Having swindled his way through several months of work quietly, quickly, and somewhat efficiently, Zitao feels poorly about his elongated decision to have kept it entirely secret from his mother. As he enters his sixth month since having been employed, it dawns on him that he still has yet to clue her in on what’s been going on, and although very grateful to have gotten to have his mom for another eight months, he cannot seem to quell the unease within himself knowing that she deserves the knowledge of what it is that he does to afford her life.

Still, he has not yet figured out how he is going to tell her, for what, exactly, is he supposed to say? Hey, mom, by the way, I make about nineteen-thousand a month because I dress up like a woman and get photographed as that woman. Essentially, I pay for your treatments by doing drag. Sure, it seems simple enough, but now with the knowledge that his mother and his boss’ mother know each other, and thoroughly well, at that, he’s not exactly comfortable telling his mother that the infamous Yingtao that Lanfen’s son has his eyes on, was actually him.

“You’re quiet,” his mother mumbles in a hoarse tone, unfortunately, characteristic of her lately as her physicality has begun to slowly deteriorate, for Zitao knows that her time is likely slowly approaching and that there will be nothing that he could do to stop it. Softly, she trails her rounded nails soothingly across his scalp as she rakes through his hair in calm swipes, Zitao’s head nestled against her lap as they sit out on the balcony beneath the heat of the summer sun, his mother in her wheelchair and Zitao sat prostrate on the flooring beside her. “Is something on your mind, Tao-ah?”

As someone going through one of the most bizarre phases of their life they could possibly come across, Zitao has a lot of things on his mind at any given point. Currently, Zitao finds himself unable to focus on anything other than the stringent worry that he may lose his mother in merely several coming weeks should they follow through with the kidney removal, and as her familiar fingertips trail along his head, he finds his eyes tearing as he realizes just how much he will miss this. “I want to talk to you about something,” he tells her softly. “Do you, um… do you have to donate to Lanfen? Like, absolutely have to?”

Slowly, his mother’s fingers still. “What are you trying to ask me, Zitao?” She questions in a tender voice. “I volunteered for this procedure so that I may give Lanfen a second chance at life, the second chance that I myself was not granted. Even though my time may be limited, that does not mean that hers should be, as well.”

“But why you?” He whines as he glances up at her, and his glossy eyes meet hers as he tucks his legs beneath him and seats himself on his knees. “Surely there must be another matching donor they could use - surely somebody in this ward must have two working kidneys other than you.”

“Zitao,” his mother chastises with a petulant little sigh. “One thing you will eventually grow to understand is that the greatest gift you can give yourself is the knowledge that you saved somebody else’s life. When you are faced with one option only and no other which way to turn, you will realize that life is filled with freshly-bloomed opportunities, like summertime flowers - beautiful, poetic, and dusted with that morning’s dew. You will learn, in due time, that the greatest gift of all, my precious flower, is generosity and unselfishness.”

Sadly, Zitao pouts and shies his face away as he presses a knuckle to his under-eyes, catching the little leaking trails. “Why did it have to be you?” He whispers, voice hushed, as he loses all trust in himself that his tone would not be thickened. “Why? Why did life have to take the only thing that I have left away from me?”

His mother falls silent, then, but the movement of her fingertips resumes, and Zitao does not much like the lack of a response that he gets. After a long beat of silence, he hears the wheelchair creak slightly as his mother shifts her weight before she says, “When bad things happen to good people, it is often that destiny is putting forth its effort to teach someone in their circle a very valuable lesson. When I have to leave you, Tao-ah, I want you to always be strong for me and I want you to always look to the sky. When you find yourself out of options and unsure which fork in the road to take, look toward the sky. Find a different angle of life, and follow that path with the utmost decency of your own heart.”

Soggy, he whimpers against her leg and wraps his arms around her bare calf beneath her hospital gown, and her lips click softly above him as she coos him into a restless calm, reassuring him that everything will, in due time, be alright. 

“Hey, Yingtao, are you listening?”

Distracted, he jerks a little, sobering up practically on the spot which only grants him a forced migraine, as Minseo comes into view with her little oxblood pocketbook and her work folder pressed to her bosom. Guilt floods him, then, as he realizes that the girl had been trying to speak to him when Zitao, having been doing nothing lately but crying and staring at his bedroom ceiling as his mind continuously refuses to quit and denies him any thorough rest, is very much incapable of holding attention right now. “Sorry, um,” he mutters, sighing briefly as he blows out a breath and shakes his head. “What were you saying?”

She frowns, then, concerned as her dark hair falls down her shoulders. “I had asked you if you were attending the Recreation department’s company get-together next week. You know, the one to celebrate President Wu’s sales on his recent launch? We have one for every launch that goes well - are you coming?”

A company get-together? This is the first Zitao has heard of this, but regarding the fact that it is the Recreation department’s doing, he is not necessarily shocked that he has not been informed of it - for, with that being said, how would he even be allowed to attend if it were for the Recreation department? Much to everyone’s dismay here, he resides in Marketing, and with much need for economic reimbursement at the moment, Zitao does not have the inclination to move down a peg. “Why are you inviting me to a Rec outing?” He asks her softly, brows knitted in confusion. “I’m not in your department.”

Then, Minseo giggles, a manicured hand coming up to cover as her eyes slit. “No, silly, the Rec department is just hosting it. Anyone can come - after all, it’s for the entire firm to celebrate. We’re thinking of going ice skating and then heading out for some dinner and maybe some karaoke afterward? It’ll be fun! You can drink, skate, sing, whatever you like. Whaddya say?”

As the offer sticks to his skin, Zitao’s expression placifies. Of course, it would be nice to get out for once and enjoy some time with his work friends, for Zitao is rather tense lately with everything on his mind at once. Still, the offer feels strange to him. “I’m not really a karaoke person,” he tells her sheepishly, shuttling out a little breathy chuckle. “And it’s been so many years since I’ve gone skating, too…”

“That’s okay,” she grins, shaking her head, “none of us are professional ice skaters, either. We’re going just for fun. You should come and have some fun, too, Yingtao - you need it. When was the last time you took a break from work and just had some fun by yourself? Come out with us, please?”

“I just don’t know if it’s my kind of scene,” he tells her, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he glances away, his hair gently shrouding his face. “I don’t know, I…”

Then, her gaze warms and sharpens, calculating as she looks into him. “Yingtao,” she coos softly, her voice just a step softer than before. “President Wu will be there.”

As though perfectly on cue, Zitao’s cheeks warm and his gaze lifts at the mention of the only man to have swindled his way into his heart in a very long time, and his face reactively flushes peach. “He’s going, too?” He asks rhetorically, whispering in quiet. 

“Of course,” the girl nods. “We can’t throw a company launch party without including the designer who publicized the launch. And besides - maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get to skate with him, Yingtao. Please come - pretty please, with sugar on top?” She begs him, and if Zitao were any softer of a maverick, he would have absolutely crumbled under the pressure like an overbaked cookie, but instead, he breathes out a rolling sigh and gives her a little nod, which causes her to squeal out in excitement and dive forward to wrap her arms around him in a hug. “Yay! Thank you so much, Yingtao! I promise it will be a lot of fun, okay? It’s next Friday night at five, okay? I’ll send you the address to the ice rink later.”

Awkwardly, he returns the hug with jittery hands before the girl pulls away and announces to him her leave to take her lunch, in which Zitao normally would join her, but as of recent, has been without much of an appetite due to his stress. He does suppose it is nice to look forward to going out on the town for once and being able to de-stress, but what is he going to do about the president being there? Ever since this past weekend, Zitao has not said more than a single word to the guy, constantly afraid that the awkward air in lieu of the almost-kiss they shared would be brought up and would flood Zitao head to toe with embarrassment. If he were to join a group outing, knowing his asocial self and his tendency to linger alone and stick to walls, how is he going to avoid communication with the president now? 

He finds himself distraught by it as he sinks back into the plush of the studio sofa, simply wanting to fall asleep and forget everything and not have to be responsible for this life any longer, and his lack of options begins to weigh down on his skin. What, out of every possible route of action, should he do?

The studio falls into comfortable silence, then, as he watches a photographer by the name of Mr. Chan and the studio coordinators assist in a shoot for a young lady, slender and quite short with long, tapering ruby-red curls and a rose-embellished gown as pristinely white as the winter snow, and Zitao finds her beautiful. She surely is the most eye-catching thing to be seen in this wing, as the photographers and coordinators are dressed in shades of black and muted grays and Zitao is in something pastel-cream and cranberry, safe and muted into the background shades of the studio as the girl gleams beneath the lights with her bright hair and her glossy skin. 

A thought as wild as the day floats into his mind, for what would he look like with eccentrically-colored hair such as hers? Would he look good in a similar shade of red, or perhaps a shade of strawberry-blonde? What about something more cool-toned despite the president’s distaste on cool tones on his skin, such as a lively blue or a pretty amethyst? Zitao has never before thought about dying his, but ever since being exposed to this much color in his daily life, Zitao has gained interest in a lot of new things that he normally wouldn’t.

As he simply exists in front of the set, watching from afar, the rhythmic clicking of the camera shutter lulls him into the shadow of a calm, helping to instill him with the comfort of familiarity as he watches as Joohyun steps forward as the photographer retracts his stance and begins to fiddle with the model’s hair, as Qian pulls something out of her pants pocket and shares a few words with them before she steps away from the set to look at the object. Zitao’s only seen it a few times and manages to recognize it as her company cell phone. Perhaps she needs to take a call.

Being that it is a Wednesday, Zitao does not have much to do today. Mondays and Fridays tend to be the busy days at the firm, as Mondays employ most of the company meetings and Fridays include most of the group photoshoots. Sure, he does have a shoot coming up in about an hour and some and has his regularly scheduled bracket of exercise down in the firm gymnasium after that for another hour, but this is one of the rare occurrences in which Zitao gets to simply sit back and watch. 

He wonders how much Minseo has to do each week, being from a different department than he - is her workload relatively the same, or is it far different? Is she granted more free time than he, or is she more swamped at that? Zitao hopes they don’t overwork the recreation models the way they do the marketing models. 

Briefly, he hears what sounds like a muted clap which causes him to glance over, and he realizes that Qian must have closed her company phone as she slides it into her pocket and begins to walk toward him, and instinctively, Zitao’s blood begins to chill. Although it’s never been anything before, he still cannot help the little burst of fright he gets whenever someone calls for him on the company phones because it is, more often than not, the president. 

Qian approaches him with a tight-lipped smile on her face, and Zitao can practically already read her thoughts as her hair sways past her when she says, “Hey, Yingtao. President Wu wants to see you up in his office.”

If their relationship were like any other, Zitao would have absolutely no problem in accepting the request and standing to head out of the studio and toward the elevators, but given this new secretly-intimate dynamic between the two of them, Zitao finds himself terrified to step foot into that office. What should happen if the air between them clears and the man tries to make another move on him? Zitao had gotten lucky once with his trusty inhibition to step away, but he knows that the soft spot within him only increases when the president is around and that he may not find himself able to reject it next time. 

Being that their relationship is not that of a typical boss and employee, Zitao sinks his teeth into his lip as he nods and gives his thanks to the coordinator before he stands from the sofa and takes trepid steps out of the studio in dread. 

He hadn’t been able to get the events from the shoot out of his head; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to find a way to forget the look in the president’s eyes that day, how hungry and starved for Zitao’s body he had looked, and unused to such a desire for himself, Zitao had gotten hot under the collar and needed to excuse himself before things got out of hand. That, out of everything that had transpired in the past several months, had been the line-crosser, and Zitao can no longer successfully deny, given his friends’ petulant complaining, that the president wants him. 

Anxiously, Zitao in a breath as he raises a hand to knock on the frosted glass of the president’s office doors, and his heartbeat spikes when the president’s familiar deep voice floats against the barrier between them and invites him in. 

Instinctively, he bows upon entry, pardoning himself as though he were somehow a discrepancy to the president’s working time. When he stands back up, then, he notices that there is a man stood at the forefront of the president’s desk, of average height and average stature with a rather handsome appearance. When Zitao’s eyes slide from the man over to his boss who stands merely several paces away behind his desk with his hands tucked handsomely behind his back, his eyes meet those familiar dark ones and he watches them narrowly sharpen, and his hands begin to shake. 

“Miss Huang,” the president says flatly along a rising tone, as though the two men had been waiting for his arrival. “There is someone here who would like to speak to you.”

He nods, then, jerky and slightly sporadic, as he does his best not to think of how it pains him to see that the president has once again shed his intimate facade and has tucked himself right back into the safety of their platonic square one. As though seeing his window of opportunity, then, the man who had been standing in the president’s air turns on his heel and strides toward Zitao with gaited steps and holds out a hand for him to shake. 

“You’re Huang Yingtao, yes?” The man asks him, quite handsome in the face and with a very homely smile, and albeit very awkward, Zitao manages to swallow his shame and return the handshake. “Kim Jongin, Advertisement Exec of Grazia Korea. We’ve been viewing your public prints for several months now and have gotten into routine contact with this company, and we would like to invite you to do a collaborative commercial to exploit our newest dancewear launch.”

The words sinking in, Zitao’s lips part softly and his eyes widen as the man demonstrates the words he speaks with theatrical movements of his hands, and his insides chill from the newness of what it is that he is being asked to do. “A - a commercial?” He repeats softly, unsure of what it is he is hearing. Is he going to be on television? “I…” 

“You may have time to ponder the offer,” Mr. Kim tells him, his countenance very approachable and his aura genuine as Zitao simply watches his genuine air roll off of him like sweat. Perhaps he is being too naive. “My company is very interested in partaking with KW Enterprises to behold this launch, and we are very prepared to move forward with the operation to present to you the knowledge of all you will need to successfully execute this project.”

“Executive Kim is a highly-trained choreographer,” the president speaks up, and Zitao’s heart does a funny little leap as the domesticity of the man’s voice brings him a strange sense of comfort, as though he had been yearning to hear it again, “as well as a skilled entrepreneur. This project would involve aerobic choreography for you to learn and perform under the guise of he and his trained partners, as well, who may assist you on these company grounds on a routine basis.”

“We are prepared to commission you for this, Miss,” the man grins at him, sliding a hand into his trouser pocket as he continues to speak with motions of the other. “The estimated reach for the bandwidth of  the impact this commercial may sustain has been estimated around seventy-five million people, and at a rate of three-percent given that you are only a collaborative member of a foreign institute, your estimated payment would gross around one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Then, his heartbeat skitters to a stop. One hundred and fifty-thousand? Zitao would never have to worry about falling victim to a deficit in his mother’s bills again, and the knowledge of such has his eyes threatening to tear up. “One,” he mumbles, quiet and stoic as he succumbs to the shock. “One hundred and…” 

“Articulate your sentences, Miss Huang,” the president tells him off to the side - no, coaxes him, rather, for his voice is strangely softer than usual when at work. “You will have one week from today to respond with your decision regarding this collaboration, and in the event in which you turn the offer down or fail to deploy a response, the offer will be passed onto someone else.”

Still, it’s a little bit strange. “I can’t dance, though,” he admits softly, awkwardly, lips attempting to quirk into a humored smile as though he were attempting to tell a bad joke. “I’ve never… in my life…” 

“Don’t worry,” Mr. Kim reassures him. “My dancers are very well-trained and well-equipped to guide you through this project to the best of their abilities, and I would only assign the most capable of employees to be your assistant in this project. You will have ample time to learn the routine and practice it with my employee, and only once you are comfortable with your progress and are confident enough to have it videotaped, will we begin the recording.” 

As it becomes more and more clear what his situation is here, his vision begins to blur as tears slowly well up, and his hands wring together as he realizes that the president, despite everything Zitao has put him through and has done to cause him stress, has gone above and beyond to support Zitao the very best he can, and if they were the only two people in the office right now, Zitao is absolutely certain that he would have darted forward and tucked himself into the president’s arms to be held and coddled as he would thank the heavens and the skies above. “But,” he begins again, timid and shy, “why me?” He asks, knowing very well the answer, yet he simply wants to solidify the idea by hearing it with his own ears. He wants to be told what it is that he knows to be fact. “I mean - surely there must be somebody else in the department who may actually be good at dancing when I am not, and - ”

“Your sales,” Mr. Kim interrupts politely, and Zitao falls quiet, “have practically skyrocketed since the media caught wind of your ankle fracture. In fact, you are in such high demand, young lady, that you are now considered to be in the top twenty percentile of the highest-grossing models in the country.”

Then, Zitao stops, a single tear flitting down his left cheek. This must be a dream - he must be dreaming, for never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that he could have swindled his way into the hearts of this country so quickly and so efficiently by trying his best to make money. Thankful, his chin begins to tremble. 

Unused to Zitao’s emotions, however, Mr. Kim’s face falls as he reaches forth a hand, tender and forgiving as though vying himself to catch the model should he collapse, and Zitao tries to stabilize his spirit by covering his mouth as he sniffles. “Mr. Kim, I - ” he starts to reply, unsure of how to respond. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Executive Kim,” the president intervenes with a smooth tone, and Zitao’s glossy eyes flit over to him. The man is intimidating, stoic, and every bit as handsome as Zitao hates him to be. “I should inform you of a piece of fractal company knowhow that, of which, you have not been informed. Miss Huang is not a lady of many words - likewise, she often stumbles and stutters and finds herself inarticulate and reticent. I can assure you, however, that your offer is very well-received despite her voicelessness, and I can promise you that we will respond to the proposal in a week’s time.”

“Oh,” the man responds, his lips spreading and curling into a grateful, unprofessional smile. “Of course. Take all the time that you need to process it - is this her first collaborative project, sir?”

“It is,” the man nods his head, and Zitao’s cheeks pink. “Do not fret, nevertheless. Miss Huang is a very hard worker and I will not display mediocre work in any form under my company name. Now, if you will excuse us, there are work-related matters that I have yet to discuss with Miss Huang, which shall remain confidential by partisan discretion.”

“Of course,” the choreographer repeats, and with courtesy in his expression, he bows to them both as he shakes Zitao’s hand and delivers his goodbye. “Thank you very much for your participation and I hope to hear back from you,” is the last thing he tells them before he lets himself out of the office, leaving it in a hushed silence. Had Zitao not been the one he was here to speak to, he would have thought that the man was trying to pick someone up for a date by how flippant and joyous his personality had seemed. 

Now that there is no third-party to deflect the matters at hand any longer, Zitao’s anxiety has made an ugly return as he feels the president stare at him, boring holes into his skin as the model turns his eyes to the floor. Timid, Zitao does his best not to look up, for he is almost positive that he knows what is coming. 

Belatedly, then, as he is standing in the quiet of the president’s office, the sound of movement registers in his ears, specifically the sound of rustling fabric, and when he glances up curiously for a mere split-second, he notices that the man has turned his gaze away, staring off to the side as though in deep thought. Then, he takes a slow breath inward that broadens his shoulders where he’s stood slightly hunched before he says, “I owe you an apology, Miss Huang.”

It’s softspoken and gentle, unusually tender, and Zitao looks away once more as he realizes what this must be about. “For what?” He asks carefully, his tone small, for it’s much easier to play the guessing game than to go out on a limb and make it obvious that he had been thinking about it, too. 

It must have been an unexpected response, for the president goes quiet and his head tilts upward, and when Zitao glances back over, he realizes that the man is staring at him with a pressed expression, almost pained, and guilt floods his chest as he realizes he must have been misunderstood. “Do not be foolish,” the president tisks, shaking his head as he lifts his stance from the desk and slowly strides around the shape of it, sleek and handsome in his aubergine hand-tailored suit. “Especially not when your makeup has smudged.”

Quietly, Zitao can only exist in his place as the president reaches for his tissue box which he keeps at the corner of his desk and plucks a single tissue from it, wraps it around one of his forefingers, and with mundane, timely steps, begins to walk toward the model.

Zitao, smitten and trying very hard not to show it, could literally drop dead on the spot when the president reaches forward a broad hand, merely a foot away from him and plenty close enough for Zitao to be able to smell his cologne, and says, “Look up.”

He barely gets a whole second to gather his wits about him before there are gentle fingers brushing the side of his cheek as a thumb presses gently to his chin right beneath his lip to tilt his face up just a smidge, very much like the way the president had done during his second interview, except this time it’s different. This time, the fingers are much softer and lack much haste, simply touching him and no more than such. Nervous as his heartbeat quickens, Zitao quickly shuts his eyes tightly so as to not make eye contact with him. 

Quietly, the president lets out a huffed breath. “What are you doing? Open your eyes.”

Despite feeling like the ground may cave in beneath him at any moment, Zitao does exactly as he is told and flutters his eyes open, delicate and pretty and stares back into the darkest brown eyes he has ever seen. To avoid prolonged staring, he turns his eyes upward and begins to bore holes in the ceiling, just as he had been instructed. 

Then, he feels a careful, papery, rhythmic pressing beneath the balls of his eyes as the president’s finger knuckle dabs delicately at his under-eyes, fixing his smudged makeup in silence, and Zitao’s heart soars at how gently he is being treated, as though he were fragile and may break. “My apology,” the president begins to speak, voice soft and tone low, and Zitao struggles not to look back down, “is in regards to how I behaved at the company banquet last week.”

Zitao knew this would be coming, and although they are practically toe to toe in proximity right now, he can’t stop himself from swallowing around a cottony throat, the sound thunderous on deaf ears. Truthfully, he’d much rather not talk about it to save himself the embarrassment of vilifying that he is, indeed, conversing with his own boss about how they almost kissed. “It’s okay,” he replies in clipped tones as the pressure beneath his eye disappears for a long second, as the president readjusts the tissue to mark off a clean spot before he begins to clean up the other eye. “It - it’s alright, really.”

Nevertheless, the president lets out a long, hefty sigh. “It is not alright,” he reiterates sternly despite the tenderness in his tone. “I should not have acted that way. I… I should not have put you in such an uncomfortable situation without even having asked.”

Nervously, Zitao closes his eyes. “No,” he mumbles, and the undulating pressure stops. “I wasn’t… uncomfortable.”

It must not have been the response that his boss had been expecting, for the room becomes blanketed in thick silence as words fall away and Zitao’s heart races in his throat, a deep, thick thok with each pulse of blood down his extremities. “Were you not?” The president questions in a low tone, voice slightly husky. “How could you not have been? Not when I…” tried to kiss you without your consent because it was the heat of the moment, Zitao finishes in his mind.  

Little does his boss know, however, that Zitao would likely never have not consented to a free kiss from those lips, especially not when it was additionally consensual on his end, as well. “No,” he repeats, and the man’s brow furrows very slightly, almost imperceptibly. “I just, um… I didn’t want to do that… there. We were… in public.”

Silently, the air around them begins to thicken as an unspoken compromise is reached within their distance, a mutual understanding of inconveniences among impressionable minds as the man’s hand falls away and the dirtied tissue flutters to the ground, black-stained and forgotten as the dynamic shifts. Zitao could call it a mistake, overstepping a line he once idolized and swore to keep in place as he begins to tumble down the cliff, for the look in the man’s eyes is passionate and warm, as though someone had just offered him their hand in marriage, and Zitao finds himself entranced. 

The real fate-sealer proves to be only a few seconds later as Zitao’s throat works in a nervous swallow, something which manifests as the delicate, precious brush of fingertips along the skin of Zitao’s cheek, simply caressing as though he were afraid of breaking him, and the boy’s teeth sink into his bottom lip as his cheeks pink. “I apologize,” he is told sympathetically, and before he knows it, the president is closer, now, merely several centimeters away whereas Zitao had been allotted plenty of personal space before, now nearly chest-to-chest in the man’s office stood before his desk in the silence of the wing. “If we had not been in public,” the president mumbles to him now that their proximities have shrunken and the need for louder volumes no longer exists, “would you have stopped?”

Gulping, skin beginning to jitter, Zitao does not know. Rather, he does not know if he is lacking the knowledge or if he is simply afraid to admit the answer to himself. “I,” he mutters quietly, the words dying out in his throat as the man’s hand slides slowly forward, skirting along Zitao’s cheek as it brushes his hair back and behind his ear, and a shiver rushes through him as the look in the man’s eyes darkens. “I… I don’t know.”

“You do not know?” The president whispers to him, merely centimeters apart and it would be so easy for Zitao to just lean forward and claim his long-anticipated kiss, to just cross the line and officially step into unfamiliar intimacy and break all of his previous morals about keeping his work experiences professional and give into sin. “Or, rather, if we had not been in public… would you have wanted to do it again?”

“Sir, I have to have my lunch,” Zitao interrupts gently, hoping to be able to somehow flee this situation before he oversteps his own boundaries and causes irreversible damage to the president’s heart. “I still haven’t eaten yet.”

Nevertheless, the man ignores him as he inches closer to follow Zitao’s gaze as he tries to look away, refusing to let the model out of his sight as he says, “You were asked a question, Yingtao, and I expect an answer,” and when Zitao glances back as another hand slides tinglingly up his arm, his heartbeat skips as the president suddenly drags him close, pressing them front to front which causes the boy to intake a little gasp. “Would you have wanted it if you had a choice of the scene?”

Gulping as his pulse beats rapidly along his skin, filling his body wholly with shocked warmth, Zitao’s hands stutter by his sides as the president’s thumb glides comfortingly over his cheekbone, his fingertips sliding back into the tracks of the model’s hair. “Sir,” he whimpers quietly, very nearly collapsing as that same thumb grazes the round of his bottom lip which causes his knees to soften. “I…” 

“You?” The president whispers, voice hushed and practically inaudible. “You what?”

He’s so close, he’s practically millimeters away and his lips are right there, soft-looking and peachy and plush, and Zitao doesn’t have the self-control to resist such a temptation. He’s losing this battle very quickly, as a warm hand tucks itself into his hair and another slides warmly against the small of his back, holding him as though a precious little jewel, heart pounding and skin beating in time. He’s so close, he’s so close. 

Weak and smitten, Zitao’s eyes flutter closed, granting him unspoken permission. Slowly, the president shifts slightly forward.

Noisily, then, the office’s side door clacks loudly as the handle turns and the glass opens, and Zitao’s heart plummets as he rips himself from the intimate hold and backs away, his hip roughly colliding with the corner of the president’s desk as they untangle. Beside him, the man’s expression solidifies in annoyance as he takes a quiet step backward, granting the model personal space. Papers in hand, the vice president steps through the door as he announces, “Sir, I’ve printed out your updated terms and regulations to implement into your collaboration contracts - oh, hello, Miss Huang,” the vice says, stoic and passive as his surprise reigns evident across his features, as though not having expected the model, of all people, to be stood awkwardly in the president’s office while the man’s hands clench at his sides. “Was I interrupting something?”

“No,” the president bites, his tone quite stern and Zitao can hear the annoyance in his voice, interrupted at the least convenient time. Embarrassed, Zitao gives them both a quick, quipped little bow before he strides out of the president’s office with loud clicks of his shoes and closes the glass doors behind him.

With the model gone, the man’s office is silent once more, save for the rhythmic hush of breathing and the occasional whispering snap of the papers in the vice’s hands. Ever since the banquet, he had been annoyed that the girl had walked out on him in the most important moment of all, incredibly indicative of the fact that he made her uncomfortable, and yet she stood here, fragile and open as ever, insisting she hadn’t been uncomfortable and idiosyncratically offering him the opportunity to do it again. Now, to have the same opportunity ripped from his hands a second time by yet another interrupting factor, he lets out a sigh as he braces a hand on the edge of his desk and sets his jaw, mood worsening by the second.

However, his vice is not nearly as blind as those around them might think, and the corners of his lips begin to quirk up into a little smirk before he says, “I can hear your heartbeat from all the way over here, you know.”

“Shut up,” the man snaps in a low tone, sliding his free hand into his trouser pocket as he glances away. Surely his face has not flushed as though he were a lovelorn teenager, and surely his vice will have no qualms about such an unconfirmed sight. “You should have your hearing checked - you are imagining things.”

“You like her,” his vice comments without missing a beat, his words bright and bold without fail. “You - you’ve fallen for her, haven’t you?”

Suddenly self-aware of the thrumming of blood in his veins that matches the pounding in his chest, the man presses his lips tightly together as he glances back at his vice with a gaze very little less than bitter. “I have done... no such thing,” he reiterates harshly. “We were discussing her f