Hongbin’s face wasn’t simply a piece of artwork, there was some amount of brain behind the pretty face and he knew how to put both to use. Which was probably why a majority of the clients were women; but when they did have male clients, Hongbin still knew how to handle a situation. His success rate was quite high since he was quite charming in the meeting room but showed that the firm meant business.

Lee Jaehwan was quite the opposite. He pouted, unhappily sitting next to Haneul who was currently engaged in a conversation with Wonshik as Taekwoon, for once was praising Hongbin for his work in bringing in a boatload of clients over the last five months.

“But I want to charm the clients and make them want to work with our company.” He grumbled as Hyuk rolled his eyes, turning away from Jaehwan and looking at Taekwoon who had called him.

“Haneul, Hyuk, I see there is a new recruit.” His voice was soft, quite intimidating to those who didn’t know him. And for those who did, and had seen him in a noraebang setting, the story was quite different. Haneul nodded as Hyuk grinned.

“Kim Minah is our latest addition, I’ve planned that she works in every department so that I can place her.” Taekwoon’s eyes narrowed at Hyuk’s words.

“Is this another one of your experiments Sanghyuk?”

“Have any of them failed?” Hyuk cross questioned, as Taekwoon sighed. The only time Hyuk’s experiments had gone wrong was when he tried to eat ice cream and noodles together with tabasco sauce which resulted in disaster (Taekwoon tried not to count the number of times Hyuk had tried to hide his secret file from Haneul with multiple experiments only to have Haneul come and sort it out after his computer crashed.) So the new employee may have caught his eye, I mean, who reads in the break room?

Then of course she had slowly approached him to help him out with the dysfunctional coffee machine. No one told him that the beans needed to be refilled. She had soft hands and glistening eyes that looked at him in a brief moment of helplessness as she tried to pour the coffee beans into the machine, only to find herself too short for it. There he was reaching for the bag in her hands and pouring the beans in himself and thanking her as she bowed and returned to her seat, book back in her hands.

“I’ll be needing tech support for the next meeting, do you think you can send her in for it?” he turned to Haneul who frowned, was he planning on testing Minah?

“Right.” She mumbled as he turned to Hakyeon who was waving a few documents around which needed his signature on it. Wonshik sidled closer to her and whispered in her ear.

“Woonie has noticed the new duckling?” she jolted as Wonshik chuckled and she turned back to him laughing only to have Jaehwan tugging at her seat for his attention asking them what in the world was so damn funny.  While Wonshik filled Jaehwan in, Haneul nodded.

“Well, I’d notice anyone who could prevent Taekwoon from going on a rampage because the coffee machine wasn’t working.”

Jaehwan and Wonshik paused, turning to Haneul with wide eyes.

“She prevented Silent from becoming violent?” Wonshik gaped.

“All hail new kid.” Jaehwan said with an awestruck voice.

Haneul felt a weird sense of pride as the two beside her nodded in approval as Taekwoon eyed the little group within the meeting with suspicion.

“Alright, so we’ll be having a new client coming in today. From what I have gathered with my previous conversations with them, they’re mainly in for digital marketing strategies. But of course, we will be pitching everything our firm does.” He turned to Hongbin who pursed his lips and shrugged.

“I don’t think I can handle this one, it’s clashing with the Penrock meeting.”

Hakyeon looked at an eager Jaehwan before turning to a rather bored looking Hyuk. He knew Wonshik and Haneul had enough work on their hands, while Hyuk would be interviewing a new batch of applicants. Jaehwan wasn’t exactly an ideal person to send in for an initial meeting since his charm could be extremely overpowering. He looked back at Taekwoon.

“What about sending in Jaehwan?  He does want to work with the clients.” He suggested, not flinching when he received multiple looks from the rest of the team and a wide grin from Jaehwan himself.

“Yeah! I’ll do it! I’ll charm them like Hongbin, just you wait!” he chirped as Taekwoon eyed him observantly trying not to be reminded of an overexcited puppy.

“Alright, I’ll join in after my meeting.” He mumbled before dismissing the meeting. Jaehwan whooped and turned to Haneul.

“Can I practice on you?!” he grinned as Haneul looked back at him, mildly confused. He clung onto her arm winking and pouting as she pushed his face away.

“I’ll report you to the HR team for ual harassment Jaehwan.” She glared as Hyuk paused to turn with an equally evil glare.

“I refuse to take the charge,” he grinned at her gaping face “kittens and puppies remember?” he grumbled “my precious file, you defiled it.”

“Excuse me,” Haneul snapped “if anyone had taken a look at the contents of the file, they would have been defiled!” she tried shaking Jaehwan off her shoulders around which his arm was wound, and failed before walking out of the meeting room. She spotted Minah walking into the office and walked towards her with Jaehwan on tow saying cheesy things to her.

“You’re very pretty.”

“Shut up Jaehwan.”

“You’re the chocolate of my eye.”

“It’s apple Jaehwan.”

“I like chocolates a lot, almost as much as I like you.”

“Hey Minah,” Haneul halted in front of Minah who looked up at her with a smile “Taekwoon needs your help today, so could you just walk into his office and introduce yourself?”

"Okay" Minah said unsurely.

 "Have fun with Silent" Jaehwan said with an exaggerated smile. Minah regarded the sugarcoated grin with suspicion before walking up to the cabin. She knocked on the door and entered on a soft "come in".

"Hello Mr Jung. My name is Kim Minah. Haneul asked me to help with the tech support in the next meeting" she told him. Taekwoon looked up with a frown which made Minah wonder. What if he was psycho like the rest here? Just because he was silent doesn't mean he was innocent.

"Okay" Taekwoon said.

Minah nodded unsurely. "I'll come back in time for the meeting" she said.

 "Go with Jaehwan. He's leading the meeting today" Taekwoon said, dismissing her effectively. She walked out to see Haneul fending Jaehwan off with an empty folder. Yeah, they definitely would get this deal

Haneul looked up at Jaehwan who was making puppy faces at her. "Shouldn't you be reading up for the meeting?" she asked him.

 "New clients" he told her. He smiled at her and she narrowed her eyes.

"You should at least read up on their products. That's what Hongbin does" Minah added from her cubicle.

"Okay. I'll read up before the meeting" Jaehwan agreed.

 "The meeting is in ten minutes" Minah reminded him.

 "Oh " he cursed before taking his phone out and googling the company's name.

"I'm off to set up the meeting room. Which room is it?" Minah asked.

"I don't know" Jaehwan confessed.

"Weren't you supposed to book one?" Minah asked raising an eyebrow.

 "Take 3B on the floor above. It's free and near the AV room" Haneul said as she blocked the 10 to 11 slot for 3B. Minah gave her a thumbs up as she left.

"All set?" Hyuk asked looking into Jaehwan's phone.

"What the..." Jaehwan trailed off looking at the search results.

"What is it?" Haneul asked looking into the phone too. "What the hell guys. This isn't the time to be looking at !" she exclaimed hitting them with a folder.

 "We're not! The company sells innerwear!" Jaehwan exclaimed causing the entire office to stare.

"Poor Jaehwan-si. Spoilt in the company of Sanghyuk-si" an elderly woman told the colleague next to her.

"I pity the girl who marries them" the man said shaking his head.

"He had a good chance with Kim Haneul though" the elderly lady started gossiping.

 "Time for the meeting! Dont be late!" Haneul exclaimed, pushing Jaehwan and Hyuk away before they could hear the rest.

"All set up here," Minah said. Jaehwan gave her a grateful smile before setting up everything. He checked the microphone and caused a high pitch correction tone. Minah adjusted it before coming over and straightening his tie. "You'll do well. Don't worry so much" she said with a smile. Jaehwan nodded and gave her a gummy smile causing her to smile too

Except when the clients walked in with poker faces that could rival Taekwoon’s and absolutely unimpressed sneers causing Minah to frown, and Jaehwan’s face to turn white. She eyed Jaehwan’s nervous face worriedly, hoping that Taekwoon would turn up soon.

“So this is the set up I suppose.” The man, who seemed to have a stick up his backside sneered as Jaehwan and Minah introduced themselves. Minah had to bite her tongue to hold back a retort while Jaehwan tugged at his collar.

“Right, our head will be joining us soon, and we don’t want to delay things, so is it alright if we start?” Minah said with a smile, shooting a glare at the lady who looked around the place like she had some dung under her nose.

“Of course, go ahead.” The man, whose name was Joon, replied with a partronizing tone which grated on Minah’s thin nerves. Jaehwan turned towards the podium only to trip. And stumble forward. The projector shifted slightly and the lady, known as Sukyung giggled.

Jaehwan cleared his throat standing by the laptop to begin the usual presentation on the services provided by VIXX Consultancies, only to have Joon hold his hand up and pull a pen out of this pocket. The door silently opened and Taekwoon entered, apologizing for the delay before taking a seat eyes landing on Minah who looked pale.

“Since I was interrupted, let me attempt to begin again, Mr. Lee, try selling me this pen.”

Jaehwan froze, eyes focusing on the pen that Joon was waving around with a sneer on his face. Minah’s eye landed on Taekwoon whose jaw twitched before travelling to Sukyung who seemed to think this was some sort of a joke.

“I beg your pardon?” Jaehwan looked at Taekwoon in panic as Taekwoon looked back at him blankly, simply indicating a writing motion. Minah’s eyes didn’t miss it. Taekwoon leaned back, cool as a cucumber with a very slight smile on his face

“You heard me, sell me this pen.”

Jaehwan grinned walking over confidently and reaching for it.

“But of course,” he uncapped it and pulled a paper over towards himself. The artwork that spilled out of the pen over a matter of seconds had Sukyung gaping “now if I could do this with this pen, imagine what you could?”

Joon silently took back the pen as Jaehwan smiled politely before returning to the presentation. Minah breathed, still standing, causing Taekwoon to frown and indicating that she take a seat. There wasn’t much on the presentation for Jaehwan to mess up but the new clients appeared to enjoy creating trouble.

“That’s all well and good, but we’re looking to expand world-wide and we need English content, how good is your English?”

Taekwoon panicked, knowing that Jaehwan’s English was limited to language which would be considered foul in most other scenarios. Taekwoon’s English was passable as well, but…he spun when Minah’s voice piped up in English. Fluid and fluent, he knew he’d have to bother Hyuk to show him her resume.

“I suppose I could have a conversation with you in English to prove to you that I can speak in English, or would you rather I send you my English research papers instead?”

Joon and Sukyung’s jaw dropped as Minah smiled.

Taekwoon intervened at this point “Our firm has sufficient people who can speak and write in English, but your document here says that you require marketing only within Korea, of course we are willing to offer you services in English though.” He said, feeling smug at the awestruck faces of the two clients, gone was the smug attitude as they looked at each other, nodding and pushing their chairs back.

“I think we’ll call it a day for now, but we’d like to get back in touch with you’ll as soon as we can.” Sukyung said as Joon nodded in agreement. They bowed, exiting the room as Jaehwan bounced over to Taekwoon and Minah began clearing up, shutting the projector off.

“You saved me!” Jaehwan clung onto a mutinous Taekwoon “My hero!”

Minah chuckled “Yeah that was great! I’ll get the documents over to your desk and I’ll join you for the next meeting Mr. Jung.” She flashed a smile, bowing and leaving the room.

“We need to celebrate! Noraebang time!” Jaehwan cheered hugging Taekwoon before exiting the room.

Taekwoon sighed.

We finally managed to collaborate :)

Hope you enjoy!