Minho walked into the office with a brown file in his arm, another hand fixing the lanyard while making a beeline for his new table. He worked as one of the staff in the sales department of ST’s fashion company. That day though, he came in as the regional director ㅡ the position that he’d never dreamt of holding due to the lack of experience in sales and marketing. But it happened anyway, regardless of how and when.

Not like Minho was allowed to talk about it to anyone.

As he sat down, the file slammed onto the foreign surface of his new mahogany table, someone knocked on the door.

“Yeah?” Minho cleared his throat and bit back a command, still not used to using imperative sentences at work.

He saw a man peeking from behind the door, then the head popped in. It turned out to be his best friend—the only friend he’d got—from the same department, Jonghyun, who was already grinning from ear to ear in amusement. “Woah, you’re a director now, eh?”

“Yeah, well…” Minho only chuckled, low and void of gratefulness. Jonghyun didn’t catch that. “Come on right in. Why are you standing there?”

“Oh right. Sorry, I thought I needed the approval because we’re no longer staff by equal standards. I got you some iced Americano,” Jonghyun closed the door shut, walked right across and sat down in front of Minho.

“Thanks. I didn’t think you’d still do it,” Minho grabbed the sweating cup with a small smile.

It was like a morning habit for them to have coffee together. Back then, they did it easily because they were deskmates. Jonghyun would just come in with two big plastic cups and they’d start the day succumbing to the bitterness of coffee. Now, however, Minho was screened off from their private, undisturbed corner. Worst yet, he was isolated in an office of his own. Every one of his movements will be monitored and observed. He hated that bit of the promotion the most.

“I’d stop doing it if you stop coming to work looking like a walking corpse,” the answer caught Minho’s attention and the younger man between the two tilted his head, an eyebrow raised in question for further explanation. Jonghyun continued, “I mean, look at you. Did you even catch a wink these past few weeks? It seems like you didn’t. Eyebags, bruised knuckles, the cut there on your jaw. Were you fighting a wolf in your sleep?”

Minho listened wordlessly, eyes boring a hole on the table. His fingers that were drumming on the file stopped moving altogether when he opened his mouth to respond to Jonghyun’s question.

“I didn’t get to sleep easy these days. It has been a flurry of a week in our company, you know that.” His tone was monotonous, barely justifying his half-baked answer. Jonghyun, on the other hand, was too oblivious to hit more. He really couldn’t sense that Minho was lying, so he let the excuse slide easily. 

“I agree. Work is insane lately. Just make sure to take care of yourself, mate. If you get sick right after being promoted like this, then your hard work is a colossal waste.”

“Got that.”

Promoted. The word made Minho chuckle silently, yet he said nothing more to return Jonghyun’s advice as the older man stood up. He only tore his gaze from his hand when he could hear faint familiar footsteps heading towards his office, the pair that belonged to someone he’d anticipated to see all morning but never made it too obvious for people to notice.

“Oh. I’m deeply sorry, Sir.” Jonghyun’s words escaped alarmingly. Through the glass wall partition of the room, looking past Jonghyun who just exited, Minho saw Taemin, the son of the ST’s CEO, standing tall and fierce in his black suit while waving the accidental bump dismissively. “I didn’t see you coming.”

“That’s okay,” he replied and Minho shivered palpably. “Don’t think about it so much and get going with your day. Good luck for today, Jonghyun.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

When Jonghyun left the hallway, Taemin’s eyes automatically found Minho’s through the barrier of the glass wall; his gaze was so intense as if he had meant to do that all day. The ice-cold stare was direct and downright scary. He watched Minho like a predator eyeing a newcomer on its turf, eager and famished and impatient, except that Minho wasn’t a newcomer at all. They weren’t even strangers, to begin with, but the concept of the predator-prey relationship was befitting.

Minho in a sharp breath when he saw the other’s faint smirk, followed by a silent whisper of ‘Good luck to you, babe’ before Taemin, the eternal offender, strode along the hallway and out of Minho’s line of sight. He let out the staggering sigh and sank in the leather chair, chest heavy by the weight of iniquities practised behind everyone’s backs.

“Promoted,” he glanced at his bruised knuckles and caressed the scraped skin gently. “Bull.”

This all started when Minho walked out of his house one day, optimistic about finding a new job because he couldn’t handle living as such anymore. He was almost always skint, only making money when he received commissions for doing arts physically and digitally. The cons of being an artist are always ruthless. Minho had learnt that, too.

When he saw ST’s fashion company spreading their job advertisement for immediate hiring, Minho didn’t waste a second to give it a shot. He might have not met some of the requirements, mostly regarding experience in the area of retail and things that were considered important in fashion companies, but the least he could do to get better in life was try. That was how he found himself standing in front of the glass-and-steel building, the suit jacket hugging his well-built frame a little too perfectly. He didn’t know what to expect on that day. If luck was on his side, he could ace the interview and bag the position. 

But, boy. He didn’t expect to see someone like Taemin there either.

Minho had no idea that he was the CEO’s son. The only vivid memory of their first encounter was Taemin sitting behind the large table, blond strands pushed up and back, exposing the glory of his forehead. He was so, so pretty that Minho could have mistaken him as one of the fixed, exclusive models cast by the company. That kind of beauty shouldn’t go to waste by sitting and interviewing people like that.

“Choi Minho?” His soft voice resounded throughout the large oak-panelled room, eyes never leaving the résumé displayed as he studied every detail with rapt or faux attention.

Minho swallowed nervously nonetheless, “Yes, Sir.”

The answer made Taemin snap his head up, his eyebrows raised as if he was entertained by how low and deep Minho’s voice sounded. Their gazes locked with neither of them wanting to break the eye contact, eerie silence filling up the space between them.

“You’re Choi Minho,” Taemin said, now darting his gaze down to check Minho out shamelessly while taking mental notes of his fantabulously sculptured body. The résumé was dumped there and then, not another second spared to go through the remaining pages. “What did you do before this?”

“I’m an artist.”

“I can tell,” he stared at Minho again, the corner of his lips curled into an unknowing smirk. “And read. It’s written there. I expected you to tell me something else. Anyway, your past experiences don’t offer the things we’re looking for. What makes you think you can contribute to the structure of a fashion company like ours?”

Minho faltered, shocked by the bold attack. He wasn’t angry. Whatever Taemin said was correct and for someone who wanted to be hired and accepted into the business, he had to take the blatant treatment calmly. Who knew it could be some sort of a beginner test or something? If he lost himself there, there wouldn’t be any other chance.

“I’m not afraid to try. I know I don’t meet the conditions, but I know I can do it. I’m down for some learning if that’s necessary. I’m willing to do anything for this job.”

“Anything?” Taemin perked up immediately while pushing the documents aside. His smirk grew slightly wider, and something twisted in the pit of Minho’s stomach. It could be excitement or trepidation. Maybe a little bit of both as he indulged in Taemin’s complex personality behind the professional façade.

“Anything,” Minho reaffirmed confidently. “Anything at all.”

The answer gave Taemin an indescribable amount of satisfaction and pleasure. He leaned back in the high-backed leather seat, his lips and bit back the wolfish grin that threatened to split across his face. The résumé was long forgotten, leave alone the basic rules of appropriate interview etiquettes. Minho watched as the man before him rolled his head back with a soft laugh, quietly observing despite being perplexed by the whole situation.

“Anything,” Taemin repeated hauntingly once he'd stopped laughing to himself, tongue clicking in amazement.  “Anything.”

That was a mistake.

The universal rule of negotiation that Minho neglected was to never offer something that you could never provide. The word ‘anything’ covers all the jobs there are in the world - not only limited to descriptions in the contract they were passively discussing - and the willing party has to do it, no arguments, with or without consent. Minho didn’t realise his mistake that instant; not when he was told to go home and get ready for the next day, not when he was automatically accepted into the company without any probation period.

Bizarre, indeed.

Two weeks in, and things turned to work out just fine. With Jonghyun occupying his side most of the time, the learning and adapting process became much better. He was the one who told Minho about Taemin being the CEO’s son, and that he was not working there - or anywhere else, for that matter - just so Minho would stop expecting to see him in the office. The fault was clearly not his. Even Jonghyun admitted that Taemin was one beautiful, hot and untouchable badass. He just didn’t know why the CEO made him the interviewee that day. It never happened before.

“You said he interviewed you,” Jonghyun asked in between hitting the keys on his laptop. “Alone. On what day?”

“Uh… Monday? Morning session. Last two weeks. Don’t ask the date, I can’t remember.”

He halted his activity abruptly, lips clamped into a thin, strict line. “Monday, September 15... Hey, you wanna know what’s fishy?”

“Hm?”

“That that guy over there,” Jonghyun pointed at the opposite corner of the office. Sitting right next to the glass wall: Lee Jinki, also a newcomer in his early 30s, smartly dressed. He was working diligently on the paperwork. “Attended the morning session, too. But he was interviewed by a whole different panel. Kibum told me the same thing. I’ve asked all the new employees in our department and they gave me the same answer. You said that TaeㅡI mean, Sir Lee didn’t even check your résumé.”

“He checked,” Minho corrected and lifted his pen, shaking it lightly in front of his gaping friend. He wasn’t even sure where they were going with this topic but he played along regardless. “Just not for long.”

“Yeah, that’s beside the point. That poor guy had to sit for a test. Did you?”

Minho shook his head. His interview went like a breeze. Two minutes, tops.

“See? Fishy as hell.”

Even then, Minho still couldn’t catch the memo. A few days after that, Taemin made his presence known in the office. As far as Minho was able to tell, he wasn’t there for work or business. He only came in, skipped past the rigmarole of entering the entrance door where everyone else struggled to even scan the pass, walked down the hallway and straight into the CEO’s room before coming out in a moment, still empty-handed and illegally pretty. At times, he would stop beside Minho’s table and talk, asking this and that, sometimes suggesting that they should meet over the lunch break for some shared meals. It was weird because Taemin always referred to the plan as his and not theirs, but Minho shrugged that off and agreed.

Who could say no to him, after all?

Many of the people wanted to have a go with that mysterious, potential heir of the company. When he appeared, everyone fell quiet as though every second was made to savour the beauty that he’d so kindly spared for the public. Minho saw that, too. He noticed how everyone was glaring at him when Taemin took his hand and tugged him out of the office for their unexpected date, and the heaviness didn’t lessen even one bit when they returned; hands still firmly clasped together as Taemin escorted him back to his table.

“What the just