Junhyung starts off at the top.

          He starts off at the top because his family is at the top—his father is at the top, and his mother is at the top, and both sets of grandparents are at the top, so naturally, it doesn’t matter that he’s just graduated from university, he gets to start out at the top too because that’s where he always gets to be. He always gets to start off at the top and as soon as he finds the company he wants to work for, he gets to start off at the summit because that’s where his father’s connections get him.

          Junhyung starts off at the top, as the head of advertisement because he’s good with words and pictures and knows how to put all of them together to make people want something, to make them love something and need something and spend their money on something completely unnecessary. He starts off as the head of advertisement and gets lead to his office by his secretary, his female secretary, his attractive female secretary.

          She leads him to his office and then proceeds to lead him around the rest of the building so he doesn’t get lost because a director getting lost is the same level of embarrassing as getting caught in the opposite gender’s bathroom for a high school student. She leads him around the rest of the building, passing glass rooms and high-level conference rooms and brightly lit resting areas and dimly light corridors and the building is beautiful, considerably beautiful, and Junhyung bows and nods to the people that pass by—his new co-workers, his new colleagues.

          He makes small talk with his new secretary, getting to know her, laughing with her about little details, getting friendly, getting warm because they’ll be working together for a while, he supposes, and it’s probably good to be on good terms with the people who work for you—he does all this while walking side-by-side with his new secretary, and she continues to point out people and names and faces and building numbers and purposes and he continues to listen—

          “Junhyung-shii?” Hyuna blinks, and stops, turning around. “Junhyung-shii? We have to turn this way.” She backtracks a few steps so that she’s level with her new director and leans her head back to follow his gaze. She leans her head back to follow his gaze and when Junhyung tears his own gaze away to glance at her, she blinks up at him curiously.

          “What?” he says, and doesn’t even really hear himself addressing his new secretary so informally.

          “What?” she says back, confused now. “I mean—the communications department is a few floors below us. And I wasn’t really going to bring you there because you have a meeting with Jang Hyunseung-shii in a few days, so you’ll meet him anyway, then, right?”

          Junhyung turns again to stare at the empty hallway. “Jang Hyunseung-shii? Is he the head of that department?”

          Hyuna nods. “Why?” she leans over again, peering around him. “Do you know him or something?”

          He shakes his head, eyes still glued in that direction. “No—I don’t.”

          Junhyung’s first day, the day Hyuna gave him a tour of the building, his first day was on a Wednesday. He has a meeting with the other department heads on Friday—Hyuna tells him in a short briefing that the purpose of the meeting is just for him to get acquainted with everyone and that it’s also because there’s another new head of department that started on Wednesday, too and as it so turns out, he’s the CEO’s son. He’s the CEO’s only son and there is sort of a huge hullabaloo over this because he’s the CEO’s son and has grown up overseas and if something so much as upsets him, everyone is pretty much convinced that that is the end of your career in this company.

          In all honesty, Junhyung isn’t too worried about the CEO’s son. The fact that the CEO’s son is pretty much the head of all operations in the Seoul base doesn’t worry him much either. As long as he does what he’s supposed to do when he’s supposed to do it and how the CEO’s son tells him to do it, he doesn’t see any reason for trouble. There’s a limit to how spoiled a CEO’s son can be, and Junhyung’s own family name protects him from any excess corruption this young man might want to pull on him anyway.

          So he’s relaxed, pretty relaxed, when he walks into the conference room with laptop  in one hand and his thumb drive with the copy of the presentation swinging around his neck. He walks in, pretty relaxed, adjusting his tie just slightly and taking his indicated seat at the long, glossy conference table. The lights are already dimmed and ready for the PowerPoint to start, the slide pulled down, the projector , and most of the other seats are filled already with the respective department heads going through their laptops.

          Junhyung opens his own, setting it on the table and waiting for it to warm up—he’s waiting for it to warm up, waiting to be able to log in his password, when he feels a tap on his shoulder and immediately turns around in his chair to look up into a face as young as his own, with black hair standing on end and crinkling eyes, leaning down towards Junhyung with his hand outstretched for a handshake.

          “Oh,” Junhyung stands up and takes the young man’s hand, bowing, “Good morning—Yong Junhyung.”

          “Hey,” the young man says, grinning sheepishly, bowing back and shaking Junhyung’s hand firmly. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but do you have an extra pen on you? I want to take some notes down on paper and—”

          “Oh—yeah, sure—here,” Junhyung takes the pen from beside his laptop and hands it over to the other man.

          He takes it, bowing again, “Thanks—thanks, Yoon Doojoon, by the way—I guess we’re both the new guys, huh?”

          Junhyung coughs—coughs, chokes, on his own saliva and has to fall back into his seat with Yoon Doojoon, with the CEO’s son, slapping his back and panicking and telling their sunbaes that he thinks there’s something wrong with Yong Junhyung-shii so somebody’s secretary should probably get Yong Junhyung-shii some water he’s probably sick because you know apparently there’s something going around at the office lately.

           It takes ten minutes before Junhyung manages to wave Doojoon and the others off, insisting that he’s not sick, he’s feeling fine, and they should probably start the presentation soon. It takes another five before Doojoon actually backs off, looking thoroughly unconvinced, and sits down in one of the empty seats next to Junhyung and lets their sunbae start the PowerPoint.

          The presentation is started and Junhyung gets into it, taking notes on his laptop, reading along on his own copy, nodding appropriately when it calls for it and clapping himself invisibly on the back for not falling asleep—which he supposes he should attribute to Doojoon whispering beside him the sorts of random comments that make both of them duck behind their screens so no one catches them laughing. It goes on like this for quite some time, probably for a good forty-five minutes—

          It’s probably a decent forty-five minutes in before there’s a knock on the door.

          There’s a knock on the door, and with the exception of Doojoon on his left, everyone else in the room sighs at the same time that the door opens. The door opens and Junhyung feels his heartbeat speed up a little—feels his breath catch slightly—feels Doojoon poking his shoulder with the force of a medical injection.

          Junhyung turns discreetly. “What?” he whispers.

          “He’s hot,” Doojoon says, eyes wide.

          Junhyung turned discreetly, but that makes Junhyung turn all the way around to stare right in the CEO son’s face. “Excuse me?”

          Doojoon blinks. “Isn’t he?”

          “I mean—you—are you—”

          “Well—aren’t you?” Doojoon blinks some more.

          “I mean—I mean, yeah, but—” Junhyung can’t believe he’s just admitted this to a stranger. He can’t believe that a stranger, moreover the son of a man he’s just started working for, he can’t believe that a stranger has somehow got him to admit something he’s been concealing from his family for the past ten years with incredible success. “How did you—”

          “Hyuna-shii told me,” Doojoon shrugs. “I used to play with her when we were little. She went to the same school as me for fifth grade—which—I think—was probably Berlin.”

          “Fantastic,” Junhyung says, eyeing his surroundings as if someone will suddenly overhear their conversation and go announcing this to the world, “that’s great. I love Berlin, too. And fifth grade. Good times.” He thinks it’s getting ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, when two strangers you haven’t even known for ninety-six hours already know the greatest secret of your comprehensible life. He watches warily—curiously—as Hyunseung continues talking to the sunbae who is giving the presentation and while Hyunseung seems relaxed, seems like they are talking about perhaps the quality of grape juice as opposed to pomegranate juice, the sunbae looks like he is about to tear off what remains of his gray hair.

          Doojoon’s chin is resting on his palm as he watches the same scene Junhyung has his eyes on. “So do you think he’s hot?”

          Junhyung tilts his head thoughtfully (he doesn’t know why he feels so comfortable with Doojoon already, but he supposes that shock numbs things like first-meeting-awkwardness and it’s nice to find someone who doesn’t judge him or throw chairs out of windows or something when they find out that Junhyung has no interest in finding a pretty heiress to settle down with). He tilts his head and takes in Hyunseung today—takes in the way his round eyes glow in the dim lighting of the conference room, the way his hair is glossy and smooth in the light of the projector, the way the suit falls straight on his frame, the way he stands straight and tall, slender and lean, the way his lips are pink and small, the way his cheekbones are high and deep, the way—

          “Yeah,” Junhyung says, turning to exchange glances with Doojoon behind their screens.

          The CEO’s son grins and Junhyung feels like it’s his first day of preschool and he’s just made a new friend.

          Junhyung thinks at the very least that Hyuna should be properly embarrassed and remorseful over the fact that she found out something important and secretive about her director with what she calls her superhuman-woman’s-intuition and didn’t bother to let him know first before going on and telling her childhood friend. He thinks that at the very least she should apologize to him, and she does—she apologizes, only he isn’t really feeling the sincerity since she does it while sipping at a bottle of carbonated water, blinking her pretty eyes and looking thoroughly shameless in general.

          “Doojoonie-oppa made me tell,” she says. “He was on gossip-ahjumma-mode, seriously. But I mean, at least you two have something in common and I don’t have to worry about you hitting on me.”

          Junhyung snorts because today is Monday and it’s only his second week at the office but he already feels like he’s known Hyuna for months. “Even if I was straight, I wouldn’t hit on you.”

          She flicks the cap of her bottle at him and it flies past his shoulder, missing him by at least a good six inches. “Yeah—you’re too busy drooling over Jang Hyunseung-shii.” The secretary steps to the left when Junhyung tries to launch the cap back in her direction. “You know, he doesn’t do relationships.”

          He shrugs, and shuffles some papers after signing them. “Neither do I.” He glances up at her. “Does Doojoon?”

          Hyuna looks thoughtful. “I don’t know. He probably wants to, but he really never had the chance to. It’s hard to make friends when you’re moving around the world all the time. He said we’re childhood friends, but we only spent like a year and a half together before I came back to Seoul and his family went to Florence.” She takes the signed papers off of his desk. “Anyway, Hyunseung’s pretty picky—lots of people want him.”

          Junhyung raises his eyebrows, amused. “Do I have to take a number?”

          She grins back, and upon meeting his gaze, laughs. “Are you really? You’re really going to try, aren’t you?”

          He shrugs, biting his lip to hide his smile. “Well, you’re the one who said he doesn’t do relationships.”

          “And you’re the one who said that neither do you, so I guess that makes both of you crazy fiends. Only you’re worse because you want to get into his pants and he probably doesn’t even know your name. Creeper,” Hyuna says, looking more and more entertained as the seconds tick by.

          Junhyung looks through a file on his desk, paging through the contents briskly before he finds the one he needs. He scans the first few paragraphs and then looks up at Hyuna. “Hyuna-shii,” he says and she snorts to the side at the sudden formality—he has to bite his own lip again to stop grinning, “I need you to schedule an appointment for me.”

          “And what appointment would that be, Yong Junhyung-shii?” she says back, rolling her eyes and laughing slightly. She pins the papers in her hands between her arm and her waist so she can take another sip of her water. 

          “Lunch next Thursday,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Lunch next Thursday at the glasshouse downstairs with Jang Hyunseung-shii.”

          Hyuna spits water all over Junhyung’s new carpet.

Do you know or not, do you know or not, you’re so pretty

          Junhyung thinks, as he sits in the glasshouse—as he sits in the glasshouse and as Hyunseung takes a seat across from him at the reserved table—he thinks, as he sits there and looks at the other man, he thinks that maybe having lunch at the glasshouse was a bad idea. He thinks it was a bad idea not because the food is bad or because he’s chickening out, but rather because the glasshouse is, of course, made of glass, of nothing but windows for walls, and today is a sunny day and the spring sunlight does dangerous things to Hyunseung’s hair and eyes and skin and Hyunseung’s sunlight hair and eyes and skin does dangerous things to Junhyung.

          “We met at the meeting last week,” Junhyung opens up with, offering his business smile.

          He offers his business smile, which he thinks is immensely appropriate and outgoing of him and Hyunseung would probably have appreciated the gesture if he were—you know—looking at Junhyung—

          If he were looking at Junhyung as opposed to being buried behind the menu.

          Junhyung waits politely for Hyunseung to look up after deciding what he wants to eat and drink. He waits politely, having put down his own menu because the menu is only two pages long—it’s a café, for ’s sake, not a five-star restaurant—and he doesn’t understand what kind of possible life-changing dilemmas could possibly be caused between a Panini and a turkey sandwich. But he still politely waits because he’s the hoobae and he’s the one who called the appointment in the first place.

          He waits, patiently, until Hyunseung finally looks up and Junhyung sees that the other man looks like he’s about to say something, so he looks up at the same time, expectantly with open ears. He looks up expectantly with open ears and Hyunseung puts down his menu. Hyunseung puts down his menu and—and—reaches out for Junhyung’s.

          Junhyung stares.

          Hyunseung reaches out for Junhyung’s menu, opens it up, and then shows the inside page to the other man. “Don’t you think this shade of yellow looks like the paint in that bathroom on the fifth floor?” He’s pointing to the picture of a cartoon slice of cheese on the corner of the menu.

          Junhyung stares some more—he starts to unintentionally squint a little bit too, like maybe if he looks hard enough, there will be some scar or something on Hyunseung’s forehead that indicates how he hit himself on a table corner earlier this morning. Because if that’s the case, then clearly Junhyung should respectfully accompany his sunbae to the emergency room.

          “I haven’t been to that bathroom,” Junhyung decides to say finally, when he can’t find any scars or bruises that indicate Jang Hyunseung’s damaged cranium. “I only started two weeks ago, sunbaenim.”

          Hyunseung nods thoughtfully, and the edge of a small, pink tongue darts out against his lower lip as he leans back in his chair and watches Junhyung with those round, sunlit eyes—the more the sun shines on them, the more they look like dark, glistening liquid. “You should go there sometime,” Hyunseung says. “It’s a nice bathroom. There’s a plant near the sinks.”

          Junhyung tries his best not to smile.

Even if they call me crazy, I like you

          “I wouldn’t go for it, if I were you,” Doojoon says one day when they are on lunch break together in a restaurant a few blocks from the office. He stirs his bimbimbap and pours in some more sesame oil. They are at this restaurant after a recommendation from Doojoon’s secretary. It’s homey and intensely Korean and the kind of small restaurant that Junhyung would expect to find out on a roadside on the way to the farmlands of Korea.

          Junhyung dumps wads of chili paste into his own bowl and starts to mix. “Why not? You’re the one who said he was hot first.”

          Doojoon glances at him. “Yeah—but,” he sounds uncertain, “I mean—yeah—he’s a pretty funny guy and all, but then Gayoon gave me the heads-up on him, y’know? Don’t tell me Hyuna didn’t, too.”

          He shrugs. “She did.” Junhyung takes a large spoonful into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

          “And you still want to go for it?” Doojoon looks at him warily, his own first bite hovering midair as he waits for an answer.

          “I like how everyone has so much confidence in my seduction skills,” Junhyung says around a sip of water. He looks up dryly at Doojoon. “You make it sound like he’s going to break my heart or something.”

          Doojoon grins, snorting. “I know—I know you just think he’s hot, but man, he’s not picky as in picky. He’s like picky as in you’d better be some kind of superhuman Casanova to get him.” He pours himself a cup of water from the jug and glances at Junhyung as the other man continues to eat indifferently. “Plus—I don’t think you realize hot he is.”

          Junhyung looks up, mouth full.

          “Not that you’re ugly,” Doojoon says, “but, really.”

          Junhyung kicks him under the table.

Yes or no, yes or no, say something please

          They are in the same elevator on a Friday morning, both riding up to their respective floors and Junhyung considers it Life giving him a boost-up because he’s been so diligent lately in signing papers and not getting mad when Hyuna or Doojoon throw things at his face. They are in the same elevator, and they are the only ones in the elevator, and it’s quite a ways up to the twelfth floor, which gives Junhyung at least two to five minutes.

          It gives Junhyung two to five minutes, and two to five minutes starting from the point of Hyunseung getting onto the elevator if Hyunseung wasn’t Hyunseung. If Hyunseung was a normal person, and not Jang Hyunseung of communications, then Junhyung would only need two to five minutes. He’d only need two to five minutes if Hyunseung was a normal person, but Hyunseung isn’t. Hyunseung is the kind of person that can rush into work with his hair still a little bit damp, with his cheeks flushed from the warming weather of spring, with his suit jacket slung over one shoulder, with his tie not quite done up completely, with the first few buttons of his shirt undone—

          He’s the kind of person that can rush into the elevator looking like that and make Junhyung stunned into a one-minute stupor of wordlessness.

          “Running late?” Junhyung asks after he’s regained his thought process and inner dignity.

          “No,” Hyunseung says, thumb padding down through his iPhone as his eyes scan through messages. “It’s just hot today—you didn’t notice?”

          If Junhyung didn’t notice it before, then he certainly notices it now—right now, right here in this elevator that clearly needs to get the AC fixed because whether or not Hyunseung brought in the outside’s heat indoors has yet to have anything to do with the fact that Junhyung feels like maybe he needs a larger pants’ size. “Not really—I just turned up the AC in my car,” he responds easily.

          “Ah,” Hyunseung smiles (a flash of white teeth, parted lips, widening eyes) and raises his eyebrows, “I forgot—rich boy.”

          Junhyung folds arms, grinning. “What does that have to do with turning up the AC?”

          Hyunseung shrugs. “Everyone else’s car is exploding in this heat, and if you’re not careful, it can break down, but,” he flashes that smile again, “of course you don’t have to worry even if it does. You can just buy yourself another one, right?”

          Junhyung gives a short laugh, leaning back against the elevator wall, hands resting on the wooden bar. Hyunseung does the same, back against the opposing wall, hands in his pockets, suit jacket over one shoulder as his eyes watch the numbers lighting by while they ascend through the building.

          “Hyunseung-shii,” Junhyung says when they pass by the seventh floor.

          The other man glances at him.

          “Speaking of hot weather,” he begins, “it’s supposed to be a lot cooler this weekend. I was wondering if you wanted to go to a white party one of my family’s friends is having?”

          Hyunseung watches him, head tipping to one side, bangs spilling over his left eye. “With you, you mean?” he asks and suddenly the corners of his lips are curving upward.

          “Well—yeah,” Junhyung nods his head once carefully, watching the other man’s expression. He watches Hyunseung’s eyes, Hyunseung’s face, watches and tries his best not to look anywhere below the neck, tries not to look at how the shirt wrinkles and creases tightly pulled around Hyunseung’s torso, tries not to pay attention to how he can see the faint outline of a wife beater beneath the white dress shirt, tries not to focus on how when Hyunseung thinks, he lets his tongue rest between his lips.

          He tries not to, but it’s hard.

          It’s hard, and it gets even harder when Hyunseung crosses the small space between them—it gets harder when Hyunseung crosses that small space so he stands directly in front of Junhyung, closer than they’ve ever been, and gazes right into his eyes, a little amused and a little playful. “I’ll think about it,” he says and his breath mists over Junhyung’s lips.

          The elevator doors open.

          There’s a one and a two on the black screen, so Hyunseung gives Junhyung another smile before he walks out of the elevator.

She’s a powerful enemy, she won’t budge

          Junhyung thinks he probably shouldn’t be surprised. He thinks that he shouldn’t be surprised at all. And really, he isn’t all that surprised. He isn’t surprised, thinks he probably should’ve knocked, and thinks that after the chance in the elevator, this is Life telling him that not all boost-ups come free and it’s throwing this at Junhyung to watch and see what he’ll make of it. Life is throwing this at Junhyung—with this being him walking into one of the conference rooms because the door was unlocked and there was no meeting going on, and it was supposed to be empty only it wasn’t.

          It’s not empty at all and Junhyung realizes this when he opens the door just wide enough for his eyes to peer in and just wide enough for him to clearly hear the voices.

          Just wide enough for him to be able to see pale, bare legs dangling from the tabletop, swinging playfully—long, pale legs that lead up to thighs hardly covered by white shirttails, thighs that are hardly covered by white shirttails probably not because the shirt isn’t long enough, but more likely because of the hands that are bunching the shirttails at the top of those thighs.

          He opens the door just wide enough to see clothes strewn on the floor, shoes and socks and pants and ties and belts, just wide enough to see those hands move from pale thighs to an arching back, holding a slender waist, that white shirt and the way they seem to be holding each other, languid and slow and not at all rushed, Junhyung guesses that they’re probably done, probably finishing up, probably some post- flirting.

          The door is just wide enough for Junhyung to hear—perfectly clearly—wide enough for him to hear and recognize Hyunseung’s voice. Not wide enough to see his face, but wide enough to hear his voice—to hear Hyunseung’s voice, and the voice of the other man. He hears the other man’s voice and it sounds familiar—awfully familiar, and Junhyung feels like it’s probably one of the other department heads that are around his, Hyunseung’s, and Doojoon’s age. He feels like it might be the department of finance—the head of financial affairs, whose name Junhyung thinks is probably Hwang Dongsun, if he isn’t wrong.

          He can hear them, only there’s not much to hear—there’s speaking, words here and there, but it’s mostly silence and Junhyung knows that the silence is far more important than the sparse words interspersed.

Oh, I’ll go crazy—I like your image just by thinking of it

          “Junhyung-shii,” Hyunseung catches him at the end of the next meeting, after Doojoon has packed up and left, along with Hwang Dongsun and the other department heads. Junhyung pretends to be busy saving notes on his laptop, shutting down and snapping his thumb drive shut and tucking pens back into his pocket. He pretends to be busy with his hands because that way he has an excuse not to look at Hyunseung too much—if he has nothing else to do, he has to look at Hyunseung and he’s already spent too much time doing that during the presentation.

          But it’s not like he can just speak to a sunbae, regardless of age, staring at his laptop shutting down, so he does look up and tries not to pay attention to the fact that Hyunseung’s shirt is black today and his suit jacket is dark gray and the way his pants sit on his hips, the way his belt wraps around him, the way Junhyung’s fingers are itching to undo those tiny, white buttons one by one down his chest and stomach and—

          He tries not to pay too much attention to that.

          He looks up politely, closing his laptop. “Yes?”

          “I’m sorry I never got back to you about the white party,” Hyunseung says, not looking sorry at all—his hair falls into his eyes perfectly as always, dark and liquid and reflecting sunlight. “I hope it went well.”

          “I didn’t go,” Junhyung says bluntly. “I had to work on a briefing.”

          Hyunseung raises his eyebrows. “Oh.”

          “How about you?” Junhyung asks, “Busy weekend?”

          The other man shrugs one shoulder, one side of his mouth tugging up slightly. “It wasn’t too bad. I had to discuss a few things with the financial department, but other than that, not much.”

          Junhyung nods, understandingly, and they stare at each other—they look at each other for a moment, just silence between them, standing there and gazing. They gaze at each other for a long few minutes, Junhyung doesn’t know how much time passes—he just knows that they keep looking at each other in wordlessness until he picks up his laptop into one arm and says, “I like your shirt.”

          Hyunseung tilts his head.

          “Hyuna said that I should stock up on more dress shirts now that I’ve gotten unpacked,” Junhyung explains lightly. “And I just thought that I like yours.”

          The other man’s eyes narrow slightly, just as his lips curve upward even further. “Do you like my shirts,” Hyunseung says slowly, sounding greatly amused, “or do you like me wearing them?”

          Junhyung puts his laptop down, puts his thumb drive and portfolio down. He puts them all down on the table and takes a few steps forward. He steps forward without taking his eyes away from Hyunseung’s face and doesn’t stop approaching until the distance in between them is the same amount of distance that separated them in the elevator—until he could feel Hyunseung’s breath mist against his lips. “What if I said that I just like you?” Junhyung murmurs.

          “You saw me and Dongsun last week,” Hyunseung states simply.

          Junhyung’s eyes dart away and then back. “Yeah, I did.”

          Hyunseung smiles broadly then, lips brushing against Junhyung’s for just a fraction of a second—so briefly that it hardly even felt like a kiss. “I don’t do relationships,” he says playfully, and from his expression, it looks like Hyunseung knows that Junhyung knows this already. “I don’t do relationships,” Hyunseung says, cocking his head to one side so that his mouth is mere moments away from the edge of Junhyung’s jaw, “but I don’t just do anyone either.”

You neglect me, you neglect me, you neglect me—even if you look back

          Hyunseung is halfway out the door, when he turns his head to glance at Junhyung mildly—turns to glance at Junhyung, frozen on his feet, unmoving and not quite knowing if he even remembers how to move anymore or if he even wants to—turns to glance at Junhyung and says, “Don’t forget your stuff. You shouldn’t have put it down in the first place anyway when you already packed it up.”

I’ll go crazy eventually—I’ll explode

          Junhyung thinks that it’s definitely reached ridiculous, that there’s flirting, there’s being a tease, there’s playing hard-to-get, and then there’s just downright ridiculous and he knows that it’s reached ridiculous when he finds himself locking the door of his office, collapsing onto the sofa, unbuckling and ping his belt and pants as fast as he can, head falling back, arching into his hand, eyes closing.

          He thinks that it’s definitely reached ridiculous, reached unfair, reached painful and needy when he has to bury his face into the back cushions of the sofa so he doesn’t make any sounds because Hyuna’s desk is right in front of his office door and he has no guarantee that the walls are soundproofed but he has to do this, he has to do this and he has to do it right now because even just his dry hand—no lotion, no lube, no anything—even just his dry hand feels intensely perfect, although never as perfect, never, never, never as perfect as he thinks Jang Hyunseung will feel and he doesn’t understand—

          Doesn’t understand, as he rapidly pumps up and down, writhing and turning every which way, fingertips digging violently into the couch to keep from falling, fingertips digging deep into his arm to keep from getting so swept away by pleasure that he makes noise and forgets where he is—

          He doesn’t understand why or how or when Hwang Dongsun seemed to achieve whatever Mount-Everest-level standards Hyunseung seems to hold for bed partners—or as it may be, conference-room-partners. He doesn’t understand what is it that Hyunseung wants, what he has to do, because in Junhyung’s book, he’s already pulled everything that, had it been a normal person, would’ve had his target in bed all those weeks ago with the invitation to the white party.

          Junhyung doesn’t understand—he doesn’t understand, but he comes right in the middle of his thoughts, frustrated and irritated and gasping for air and relieved at the feeling of release but still frustrated, still irritated, because it’s not enough—it’s not what he needs, what he wants, not nearly as good as the real thing, and the teasing makes the ache worse—the flirting and gazes sent over conference room tables and during dinner parties and in elevators, it makes everything ten times worse because Junhyung wants him—he wants him, wants him, wants him, wants him.

Oh, I’ll seriously go crazy—someone please try to stop me

          “So, basically,” Doojoon summarizes, clapping his hands together over lunch at the bimbimbap restaurant. “Jang Hyunseung is a cocktease and you’re all hard-up for him but he more or less is bent on teasing your until it explodes.”

          “Yeah, basically,” Junhyung says sullenly, and stabs his spoon into the pile of vegetables and rice. He takes the sesame oil and starts drenching the contents of his bowl. “I just—is—you know—is Hwang Dongsun hotter than me?” He looks up, solemnly, and waits for a response.

          Doojoon stares at him.

          And then promptly bursts into laughter—leaning against the wall and almost knocking over the napkins and his glass of water.

          “It’s not funny,” Junhyung snaps and harshly dumps a few spoonfuls of chili paste into his bowl. “Stop laughing and eat for ’s sakes.”

          Doojoon gives a final bark of laughter, grinning widely, before he picks up his spoon and starts mixing. He looks at Junhyung, amused. “You know, I really don’t think Hyunseung-shii cares whether or not you’re hot. I’m pretty sure he’s looking for something else.”

          “Like what?” Junhyung says waspishly. “If he’s looking for bedroom skills then he can scratch that because he’s not going to know how good I am just by looking at me.”

          “I didn’t say that,” Doojoon says, snorting. “I just said maybe you have to try a little harder to impress him. I mean, he probably gets hit on like ten-thousand times every time he goes to the grocery store—a guy has to know when to say no and when to say yes, and I guess you’ll just have to find some magical-unicorn-sparkly way to convince him that he should say yes to you.”

          Junhyung chews. “You give terrible advice,” he says around a mouthful of rice and egg and green onions and carrots and mushrooms and beef.

          Doojoon steals one of Junhyung’s dumplings.

Someone should have told me it would be this hard

          “I would say I told you so,” Hyuna says, watching Junhyung’s fingers fly over the keyboard as he rushes to finish his last report so he can zoom downstairs to a conference room where Hyunseung has a meeting ending in about fifteen minutes. “But I’m a nice person, so I won’t.” Her thin arms are folded, hip slung to the side, as she waits for him to finish and print so she can get the report upstairs where it needs to be before he and she both leave for the day.

          “Shut up,” Junhyung says, eyes boring holes into the screen of his computer, “I’m almost done so shut up. I swear, if he leaves before I get there—”

          “You’ll kill all the babies in the world with your face, I know, oppa,” she says and in the reflection of the screen, he sees her inspecting her nails. “And I hope you know, even if you do get him to have with you, he’s still going to see other people.”

          He shrugs, finishing the last sentence and saving the document. He saves and then goes straight into printing. Junhyung turns around in his chair to look at Hyuna. “So will I—I’d be worried if he didn’t keep on seeing other people.”

          She frowns as they wait for all of the pages to come out. “Why? I don’t get why you don’t do relationships—I mean, you have all this going for you, so it’s not like you have to worry about money or—”

          “I just don’t, okay?” Junhyung cuts her off quietly. She blinks at him surprised and he returns with a look that gets the message of finality—of the end of this conversation. He returns with that look and Hyuna seems to get it, seems to understand that maybe sometime later he’ll tell her, but as of right now, they aren’t close enough—he hasn’t known her long enough.

          When the pages, all eighteen of them, have finished printing, he pulls them off of the printing tray and hands them over to Hyuna to file and folder and bring upstairs to the higher-ups. He hands them over to her and walks around his chair, adjusting his suit, fixing his tie and she squeezes his arm with her small hand, grinning.

          “What?” he asks, amused at her expression.

          She laughs. “You know,” she says playfully, supportively, “it’s sad you don’t do the girls thing. You’re pretty hot as far as directors go.”

          He hugs her with one arm and tugs at a lock of her hair, grinning right back. “Yeah, yeah.”

You know well that I fit you

          He catches Hyunseung just as everyone else has left the conference room—he catches Hyunseung about to walk through the door and corners him back into the room, corners him back into the room and closes the door behind himself. Hyunseung puts down his things, puts down his laptop and his binder and his thumb drive and folders and sits down on the edge of the conference table. He watches Junhyung. “Do you need something, Junhyung-shii?”

          Junhyung crosses over and stands in between Hyunseung’s legs. He looks into the other man’s eyes and places his hands on either side of Hyunseung, gripping the edge of the table, so that his arms are framing him. “I do need something, Hyunseung-shii.”

          Hyunseung’s eyebrows disappear into his bangs, and then there’s amusement dancing in his eyes. “Really?” He leans forward slightly so that their faces are even closer, so that all Junhyung can see are those eyes—those round eyes, illuminated this time by the glow of the setting sun just outside the conference room windows. “What do you need?”

Don’t let me go to waste

          Junhyung is still—he’s deathly still, he’s deathly quiet—he moves carefully, cautiously, thinking of every single move beforehand. He’s slow, terribly slow because he can’t even make a single wrong footing in his pacing—he has to do all of this right, all of this perfectly. He has to make this perfect in order to work, so his hand is steady—steady and maddeningly slow—his hand is slow and steady as it comes to rest against Hyunseung’s face, finger by finger coming down against the other man’s skin (smoother, softer, tauter than Junhyung ever imagined, ever thought of, ever dreamed of).

          His hand holds Hyunseung’s face and when Hyunseung doesn’t move, doesn’t make any objects, doesn’t say anything—doesn’t do anything but continue to watch Junhyung interestedly, Junhyung tips his head to one side and leans in—he leans in, his eyes closing slowly (and catching sight of Hyunseung’s own eyes closing), leans in and presses his lips against Hyunseung’s mouth.

Ha ha ha ha—ha ha ha ha ha

          It’s just a kiss—just a simple kiss, no tongue, no parting lips, no rushed breaths, no panting, Junhyung doesn’t even touch Hyunseung other than that one hand against his face. It’s just a simple kiss and they both pull away at the same time after a few moments, eyes opening languidly and gazes straight at one another. The room is getting dark, and then sun is starting to leave its last rays on Seoul for the day. The room is darkening, but Hyunseung’s eyes still glow the same way they would if they were sunlit.

          Junhyung pulls his hand away too but it’s barely off of Hyunseung’s face when the other man catches it in midair and holds it in his own—Junhyung blinks, surprised, as Hyunseung takes his hand and places it against Hyunseung’s waist, places Junhyung’s hand on Hyunseung’s waist, and the slender fingers tighten over Junhyung’s own. “Oh,” Hyunseung’s tone is playful, a little mocking, a tiny bit sarcastic, but mostly just playful. “So that’s what you need, Junhyung-shii?” He grins. “That’s all?”

          Hyunseung leans forward, leans to the side, and drags his mouth up and down the column of Junhyung’s throat, drags his mouth and the tip of his nose up and down the skin of Junhyung’s throat and Junhyung has to force himself alert enough to keep his eyes from closing, to keep his legs from giving way. His hand grips Hyunseung’s waist with bruising force before he can stop it and Hyunseung sighs heatedly against Junhyung’s jaw at the feeling.

          “Yeah,” Junhyung says, and realizes his voice is hoarse. “That’s what I need.”

          He feels Hyunseung smile against his cheek, feels Hyunseung’s hands begin to loosen his tie and undo the buttons on his shirt. “I can give you what you need, it’s not hard,” Hyunseung says softly, teasingly, “but I don’t do relationships.”

          Junhyung presses himself closer, spreading Hyunseung’s legs wider, holding him with both hands down, his shirt. “Neither do I.”

          “I don’t do relationships,” Hyunseung says, drawing away just for a moment and looking into Junhyung’s eyes with a half-smile, “but that doesn’t mean that I do just anyone either.”

          This time, Junhyung gets it.

          He grins back, running his fingertips down the side of Hyunseung’s face. “Yeah—I know.”

I guess she was already ready to look at me