Sehun steals a glance at the papers on the table in front of him once more time before leaning backwards, closing his eyes, immersing himself in thoughts. Should I take it or leave it? Of course coming back to Korea is not a bad idea, especially he has felt like he needs to make some changes in his life since the searching and waiting he has been doing for the past twelve years hit the dead end. However, he got used to live here, in Paris, already so this whole moving thing and adapting to new environment can cause a lot of trouble.

“Mr. Oh?” the middle-age man sitting across the table speaks up, pulls him back to reality “So what do you think? Do you take this offer?”

He pushes the paper towards Sehun, hoping the young man consider the job’s benefits thoroughly. Sehun opens his eyes, exhales slowly and picks up the pen.

“I just have one more condition.”

“I’m listening.”

“I want to have full authority of operating control. My rule - my way.” Sehun emphasizes and he gets a nod in approval from the other.

“You have my word.”

******

Luhan yawns hard when he gets up from bed at the ringing of his alarm. He had to stay up late last night just to analyze another piece of art from Post-Impressionism. The tenth anniversary of Seoul Fine Art museum is coming and being one of the art examiners of the museum, he has been working at home for hours after work to keep up with the upscaling requirements. There is another reason he has to push himself this much which is the absence of art director’s leading at the museum. The position has been open for like a month already and no one hears anything about the result. Without an art director, the museum operation stuck in the idea of which way the anniversary would carry on.

Looking himself in the mirror while dressing up, Luhan can’t help but narrow his eyebrows in disappointment at the black shade under his eyes. He grabs his bag and some drawing tubes to head outside. Monday morning is always the most hectic time at the museum and he doesn’t want to miss to be a part of it.

Luhan is welcomed by a grinning Yixing right after he flops on the chair in his office. It’s absolutely raising a big question because as long as he knows Yixing (and he’s known the other one for a really long time), he’s never this happy on a morning, especially Monday.

“What’s going on?” Luhan asks without looking up, rearranging the tubes on his desk, counting them again to see whether he left anything at home.

“Have you heard the news?” his friend chirps with an exciting tone “We have a new art director today.”

“Thank God they’ve found someone already” Luhan can’t help but exhale as if he has just shaken off a burden “We’re literally in a chaos here.”

“I know, right?” Yixing nods in agreement “My supervisor was clearly on the edge of a mental breakdown when she delivered the presentation of activities planned to be held up for the anniversary last week.”

Luhan lets out a pity laugh for the helpless woman.

“By the way, do you know who this new one is?”

“Nope” Yixing shrugs his shoulders “But I guess we will find out soon.”

He pats on his colleague’s back and waves his hand to gesture a goodbye. Just like Yixing predicted, an unexpected meeting is called by the new art director. Everyone is eager to meet their new boss, too much that they’re talking loudly to one another when Luhan opens the conference room. He chuckles to himself and finds a seat beside his examiner teammate, Minseok. They work mostly independently on assigned projects because Minseok is an antiquities expert while Luhan specializes in paintings. Sometimes they work together on a particular project like the auction the museum held up last month, which included various range of objects.

He barely has time to say hello to his colleague as the door opens again to reveal a new face. Luhan immediately straightens his back and studies the tall man standing in front of them. It’s an old habit, like an instinct which he guesses to explain why he’s good at what’s he doing.

Broad shoulder, golden ratio face feature….

“Hello everyone”

Deep tone voice. Damn!

“My name is Oh Sehun. From today, I’m your new art director. Nice to meet you all.”

A sudden applause snaps Luhan out of his observation, he quickly averts his face to another direction to conceal the surprise. From the head of the long table, Sehun finally sits down on his chair, opens the file he brings along and clears his throat to speak up.

“As you all know, the 10^th anniversary is about three weeks away and as far as I concern, there are plenty of work we have to do. So I want all of you to devote 100% of your capacity to accomplish this mission.”

He pauses a second to scan the room before continues

“There will be changes in the way the museum operating which enables us to reduce our dependency on sponsor fund. So I hope you guys can find your own way to adapt quickly, especially those who are in charge of auction activities.”

The bomb news surely creates intense atmosphere in the room as everyone turns to look at each other with query in their eyes. However, no one dares to say anything because their new boss is kind of giving them a hard time guessing what’s on his mind with that poker face.

“So…” the young art director closes his file to deliver his first demand “Each department sends me an update of your carry-on activities and also the plan for big coming event by the end of today via email.”

Another silent moment passes and Sehun takes that as a cue to wrap thing up quickly

“Alright, thank you for your time. You all can get back to work now.”

Luhan is about get up when he suddenly senses something weighing on him. He shifts his eyes to where that weird feeling comes from to find the taller guy across the room staring at him. It just lasts a second then Sehun turns on his heels to walk away, leaving him dumbfounded for a good minute before Yixing knocks him off his confusion by dragging him out. That incident stuck in his mind for the rest of the day until he gets an email from his friend, informing about an exhibition of Lee Jeongmoon’s collection in the next two days at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Needless to say, Luhan is looking forward to spending time there because lately he finds modern art quite attractive. From his acknowledge, Lee Jeongmoon is renowned for her impressive ballpoint pen drawings, oil paintings and prints. Her works investigate the idea of materiality and the process of art making. Her ballpoint pen works draw the viewer in due to their abstract nature and intricate design. Luhan mentally notes to ask Yixing to come along with him.

********

Changes are made right from the next day, Luhan can feel it, but in a good way because Yixing is nowhere to be found which means he’s sent out to business. It rarely happens before since the museum basically just carries on exhibitions so assigned tasks mostly indoor. Luhan makes himself a hot coffee and heads to the museum’s storage facility in the basement. He needs to energize himself through a long day working without seeing the sun. He is one of those whose are in charge of auction activities and as his new boss made it very clear yesterday via email, his priority is to go through all the painting collections the museum possesses and reports directly to him by the end of Friday.

Luhan buries himself in examining every piece of arts until his growling stomach tells him it’s time to recharge his battery. He looks at the phone and realizes it’s almost 8 p.m, which means he has been working straight for like 7 hours without a minute of resting. Stretching his hands with a big yawn, Luhan quickly collects his belongings to dart out of the storage. Everyone has left but a glint of light from the end of the hallway catches his attention. He knows whose room that is.

Uhm, devoted to work already. Isn’t he a full package?

Luhan wonders if he should make an official introduction to his new boss since he works right below Sehun. But before he could come to a conclusion, the door springs open and Luhan jolts in response. He quickly turns on his heels to run away when a deep tone voice echoes the hallway.

“Luhan? Is that you?”

The called man is taken by surprise of the mention of his name. He slowly turns around to flash an awkward smile at the younger one who by the way is walking toward his spot.

“Hello Mr. Oh.” He waits for Sehun to gets closer “I don’t know you’re working this late.”

“There’re a lot of things I have to keep up with so…you know.” Sehun casually strikes his hair in reply “You’ve been at the basement the whole day?”

Luhan slightly tightens his lips and nods.

“Everything’s good down there?”

Luhan nods again and the silence invades their space. He notices that Sehun is about to open his mouth to say something but the younger man quickly turns it into a small pat on his shoulder.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

**********

Luhan sees Sehun a little bit early on the next day, too early for his expectation. His boss calls him into his office right after Luhan sets his foot on the museum’s property. The Chinese man wonders how Sehun can remains so mature and elegant feature at such a young age. Rumor says he’s only 27 year olds which is two years younger than Luhan but has a long profile working in this field. Apparently Sehun was born and raised in Korea but went study abroad majoring in art and has been living in Paris for a long time before taking this job. Luhan unconsciously bit his lower lips as soon as he heard the word “Paris” and let himself drifting away from the conversation.

“Come in.”

Luhan hears familiar voice answer to his knocking. Sehun greets him with a small nod, pointing the sofa to ask him to sit there while continuing talking on his phone with someone else. Luhan looks around, notices that a few changes in decoration had been made since the last time he was here.

“Sorry for your waiting.” Sehun’s voice brings him back to reality. He flashes a smile to imply it’s okay. The younger one gives him a piece of paper as soon as he reaches the table, slowly sits down on the other side.

“For this coming event, I want to do an extraordinary exhibition and auction, something different from what we used to do.” Sehun begins with his back leaning on the sofa, arms folding across against his chest “I think what we have here is not diverse enough for the concept so I would like you to contact some collectors listed there to make contributions.”

Luhan scans the paper in his hand carefully. They’re all famous collectors in this field, some of them actually cooperated with the museum few times in the past. Then his forehead wrinkled when a particular name comes up. Luhan hesitates a bit before looks up.

“Well, I know most of them so I think I can handle this. It’s just….”

“What is it?” Sehun concerns at the sudden halt.

 “This collector…” He puts the paper on the table and points “Can someone else do the contact for me?”

“Kris Wu?” his boss tilts his head to read, question all over his face “Can I ask why?”

The Chinese man pauses for like ten second then silently sighs

“I did his collections twice. Maybe I was too sensitive or thought too much but I felt like he’s trying to hit on me and that made me really uncomfortable and distracted. So…”

Luhan can hardly read the expression on Sehun’s face but fortunately, the younger one agrees to leave this collector behind to deal later and sends him back to work. However, before Luhan reaches the door, his boss calls out for him again.

“Luhan?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever been to Paris?”

His stomach twists at this question, not seeing this coming. He fakes a small cough to cover his hesitation and plays innocent.

“No, I have not. Why?”

He swears he can see Sehun’s upper lip curls into something suspicious in a blink but then the Korean man just shrugs his shoulders casually

“Nothing. It’s just a shame that a talented one like you have never been there, the city of light, arts and stuffs, you know.”

“Well, maybe next time, if I have a chance.”

Luhan flashes his signature smile to excuse himself to leave. This conversation almost gets him caught off.

Is there any chance that……Nahh, it can’t be.

Luhan scratches the silly thought out of his mind and heads down to the basement. He has tons to do today and he already wastes time just thinking about it. Besides, if he wants to get off work early to go to the exhibition, he should start right away.