Kunpimook Bhuwakul meets Kim Yugyeom in late summer.

He’s just begun work at the company bequeathed upon an older (and seemingly rather coincidental) friend he’d met whilst doing international studies who’d apparently been so successful his work had taken him all over the world and then some. Jackson’s a rich man, living the life of the regular inheritor of a great business rooted in the guanxi network of Hong Kong in his late twenties to the fullest, and to the outsider it would seem nothing more than a of luck that Kunpimook had ended up in the older man’s good books, enough to keep the good relations stoked and burning till the time it served him.

(And that time, predictably, is now, and many more occasions to come, Kunpimook certainly hopes.)

But as the son of a celebrity stylist favoured by the rich and powerful and a chauffeur attending to mostly the same crowd, Kunpimook’d been brought up understanding that many strings existed in this world, invisible to the eye of the untrained, and that pulling the right ones might just lead to a windfall. He’d seen his potential string dangling loosely from the wrist of the loud mouthed, scornful senior from Hong Kong taking his major, swaggering around the common areas with his seemingly unending supply of branded clothes, bags and snapbacks, just thirsting for adoring attention from the masses, and had subtly s a pincer grip onto it, unwavering and unseen.

And now, settling into a stable, comfortable office job with a starting pay that would make most grown men drool in envy, and fresh out of college, too, Kunpimook decides that those three years of invested care and attention ( up is such a crass, unseemly term, don’t you think?) have finally paid up, and with interest.

But then comes the invitation Jackson extends to lunch, to “show him around the place and the people”, as Jackson puts it, or, in real talk, to show Kunpimook the place and the people and how they’re all owned by Jackson’s money. And of course, as the ever grateful and adoring dongsaeng, Kunpimook graciously accepts, adding the just the right amount of nervous glances and hesitant smiles as he does so, as if ever so afraid to think that he might ever be deserving of everything Jackson’s so benevolently bestowed upon him.

It’s not a lie, per se, because Kunpimook is grateful, is technically as undeserving of the indulgent overflow from the affluence of men like Jackson, but there is a stark difference between people like him and the people that don’t grasp opportunities when they’re so kindly proffered- the people that cling to the flimsy, ridiculous notion of dignity in dirt-caked fingers, who insist on scrabbling through the refuse of this world when ladders are all around them, helpfully extended, of course, if the right words are crooned to the right people. And it shows, this great divide, from where they start off in society, because Kunpimook’s certainly had a helpful boost up his own ladder. It certainly isn’t wrong, he reasons, for if he doesn’t move in to charm the excess of their extravagance off their fingertips, someone else most definitely will.

And Kunpimook can’t have that, can he?

So he stays and he feeds Jackson’s ever growing ego with the practised and crafty tongue of a boy trained by two parents, professionals in the business of pampering the rich and wealthy, and yes, maybe he stays around with open arms to catch the reaping of the most wonderful benefits. He reasons that he’s a friend, definitely, a fellow woe-sharer of being a foreigner in the country and a grave listener to the petty problems that spew like the indolent froth off a freshly-poured mug of beer from Jackson’s ever frivolous mind, and slaps away the incessant questions about his morality that flicker around his head like mosquitoes.

He feels intelligent. Irresistible. And so, so very invincible it makes him sick to think about it.

And that all starts to change the afternoon he meets a man by the name of Kim Yugyeom.

*

Kunpimook ducks his head obligingly through Jackson’s boisterous introductions, pretending he isn’t keeping a sharp ear out for the names, both of the men and the companies behind their backs, at the table. It’s a group of men like Jackson, he assumes, at first. All rich, all young, all so-called artists or purveyors and appreciators of the subject, all infected through and through with the delusion of elitism and its standard set of rules.

Kunpimook feels like he’s arrived at a buffet. Except the term, in this case, has nothing at all to do with the food (which is excellent, by the way, and the bill, of course, fought to be footed by the wonderful gentlemen he’s surrounded by).

“You’re doing what, again?” Im Jaebum, CEO of some company manufacturing a third of the world’s engineering necessities, asks across the table as they settle down for appetisers. He speaks with the clear, straightforward air of a man who’s extremely rich and has been treated so all his life, professionally whitened and fixed teeth glinting like pearls in every rehearsed, million-dollar smile. Exactly Kunpimook’s type, he thinks carefully.

“Accounting, sir,” he nods politely, before continuing sheepishly. “But I’m very good at it, as Jackson-hyung might say.”

“Sir? Call me hyung,” he laughs, and the rest of them chime in accordingly. “I’m not that old yet.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t know about that,” Jackson smirks across the table, and the man at Jaebum’s side, dressed simplistically yet tastefully in a white dress shirt and slacks that probably cost as much apiece as Kunpimook’s monthly salary, lets out a laugh that sounds like glass shards and crystal bells at the same time.

“He’s right, you know,” Jinyoung, Kunpimook remembers now, says smugly, and though Jaebum’s eyes flash there’s a serene smile on his face. “You are getting a little rusty, don’t you think?”

“Careful, Jinyoungie,” he taps the other man’s hand in playful warning. “Our partnership does only extend this far, you know.”

“Partnership?” the man on Jackson’s left, Mark, scoffs- some Taiwanese-American billionaire, inheritor of his father’s impeccable energy business, partner to Jackson’s thriving electronics manufacturing chain. The ten thousand dollar timepiece on his wrist glints purposefully as he sets his hands on the table, folded with practiced ease. “That what you’re calling it now, Jaebum?”

“Better than what you’ve got over there to your right,” Jinyoung sends back an innocent, yet somehow indecent smile, to which Mark concedes defeat, raising his hands in half surrender, while Jackson sends him an affronted look, and the table breaks out into obligatory laughter.

It’s a sort of noncommittal hostility they’ve got going on, Kunpimook notices, a deadly banter that keeps everyone comfortably on their toes at all times. But then Jaebum gestures to the man on his right, a man, Kunpimook realises with some unease, his eyes had skipped over the first time he’d sat at the table. Maybe it was something about his demeanour, silent, watchful, passive, that made him fade into the background, like a piece of furniture, deliberately insignificant and invisible.

(And Kunpimook wonders when he’d become like any of the others at this table, so quick to dismiss someone like him.)

“You haven’t met Yugyeom, I believe?” Jaebum says, and Kunpimook nods assent, eyes open with a pleasant smile so rehearsed it looks natural, but which somehow trips up a little at the depth in this man’s eyes. “I believe the two of you have a lot in common.”

And it’s in that moment, as their gazes finally publicly and cordially lock across a table of men more powerful and rich than both of them will ever be combined, Kunpimook Bhuwakul learns that Kim Yugyeom’s eyes are like diamonds in darkness. Invisible, meanings and reflections all expertly hidden, waiting to cut people open, julienne their minds, and it frightens Kunpimook, that anyone else at this table could be just as shrewd as him.

(Perhaps even more.)

“Nice to meet you,” Yugyeom offers, nodding by a fraction, and Kunpimook can almost see him tipping an imaginary hat, ever respectful and formal such that it’s sort of funny. “I work at JYP Industries. Architecture and design.”

“He means to say,” Jaebum rolls his eyes, clapping a hand that’s both friendly and strangely proprietary on Yugyeom’s back. “He’s my cousin. Our parents were close, so I pulled a few strings once he came out of college,” he waves a careless hand, as if waiting for the story to write itself in the air. “And he hasn’t disappointed me since.”

“Yeah, I’d be in awe, if this wasn’t like, the hundredth time you told that story,” Mark rolls his eyes, but Kunpimook’s noticing the way Jackson swells a little, sending a pointed glance in his direction.

Ah. It clicks, then. Jackson had only hired him and brought him to this lunch to get one up on Jaebum, to make him out to be as influential and charitable as the other man. Kunpimook files that byte of information away neatly, before quickly tuning back into the conversation, just as Jackson clears his throat.

“Kunpimook Bhuwakul, or just Bambam, because heck is his real name a mouthful,” he gestures, and Kunpimook responds with the appropriate embarrassed smile. “I met him while doing international studies, and he’d sounded pretty interested in overseas business and accounting, so,” Jackson shrugs. “Doing a pretty swell job so far too, don’t let him fool you.”

As if Jackson had been paying attention to him at all since he’d gotten him the job.

Jaebum doesn’t seem to be listening, instead continuing his conversation with Mark, as though Jackson’s words had been a stray breeze through the tablecloth.

“I was only doing so to let Yugyeommie here know that he’d finally have a friend,” Jaebum pretends to look scandalised, gesturing across the table to Kunpimook, who nods, though something cold and hard he thought he’d killed in himself a long time ago stirs in indignance at the statement.

For a moment there, he feels like a kid, honestly. Shoved into a playpen with another little boy to make his acquaintance while the grown-ups played with million dollar contracts and doled out obligatory little gifts of money every so often.

But then again, Kunpimook’s long convinced himself that he doesn’t care. Not anymore. As long as he gets to decant his share of sweet wealth from said grown-ups, he really doesn’t mind playing the dumb kid everyone wants him to be.

Maybe.

“We’ll get along well,” Yugyeom says, though his voice, as velvety and soft as it is, suggests he thinks they’ll do anything but that. But Jaebum either doesn’t notice or he doesn’t care (probably the latter) because he launches into a discussion on the latest stock news, voice cutting and confident as he quotes statistics and trends, as if daring anyone to argue with his predictions on the market.

This leaves lesser men (or so they think) like Kunpimook to sit back and digest all this new information (and the excellent hors d'oeuvres, might he add), eyes flicking across ion bracelets and branded suits and glossy chrome watches, lazily tallying the net worth of each man at the table.

Until his eyes land on Kim Yugyeom, Kim Yugyeom with his calm, disquieting stare that seems to saw precisely through the closed and shuttered windows of Kunpimook’s eyes into his mind, Kim Yugyeom who seems to pry open every wall Kunpimook’s built up to safely observe the world from the inside with ease, like he knows them brick for brick, thought for thought.

(Because he’s built them himself.)  

But Kunpimook shakes those diamond eyes from his skull as the main courses arrive (his being the same as Jackson’s, might he add, part of the whole idol worship package he sells himself in), determined to let nothing stand in the way of his ascent to success.

And certainly not someone like Kim Yugyeom.

*

The next time he meets Yugyeom, they’re expected to converse. He knows this because of the way Jaebum directs the two of them, with a lazy, infinitesimal flick of his wrist that somehow conveys a world of meaning, the next time they meet, this time at a splendid dinner party thrown by Mark to commemorate his company’s seventy-fifth anniversary.

Kunpimook’s purposefully admiring his second flute of complimentary champagne (Moët & Chandon, ’97, if he’d read the label on the bottle the waiter had been sweeping around with just now correctly), taking obligatory sips and keeping Jackson in the corner of his eye, lest the older man decide to have him around at his convenience to introduce him to anyone, when the unwelcome shadow falls upon the deep rug in front of him, silhouette soft in the light of the thousand candles in the chandelier above.

“Good evening,” Kim Yugyeom is holding an identical flute of champagne, dark blue dress shirt buttoned up to his throat, Gucci stretched velvet evening pants professionally tailored to taper smartly down his exceptionally long legs. “Or would “hey” be better?”

Kunpimook’s unable to hold back the noise he makes, regarding the taller man with an incredulous look. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Not really,” Yugyeom shrugs, taking another sip of his champagne. “Hey works better for me too.”

“Is that so,” Kunpimook bristles anyway, turning away to look pointlessly in the direction of the glittering professional dancers Mark had casually hired, to entertain the guests, while he made connections and sealed underhanded deals with the more important visitors for tonight.

“Don’t act like you’re one of them,” Yugyeom says mildly, lowering his glass. In Kunpimook’s hand, the glass fits neatly, but in his, it’s dwarfed, like the cutlery from a doll’s tea set. “You know we’re not, and won’t ever be.”

“You must be an expert on the subject,” Kunpimook can’t help the cutting undertone to his comment- he isn’t as good as he’d like to be at concealing how he truly feels, not yet. Yugyeom lets out a mirthless laugh.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. No matter how much you’d like to argue about it, you and I are very much the same,” he turns to Kunpimook to say, then, with a deceptively amicable smile, holds forth his glass. “Here’s to being peasants, then, among the aristocrats.”

And before Kunpimook can do anything, Yugyeom’s clinked their glasses, before downing his champagne expertly, not a drop slipping past his lips.

So he watches with a slightly annoyed, if not slightly curious, air, as Yugyeom drifts naturally away, setting his now empty flute on the tray of a passing waiter with a cursory nod, before appearing at the side of Im Jaebum with the likeness of an actor entering the stage from the wings, to be introduced, like an accessory, or an asset.

Which reminds him, thankfully.

“Kunpimook Bhuwakul,” Jackson booms over a glass of Merlot Dolomiti ’10 (his fifth glass, Kunpimook counts), just as Kunpimook conveniently materialises, pleasant smile fixed onto his face. “A junior from my Stanford days,” he laughs, as if there’s some inside joke behind that, and the rest of the men and women surrounding him follow suit. “And we know how those went.”

“Pleasure to meet you all,” Kunpimook bows, and just like that, he’s silently dismissed once more, as Jackson leads his captive audience on to another topic.

A woman with bold lips and eyes traced expertly to make her look ten years younger and about twice as sharp, strings of fake pearls tumbling over her ample cleavage like cheap beads from a little girl’s toy set, engages him in strident conversation, to try, Kunpimook realises about two and a half seconds into her first sentence, to root up possible gossip about Jackson. Her type are ridiculously easy to spot- men and women with about half the status and affluence (or less) than Jackson, who desperately throw potential contracts and benefits his way to wheedle some possibly crippling information out of him about Jackson’s personal life, as if Jackson himself hasn’t already sealed the possibility of those falling into Kunpimook’s hands.

(Or as if he actually knows anything much about Jackson’s personal life past college, anyway. The man isn’t stupid- Kunpimook’s still too much of a nobody to give such sensitive information out to.)

So as per normal, he politely twists every question she throws out with elusive answers and redirected inquiries until she leaves, slightly confused and disappointed and entirely convinced it’s on the part of the last three glasses of fine champagne she’s had.

Slightly repulsed but also rather satisfied, Kunpimook abandons his champagne on a banquet table and picks up a cocktail instead, the same one he’d seen Jackson drinking earlier, and pretends to take interest in it whilst observing the dancers onstage, blending in perfectly with the background of finery until he’s needed again.

It’s only after a while that he gives in to the increasingly familiar but no less uncomfortable gaze on the back of his head, slicing neatly through layers of hair and skin and skull to pry open his mind like diamond. But when he turns back to observe once more, Yugyeom’s holding a light conversation with a gentleman he’d been introduced to earlier by Jackson as one of Mark’s many millionaire relatives, now holding a broader-stemmed glass of whiskey carelessly.

Kunpimook angles his head to take a subtle glance, and notes with a hint of satisfaction that Jaebum is, indeed, sipping from a whiskey, as he talks with Jinyoung. But he looks back, then, and in the moment he gazes in Yugyeom’s direction, said man seems to look straight through the person he’s speaking with, right at him.

Kunpimook doesn’t miss the knowing pull to the edge of his lips, nor the way he tilts his glass with an imperceptible nod, diamond eyes flicking to the flute in Kunpimook’s hand.

A moment ago, Kunpimook would’ve fought, would’ve stuck stubbornly to whatever belief most opposed the one anyone had been trying to force upon him, but tonight, inexplicably, (an effect of the excellent drinks, perhaps?) he waltzes willingly right into the trap Yugyeom’s set out specially for him, and nods right back, tipping the glass in his hand by an almost invisible degree.

Touché.

Two can play at this game, he thinks smugly. And maybe, if they manage their cards nice and proper, with just the right amount of fine complimentary champagne, both of them might happen to come out of it winners.

*

After the events of that night, though, and a week passes with no jolt to the memories that’d been fabricated, Kunpimook settles comfortably back into his life of work and social activities.

Speaking of which, now, despite the recollection of events past, to say that his life revolves around Jackson and his stupidly affluent associates would be a complete lie- rich men don’t have time like that for people like him, and Kunpimook’s honestly quite relieved. Any more attention might lead to rumours, which might lead to Jackson (or Mark) having a reason to get rid of him, which most definitely is not ideal in this situation.

He lunches with his colleagues on a regular basis, drinks with them on occasion, listens in on gossip that pales in comparison to that which he’s heard at some of the parties Jackson brings him to, keeping fingers comfortably situated in as many pies as possible, switching from persona to persona to satisfy whatever crowd he’s with at the moment.

So it comes as a surprise when he discovers a text from an unknown number one evening just as he’s about to leave the office, asking most politely to meet up for dinner at a rather well-known restaurant in the central business district. The words only hit home properly when he sees the short signature at the bottom of the text, simple and meaningful as anything.

Kunpimook honestly considers standing him up for a moment. But then his curiosity gets the better of him, and he cabs down to the restaurant, stomach twisting both in anticipation and nerves.

Just as expected, as the taxi comes to an ambling stop outside the soft lights of the Mediterranean restaurant, the door opens graciously as Kunpimook’s settling the payment, and a formal, but not particularly stiff, hand, gestures for him to exit.

“Oh, thank y-…” The customary appreciation falls short from Kunpimook’s lips when he exits, and gets a proper look at the imposter of a doorman who’d been so kind. “…Yugyeom?”

The leather bag swinging off one of his broad shoulders, the velvety Dylan 60’s evening coat draped over a forearm, suggests he’s just gotten off work as well, and the pleasant smile he offers is somewhat condescending, especially to Kunpimook, in his sturdy, but by no means overly expensive, office wear.

Yugyeom seems to read his mind, like Kunpimook’s thoughts had been broadcasted in his eyes. “Jaebum-hyung wanted me to attend a lunch today,” he explains, as Kunpimook exits the cab, like he somehow knows that provides enough understanding in itself.

“Ah,” Kunpimook hopes the relief in his voice isn’t too obvious- despite what he’d said that night, he’d rather liked the idea of normalcy Yugyeom had implied, like a secret, of sorts, that only the two of them shared. It’s a silly thought, something he’ll never divulge explicitly, but something tells him Yugyeom already knows. Why else would he have suggested such a thing, other than to charm Kunpimook into wanting to know more?

“I have a table reserved,” Yugyeom carries on seamlessly, calmly, and Kunpimook’s oddly led to think of a valet, or a personal assistant, rather than a man inviting him to dinner. “A lot less classy than some of what Jackson’s probably treated you to, but I’ve been told the duck moussaka here’s a killer.”

“You going to tell me why you called me out here out of the blue?” Goosebumps are prickling on his skin in the evening streets of Seoul in the cool fall weather, but he refrains from following Yugyeom in straight away. “I feel like I’m about to be snatched off the street.”

Yugyeom laughs, but it doesn’t last long, like nothing much had been very funny about that statement (like he doesn’t think the idea of being snatched off the street is very ludicrous at all), and he bows slightly in shame.

“Sorry, that was rude,” Yugyeom confesses. “I wanted to get to know you, that’s all. Like Jaebum-hyung said,” he offers a pleasant and eerily blank smile. “We have a lot in common. It would do for people like us to stick together.”

“Peasants among aristocracy, and all?” Kunpimook asks innocently, and Yugyeom laughs again, this time with a more relaxed smile.

“Exactly,” he takes a step towards the restaurant. “Convinced yet?”

“Perfectly,” Kunpimook says, pinning him with a sarcastic glance as he follows. “I know what you’re doing, you know.”

“You do, now,” Yugyeom says, as if talking about the weather, or a news report about new café outlets opening in Seoul. “Indulge me.”

“Jaebum-ssi sent you, didn’t he?” Kunpimook honestly doesn’t care if he sounds blunt- he has to find out if this is a waste of time, or if it’s really the wondrous game Yugyeom’s made it out to be. “You’re going to be disappointed- I don’t know anything more incriminating about Jackson’s business methods than you do.”

Yugyeom laughs, as expected, but the words that follow satisfy Kunpimook’s questions.

“Trust me,” he says, almost lazily. “Jaebum-hyung already knows more about Jackson’s business than both of us ever will combined. Now if you’ll let us go in? I’m starving here, if you aren’t.”

Kunpimook finally obliges, sated smile on his face as he follows Yugyeom in. It’d be a lie to say he isn’t at least a little interested in what Yugyeom has to say, or a little enamoured by this covert meeting of their own accord, no multimillionaire relatives or friends occupying them. He has a feeling this will be the first real conversation he ever has with Kim Yugyeom, and the events that follow don’t disappoint him.

Yugyeom behaves like a man who’d been brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth in almost every aspect. He converses with the waiter in English, in that same voice that seems to tread, soft and steady, and constantly ensures Kunpimook’s at his side, and even manages to pull off ridiculously cheesy things like holding open doors and pulling out chairs without breaking a sweat. But in the same way, the way he moves, flowing around Kunpimook, rather than before or beside him, reminds Kunpimook that he hadn’t been taught these skills to serve himself, but to serve others.

“So,” Yugyeom says, once they’ve made their orders, and the waiter has glided away silently with the menus. “Kunpimook Bhuwakul, right?”

Kunpimook opens his mouth to correct the pronunciation, then stops when he realises Yugyeom has said it perfectly.

“Not bad,” he says, impressed. “It usually takes people loads of tries before they get it right.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Yugyeom chuckles, like there’s nothing to it. “Bambam work better for you, then?”

Kunpimook winces. “Jackson gave me that name, after he got tired of calling me properly back in college. But yeah, I guess it does.”

Yugyeom’s eyes glint, and Kunpimook feels like he’s just stepped into another of Yugyeom’s carefully laid traps.

“Jackson,” he says with a voice Kunpimook knows well. It’s a voice of innocent curiosity, designed to rid the listener of all doubts they might have about the integrity of his character, designed to carefully conceal any possible disdain or mirth. “How’d you meet him, exactly? From what I heard of Jackson-hyung’s, ah, speech that day, you were friends in Stanford?”

“Friends,” Kunpimook ascertains with a polite smile. “Close friends, just like you’re Jaebum-hyung’s, ah, close cousin.”

Yugyeom smiles, like he finds something particularly funny. “What he said about our parents being close,” he chuckles dryly. “Total bull. His dad hates my mom,” Kunpimook’s a little shocked at this revelation- he’d expected a night of lies, calculated and clever dishonesty, and hidden meanings. Hearing Yugyeom so honest is a little new. Not particularly unpleasant, per se, just…a little unexpected. “She owes him a lot of money,” he folds his hands neatly on the table, a cheerfully empty smile tugging at the edge of his lips. “I think it’s his idea of revenge, letting her know her son’s always going to be under the thumb of his cousin.”

“Ah,” Kunpimook fumbles with his words for a moment, unprepared to respond, but Yugyeom sweeps right on, saving him the trouble of finding something appropriate to say.

“So, Stanford,” Yugyeom raises an eyebrow, prompting further explanation. Kunpimook quails a little, knowing he’s been cornered, now.

“We took the same major,” he says, though there’s more of a mumble in his voice now than anything. “I didn’t see much of him after he left, then he popped in with an open window in his company for an accountant, so you know,” he shrugs. “I got lucky?”

Yugyeom doesn’t believe a word he’s saying, Kunpimook’s sure, but to his surprise and relief, he doesn’t pursue the matter, instead progressing smoothly onto the weather and current affairs. The conversation’s comfortably civil after that- back to the safety of polite lies and hidden meanings, things that Kunpimook can handle.

“The moussaka is great,” he notes, once the food arrives and he takes a hesitant bite. “Sad it’s so ugly, though.”

“But then I’m sure you’ve tasted better,” Yugyeom says, inspecting the hummus with great interest, before ladling an experimental half-spoonful onto his plate. “You have to try the hummus too, I have a couple friends who swear on it.”

“You’d be surprised,” Kunpimook mutters, prodding the hummus with the serving spoon. “Jackson has the weirdest tastes. I think I’ve been forced to eat more pig liver in two months than my entire life.”

Yugyeom laughs. “At least you don’t third wheel at almost every dinner,” he says pleasantly, tasting the hummus. “Wow, this is nice.”

“Third wheel?” Kunpimook wonders if he’s heard right, more focused on spooning the hummus over without any of it falling onto the table. Sure, he’s aware, per se, of the relationship between Jaebum and Jinyoung, chattered languidly about as part of the usual lunchtime gossip his colleagues indulge in from time to time, but he’d never connected that issue to Yugyeom. Somehow the two were separate, grossly different things, and for a moment, he wonders why. But then Yugyeom moves on, and he forgets.

“Jackson doesn’t drag you along on all his private parties, does he?” Yugyeom dabs his fingers on a napkin dismissively. “Hyung has a penchant for showing Jinyoung off wherever he goes, and somehow, I’m instrumental to that, apparently.”

“Doesn’t Jinyoung-hyung have something against that?” Kunpimook laughs. It’s funny, hearing it like this. He’s sure in a book, or a drama of some sort, the juxtaposition of covert romance underneath corporate war might be some popular and overused trope, but hearing it in action from a silent observer is slightly ridiculous. “He runs the HR department in some other big shot company, doesn’t he? Isn’t it, I don’t know, a little undignified?”

“AQ Corporation,” Yugyeom informs. “Eat it with the focaccia, it’s great-…AQ’s a subsidiary company to JYP Industries. People used to gossip Jinyoung had done it to get one up on the corporate ladder, you know, being the big boss’s favourite and everything, but then one day those people just conveniently disappeared,” he shrugs, like people vanishing off the face of this earth happens every day. “Everyone thinks it’s Jaebum-hyung that got rid of them, but if you’ve known Jinyoung-hyung long enough, you’ll know-…watch out for the sauce, it’s really runny-…you’ll know it’s him you have to look out for.”

Kunpimook presses the napkin to his lips in distaste. “Well that’s great to know, I’m surrounded by dangerous people capable of ridding my existence from this earth, that’s nice.”

“It is once you learn how to deal with them,” Yugyeom dips something that looks a lot like a glorified nacho chip into the hummus. “Keep your hands clean, fists up, all that. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Kunpimook laughs into his moussaka. “Not really. It’s difficult, finding people who know about this kind of stuff, who are willing to share what they know. I wouldn’t know how to handle someone like him,” he bites his lip for a moment in a flash of disappointment, before it’s over, and he covers it up with an artificial smile. “I’ll bet it’s really complex.”

Yugyeom fixes him with a thoughtful smile, food going unnoticed for the first time during that meal.

“I’ve forgotten what that feels like.”

“What feels like?” Kunpimook feigns innocence, though his stomach jolts with anticipation. Now this, this, is a real challenge. Yugyeom smiles.

“It’d be pointless for you to try to get me to tell you any tricks of the trade,” he continues, like Kunpimook had explicitly tried to force it out of him. “It’s different for every person. I’m sure you knew that, too.”

“I did,” Kunpimook admits. Truth be told, he hadn’t expected Yugyeom to see through that one. “Still, wouldn’t hurt to try, though.”

The conversation, after that, slips back into normal things, work, this time, and Kunpimook’s beginning to enjoy it, this game of continuously sliding in and out of anonymity, light-footed and en garde in anticipation to see who dares to toe the line of wretched honesty further. It’s only when they’re picking their way through a dessert of poached cherries with whipped cream and pear parfaits that Yugyeom poses a question which throws Kunpimook off a little.

“What do you think makes one indispensable to a rich man?” he says, out of nowhere. Kunpimook thinks about it, he does, for a while. It’s not like it isn’t a question he’s asked himself more than a few times already- he just hasn’t found the right way to phrase it to anyone else, and certainly not someone as smart as Kim Yugyeom.

“Denial?” he tries after a moment, cutting through a fine layer of pear jelly with a silver dessert fork. The smile that follows on Yugyeom’s face has a hint of bliss on it, as he spoons a cherry between his lips in contemplation.

“Best answer I’ve heard all my life,” he concludes with a congratulatory smile after a good minute of thought, and though Kunpimook would immediately associate an answer like that with a derogatory tone, there’s something in it that resonates, clear and sincere, that convinces him Yugyeom is telling the truth.

(Or maybe he’s just a better liar than Kunpimook is.)

Yugyeom picks up the tab later. Kunpimook makes to insist he pay his own share, until Yugyeom slices through his protests cleanly, sliding a glossy credit card with an assuring smile to the waiter.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Yugyeom takes a final sip of his coffee.

“Paying for your own fancy meals? Absolutely,” Kunpimook wants to come up with some cutting comment, but he feels he’s served Yugyeom his fair share of lies for the night. “I still think you should’ve let me pay my share, we don’t exactly have three earlier generations’ worth of money to squander, you know.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Yugyeom waves generally. “You’ll just pay next time.”

Kunpimook narrows his eyes, though his lips curve in interest. “And who says there’ll be a next time?”

Yugyeom chuckles. “You will. Eventually,” he leans forward, playful smile abroad. “I like Italian. Just something to note.”

Kunpimook scoffs. “You’re too much. It’s hard to believe you’re the same guy I met at the restaurant that day. You train yourself to be that obedient, or did Jaebum-hyung do it for you?”

Apparently that hits a nerve, because Yugyeom bristles, a cold shadow falling between them for just a moment, before he clears it up with an indifferent laugh.

“Another reason for us to meet again,” he says, finger pads dragging loosely along the tablecloth. “You’ll find out.”

“I sure look forward to it,” Kunpimook replies, voice soft with a cheeky, shameless sort of curiosity, as he rises in tandem with Yugyeom to leave. “And by the way,” he adds, catching Yugyeom in mid-stride, adding a wry smile. “I like Thai. Just a note.”

*

The night is counterproductive, in many ways, he concludes as he’s lying down to go to bed, because all it’s shown him is how much he doesn’t know about Yugyeom, and how badly it might all implicate him in the future. It’s sad, really, when he decides that the best case scenario for the two of them at this stage would be to never see each other again.

Kunpimook’s spent a lifetime avoiding clever men and women in the fear that they might be cleverer than him, but tonight had been the first of what he realises he hopes to be many- and he realises in part annoyance, part admiration, that Yugyeom’s got him: hook, line and sinker. Because now he’s fallen into the splendid trap of killer curiosity about a man who most definitely has the wit and means to end him.

(So he just has to make sure Yugyeom knows that works both ways.)

Worst case scenario? Kunpimook muses. It’d be that Yugyeom does eventually find a way to absorb his secrets and get rid of him, to re-establish monopoly over the strange circle of four powerful men once more, while Kunpimook rots in some gutter or worse, is forced to return home to Thailand.

So what about middle ground?

Kunpimook lets himself smile at the darkened ceiling for the first time that night. Middle ground would be that they so happen to fall in love and decide to set about conquering the world together.

And to be honest, middle ground honestly doesn’t sound all that bad now.