The Cynical Meeting

Chanyeol cursed for the nth time that afternoon. The clock had kept on ticking, slightly irritating the CEO as it reminded him that sixteen minutes were left before the most awaited meeting finally starts. Ever since his secretary had left his office, he had readily snatched the pocket-sized mirror from his drawer and held it in front of his face, practicing his smile just like Hana instructed him to.

He had awfully tried his best to flash the best smile that he could muster, but to no avail. He muttered another round of profanities under his breath and tried smiling at the mirror yet again, his confidence urging him to do it perfectly, and fast.

Hana, on the other hand, watched him through his office's doorway silently, not wanting the latter to discover that she was watching his practice. Apparently, the CEO was too focused on practicing his so-so-smile that he had failed to catch her peeking.

It was a relief that his desk was far from the doorway as well, so it was possible to open the door with less squeaks, if she was careful of course -- and she was.

She then watched her boss do it again in front of the small, rectangular mirror that was pocket-sized, snickering to herself as she realized how awkward he looked.

Has he never smiled since before?

That question had invaded her mind since she peeked through the doorway, wondering how long it was since her boss last smiled that he was even awkward in front of the mirror. The tips of Chanyeol's lips had kept on quivering as he struggled to lift the tips upwards, and almost two of three seconds later, it automatically morphed into a frown, as if it was a natural.

"," she heard him curse, making her throw a fit of silent giggles as she continued to watch. "Just think of happy thoughts, Chanyeol. Just like you're happy," he murmured, giving it another try but failed yet again. He couldn't help but frown deeply upon realization. How could he smile when he wasn't even happy?

Happy thoughts?

What possible happy thoughts could he even muster? His mother died. His father, whom he considered as his only family since then, had left him for his other family that Chanyeol didn't even know to being with. Then he and his girlfriend had broken up after he discovered how she was cheating on him. Now, he was shouldering the heavy burden upon handling an entire corporation, adding the issues and controversies concerning him and the whole company as well.

my life, he thought.

"You're doing it all wrong, sir," Hana, who couldn't take it any longer, spoke up and made her way inside his office, closing the door lightly behind her back. She knew that the frown that etched on his face almost immediately had meant that he was thinking deeply into things -- most probably his life -- as he couldn't even smile properly.

Chanyeol, who was obviously startled with his secretary's appearance, jumped up from his seat and immediately opened his drawer and threw the mirror inside, his face flushing from both embarrassment and shame. Hana only chuckled, but didn't say anything further as she knew it best not to infuriate her boss.

"What are you doing in my office, Miss Choi? Have you not learned the proper etiquette to knock on your boss' door before entering?" He said, mustering his most authorative voice, yet the flush on his cheeks had told Hana otherwise making her giggle lowly, which surprisingly took the CEO aback. "Stop laughing," he hissed, a tint of pink rushing to his cheeks from both anger -- because he was caught red-handed -- and embarrassment.

"Can you blame me, sir? You're way too funny," she continued to giggle, successfully ticking her boss. "Anyway, what you said was right, sir. You should think of happy thoughts. It's easier to smile if you think of a moment that you truly treasured perhaps?" She said, immediately speaking as she saw her boss' mouth open to retort.

"I know. I already did that. But apparently, there's no such as 'happy thoughts' in my dictionary," he hissed, thinking of how he tried to smile as he tried his best to think of happy thoughts.

"That's probably because that's two words, sir. You can't find two words in a dictionary," she said.

Hana's lips twitched, wanting to laugh out loud, yet she forced herself not to so as to not ruin the mood. It was rare that the CEO wasn't even telling her to get out of his office, too, and she was going to make us of it.

Needless to say, she was having fun mocking the CEO.

"Miss Choi, there are different types of dictionaries. Trust me. You wouldn't want to know what type of dictionary I am holding," he said, glaring at his secretary. "Never mock me Miss Choi, or else, let's just say goodbye with your God forsaken deal we made."

"No can do, sir. A contract is a contract. We had already binded ourselves through our agreement, hence the signatures we made and the company seal that you stamped on the paper," she said, smirking back, as if she was showing him that she wasn't backing down. "Besides, sir. I had already framed our contract. I had also sent a copy of it to my lawyer friend and got it notarized. You can't back down, sir. Your identity is already sealed within our agreement."

"Are you threatening me now?" Chanyeol growled under his breath, rage building up thinking of the way his secretary was mocking him at the moment.

"Sir, we both know that I am not threatening you whatsoever. I am most definitely aware that you will threaten me to cancel the contract though, so we can just say that I am only making sure that we are both aware of what's at stake here," she said, "Anyway, let's deal with the matter in our hands right now, sir. We only have ten minutes left on the clock. You need to be ready to smile later."

"How about we just forget about the smile and proceed to the meeting, then? I am sure that attending my meeting in due time is more important that flashing a mere smile to my clients," he said.

"Sir, ten minutes is surely a long time for a mere smile," she said, though she did notice the disbelief on her boss' face. "How about this, sir? We get to practice for the remaining ten minutes, and see if you do get the job done. If you don't, then we forget about the whole smiling thing. If you do, however, get to smile at your clients, at least after you finish your proposal, and if the clients happen to agree, then I'll grant you three wishes -- whatever you like or whatever you want me to do. It's your choice, only if it doesn't involve anything connected with that contract. How's that?" She offered, ecstatic.

It was something that she had offered beforehand to a lot of people before, and let's just say that they agreed knowing that they didn't have much to bargain, unlike Hana.

Chanyeol's eyebrows knitted together in thought, contemplating whether he should accept or not. Truthfully, it was a very absurd deal -- a very childish one at that. "Fine, but if I don't manage to convince them, make sure you keep your end of the deal. I don't want you backing out from it when I succeed."

Hana grinned, feeling accomplished. She was surprised that he had accepted that easily, but then again, he didn't have much to lose anyway which was quite understandable. "Don't worry, sir. I always keep my promises. Always," she said, flashing him a bright smile before continuing, "Anyways sir, let's practice."

*** *** ***

"As you all know, this is a very important project that the company wants to pursue. We had done enough researches for the past weeks that can prove the effectivity and the efficiency of this project. It will not only be able to utilize our expenses; we will also be able to attract a new market in the suburbs and the provincial areas all around South Korea, which will eventually gain us more market share gradually. Our appliances are proven to be relatively affordable for the market as well. We had discovered that most of the people living in the provinces had been using old appliances daily, which quite hinders most of the small businesses that operate there. The word-of-mouth scheme is high effective in those provinces too, cutting possible costs for advertisements," Chanyeol explained as he stood in front of the conference room.

He was standing upfront, beside the white, projector screen that had been showing the slides of the so-called project he was proposing to the company's most important clients. He continued, "It would be a better move to wipe off our inventory clean as well, rather than exporting them overseas and sell them when we can just sell them here, with less transportation costs, of course."

He had proposed to enlarge the company's market share by invading the whole country first.

He had long realized that most of the company's new products were directed to the other countries, when they can, in fact, gather more market share locally. The research that his departments had conducted had proven the proposal worthy to try as well, seeing as the possibility of success was relatively high. They had also released three new products last month, but with the issues that had emerged from the internet, the sales were affected, along with the company's stocks.

There were a total of ten clients seated inside the conference room, sitting around the big, oval conference desk that was big enough for six more people to occupy. Apparently, there were supposed to be sixteen clients all in all, though they had urgent matters to deal with as they could not attend the meeting.

It was completely absurd though, especially since six people had refused to attend to the meeting all in one day. Chanyeol knew it. Heck, Hana even knew it, too. Chanyeol, being the keen CEO that he was, had promised to take a deeper look into things as soon as the meeting ends.

He would have to request for Kim Minseok's help yet again. He was his best spy.

Hana, on the other hand, was seated on one of the four seats situated at the far side of the conference desk, far away from the clients that had attended the meeting.

She had a laptop in front of her, to which she used