The intercom on the edge of the desk buzzes. “Mr. Wu,” comes the static voice of his assistant, Ms. Cheng. “You have a call on line one.”

Wu Yifan, sitting behind his impressive oak desk with his long legs stretched out before him, sighs. It’s a quarter til five and he’s ready to go home. The last thing he wants to do is deal with another annoying client. “Who is it?” he demands brusquely.

“He didn’t say,” Ms. Cheng replies. “But he says he’s calling with Gordon International. I figured you’d want to take the call.”

Yifan groans. Gordon International is one of his company’s biggest, most influential clients. It’s sort of a given that he has to take this call.

“Alright,” he mutters, picking up the phone. “Put him through.” He waits until he hears the beep confirming that the call has been transferred before he speaks. “Wu Yifan speaking,” he says in his perfectly rehearsed business tone.

“Hello, Mr. Wu,” says a light, friendly voice on the other line. “My name is Zhang Yixing. I’m calling from Gordon International’s marketing department.”

“Nice to meet you,” Yifan says. “What can I help you with this evening?”

The man on the other line sighs. “Well, as you know, we’ve been working with your company to develop an advertisement for our new line of cookware.”

“Yes,” Yifan nods. “I believe we had a meeting with the head of the marketing department a few weeks ago and had the design approved.”

“That’s true,” Zhang Yixing replies. “But you see, the marketing department has switched hands. Mr. Park is no longer the head of that department. I am. And I don’t particularly like this design. I feel that it’s too abrupt. I want something more subtle.”

Yifan checks his expensive watch, noting that it is now five til time for him to leave for the night. He resists the urge to sigh. “Of course, sir. We’ll work on a new design right away.”

“I want to be a part of the design process,” Zhang Yixing interrupts him. “I know that it’s a bit conventional, but I’d like to have a more hands-on approach to this process. If that’s okay, of course.”

Yifan grits his teeth. Of course it’s not okay. Why hire an advertising firm to make advertisements for your company if you’re going to do it all yourself anyway? Where’s the creative liberty in that? But of course he can’t say those things. So he forces himself to say, “Of course. That would be fine. We can schedule a meeting.”

“Great,” the other man says cheerfully. “Let’s meet tomorrow evening.”

“Tomorrow evening?” Yifan repeats. He quickly glances at his calendar. While he doesn’t have anything planned for the following night, it’s still sort of late minute and he doesn’t like last minute. “Perhaps it would be better if we allow time for a few design concepts to be drawn up.”

“No, it has to be tomorrow,” Yixing insists. “I’m going to be very busy. And we don’t need to have concepts drawn up already. I just want to throw around a few ideas to make sure we’re on the same page. So let’s meet tomorrow. I’ll have my assistant email you with the time and location.”

Yifan grimaces. “That sounds fine, sir. See you then.” And he slams the phone down.

The restaurant where they are scheduled to have dinner the following evening is a nice one. Yifan has only been there once before, on a first date not long after he’d moved to Seoul that had gone horribly badly. He hasn’t been back since. Still, the food is good and he supposes it’s as good a place as any to have a work dinner.

“Good evening, sir,” the pretty hostess at the front greets him with a polite little bow. “How many will be dining with us tonight?”

“Two,” Yifan answers, holding up two fingers as if for confirmation. “I’m meeting someone here. I’m not sure if he’s already arrived or not.”

“Oh,” the hostess says, setting down the menus she’s just picked up. “Are you meeting Mr. Zhang?”

Yifan nods. “Yes. Is he already here?”

“Right this way,” the hostess says, and she leads Yifan to a table near the back of the restaurant, where it is a little quieter. There is a man already sitting at the table, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he carefully reads through a thick stack of papers.

The man jumps up when he notices Yifan’s arrival. He’s much shorter than Yifan, a bit more feminine. “Hello,” he says, bowing with a grin. “You must be Mr. Wu.”

Yifan bows back before taking his seat. “And you must be Mr. Zhang.”

“Please, call me Yixing,” the shorter male insists cheerfully, resuming his own seat. “Shall we get to work, then?”

Yifan hates this part of the process. Though no longer a graphic designer – he’s since moved up in the company to a management position – creating designs is what he really loves to do. And when some know-it-all client comes in and starts telling him how to do his job, it really irks him.

“Here’s the original designs your team submitted,” Yixing says, pushing a handful of papers towards Yifan. Yifan picks them up and looks at them, though of course he already knows what they look like. He’s the one who okayed them for submission, after all, so he knows them pretty well.

“Yes, they are,” he says, when Yixing doesn’t really elaborate.

The younger man takes his glasses off and Yifan is a bit startled by how intense Yixing’s eyes are. “The images and ideas that these advertisements are perpetuating are not okay. Every model in these ads is young, good-looking, flawless. These ads reinforce that thin and perfect is what is normal, natural, and beautiful. That this is what is successful and dominant.”

Yifan doesn’t quite understand. He’s worked in the advertising business for a long time, and these images are exactly the type that clients want to work with. This is the idea of beauty that is prevalent in this country. No one will even think of accepting an advertisement that shows anyone that is any less than perfect.

Yixing shakes his head and smiles a bit, and Yifan is again taken aback by how startlingly handsome this man is. “I guess it’s because I’m not Korean, but I don’t buy into this ‘you have to look perfect’ bull.”

“You’re not Korean?” Yifan says with some surprise. He’d thought that Yixing, with his perfect face and perfect hair and perfect body, was definitely Korean. He looked the part, that was for sure.

But Yixing shakes his head, still smiling. “Chinese, actually,” he admits.

“Really?” Yifan exclaims, reverting to his native Mandarin.

Yixing’s eyes widen happily. “You’re Chinese too?” he asks, also in flawless Mandarin. “How refreshing! Then you probably get how frustrated I am with the Korean idea of beauty. I don’t want people to think that these clones that end up in magazines and on television are what’s normal. That’s not normal. Constant plastic surgery is not normal. I want to put a bigger model in there with the thin ones, to show that it’s if you’re not a size 0, you can still use our product successfully.”

Yifan is silent, appraising. Though he’d come into this meeting with many reservations, he is starting to appreciate this man’s own creative process.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Yixing says, and he pouts. Yifan has to look away because that pout could very well prove to be his undoing. “Do you think it’s silly?”

“No,” Yifan assures him quickly. “I think that your idea is a very good one, actually. I guess that I’ve lived in this country for so long that I’ve forgotten the concept of individual beauty. I also feel that it will be refreshing for those that see the ads that don’t fit into the mold of what ‘perfect beauty’ is. I think I can work with this idea very easily, Mr. Zhang.”

“Oh, call me Yixing. Please,” Yixing says quickly, blushing a little bit. “There’s no need to be formal between countrymen, is there?”

Yifan smiles too, something he certainly hadn’t expected to do during this meeting. He takes a deep breath. “Alright, Yixing,” he says. “Would you like to, maybe, I don’t know, go for a drink sometime?”

Yixing’s lips quirk up in a smirk. “Are you asking me out, Yifan?” he asks in a teasing voice.

“Maybe,” Yifan replies. “Are you saying yes?”

Yixing’s smile broadens. “Yes.” 

For: colourfuldays

prompt: A business/corporate world au

So somehow this turned into a commentary on the Korean beauty ideal OTL