Hongbin was a busy man. As the head of sales with an almost unreal face, most clients lined up just to take a look at him. Filtering through this was a process by itself and presenting to permanently star-struck people was even more of a pain. But at the same time, when the same people signed deals worth a lot of money, Hongbin couldn't be more thankful for his face and skills. 

He always said he didn't have much to complain about, but the problem was when he was constantly being stared at by the people he was dealing with as well as the people within the office, it often bothered him. Which was probably why he hung out with the guys most often and preferred the company of Haneul and more recently the new recruit Minah who didn’t look at him as a piece of art, but rather pulled his leg about being one and treated him like a human being.

Right now he was trying to ignore the gaze of Haneul’s department (men and women included) as he handed her a document to be uploaded. He remembered half of the people who had asked for his number or on coffee dates without knowing even as much as his designation at the workplace.

“Hongbin, this is the wrong document. Why are you handing me a series of emails between you and Marley-Bobinson? You said you’d give me the right logo for Intimately to be digitised.”

Hongbin stared at the papers in his hand and sighed, his dealings with the motorbike company had been irking him since they kept insisting that the ads should use ‘hot women’ to get the right target audience while Hongbin wanted to focus more on the rugged nature of the motorbike itself and show it on different terrains than go by the usual ad campaign that everyone seemed to be using to market motorbikes. Marley-Bobinson was a well-known brand amongst bikers, and their target audience as per their brief was the same, this seemed to be some sick self-satisfying move they wished to make.

Which was probably why Minah flipped out when she found out about the brief as she and Hongbin sat in the break-room on one of her breaks from the Finance department. She had been making coffee to carry back to the very sleepy and over-worked Hakyeon when Hongbin had walked in looking rather annoyed which led to her asking him what had happened and then her also being as annoyed as he had been.

Switching the papers over and handing Haneul the right ones, he headed over to the finance department. He had vaguely remembered the rant Minah had gone on about how this was the patriarchy at its best and a whole lot of grumbling, but he had a feeling, further discussion with her could possibly lead to some good ideas to switch this ad around.

He cringed when the entire finance department halted to gape at him as he came closer to Minah’s cubicle. She looked up at him and sighed.

“Yes? How can the entire finance department help you?”  he noticed the entire department snap out of their daze when they heard that and get back to work.

“I actually wanted to have a word with you about this brief with Marley-Bobinson.”

“Those ist losers you mean. I don’t know why we signed a deal with them. Not that that is any of my business.” Minah grumbled as Hakyeon came over to her cubicle as well.

“Do we have any problems here?” he asked, glaring at Hongbin and trying to keep him away from Minah. Let the few girls who weren’t attracted to Hongbin be, they were the only ones who could keep working if he walked by.

“Nothing really, Minah had something to say about the brief we got today and I thought she’d be useful.” Hongbin replied as Hakyeon eyed him suspiciously.

“Stop trying to steal my children.”

“They’re not your children Hakyeon.” Hongbin rolled his eyes “but seriously, do you mind if I could borrow her for a few minutes?”

“All of you guys keep borrowing my children. I don’t understand this behaviour. I should put a ban on you, Sanghyuk, Haneul, and Taekwoon from randomly calling Minah and giving her work.” Hakyeon frowned but let Minah go ahead with Hongbin since her finance skills were not all that great, but she was good at organizing things and making sure everything got done on time.

Entering an empty conference room, Hongbin indicated to her to sit down.

“I need you to rant about this brief.”

“What?” Minah gaped at him as he tossed the brief with all the offending words highlighted in florescent yellow. Minah looked down at the sheet before looking up.

“Well, it’s a typical case of objectification as well as the attribution of masculinity to the bike, and how one must aspire to be masculine to attract the attention of these ‘hot women’. It’s the usual cheap trick used by most ad agencies for these kind of things. I don’t even understand why this is still a thing. Plus they want us to target the biker audience. Have they even considered women bikers? I doubt it. So typical. They completely leave out everyone else and cater to one audience. God this is so annoying.”

Hongbin hummed in agreement “but, a large part of their audience is men.”

“But that doesn’t mean women don’t know how to ride bikes, Hongbin. That’s a lot like saying that women should simply look pretty and have very specific interests. Like an object just to be seen and have no other skill or interest in anything other than what is expected of them.” Minah grumbled “I hope that made sense.”

“It does, honestly, a lot,” Hongbin sighed “it’s quite frustrating because even if I’m a man, people can’t see beyond what I look like.” He began, realizing he may have said too much only to have Minah sit there silently and wait for him to continue “you know how it is in this office. I’m just a pretty guy, I use my face and get us deals. Women want to date me because I’m good looking. Not a lot of people think I have any skill beyond this face of mine. It’s not the same as a country wide problem, but I can relate to it a tiny bit.” He said.

“Patriarchy is the bane of society Bean-man,” Minah nodded, calling him by the nickname she had come up for him on their way back from the coffee shop after meeting Lizard “I understand why you don’t like the attention, but you know what? Just command it. You know your skills better than anyone else. There are people in this office who are fully aware of your skills as the head of sales and love you for you. As for women, you’re doing a pretty good job with figuring out what you want, so don’t feel too upset about it. Just do what you love, it’ll all be fine as cliché as that might sound.” Minah shot him a thumbs up as Hongbin’s eyes grew wide open. The cogs in his brain clicked together. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of this?!

“Kim Minah, I will need your help for this ad. I now have an idea.”

Haneul’s was rather confused when she exited her taxi when Hongbin stood outside the office with the Marely-Bobinson representatives as she got off her cab. It was a Friday and everyone who stood outside were a lot more casually dressed as Hongbin fixed the blazer he had thrown over his t-shirt. Haneul herself had chosen far more comfortable clothes than she usually wore to work. She noticed Hakyeon hurrying down the stairs of the building and joining Hongbin in a t-shirt and cardigan as compared to his usual shirt and skinny tie combination. Casual Fridays were Haneul’s favourite days but she didn’t understand why all the heads of VIXX consultancies were hurrying down the stairs and joining Hongbin and his clients.

Her phone buzzed and she checked it to see that the group they had created back in the beginning of the company explode with messages from all the heads demanding to know what was going on since Hongbin had sent a message for them to “come down, you guys have to watch this.”

Haneul hesitantly headed over to stand next to Jaehwan who stood in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with cartoons on it.

“What’s happening?” she mumbled to Jaehwan who shrugged and pointed to the office windows to see some of the employees peeking through the glass to see what the commotion was about. Wonshik shuffled beside her as the sudden roar of a powerful engine could be heard through the street.

“Holy mother of god.” Sanghyuk could be heard mumbling as the group turned towards the source of the sound. What Haneul saw made her jaw drop as Hongbin grinned proudly Wonshik could be heard loudly choking as Jaehwan let out a laugh hanging onto a shocked Hakyeon mumbling something about ‘his child’.

It was almost like an advertisement, the way Minah came riding in on a heavy Marley-Bobinson motorbike. Clad in a leather jacket, white t-shirt, blue jeans, and black boots she was a vision to be seen. Except her head was covered with a helmet which was taken off as she parked the motorbike right in front of the office building. Leaning against the parked bike, she grinned, her lips were a dark wine colour and her eyes were lined with wings so fierce that Haneul was certain that Minah could cut someone with them. Shrugging her curls over her shoulders, she walked up to the group. Haneul could vaguely see Taekwoon’s eyes popping out of their sockets.

“I see you called everyone.” She smirked at Hongbin who was simply standing smug as he could be with his shocked clients.

“So this was the concept we had come up with. I thought we could take this route where you are catering to female bikers. Of course, anyone who shares a passion for biking is automatically attractive to the male audience as well. But, we can take this discussion inside.” He turned to the other heads who were simply gaping at him and Minah “thank you guys for coming for this as well,” he leaned closer to them “needed the moral support.” He whispered before ushering his still shocked clients into the building as the rest of the group surrounded Minah before she could follow them. There was a silence as Minah looked around at the group of people.

“Uhm.”

“I’m in love with you. Marry me.” Haneul declared.

Well, Hongbin’s plan was successful at least.