, Jeonghan was smiling at Wooyeon. As if nothing had happened, with such an everyday, natural expression.
The woman’s perfume scent lingered in his pheromone fragrance. What had the two of them talked about? Was she a woman Jeonghan was seeing? Even though he knew they might be nothing to each other, Wooyeon’s heart pounded.
“Are you feeling okay?”
Jeonghan’s low voice gently coaxed and soothed Wooyeon. As Wooyeon weakly entered the Executive Director’s office, the door slowly closed behind him. Jeonghan put down the documents he was holding onto the desk and approached Wooyeon.
“When I woke up this morning, sunbae had already left.”
Wooyeon slowly blinked while turning his gaze away from his body scent as he approached. He was the one who had pushed drunk Wooyeon to his limits and mixed bodies with him last night.
The woman’s perfume scent quickly disappeared. With the familiar pheromones, Wooyeon felt his skin becoming sensitive. When Wooyeon took a step back as if nothing was wrong, Jeonghan chuckled.
“I called you to see your face. We live in the same house but I can never see your face in the morning.”
Even though he knew it was natural that they couldn’t commute together because of others’ eyes, Jeonghan felt hurt by it. No, perhaps even Jeonghan’s words like this were all calculated affection – that thought occurred to him. A sigh leaked between Wooyeon’s plump lips.
“Executive Director.”
At the stiff title Wooyeon uttered, Jeonghan’s eyebrows twitched. As the warmth slowly disappeared from his face that had been spread with laughter, Wooyeon bit the inside of his lips. Wooyeon closed his mouth, and once again it was Jeonghan who spoke first.
“Sunbae, do you remember what was said at yesterday’s company dinner?”
Yesterday? From yesterday’s company dinner, Wooyeon only remembered gulping down alcohol. He rolled his eyes wondering if he had made some mistake at the drinking table, but no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t remember saying anything he shouldn’t have.
“What……”
“I heard you told Assistant Manager Yoon you don’t have a lover.”
“Ah……”
Jeonghan chuckled and slowly closed and opened his eyes. His languidly lowered gaze was fixed on Wooyeon as if nailed there.
“Do you really not have one?”
“……Yes.”
Wooyeon, who had been hesitating, answered formally. He couldn’t explain it, but that was Wooyeon’s way of confronting him. Something like whether he had a lover – there was no way Jeonghan wouldn’t know, so he couldn’t understand why he was calling him here to ask. What kind of answer does he want…… Wooyeon was already receiving sideways glances, being just an assistant manager who frequented the Executive Director’s office.
Whether it was Wooyeon calmly using formal speech that displeased him, or whether it was the content that displeased him, Jeonghan had an expression that wasn’t very pleasant.
“It’s not wrong, so why do I feel like shit?”
Jeonghan stretched out his arm and grabbed the back of Wooyeon’s neck.
“Well, I think I would’ve felt like shit even if you said you had one.”
Wooyeon, dragged by the strong grip, stopped at a distance where Jeonghan’s breath reached him. When startled Wooyeon stumbled, more strength went into Jeonghan’s hand wrapped around his neck.
Wooyeon looked up at Jeonghan with anxious eyes. His cold eyes were looking down at Wooyeon.
“Do you have anything to say to me?”
What words could Jeonghan possibly want? Whenever Jeonghan was like this, Wooyeon felt like his chest was completely blocked.
“……No.”
“Is that so?”
“……”
“Then.”
With a hardened face, Jeonghan continued mockingly.
“Then kiss me.”
For a moment, all kinds of anguish flashed through Wooyeon’s eyes.
“……Jeonghan-ah.”
“Kiss me, Assistant Manager Seo Wooyeon.”
The pupils of Wooyeon looking at Jeonghan wavered. It was Wooyeon who had first put up the wall. The other person was a school junior younger than him, but at the same time, he was someone who held Wooyeon’s debt, and he was part of the owner family and successor of the company Wooyeon worked for.
Wooyeon had been the one to first put up walls as if he didn’t want to cross the line within the company. But in the end, it was also Wooyeon who, cornered, was trying to break it down. However, Jeonghan now wouldn’t allow such intentions from Wooyeon, as if it was too late.
He easily cornered Wooyeon, and naturally Wooyeon ended up trapped by the wall he had built. Jeonghan pulled up the corners of his mouth slightly in a smile. He was commanding now.
“Won’t you do it?”
At Jeonghan’s urging, Wooyeon’s eyes, which had been looking up at him resentfully, lowered. His anxiously trembling breath soon drew closer to Jeonghan. Due to the considerable height difference, his thin fingers, which he had no choice but to place on Jeonghan’s shoulders, trembled.
Wooyeon’s heels lifted slightly and before long, the pheromone scent with a sweet smell touched Jeonghan’s lips. The soft volume came to Jeonghan and crumpled. And then, when the short kiss ended and the interlocked lips parted, Wooyeon opened his eyes that he had habitually lowered.
“Mm……!”
Jeonghan pulled the back of Wooyeon’s neck forcefully again. At the lips being crushed mercilessly, Wooyeon squeezed his eyes shut. With the tongue that roughly pushed in, the two people’s saliva mixed.
Wooyeon, whose legs stumbled from the pouring pheromones, was continuously pushed back by Jeonghan. The kiss shared with Jeonghan was like a physical fight. There was a sound of something falling from the desk with a thud, and Wooyeon’s back hit the wall. The space between his legs heated up hotly. The sensation of his rear twitching was something that still hadn’t become familiar even after 5 years.
“Haa, Jeong, Jeonghan-ah……”
He couldn’t breathe. Wooyeon, who had pushed away Jeonghan’s shoulder, barely gasped for breath as he called Jeonghan’s name. Jeonghan also caught his breath while looking down at Wooyeon’s flushed cheeks.
“Huu…… Use the proper title, Seo Wooyeon-ssi.”
It was a voice dripping with coldness. Wooyeon’s hand gripping Jeonghan’s shoulder trembled. On the crumpled suit collar, Wooyeon’s hand releasing its strength kept trembling. Wooyeon looked at Jeonghan anxiously.
“Don’t pretend to be my sunbae only when you need something.”
Startled, Wooyeon completely removed his hands from Jeonghan’s shoulders. It didn’t seem like the Jeonghan he knew. His pupils shook anxiously like a small boat meeting rough waves.
This time, Jeonghan’s large hand that had been holding the back of Wooyeon’s neck came down along Wooyeon’s neckline and wrapped around his shoulders. The hand massaging Wooyeon’s shoulders was quite forceful.
“Kneel, Seo Wooyeon-ssi.”
At Jeonghan’s words, his already large eyes became even larger as he looked at him. What is he saying?
“Should I say it again?”
At the ice-cold voice, Wooyeon unconsciously bent his knees. Jeonghan pressed down hard on the thin body slowly sinking down so he couldn’t get back up. Cold eyes looked down at Wooyeon.
Wooyeon exhaled trembling breaths while completely kneeling. His breath was gradually becoming short from the pheromones that seemed to grip his windpipe.
“Why do you think I told you to kneel?”
“Hng, heu……”
The hand that had been pressing down on Wooyeon’s shoulders gradually lost its strength, then brushed past his neck and cheeks. Just that alone made his sensitized skin cause his earlobes and lips to heat up and redden. Gasping for breath, Wooyeon looked up at Jeonghan, and Jeonghan stroked his hair.
“Assistant Manager Seo Wooyeon’s most important task at our company.”
Jeonghan’s fingers dug through the fine-textured hair. Just the fingertips touching his scalp alone could make Wooyeon aroused.
