Chapter Text
“You have quite a pivot here.”
Kang Yeosang finds employment in the shape of a short, charismatic man and the scary thing draped on his office’s chaise.
Soulmates, he clocks as soon as he walks in the door— the sticky, passionate kind, worst of all. Yeosang feels much like a paper wall between two animals in heat, and isn't that just what he needed in life right now, when the opportunity is this hard to refuse?
The interviewer, Hala&co.’s art director Kim, frowns a little. “From personal assistant to… warehouse worker? Could you explain, Mr. Kang?”
And so he lies through his teeth, that he bares in a beatific smile. For the fifth time this week he relays the tale of his sick mother, how he needed a job with more flexible hours to care for her, but now that she's all better he's ready to go back to corporate schedules. All a fat load of shit, of course— god knows where his mother is right now, all the time he spends thinking of her is to hope that she's still tormented by gout and guilt.
Director Kim only hums, listening intently, his ringed hands flipping through the pages of Yeosang’s resume, no doubt for the nth time, if he’s this concerned with who he employs.
“You last worked for J&S for a few years, is that correct?”
He promptly nods. “Ah, yes, I was a personal assistant under art director Jeong for about three and a half years.” And he tries to swallow the bitter taste without a face when he says it, because, in all honesty, that's all it was: a bitter thing, a skin-thickening ordeal— had he not gone through it all, maybe he'd still be a wide eyed fool, bursting with cotton candy dreams. In a way, he should be thankful.
So thankful.
“You seem uncomfortable… Was it a bad experience?”
Yeosang doesn't like these people, but especially the dark eyed one, director of marketing Park. Had that sharpness caught him one or two years ago, he wouldn't know how to act. Now, Yeosang clears his throat, unclenches his jaw some to plaster a fresh smile on. A small one, this time— his face is starting to hurt.
“Oh, not at all, I simply moved. Apologies if I caused you to misunderstand.”
“That is a relief, though…” Gleaming, balmed lips purse a little, panther eyes unwilling to let go. What a bother , he thinks, this interview doesn't even concern you . “I find it curious that you left without a letter of recommendation. Yunho and Mingi are very particular about those with their teams.”
In all honesty, Yeosang hadn’t woken up this morning expecting to hear those names addressed so directly. Not to say that he was blind to the possibility that J&S publications might be brought up in conversation during his interview, far from it— to work for the Jeong-Songs is likely the golden ticket that brought him to not only this but most interviews since he started job hunting— but to hear them spoken with such familiarity…
“Oh, yes, um, I…” This— maybe this might've been a mistake. Not that he cannot ask, that they cannot pry— but perhaps Yeosang is the one who bit more than he could chew. He tries his best not to hold that condescending gaze and ask, outright, what kind of flaw are you even looking for? — but what good would it do him? He’s the one who wants a well paying job this time around, and hasn’t found it yet.
He sighs, ignores the red flags by telling himself he won't need to worry about these people's interest, if he's hired. Whatever.
“It really was a shame. But since I moved right away due to the issue I was explaining earlier, there might've been a miscommunication issue, and I didn’t want to be a hassle almost three years later and ask for a recommendation. Would that be a problem?”
“It doesn't have to be.” Director Kim simpers, grabbing his phone, yet there's little warmth to be seen. Gods, a few minutes into corporate and he already misses a time without the passive aggression. “Please stay put for a second.”
Yeosang's lunch churns in his stomach before has the chance to truly comprehend what he’s hearing, a cheeky quip almost escaping his gritted jaw at the sound of that voice.
“What.”
Wow, great to hear from you, too, boss dog. Are you free tonight?
“Hey, do you happen to know one assistant Kang?”
The deep voice on the other side of the line hums a little, foregoing stupid questions as always. It feels like a true test of his endurance to sit through this secret humiliation, blood rushing in his ears.
At last, Jeong Yunho clicks his tongue.
“You're gonna have to be more specific than that, I'm afraid.”
In the background, unhurried clicking from a keyboard. Yeosang feels his leg twitch, a jerk reaction to his unrelenting desire to run, reigns it in just enough so he can hear it to the end, just so he can pretend to be grateful to these people and have them never contact him again despite it all, thicken his skin some more.
“Kang Yeosang, your assistant back at the Ilsan location. He's applying for a position and his resume is to my liking, but I found it odd that he has no recommendation letter from J&S, especially for such a high position.”
A pause.
“Oh, that one.”
Outside, the buildings gleam in the sickly morning sun. It's not quite a sight, but he tries to keep his focus on it, instead of this car crash of an interaction. It's been nearly three years, it's all out of his system by now.
“He was good. Can't remember exactly why he left without a letter, must've quit in a rush, but nothing untoward as far as I'm aware.”
Ouch. Fucking ouch .
He blinks his vision clear, body so tense he feels as though he has slowly turned himself into stone, skin too thick to move. A painful step towards peaceful numbness.
“Thank you, I'll leave you to your work.”
A deep, warm chuckle. Goosebumps run scalp to feet, and he chases them away with a shot of reminiscence. The dark, ever looming presence of director Park monitoring his every move brings him immediately back down to earth, heavy as a rock. “Right. Tell Seonghwa I said hello.”
“Hello, de— oh, he hung up!” He laughs, light and teased. Yeosang steadily grows to dislike the sound.
At last, director Kim turns to address him. “Very well, then, seems your credentials suit the job. When can you start?”
With the gentlest, most saccharine smile, Yeosang nods.
“At your earliest convenience.”
ↂ
Yeosang clasps a tight hand over the name on her hip, another into auburn hair, fucks into the wet heat like a man possessed. She squeals when he angles himself better, pushing her body down onto the desk he's got her bent over, clit rubbing easy against the rounded, lacquered edge with each thrust.
He cums with a deep, delighted grunt, milks himself with her body as she, too, reaches her peak, squirting over both of their legs before slumping like a stringless puppet to catch her breath.
He hisses, then moans as he stretches, sweat dripping off the cliff of his nose and afterglow kicking in like a drug. She doesn’t move from her spot, and he slaps a flushed asscheek to get her attention. “Go lie down, I'mma clean up first.”
She hums. He has half the mind to place the used condom in the bin, but decides to flush it instead. Small mercies, he supposes— at least the sex was good this time.
Yeosang showers, spends some time looking through the products in their medicine cabinet, blow-dries his hair with the pink atrocity he finds under the sink, dutifully gets himself dressed and ready to go.
Back in the room, the woman sleeps— on the bed, thankfully—, face smushed into her arms and legs covered in drying slick and the lube whose bottle still rests toppled over at the desk. Beside her, the phone charging atop the nightstand lights up, and he recognizes the message from her mate, telling her he's getting off work early.
Good thing Yeosang's leaving, then. He's not one for big scenes.
The walk to the subway is sweet, a young, balmy night blowing against the fruity scent of borrowed lotion, his steps muted in the coarse grain of the pavement. Spring's just stopped being a pain in the ass, thankfully.
Later, he lies in bed with a heavy weight pressing down, as though engorged by a big meal. His often restless mind is much, much easier to reign in, and he's out in no time, blessed with dreamless slumber.
ↂ
The job is great, surprisingly enough.
The hours are no more than what’s often expected, he has most weekends free and overtime, the benefits are actually humane, and the pay is sweet enough to bear Park Seonghwa’s stupid whims while browsing for a better job in case he succumbs to fucking his husband out of spite.
It doesn't mean he likes his boss any better, and honestly he doesn't quite have to— he clocks in, accomplishes the tasks assigned to him, clocks out, and goes home. Director Kim is thankfully mostly professional and straightforward, which makes the lion's den interview seem more like his mate's idea the longer he thinks about it.
It's good for them, too, to keep him at arm's length— he's had a knack for being a snake in the grass, lately.
“You have the review meeting for HalaTeen’s June edition today at five.” Yeosang relays, sorting through the schedule he set up earlier in the week. “Should I print the guides or would you prefer to accompany the topics through a device?”
Director Kim stares up at him for a beat too long, almost amused.
“You hate me and my husband for that interview, don't you?”
It catches him right off guard, punches a soft, startled breath— not quite a laugh, thank gods— out of his body. This fucking guy.
Still, Yeosang clears his tickled throat, furrows his eyebrows a notch in question. Kim Hongjoong doesn't seem the kind to bother about things of this nature, and nor does he seem upset about any perceived insubordination. It is truly just an odd thing to ask.
“Is my work not to your liking in any way, sir?”
It might just be the first time Yeosang sees him and feels the tug of indulgence, wide eyed and caught in his own fishing line as his boss looks. Director Kim’s lips part slightly in an attempt to dignify him with a response, and it is as though the very shape of them presses against his own in a phantom kiss, a daydream. Not that he'd ever indulge, given the chance— he's learned his lesson, and he's learned it well.
Still.
“Well, no , but—”
He quickly blinks away the wonderings like leftover shapes from his eyes. “My personal feelings are of no importance for the next… four and a half hours, as long as my work is satisfactory.”
“And after that?”
Looking for any sharp angles, Yeosang stares at him for a moment.
Is he just… bored? Desire doesn't quite look like that, in his experience— though maybe curiosity might.
And there's Yeosang, who ran unsung from an industry giant, with a sob story just convincing enough he won't have many ways to pry, and no keenness to let himself be pried in the first place.
Right. An enrichment toy to a spoiled cat.
“My personal life is outside your jurisdiction, sir.” But he stands his ground still, somewhere between amused and bitter. These are not the first pair of jaws trying to get a bite. “Paper or device?”
“... Both.” At last, he gives in, though not without a quip. “You are an odd one, assistant Kang.”
He smiles.
“I will get those printed right away.”
ↂ
With a quick knock, Yeosang pops his head in the door. “Good afternoon, sir.” He greets softly. “Mr. Kim requested that you review and deliver the contracts he sent you yesterday within the hour if possible.”
Across from him, his boss's soulmate nearly hisses and spits, lip curled in annoyance.
“I know well my husband lacks the consideration for if possible s.” Then panther eyes, under a jungle of black hair. “But you do not seem to, do you, assistant Kang?”
He does not rise to the tease. Park Seonghwa is, and has been for the three months he's worked there, a constant thorn in his side. He smiles politely.
“What should I tell Mr. Kim?”
Unmet in his little game, Park Seonghwa scoffs. “You should tell him to call me like a man, instead of sending his errand boy.”
How childish . He wonders how someone like his boss got paired with that garbage disposal of a man, such a completely opposite kind of bothersome. Yeosang sure won't be the one to stick a hand in to unclog him free, at least not without good enough reason.
It takes a moment for him to notice Yeosang has not moved.
“What is it? You are dismissed.”
“Your phone is ringing.” He points to the device— nearly falling off the desk, lit up yet emitting no sound nor vibration—, somewhat dizzy with the little pleasure. “But I will do as you wish, excuse me, s—”
“ Wait .”
He sighs at last, pulling off his glasses and slamming the phone face down.
“Take a seat, I am nearly finished.”
The office is a mess, completely taken over by paperwork, printing samples, a rather shocking unfinished takeout container, colorful folders haphazardly piled higher than Yeosang stands.
With no small joy, he sits onto the expensive caramel leather and watches his boss's soulmate struggle for the first time since he's joined. That in itself is a much better view than the concrete jungle outside the floor to ceiling windows behind him, so he revels in it while it lasts.
In the end, he only has to wait a few minutes in the never true silence of the office, then gingerly take the small stack of papers from a careless grip as he's offered.
“Would you like me to scan and send these to you for easier access?” A pest in disguise, he asks, mood successfully flipped, and watches in delight as Seonghwa reckons of his thoughtfulness. He points at the unpleasantly fragrant takeout container, then. “I can take this off your hands as well, sir, director Kim mentioned you dislike having trash around.”
For the first time, Seonghwa seems to look at him, really look. One, two, five whole seconds pass by, and on the sixth, Yeosang sees his bravado fail him.
His voice is quiet, perhaps a lick embarrassed. He won't look at Yeosang when he says it, though he still does. For the first time in three months, Park Seonghwa sees him as more than a pin cushion.
“That would be helpful, thank you.”
ↂ
Too much of life revolves around soulmatehood, if you were to ask one Kang Yeosang. If he turns on the TV right now, some drama will be there to move viewers with the exhausted cliche of a poor late marker finally meeting their CEO soulmate after working for their company for a few days.
A part of Yeosang blames all of this for his mistakes in the past, but he knows it's all him, in the end. No matter how much he kissed and fucked and yearned, nothing was ever bound to give other than designer shoes and diamond earrings for his troubles. In his naivete, he imagined those could be a placeholder for a mark, a way to subconsciously claim him as theirs, but it was more of a shut up and take it kind of arrangement than any fairy tale.
Wherever you look, you'll find it, though, allusions to it. In culture, language, history, food. Famous soulmates have always shone brighter than those on their own, soulmate stories are often the ones that last the longest.
People like Yeosang, rare as they might be, are bound to disappear into the sands of time, as though being unfated truly means that one's path is not ahead of them.
Back in school, he kept it a secret— he'd talk all about it with the other kids, theorize hopeful scenarios while knowing full well about the jagged scar he was born with, the heavy weight it bore.
As he grew, his friends started finding their soulmates, one by one they did. Some found them in supermarkets and late night walks, others bumped onto fate while on trips abroad. They’d always say that, although they thought they understood what having a soulmate entailed, nothing could prepare them for how it’d actually feel like to find and be found at last. They’d pat his back, sympathetic of his late bloomer status, and tell him that the only two gifts this world has given people was a soulmate, and the certainty that they’d be found.
Yeosang isn’t sure that they’d react badly if he ever came out as unfated— he never got the chance to gather courage before they started drifting apart. Soon all the people he cherished had families and happy stories that felt as though made for someone like him to not understand. He’d sit there, juice in hand and a sputtering child bouncing on his leg, and wonder why something so simple could isolate him so much, despite everyone’s efforts.
For some time, it really was as though being unfated meant getting stuck in place.
He does not pity himself for it anymore. He watches as the children grow through social media, drops his congratulations for each milestone and politely laughs it off when they offer to catch up, because catching up means something needs to have happened in his life, and it hasn’t. It hasn’t since he understood where he really stood with soulmates.
Sometimes, Yeosang dreams of being a child again. Those are the dreams he hates the most.
“Assistant Kang?”
He sighs. Great. “Not tod— oh . Mr. Kim, Mr. Park, hello.”
They stand like the poster children for soulmatehood, arms wrapped around each other, eyes brimming with warmth in the low light of the restaurant. Hongjoong looks different from his usual self, his clothes less formal and his ears covered in glittering piercings from top to bottom. Seonghwa, if possible, seems even more like a rich kid than he remembers, if somewhat androgynous in his long dress-like tunic, the subtle heel of his boots.
It's not the oddest sight. The place has good ambiance, well made food, an air of rich people spot he hasn't experienced in a good few years. He's not sure he missed it, now.
With a secret smile, Park Seonghwa nods.
“Right. Today you're just Kang Yeosang, of course.”
And then silence. Yeosang feels an annoying sense of déjà vu.
“How… May I help you?”
His boss jumps a little where he stands, but a smile cuts quick across his lovely, endless teeth. He seems genuinely excited to see Yeosang, for some reason. “Oh! We just wanted to say hello— are you here with your mate?”
He was right, then. Annoying .
“My personal life is outside your jurisdiction, sir.” The line is familiar by now. It sure does make him wonder why it is that he needs to repeat himself so much in just a few months. “I do hope you two have a lovely date tonight, though, the food is delicious.”
The fairytale mood dims and dims, along with their smiles that turn surprised, then bashful. Yeosang burns deep and low with the small satisfaction, however petty. He's never said they were friends.
“… Yes, of course.” Kim Hongjoong nods, eyes him for no more than a heartbeat before tearing his gaze away. “I'll see you tomorrow, then. Enjoy your—.”
“Sir, your tiramisu.”
Blessedly, the waiter's arrival pushes them away and towards their own seats further into the place, and Yeosang bids his goodbyes with a polite little nod.
“If you could please bring me the bill as well.”
Acquiescence, then lingering. “Should… should I add another one to go?”
Gods, he's so tired.
“Sure, why not.”
He eats it in his new car later, safely parked in his apartment’s garage, windows open to lessen the sticky smell of unfamiliarity. It really is good, as most desserts are, but the bitter aftertaste lingers.
ↂ
Business trips are only any good when one's fucking their boss.
While the couple of the hour possibly basks in the sunset by an infinity pool they can afford, Yeosang tries to tune out the screaming children and read a book by the water, already dreading the upcoming seminar.
It's not the worst accommodations he's ever had, he reluctantly admits. The children scream and zoom by like bullets, but the place isn't actually crowded, far from it. Beside him, manager Choi from the art team watches the little terrors with a smile.
“Ever wanted one of those?”
Oh god. Maybe. Once upon a time, he perhaps dreamed of looking down into a little creature and finding twin moles under an eye, thick lips forever in pout.
How stupid . How deeply, pitifully stupid.
Yeosang clears his throat.
“Can't say that I have.” He chuckles, giving up on his book at last. “They're so… small.”
A soft, sun drowsy laugh. Without his reading glasses and permanent squint, Jongho looks a lot younger than he remembers. How old is he, really?
“Got a little girl on the way.” He confesses, voice sweet and warm, almost nostalgic-like. Love, he’s seen it all before. “Dayoungie. Can't wait to see what she looks like.”
It’s never bothered him, this kind of devotion. He might resent soulmates, but the love for a child, though moved by fate, is something he can at least understand— until somewhat recently he was a loving, doting uncle, for crying out loud. He wonders if the children even remember him now, young as they were— he hopes they remember being loved, if not.
“Wow, my congratulations, then.” He grins, stretching some. “Nervous much?”
Choi Jongho laughs light, so light; like no trouble is ahead, or will ever be. “Not yet, surprisingly. Her dad is the picture of a first time parent, though, but I can't blame him. Pregnancy hormones are scary.”
At that, he can’t help his own little giggle; he knows all about that, even if from some distance. Turning to face him better, he finally fully accepts the conversation. “Are you married, manager Choi?”
The question is met by the oddest silence.
“Huh.”
“Oh, I didn't mean to assume—”
“No that's not it,” Manager Choi waves it off with a hand. “You're just the first to actually ask. Everyone just talks like San is my soulmate.”
The implication is clear— he is not . Not that, though unexpected, it jars him as much as the lack of shame and secrecy do. It had never occurred to Yeosang until this moment that this topic could be handled with such lighthearted grace, such flippancy. They’re not soulmates, but they love each other, and they love their child— it’s simple, so simple.
Blinking quickly, Yeosang tries to softly return to conversation. “I see.”
Tanned arms crossed over his chest, manager Choi’s face is one Yeosang won’t soon forget. “He's my husband. That's gotta count for something.”
Reaching out to take a sip of his forgotten drink, Yeosang nods softly. “Of course.” Then, in a bout of sincerity he’s not sure how to curb:
“So, what does your husband do for a living?”
ↂ
Kim Soojin from the marketing team puts on the performance of a lifetime, inky hair flipping left and right as she gets more into it than any sober party ever would, reminding everyone she used to be an idol trainee with every few lines.
Yeosang kind of loves to be alive right now, a beer in one hand and a greasy, doughy sweet in the other. He's never been one to mingle with coworkers, but maybe talking to Jongho eased some of his hesitation. He's not entirely swept up by a feeling of belonging, but this isn't half bad either. It’s been a while.
“Assistant Kang, you're up next!” As Soojin wraps up and everyone cheers, assistant manager Jung hands him a bucket of folded papers with a grin. “Pick your poison!”
His poison turns out to be a ballad about begging a mate to return after a falling out, and he very nearly laughs at the irony of it all. At least it suits his voice, without many falsettos he'd too visibly struggle to hit, even in the half-hearted way he ends up singing.
You were such a beautiful person
You were such a beautiful person
Please don't treat me like this
You know me well.
The door of the little room opens to the very last pair of people he wants to see while drunk and karaoke-ing out his feelings. While Seonghwa quickly finds a seat to watch his performance, chatting with the people of his team in that insufferable smile of his, Yeosang’s boss lingers on his feet, leaning against a wall.
Stay by my side, linger with me
Don't let go of the day you held my hand—
An uncomfortable feeling rises fast— for some reason, minding his reactions under those gazes feels more burdensome than ever tonight. These very lines will no doubt provide them with a satisfaction Yeosang can't help but feel is at his expense.
Faking a retch, he hands over the mic to whoever's nearby with a fist over his mouth, what feels like a thousand hands patting his back on his way out in commiseration. A sweet looking senior asks if he needs anything but he simply shakes his head and fake gags again for emphasis before scurrying inside the hotel.
The pool is closed at this hour, but there are jacuzzis available and some seating off to the side. Yeosang drops onto one of the sun loungers with a hollow sound of defeat, hands rubbing at his face. He should go to bed already, rather than allowing for the possibility of feeling sorry for himself in the dark.
“Better already?”
There's no need to look to know who it is. He sighs, hopes he'll take a hint and leave him alone.
No such luck. “Why did you run?”
“My personal life is—”
A half groan, half chuckle echoes in the half light as Hongjoong takes the seat beside him. “Outside my jurisdiction, I know, you're always very clear about that.”
And then nothing. As they lie in silence, Yeosang allows the soft buzz of the beers he’s had to take over, recklessly basking in the freshness of an early autumn night. His flushed face and ears feel so much better now, and his stomach is properly full, allowing for a content mood to settle.
“We saw you leave alone that night.”
Yeosang isn’t even sure which night they mean in his stupor, but the tone is one he knows well. How dare they try to put him together like some kind of puzzle for their amusement, those marked assholes—
Grabbing at the hem of his sweater, he tugs it up to cover his head with a groan. “I don’t wanna hear this nonsense anymore.”
Hongjoong clears his throat, then laughs a little. “Hey, it’s fine. Even soulmates have rough patches— I mean, look at me, my relationship wasn’t always perfect either.”
He snorts despite himself. “How inspiring, sir.”
Sputtering, his boss reaches to elbow him on the ribs. “You really are a wall, my gods! Is it because of the interview?”
Yeosang lowers his sweater. In the pale pool lights, Kim Hongjoong reflects a kind of worry he hasn’t seen in a while, face made clear with earnestness. How bothersome.
With a hand braced on the wooden armrest, he leans over him, his overgrown hair curtaining the stone-like feel of his face. Caught entirely off guard, the catlike eyes are wide on his.
He could kiss him here, unbutton his pants and make a fresh mistake that’ll smear across his life like trailing mud— he’s sure he’d let him, with this look in his eye. Making himself oh so helpless, and Yeosang oh so guilty.
Have you ever been called a double ended fleshlight behind your back?
He doesn’t say it, because someone like Kim Hongjoong of Hala&co. wouldn’t understand. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? The heart of the issue. No matter how much he tries to make himself understood, his attempts will never go unpunished.
“If I tell you, do you promise to never ask me anything again?”
His boss, as close a person ever gets to being a fairytale character, expectedly seems unable to accept limitations to his boundless freedom. He purses his catlike lips, caught.
Yeosang finally stands up straight, utterly spent. And something else, something he refuses to examine.
“Have a good rest of your night, Mr. Kim.”
ↂ
He feels odd.
Staring at himself through the slightly foggy bathroom mirror, Yeosang can't quite put a finger on why that is. Could he be coming down with a cold? He should stop by the pharmacy on his way home, just in case.
A knock on the door frame pulls his attention away, along with a handsome, slow blinking face. “Down for seconds?”
Regular Yeosang would have leaned in to kiss him and soften the rejection. Regular Yeosang might’ve even taken him up on his offer, engorged himself a little more, slept a little better.
But today, he’s been off. This week, maybe, if he really thinks about it. Though he doesn't regret it, if he’s here right now, it’s more out of habit than anything.
It was fine. The sex was fine. This one is handsome, talks dirty well, fucks hard but not too rough.
“I have work, sorry.”
Not without some pouting, his lay of the night lets him go, puttering around for a bite as Yeosang gets himself dressed.
With a sigh, he bends to grab his underwear, and that’s when he notices it: one of the trinkets on the nightstand is a picture frame— three people wearing wide smiles, the one he knows at the center, head lolled onto a shoulder and leg raised to meet a mate's. A sunny day at the beach, holding hands and showing off their tattoos. They all seem so happy.
He's known about it, that someone can have more than one soulmate in their lifetime. When he met those two, it’s all he would think about, but since then, he’s stopped putting much thought into it.
Though he's seen his fuckbuddy naked, the traditional hip tattoo kept Yeosang from looking further.
Hip and ankle, then. How sweet.
He shoves the boxers under the bed before stepping back into his trousers.
ↂ
“Mr. Park.”
It surprises him much, how unbelievably smoother his life's run after a mere small courtesy. Park Seonghwa feels like a truly simple man under first impression, even though he knows it's nothing but a perfect illusion.
With a honeyed smile and a graceful nod, his boss's husband vacates a spot beside himself in the elevator.
“Assistant Kang. Going down?”
“Yes, sir, ground floor.”
Unlike his boss, director Park has little to speak to him in the seventeen floors yet to pass; truthfully, he prefers the silence of this somewhat mutual understanding over the constant nagging. Yeosang turns to look at him through the mirror on his left, only to find eyes already on him.
If the circumstances were different, he'd easily admit that the man beside him is truly, truly beautiful— full lips and panther eyes, enough black hair to sometimes pull away from his face in a slick bun. A feline gait that is hard to mistake.
If the circumstances were different, he'd have to face his fierce protection, his propensity to possessiveness with the awe it deserves. He'd have to face the ways they intersect, in cunning and in cruelty.
The circumstances are the same. Yeosang daydreams, shamefully yet still.
Park Seonghwa is the first to look away, though hardly flustered. The soft, condescending smile remains.
“Hongjoong tells me you're going through a rough patch with your mate.”
The presumption tickles a proper chuckle out of him; he pointedly ignores the way the sentence sounds like a trap, eyes full of mirth.
“Is that so, Mr. Park?” He leans back, crosses arms over his chest. “What do you think?”
How odd that he's asking at all. How well and truly odd that he wants to know this badly. Maybe he is getting sick, after all.
Seonghwa wastes no time. “He's wrong, of course. Anyone with eyes can tell it's because of J&S.”
Too close. Not without a twitch or two, he turns away, sighs like his heart isn't racing, like his entire body doesn't pinprick. This time it's his fault, he knows that much.
“... You seem to have put a lot of thought into this matter, director Park.”
For once, the line doesn't tug. The bait goes unbitten, and Yeosang fumbles once again.
“I was convinced you robbed them and tried to cover it with a sudden move, but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.”
The space gets more and more cramped with each word. Eight floors to go. To be figured out by someone like him, out of anyone— it is no better than being caught under a shoe.
“Did you really— “
The elevator jerks suddenly, then stops. Seonghwa yelps, then stumbles under briefly flickering lights— Yeosang reaches out an arm to steady him on his feet, equally startled.
“Are you alright?”
From up close, Park Seonghwa smells sweet and salty from a day's work. He presses his dark eyes shut tight, grabs tightly at Yeosang's arm around his middle, puffs out one and two and three breaths.
“Yes, I…” He falters. “Just not good with heights.”
And there, upon that sight, Yeosang draws the line of his hunger. No more than a man, this Seonghwa feels and fears— not without some small effort, he finds a temporary common ground.
“Sit over here for a moment, standing is just going to make it worse.”
Carefully maneuvering, Seonghwa drops with a shaky sigh, looking a little less beastly as he watches Yeosang pull out his phone to call for emergency services.
Help does not arrive right away. They sit across from each other under the sickly elevator lights, and Yeosang was supposed to be home half an hour ago, but unfortunately there's been a big accident on the highway according to the dispatcher, and their predicament isn't a priority— which he gets, really, but he can't say that he's happy about it.
With no more jerking from the elevator and a message left to his husband at his office upstairs, Seonghwa seems to have relaxed, though his knees are protectively pulled to his chest, hair slightly unkempt due to the thin layer of sweat gathered on his forehead. It's the most human he's ever looked since they met, and perhaps Yeosang, too, has regarded him as a pin cushion for his frustrations, even if slightly justified.
“I'm not asking you to like me.” He starts, suddenly, lips half hidden by his slack covered legs. “I know I don't make it easy to do so.”
“You two care too much what I think.”
“I suppose we do, don't we?” Park Seonghwa can smile like his youth is in full bloom, when he wants to. Well, not that it seems a very conscious effort, with the way he hides his face in the bend of his elbows no sooner than it’s seen. “It's a little embarrassing.”
Yeosang hums, tries to rub off the ghostly stickiness of the sight onto the smooth weave of his slacks. Tough, hard nut, cracked open to a miraculous buttery softness— it's entirely jarring, especially when he hasn't actively tried to get in his good graces. Help with a takeout container and filing isn't worth all this.
Hongjoong's struggle he mentioned, something Yeosang could guess just by looking at Seonghwa, meets yet another face of truth: that there is another face to him. That he is willing to show it to someone other than his mate.
He clears his throat. This is a slippery slope.
“Self awareness is good for business.” And still, the dig lands blunt, rounded like a nudge, and Park Seonghwa's face softens even more when it peeks out. “What are you asking, then?”
The thick, stretching, molasses-like stare tells him enough. Park Seonghwa seemed to enjoy a good chase, even without thought. A tamed panther is still a panther, after all.
Yeosang guesses he's had a big, bloody mess made of himself by the slow-licking, well-fed picture that is his boss' husband before him. Caught somewhere in their conversation, pinned just right before he could think.
A deep, paper thin voice bursts goosebumps all over. “I’m not sure.”
Up on his hands and knees, hot with a feeling he tries to name as anger, and resentment, and hunger, and all the things he can accept himself feeling for this creature, Yeosang crawls closer. Gods know it hasn't been the first time he's done it— gods know it won't be the last, by the state of his fate.
“What do you think this is, director Park?”
Seonghwa blinks up at him.
“Hm?”
One more step. The shock of seeing him like this wears out slowly on that unguarded face.
“Say I let you ask it all, and know it all, and I fall for the sweet talking and the eye candy. Say I become your loyal, ever drooling dog .”
Seonghwa’s look bears an odd resemblance to the one Hongjoong has given him that night by the pools, wide and willing, though he doesn't know that he could kiss him right now, as he did then. Hongjoong is much simpler in that sense, bears less teeth. Especially with the clarity he's about to deliver.
“What will happen after that?”
It's not too far to say that this is a bold, dangerous gamble to make— one he certainly wouldn't have done if the playing field was still even, if his big mouth wasn't running so much as of late.
If he didn't feel so…
Park Seonghwa gives him a thick, dry swallow. Yeosang follows the shape of it along the little he can see of his throat under the white collar.
In a second, the buttery softness is no more. The tough, unyielding shell withstands Yeosang's persistent teeth again, like it never left.
“He is my soulmate .”
Warmth blooms inside, a satisfaction. There, now you know .
“What an odd thing to say.” He smiles. “I was expecting a nothing.”
The answer comes quick, a sharp thing, entirely too heated for any nonsensical implication. Seonghwa's ears betray his composure, dusted lightly with a blush when he looks away.
“It’s implied.”
As fun as it may be, though, it's best not to push too far. “Of course, director Park. Thank you for clarifying.” Yeosang drops back to sitting, hears his boss's husband breathe shallow beside him.
Silence, then. Yeosang, standing in a somewhat leveled field, basks in the opium of a bad decision well made, pulling out a protein bar from his bag.
“I can make him fire you.”
As empty as the threat sounds, it's not like he's without offers were he to leave this place. The moment Hala&co. joined J&S in his resume, it made things hard for everyone else. So, light as a morning sparrow, he nods to no one in particular.
“You can.”
But you'll have to tell him why.
“Love? Are you in there? We’re getting you out now, okay?”
As if summoned, Kim Hongjoong’s voice sounds out from the other side of the metal doors. A commotion finally starts settling for good, possibly a rescue team. Yeosang finishes with his protein bar, shoves the colorful foil in his pocket before calling out:
“Please be quick! Director Park doesn’t look so good.”
ↂ
“You must be Yeosang!” San greets easy, a bundled flurry of a person in his baby blue knit sweater, pajama pants and bear house slippers. He's taller than Yeosang expected, but smaller, at the same time. Cute, despite the wide shoulders and sharp angled face.
There's a freshness to this meeting he hasn't felt in a long, long time.
A gentle tug on his sleeve brings him inside at last. “Come on in, Jongho’s fighting the crib right now.”
The house itself isn't particularly big, but the layout is homely, the walls a little taller than he’s used to. There's a kitchen to his right, a living room with glass doors to a backyard, a long hallway on the left where the rooms probably are. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, really, but also bigger in a way he’s far from able to explain.
“Yeah?” He grins, unable to stop this childish giddiness from taking root. “Oh, I brought food! Didn't know what you'd be having so I picked some options, but don't feel pressured.”
San smiles like his name sounds, warm and pure and inviting as he tells him where to put the bags, beckons him through the maze of unopened boxes and rolled up tarp along the corridor.
“Thanks so much for coming, really! The crib arrived so late and so everything got delayed and now I'm in no shape for this whole makeover business— it’s a mess!”
Yeosang shakes his head. “I’m just happy to help.” He says, and he means it, for once.
“Be happy to help over here, please!” Jongho calls out, glasses perched on his head and a million wooden planks and dowels and screws scattered around when they arrive. In his hands, a slightly crumpled instruction manual and a screwdriver— though neither seems to have been used properly so far. “None of this makes any sense!”
A pat lands on his back. San sighs like this has been happening for quite some time.
“I'll bring some drinks, please save my darling.”
Arms crossed over his chest, Yeosang takes in the sight for a moment. To have a friend allow him to see his failures so openly makes him all soft bellied and touched, earnest most of all. He’s hopelessly glad he came today.
“Why don’t we start by organizing everything, then try to put it together?”
Jongho eyes him like he’s just cursed, but eventually relents.
They start with the bigger materials, set everything down into neat little piles for easy access. It’s quiet, mindful work; sometimes, it crosses Yeosang’s mind that this feels like holding hands, in a way, and he smiles a little to himself. The lack of a perfect mated life standing between them eases a muscle Yeosang only recognizes was always tensed now, nearly thirty years into being.
“So…”
Yeosang groans before he can say anything, hammers the dowels into place a little louder. He’d pretend to be none the wiser to a tease so obvious, but today the option to lower his guard seems a pleasant one.
“I’m just asking! They look like they want to eat you!”
Jongho is not wrong. From HR to janitorial staff, everyone eyes him a little weird when he’s accompanying his boss somewhere; he just mastered the art of putting it out of his mind, for inner peace. With a baby sock covered hammer, he lets out his annoyance onto the stubborn leg connection. “They’re just rich and bored assholes .”
“Did something happen?”
He should say no right away, dispel any real concerns of sexual harassment— but denying doesn’t feel right with him either. To call that mess nothing is to turn a blind eye to the something which lives in him, too, the little rotting piece of root that should’ve died out three years ago, but remains stubborn and stuck.
“Just… sick of it.” He grunts. “I should just fuck one of them and tip the scales a bit.”
“You’re real scary sometimes.” And still he giggles, surprisingly boyish, like this is but school gossip rather than an HR nightmare. “Do you…?”
“Want to?” Jongho nods, and he shrugs. “Sometimes. I don’t know if it’s out of anger or… something else.”
At that, Jongho’s attention lingers a little harder. “Something else?”
Not without some masochistic mirth, though mostly bitterly, he huffs an almost-laugh. “Let’s just say my track record isn’t pretty.”
“Ah…”
And just when he thinks the topic has overstayed its welcome, or that he’s said too much and made things awkward, Jongho comes to remind him that he’s not the kind of people Yeosang used to know:
“Being crazy handsome must suck.”
He honest to god chortles , such is the surprise. Then finally the wherewithal for mock offense. “Hey!”
“You’re not even denying it! Wah, Kang Yeosang—”
Toppling over with laughter, his new friend takes Yeosang’s halfhearted kicks in stride, using the excuse to stay on the floor and rest a bit.
“This is fun, though,” He says, after the childish fighting simmers down at last. “You never talk much about yourself.”
Yeosang just shrugs. “Not much to talk about.”
“I doubt that.” Though he’s not looking at him, eyes lingering on the ceiling, there is a sense of acknowledgement that hits Yeosang full on the chest. You’re someone worth knowing — the tone sounds like a pair of eyes. “But keep your secrets, I guess.”
One drink and one food break later, the crib finally stands, one or two screws short but no worse for wear. Jongho pats it like a new car, proud, and Yeosang watches on with a smile that is just as ridiculous as this afternoon has been.
They clean as best as they can, lay down the tarp for the pending paint job.
“I can come tomorrow morning to help?” He offers, and any other time it might’ve been simply the polite thing to say, but right now Yeosang just really, truly wants to come back. It’s a bashful, heady rush, and he worries he’s flustered enough the hosts can tell, earnest enough they'll be uncomfortable. “I’ll… I can bring scones, too?”
A loud gasp.
“Maybe there's still time to dump you and marry Yeosangie before Dayoungie arrives.” San grabs at his arm, batting his lashes at Jongho's unamused face. “When was the last time you got me scones?”
Yeosang witnesses, for the first time, married, grown man, soon-to-be-father, Choi Jongho, pout. “... Last week.”
“ Exactly! That’s spousal neglect!” With a pat to Yeosang’s still shocked face, San dials back the theatrics. “Don’t feel pressured though, okay? If anything comes up, just give us a heads up and we’ll figure it out ourselves.”
Not without thinking a healthy no way in hell , he nods.
ↂ
“Seems I've misplaced my copy of the contracts for the summer releases.” His boss starts suddenly. “You mentioned you left a digital copy with Seonghwa, didn't you? Could you ask him to send it to me?”
Yeosang doesn't like it one bit. In the near year they've worked with each other, he's come to pinpoint the exact ways he's full of shit. This one, for example, reads like a neon sign— he hasn't even bothered to ask anything reasonable, something he can't solve with an email or a call.
No, Hongjoong isn't stupid. He's expecting some kind of reaction, feeling out for something amiss.
It comes to him like a jolt of electricity.
“You want me to apologize.”
He doesn't know why it makes him so upset to be looked at like that, so meticulously, so intently.
No, that's a lie. The fundamental misunderstanding of himself and his actions is a cross he will carry for as long as he goes without a mate, but that doesn't mean it doesn't bother him, perhaps more deeply than anything else when coming from the wall he found himself leaning too heavily against.
So the truth is that a naive part of himself didn't expect it to come from someone like Kim Hongjoong— no, not someone like, specifically Kim Hongjoong. Though ever so bothersome, he was never one to judge Yeosang for his quirks, his more jagged edges. The easy acceptance made him too complacent.
They still expect the worst of him, always will, no matter how much they might sugarcoat it. He ought not to forget that.
Seonghwa bends himself backwards to avoid him, now. When it mattered the most that he didn't, he let his husband believe Yeosang— what? Harassed him, assaulted him—
No, he wouldn't be here right now if that was the case.
“If you think you've… crossed some line.” Careful, so careful. The accusation is an undertone. “Then yes, you should apologize.”
Yeosang swallows the taste of blood and the utter defeat of facing a foe he cannot fare against, nodding despite his faintly ringing ears. Getting whipped back into shape is never a pleasant ordeal, but a necessary one, it seems.
“Yes sir, if you'll excuse me.”
ↂ
“I apologize for my behavior last week in the elevator.” He clenches his fists behind his back, eyes on the polished floors. “It was untoward of me as a subordinate to speak in that way to you, director Park.”
Seonghwa blinks, pen still in hand, face stricken as if off-centered from his wits. The perfect deer in the headlights. In any other circumstance, he might’ve liked the sight.
Slowly, his boss’ mate comes down to himself, at last running frantic hands through his long, dark hair. There's a tension Yeosang never expected to be there, on the tight bow of his shoulders. An exhaustion he at last allows himself to show.
“Did Hongjoong— why am I asking, of course he has. ”
Yeosang sighs, free of pretense at last. “If he decides I harassed you in any way that night, I will become marked for life.” He tells him bluntly. “If you take offense to what I said or the way I said it you are free to make him fire me, as you have the power to do so, but I ask that you let the truth be what decides my fate—”
“I told him nothing happened!”
Seonghwa very nearly yells, words sharpened by a rasp in his tone. Yeosang startles and then simmers inside some more.
“I told him! Do you think I just sighed and sulked when he asked me why I… Gods , I— why should I be the one lectured when you said what you said to me? Why am I the only one losing sleep over th—?!”
His hand slams onto the desk without thought, the sound stunning them both into silence. He can't bear to look at him right now— whatever his face is doing will be sure to stick all over if he's not careful, for better and worse. He's never lost control like this, not once, not even before.
He takes a breath, another, then a third. A step back, shaking the burn off his palm. Get a hold of yourself.
“I apologize once more, sir. Please speak to your husband about this matter.”
ↂ
He stares at the words on the screen, gnaws on his chapped lip some more.
[...] and we are happy to announce that you have been selected for the position [...]
It's not a bad offer at all. Tricky House may not share the years with Hala&co. or J&S, but they are fresh and subversive, a rising star. Their interview was odd, but far less upsetting than his last, and his credentials held more weight than ever. As such, the job he's being offered is much better than somebody's personal assistant, though he isn't sure if applying for it was the best idea in the first place.
His hesitation to leave doesn't escape him— as if he's had it good enough to remain in this lion’s den, as if he doesn't burn a low fire every time the Park-Kims decide to press him further into the wall.
It's not familiar, worst of all— He's had all kinds of people drooling for a bite, but none like this, none this… juvenile about it.
Before, he was crowded in their will, and it was clear, straightforward— they knew what they wanted from him and that was the ground he stood on, even if it spanned far less than his foolish mind assumed it did. These two, however, go at him clumsy and disorganized— like he's the only one aware, like they cannot help themselves leaning to where he stands like plants chasing the sun.
He wonders what would happen if they got what they wanted— if he got what he catches himself wondering about—; maybe they'd get their fill and move on, maybe they'd cling to him as a means to spice up their marriage, as a tool, as a thing, maybe—
No, not that. Never that.
It has been a pleasure speaking with you. I am sincerely grateful for your consideration and excited to start at your earliest convenience [...]
ↂ
“Hey.”
Blinking his eyes open, he finds a familiar gaze. As all things warm, it bleeds as it touches him, melting him deeper into the sheets.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Yeosang smiles, cradling the softness of his face in a hand. The man nuzzles into the touch, kisses the translucent skin of his pulse point.
“Why else?” A chuckle comes from his other side, just as warm and deep, arms wrapping around his middle. “It's time to face it.”
He giggles. From the window above the bed, the sun beams in fully. “Face what? Your bed head?”
“No, Yeosang,”
A third voice. Still familiar, though not in the same way. Fresh kisses climb his thighs under the sheets and he sighs, legs falling apart. When he looks down, catlike eyes, wide and wanting, a smart tongue making quick work of the soft flesh.
“You need to face your fate.”
A jungle of black hair then blocks the sun, miles of tanned arms and shoulders and chest hovering above his head. He gasps at the ever approaching lips.
“My fate?”
The kiss is deep, but soulless; hard to keep up with. A long tongue burrows into him as if in hunger, lips too eager, too overwhelming. There is no pleasure in it, and he claws at a lean chest to pull away, to no avail.
“Shhh…” The first voice rumbles softly, brushing over his hair. The touch is frigid, now. “Isn't this what you wanted?”
There is a sound, too. As he struggles, Yeosang finds himself trying to understand what it is that he hears. A low, deep, staccato groan, getting clearer by the second, almost like…
Oh . It's laughter.
Once he notices, it really begins in earnest. First, from the back of one's throat and down his own, then more against the skin of his thighs, and lastly on each of his sides. Pleased, mocking laughter, and it's all at him, he knows. His stupidity. With a smack, the kiss finally breaks, and he looks up to a wide, laughing grin, gasping.
A cold hand touches his naked hip. Then another, and another— harsher, tighter, bruising. Yeosang lies still, hollowed out, unable to so much as plead for mercy.
“It's a shame.” They sigh, lips all over him, voices hushed like passionate lovers. “Aren't you ashamed?”
“Aren’t you ashamed?”
Aren’t you ashamed?
The ringing of his phone jerks Yeosang violently awake, muscle memory accepting the call before he can notice his tears. They roll down his face in pitiful sync, and he wipes at them with the back of his hand, absent-minded.
“Yes?”
The moment he notices his dying, scratchy voice, everything else comes to the forefront at once.
His body hurts, his nose is congested beyond help; his clothes and hair are completely soaked in sweat, and the air cooling it down is starting to make his teeth chatter.
Fuck.
“Assistant Kang? Are you running late?”
As if on cue, a disgusting coughing fit takes over him, his queasy stomach queasier by the second.
“Is everything okay ?”
“I, uh…” He tries to wrap his head around the situation. “I don't believe it is safe for me to be at work today, sir. I… I apologize for the short notice.”
There's a pause on the other side of the line.
“Do you have anyone to take you to a hospital?”
The question rains on him like hail. Yeosang blinks a few times, entirely out of sorts.
“... What?”
He’s not sure if his offense never makes it across, disgustingly sick as he is, or if Kim Hongjoong is just that infuriatingly stubborn. Either way, the pressure remains steady.
“I can send you a driver.”
Aren’t you ashamed?
He presses his eyes shut tight. “... Do you think I'm that pathetic?”
“Pardon?”
Aren’t you ashamed?
His stomach churns at the ghostly feeling up his legs. “I'll be back as soon as possible. Once again I apologize for the short notice, sir.”
Aren’t you ashamed?
“Assistant K—”
Aren’t you ashamed?
“Have a good day, director Kim.”
The line cuts sharply. Yeosang throws his phone across the bed, and it falls off the edge with a soft thud. Head in hands, he runs over reasons why crying while sick is a horrible idea, and how to get around the fact that he didn’t get the meds he planned to back when he suspected a cold was rolling in.
In the back of his mind, the dream spreads like mold, like a disease.
Aren’t you ashamed?
Yes.
ↂ
“Jjong and I met at a parking lot! He had a flat tire and I helped get the spare in place, right, darling?”
San’s kind face is smushed onto his arm as he talks, watching his husband blow dry Yeosang’s hair in the cramped space of his bathroom. The phone is balanced on the sink, and they’ve been chatting within every pause of the blowdryer.
Yeosang can’t really talk anymore. Well, he can definitely try, but only scratchy, throaty sounds will come out, if at all. It’s definitely odd, being unable to argue his way out of this kindness.
Jongho hums in acquiescence. “We didn't actually see each other again for, what, three months after that?”
The cold is finally subsiding under the hot stream of air, the bathrobe, and the mask he made a point of wearing when receiving this visit. Jongho just laughed, then told him he has the immune system of a horse, but didn’t argue any further.
Hair properly dry, San goes back to his story. “The counselor for my support group got really sick— the meetings were suspended until she felt better. Jjong worked in the same building, so we shared a parking lot.”
Yeosang brings along the phone when they get ready to leave the bathroom, his freshly flushed nose finally catching the faintest whiff of food and not having his guts make a ruckus over it. A miracle built on meds, fluids and rest, and a doctor’s appointment Jongho made sure to drive him to this morning.
Jongho physically sits him down at the table, drops a hot bowl of soup and a spoon in front of him.
“I was going to quit the day after we met, but I wanted to see him again.” As Yeosang begins to eat, he disappears into his room, gathers the sweaty sheets to throw in the wash. It's pointless to try and stop him this far into it, so he simply sighs, pulling the mask under his chin when it starts getting annoying to maneuver around it. “I didn't know anything about him, I was too chicken shit to ask, so I just kept working there for as long as I could.”
He grabs the phone, types a message to San.
“Darling, he's asking how you knew I'd come back!”
A laugh spills from the laundry room. San's grin is unbelievably soft, and Yeosang turns back to his soup, oddly shy. “I didn't! I felt so stupid every time I clocked out and he wasn't there!” He calls out. “But I needed to see it through to the end.”
San stretches, brings his own phone along as he leaves the bedroom. He's at his mom's, the timing perfect when Jongho could come down with something after helping Yeosang. It's one of the reasons he ever accepted this madness— the last thing he wants is being responsible for a flu scare on a pregnant guy. “We didn't actually meet back at the parking lot like in a mate flick, but because he still worked there the closest convenience store was in my neighborhood.”
Once he’s done, Jongho pads over to grab himself a serving of food, getting a seat across from Yeosang. They prop the phone on the only chair left, and in turn San places the phone onto the kitchen counter to make himself a snack.
“I thought I was seeing things, seriously.” Jongho says, and Yeosang snickers despite himself. “But then he looked at me, and you know that scrunchy thing he does with his face when he's shy—”
“Oh god I'd been crying that whole day, I probably looked like a pufferfish!”
It's been over a decade since domesticity has had any room in his life, and a lifetime since it’s been this sincere. He rolls his eyes, fond to death, pulls up his mask and reaches to take his phone and type.
“He was crazy handsome!” Jongho agrees, properly fired up. “His hair was cut short back then because he was fresh out of service, but seriously, he looked like an idol.”
“So!” The fluster amuses him to no end. For all his clinginess, it turns out San can't take the full force of his husband's affection. It's a relief that even someone like him can share such a familiar feeling. “We ended up walking together in that horrible cold for two whole hours, and we talked so much, and then he took me home, and it started snowing like crazy so he stayed the night.”
“We both got the cold of our lives the next day.” The mock defeat in Jongho's voice is still so warm. Yeosang, done with his meal, rests his head on crossed arms to listen. “I don't know how we managed to survive that one.”
Though he smiles, San's voice becomes a little softer, a little blue. “I never thought— when I met my soulmate back in high school, I remember thinking: Ah, this is where my life begins. When he died it was like my life had ended with his— I mean, everyone treated me like it did.”
Yeosang had never asked why they weren't fated— it never mattered the whys and hows. There's something so simple, a logic so uncomplicated in losing a soulmate, and yet it escaped him completely. He wonders if it's any better to have and lose than to not have at all.
“I had some dark periods back when we started to see each other, because we met while I was beginning to realize just how much of my choices were based on approval, and feeling normal, and fitting in. Figuring out who I was outside of that was really painful.”
Jongho doesn't say anything, simply eats his soup and listens. Yeosang wonders if— though it doesn't really seem the case— it's a touchy subject for him.
“I wasn't unhappy with him, you know, but it was never— gods , I keep thinking of a life without Jongho and it's just so… lacking .” He chuckles wetly, runs a hand over his belly before covering his face with a hiccup. “Ah, sometimes it just… hits hard, sorry.”
Yeosang shakes his head, even though San can't see it, and he means it. It's been— well, it's been quite a beautiful story. He's even happier that they found each other, now.
“What about you, though?” San sniffles, going back to building his sandwich like he hasn't just burst into tears. There's a painful familiarity to those shifting moods— they feel all the more distant in face of this. “You never talk about yourself.”
At that, Jongho looks at him from across the table.
When he helped Yeosang stay on his swaying feet in the shower earlier, he saw it. He hasn't said anything since, but Yeosang knows that he did.
He looks down at his hands, then nods, nerves impossible to avoid.
“Sang’s unfated, love.”
“Oh.”
Through the wall of feeling that hits, he types a little more. San, face a little pinched— in worry? pity?—, comes closer just to read it.
“I'm so honored. Thank you for, ah, for trusting us, you know?” He tries to smile through his wobbling lips, eyes shimmering with fresh tears. “That's really— so special , sorry again.”
A hand finds his, squeezes some. Yeosang blinks back the feelings trying to escape. Relief, pain, shame .
“It's okay.” Jongho tells him. “We really are just people trying to live.”
There's a part of him who needed to be reminded of that simple, forgiving truth. That trying to live, however that might look like, is enough, and something he shares with everyone else. That he is a person, rather than a miscalculation of nature.
He squeezes the hand right back.
ↂ
“Are you really not going to take responsibility?”
Yeosang doesn't like people like this.
The hypocritical are fine— one could easily argue himself as part of the club—, the unafraid of speaking their minds might be a hassle, but Yeosang gets it. Even the cruel can hold some elegance in their craft.
The entitled, though…
There's nothing quite like sitting across from a handsome, middle aged man, so lost to the delusion that the guy he’s fucked behind his soulmate’s back is the reason his life is falling apart, that he believes sincerely that a salaried office worker can undo what a little shaking of hips was able to cause. To him, every bad thing; to Yeosang, nothing he hadn't looked for that night. He sighs— children crying over broken toys make more sense than this.
Regardless, there's no need to involve himself any further. Dropping the bills onto the table in an offer of condolences, he makes to stand. “I'm not discussing my role in your life choices. You're a big boy.”
“And you're an empty slut.” Redness bloching along his neck, he spits. “You sweet talk us good people into mistakes so we'll all feel terrible like you do.”
A proper laugh bubbles out of him this time, full and even sincere, if he were to think about it; though this one’s closer to the truth than most, he appreciates the vein of utter self-unawareness, a treat for his piling troubles. So close, bud .
Wiping at the tears gathering in his lashes, he tries to respond, sitting back a bit more comfortably than before. “ You cheated on your soulmate of twelve years with a random guy you met at a bar, got kicked to the curb and lost your children in the divorce— I don't think anyone can feel worse than that.”
“You—” He jumps up some, hands clenched into fists, but Yeosang isn't worried— hence why he ever came here today in the first place. He's bent that handsome thing in half against some wall more times than he hasn't.
“Don’t vie for a broken nose on top of it too, stud. Mind your manners.”
It's not an empty threat, even though he'd rather not address any of this with violence. The man across from him falters, cowardly as always, then takes back his seat with some difficulty. Good boy.
“... Assistant Kang?”
He freezes at the voice pulling him out of his thoughts, heart stuttering some at the sight of a stubbornly familiar catlike face.
Fuck.
“Director Kim. May I ask what you are doing here?” Yeosang doesn't flinch from sheer brute strength, clenching every muscle into submission. Though there are worse ways to be seen than this, it's none of Hongjoong's business what his subordinate does with his life.
His boss, however, seems almost agitated, eyes eating at the scene before him. Cautious, but something else he can't put his finger on. “... Brunch.” He says a little distantly. Then: “Is this your mate?”
Oh.
His companion fully scoffs. “ Mates?! With this whore? Don’t make me laugh!”
A little out of it himself, but mostly curious, adrenaline pumped up to his rushing ears, Yeosang pouts. “Now, now, don’t be mean, dear.” He sweetly scolds, gaze daring Kim Hongjoong to react. “This is my boss, Director Kim.”
The worst part is that… he doesn't change. If he ever does, is by brightening up some, softening the pinch of his mouth. This is worse than the kind of reaction Yeosang expected— hoped — would take over his face. Instead, what he sees looks a lot like renewed interest. His face burns despite himself.
“You kids hire just anyone these days, huh.” He blinks, remembering the man sitting between them at last. “Did you know your employee puts it out for anyone as long as they’re mated? That he homewrecks just for fun?”
Yeosang's eyes fly back up at that, morbidly interested, no matter his thumping leg under the table. That has to be enough; it has to, right?
“So you’re mated, is that correct?”
Avoiding his eyes completely, Kim Hongjoong leans over the chair. Yeosang's guest nods, eyes already starting to wander. What a dog of a man.
“Isn’t the burden of loyalty on you, mister ?”
Silence.
Like the air has been sucked out of the room— like a winter chill has blown everyone frozen. Yeosang's heart pounds anew in his ears, drowning everything out at the sight of Kim Hongjoong turned cold, biting. Catlike eyes move back to Yeosang and all he can do is huff a disbelieving laugh to dispel the urge to climb over the table.
Stupid hypocrite . He crosses his legs tight.
With a few curt movements, his brunchmate stands up at last. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, but ultimately turns to face Yeosang.
“Do not contact me again.” He says, completely out of sorts in his worn suit he tries to smooth on the way out. With a small smile, Yeosang waves him away. That's kinda cute.
“I didn’t peg you for a maneater, Assistant Kang.” Kim Hongjoong licks his teeth at the sight of him. Gods, how he wants to punch him.
Gods, how he wants .
“Good afternoon! Are you two ready to order?”
With an easy flick of the hand, he flips the menu open, nodding at the waitress.
“Yes, thank you, I'll have the caesar salad and orange juice.” Then, with eyes peeking above the fancy cardstock: “What do you want, Hongjoong? ”
The look it gets him might as well be a brand on the flesh of his chest. He refuses to address it, though— it’s simply settling a small debt, softening a future disappointment. Shamelessly, but still, that's all there is to it.
Kim Hongjoong takes a seat.
“I’ll have what you’re having.”
ↂ
“Is it true?”
Park Seonghwa's voice is a deep hum among uneven breaths. Yeosang looks up from the folders he's organizing in Hongjoong's office, belatedly realizing he must be referring to the two weeks notice he delivered no more than a few minutes ago. That can't be legal.
“Yes, sir.”
Park Seonghwa sighs like he's such a hassle, hands tidying his hair in distress as he leans against the door, closed easily behind himself. Yeosang carefully chose the day his boss had to leave early to avoid this exact kind of drama, yet there it is.
“Have you found someplace else?”
Though he hesitates, he figures it can't hurt to be honest this time. He nods with a sigh. “Yes, sir. Is that all?”
No, of course not.
“Whatever… whatever they're offering you.” His boss' husband tells him, and, for once, Yeosang can't figure out his tone. “We'll double it.”
He swallows, pressure suddenly rising to his throat, gums tingling with it.
“Why?”
“Because I… we — “
Untethered by his employment, he grins, fully teethed. “Pussy.”
One would think he just got slapped, such is the stricken look on Park Seonghwa's face. Worse yet, one would think he likes it, with the way he immediately flushes, breath caught.
Still, valiantly, he takes a step forth, then another. “You…”
He shouldn't be doing this. He should have some self respect left, despite it all. So, in the spirit of restraint, Yeosang walks back, deeper into the room, putting distance between the two of them.
It's a bad idea.
“You don't know… anything about me.”
He should've known those eyes wouldn't let go once they caught him. He should've known there is no one else able to withstand the taboo of this place like this panther eyed man.
Most of all, Yeosang should've known that seeing him like this would make this impossible to refuse.
Slightly shaking with excitement, he can't help pushing back. “No, you don't know anything about me.”
One more step. Yeosang leans back onto the desk, grips at the polished wood of the lip. On the next, they'll be chest to chest, hip to hip.
“Look, it's killing you.”
For all his attempts at refinement, Seonghwa lunges like he wants to hurt rather than kiss him, still melting with a decadent groan as they meet. The rush is blinding, a reluctant softness against Yeosang's hungry lips as Seonghwa gropes him through his clothes— hips and sides and back, pulling him up by the back of his legs to sit on the edge of the desk.
It's only half worth it. As he pulls Park Seonghwa up by the hair to kiss him deeper, harder, it is a notion Yeosang makes peace with. Soft, amber-musk scented hands climb up to his face, then slide along his torso to disappear under his button down; there's a disarming sweetness to the way he kisses, completely surrendered, sighing as he loses himself to indulgence, despite the violence, the depth. Like he's wanted enough to dream.
Park Seonghwa grabs at his hands when he tries to unbuckle his belt, pulls them to his face in a gesture he might believe holds any subtlety. Yeosang pulls back with a wet sound, licking the shared spit before it has a chance to string between them.
“Pussy,” He taunts some more, rushing back in to bite his soft lower lip. He can feel him hot and hard through his slacks, twitching against his hip when he ruts up into him. Seonghwa's groan sounds a little like a whine.
“Don't go.” He pulls his lip free just to beg, mouthing along Yeosang's cheek and jaw without a hint of the teeth from before. Just a gummed, pathetic thing of a wish as he clings to him, face buried in his neck. Goosebumps raze through his body like a fire. “Say you'll stay here.”
His eyes sting. Seonghwa is warm against him, steady in his grip. It's been a while anyone has held him like this, if ever at a moment where they could be bending him over and taking their fill. Yeosang goes to say something, but it dies in a sigh instead when Seonghwa's kisses climb their way back up to his mouth. Without meaning to, he's relaxed against the desktop, hands splayed over a wide back.
“Stay, we can tell him,” The words come like a dream, like a lover's sigh. “We could, all of us, we… gods —”
Cold water, if feels like, falls upon his head at once, painfully, immediately sobering him up.
“Off. Get off.”
He pushes Seonghwa's body upright and away, jumps off and onto his unsteady feet. His eyes are wide, terrified as he hovers, hands pulling away like burned at each rejection to his touch.
“What is it? Yeos— Wait!”
“I should've known.” He has the breath left to squeeze out, mind only able to find his half open bag on the chaise before sprinting towards the door. “It's my own damn fault at this point.”
A soft voice calls out, he's sure, but its owner thankfully doesn't give chase when the door slams shut behind him, the half dark of late hours surrounding his vision and thoughts as he runs.
Yeosang, nearly falling to his death down the endless stairs that he rushes through without much thought, thinks that Park Seonghwa has some fucking nerve to say that while kissing him behind his soulmate's back. And himself more, for— gods, how stupid is he? How pathetic?
He decides then and there that he hates him more than ever— that there's been no blessing like leaving this place.
When he trips over his own feet and slams against a wall at one of the landings, there he stays, crumpled on the ground as an even more pathetic thing now that he realizes that no matter the toll, he'll never learn his damn lesson.
ↂ
“It is you.”
The voice halts him in his tracks.
Yunho looks dapper as the day he left him, dirty blonde bangs half pulled away from his face and those stupid gold rimmed glasses sitting primly on the bridge of his nose. Despite every instinct to run, his gaze still searches for the twin beauty marks under his eye, settles a notch when he finds them. And then he burns anew in rage, in self hate. In grief, maybe.
This just had to go out with a bang.
He didn't want to believe this was a possibility when he accepted the invitation— out of some odd sense of duty than anything— that Kim Hongjoong handed out in the now familiar dimness at the sight of him.
Maybe— well, maybe then he thought to himself that, were the meeting to occur, he'd face them as a wall, as a man unmoved. That he'd stand tall, and proud, and—
“It's been a while, Sang.”
Yeosang breathes shallow not to throw up, swiftly steps back when a big hand reaches for him. Still, he smiles, coy and mirror-like. Take your fill and leave, don't touch me, don't touch me—
“Director Jeong.” Nodding, he pulls his champagne flute to his lips, though he doesn't have it in him to actually drink anything. “Good to see you well. Director Park should be somewhere—”
“You never replied to my texts.”
He's going to break. This time, he won't be able to escape it like he did the very memory of them. He looks around, searching for an exit, but only finds a deeper hole to sink into when he catches Song Mingi approaching in wide strides, successfully drawn by the marker of his mate.
“Kang Yeosang… Never thought I'd live to see the day.”
His back hits a wall, and it's only then he notices he's been physically backtracking. Amused, Mingi arches a brow at him, tilts his head when he can't keep up the front and lets out a gasp, or a sound—something as unbecoming as he feels, now.
“Gosh, lighten up, man, we're not mad or anything.” A hand claps him on the shoulder, still bruised from two weeks ago, a harmony of chuckles raining from above at the way he flinches. And then hands he can't avoid any longer, politely placed and familiar yet so deeply violating, now. For how much he yearned some days, now he just wants them and their obliviousness gone . “Just wanted to catch up— you used to be all over us, and then just… poof, in thin air.”
“HR said you moved suddenly, did something happen?” Yunho's sweetly voiced concern still summons goosebumps, though now they raise viscerally, in discomfort. It's getting harder to breathe, and think, and engage in any way.
“My—ah,”
“His personal life is outside your jurisdiction.”
For a second, Yeosang is glad to see him again. Park Seonghwa's voice is steady, takes the edge of their attention off of Yeosang so he can gather his bearings some, like the wherewithal to release himself from their grip, if a little forcefully.
But that's all it lasts. A second, maybe two.
“That's what he was going to say, I bet.” He chuckles a velvety sound, dark eyes glinting in the soft lighting. “Hello, boys, it's good to see you well. I see you've met our Assistant Kang?”
Oh.
The venom of his smile melts at the sight of Yeosang's heartbreak, as if he couldn't possibly imagine he was more than a pretty shaped vessel for his whims. At least there's some humanity left in this creature so set in getting what he wants, no matter what. He hates him all the more for it.
“Seonghwa! Great to see you, this is—”
To think he ever felt swayed. Such an awful, small man he is, like this, unable to bear the weight of his every feeling on his own shoulders. He should've never taken that fucking job.
He turns to face him fully, blinks the tears beginning to escape.
“You win, director Park. Does it feel good to be right?” Is all he can manage, placing his flute onto one of the tables nearby, all pretense lost when he pushes past the confused couple.
ↂ
Not at his lowest has Yeosang cried like this, and he hopes against hope he never will again.
It aches deep, twofold; he feels like he might die if he allows it to come out at once, so he grits his teeth and scratches into the rough ground and curls into a more bearable shape at the farthest end of the empty parking lot, heaving and whimpering and trying not to pass out from the strength of it.
His shoulder and arm burn from a single touch, even as he shivers outside in this weather without his forgotten coat— he tried to call Jongho to pick him up but his phone died before he could even find his contact, leaving Yeosang to his own dispair. He wants to leave, to move again and start over somewhere else without ever looking back, but he can't move, he can't breathe, he can't, he can't—
Warmth is sudden and so is the darkness it brings. A long coat, heavy and sweet smelling, with dark fur at the hems. Seonghwa's, probably. Frantically, he tries to think of something to say, to justify this unbecoming sight, but comes short, only heaving a hurt wet noise when a hand lands on his back, stroking gently.
“I'm in the bathroom right now.” Hongjoong tells him then, voice one with the young winter wind. “I can't ask anything when I'm not even here.”
“ Why — It, it keeps—” The friction of his nails on the ground helps, but not much. With another stuttering sob, he cries: “It isn't fair.”
His lungs strain with the effort. The hand on his back slips to grab at his bicep, gently pulling him up and close. “Hey. Come here, stranger. The world doesn't have to be unfair and cold at the same time.”
Trembling and whimpering, he climbs onto Hongjoong's lap, lets himself be pathetic for just this once, just for today, just until he's free of tears and the bloodcurdling screams left stuck in his throat since three years ago.
Hongjoong holds him tighter than Yeosang remembers ever being before, even by Seonghwa that night, dainty bodied but heavy and steady like a rock. It nearly hurts, and he cries harder yet into the crook of his warm neck, body jumping with the neverending hiccups, wide open for once. The counter-pressure helps immensely, as do the soft whispers and the fingertips stroking at the end of each grasp. Hongjoong is warm, warmer than he seems, and he stays in place without complaint, despite the disgusting pavement being no place for a haute couture suit.
“Look at me. Can you look at me for just a moment?” He asks after some time, when the worst of it is out, ringed hand gently wiping at his tears and snot when Yeosang pulls back to obey. “What do you need, right now?”
“Away,” He sniffles, humiliated, feeling rushing up again. Those tears, too, end up in Hongjoong's grip. “As far as you can take me, I need— please, Hongjoong —”
His case needs no pleading, it turns out; Kim Hongjoong simply nods and reaches into his pocket for his keys, readies them to get back on their feet. In a blur of time and space and unintelligible words, he ends up inside the quickly heated cradle of Hongjoong's car.
“As far as I can take you, right?”
There's a smile on his face, but it doesn't look too happy. Yeosang leans his head against the headrest and closes his eyes as they take off.