hihi. not sure if anyone still follows this blog for my art but i post here now—it would b so fun and funky and fresh if you could give this a share and follow for similar content :0
love for the rich and emotionally stunted: a comprehensive guide
ch. 3/7 -- prev. -- next.
pairing: jumin han x f!reader
warnings: n/a
series summary: in the months following the incident with his father's most recent paramour, glam choi, the corporate heir of C&R finds himself discovering exactly what it is that makes a person in love so blind.
ao3 link
note: it's been a hot minute. that's my b. work sux
He takes you to a restaurant.
Not he— actually, his driver does. You sit in the backseat next to Jumin and make contented, jittery small talk about the weather and how each of your days have been. It’s the first conversation you’ve ever had with him past noon.
He’s dressed as he usually is, three piece pinstripe suit and groomed to magazine cover perfection, but there’s something else. You haven’t actually spent that much time looking at him— really looking, not past the brush of your fingers on the sleeve of a coffee cup and morning greetings past the elevator. He holds the door open for you when you leave the car, when you enter the restaurant.
You take a moment to stare— to indulge. He takes the seat opposite you after pulling out your chair, and as he settles himself into that ramrod straight posture he looks like he’s some bygone marvel, set in amber and unknowing for all to see. The lights are yellow and dimmed, they bear down on him and for some reason you can’t help feeling a little overwhelmed by it all.
Jumin acts the perfect gentleman through the drinks and the appetizers and it isn’t until your meal is laid in front of you that you notice him finally start to loosen. He’s attractive, sure, but he’s a lot softer than what the papers say. The magazine opinions and the TV interviews.
“Something on your mind?” He asks finally, and it makes you freeze.
You’ve started loosening too, eased by the good food and expensive wine and the way he sometimes smiles at you like sunlight, if only by the faintest curve of his lips. “Nothing much,” you reply, and his eyes are like the calm before a storm, the darkening of rain clouds and maybe you are a little tipsy. Can’t let him know you’re waxing poetic about him. “You know, I wonder why we haven’t gone out before.”
“I have a very busy schedule,” Jumin interjects, and he leans a little further towards the table. Towards you.
You let out something of a laugh, half exhale and half chuckle. “I wasn’t aware that petting your cat in the darkness of your penthouse warranted a time slot.”
“Well. Do you plan on earning one of your own?”
“I’m very competitive.” You tell him, “And I’d hate to have to compete with a cat.”
“I’d say she’s worth it.” Jumin says, and it’s with such fondness that you almost forget he’s talking about his cat. It’s one of those oddly endearing things about him. Like the small talk he sometimes struggles to make and the way he still glances at his phone wearily as if expecting periodic advice from it.
Maybe that’s where he gets his ideas.
-
The next idea is yours, of course, and it’s three hours of conversation at a coffee shop. The atmosphere is softer here, softer in the way he holds himself and the way he talks. He still shows up in a dress shirt and slacks, but it’s less than usual and that’s enough for you.
Here he tells you about his family. About his cat and his friends, about the RFA, the advice that he does actually get from his phone. The way that admittedly he doesn’t drive much, nor does he cook very often. He likes embroidery, which is something that comes up sometime during the iced Americano and after a second blueberry scone. It isn’t something that he’d inherited or taken up out of desperation, something all his own. He seems very proud of it.
In turn, you tell him about your family and your friends, where you went to school and where you grew up. The way your hobbies have grown over the years and the way you’d never really expected to be having this— thing between you, much less this conversation.
“I don’t hate it,” he says, in reference to ‘this thing.’ It’s a plain statement but there’s something deeper in his tone that says maybe he was expecting to hate it. You don’t question it any further.
“I don’t hate it either,” you say. “I’m still expecting you to slam that door in my face one of these days.”
“It will look like the perfect accident,” he quips, and then you laugh and there’s a returning smile on his face that makes you think you really, really don’t hate this.
“Really though, how long did you hold that door open before you realized I work with C&R? It’s your company, damnit.”
Jumin shakes his head a little, as if warding off the memory. “That’s all my fault, I suppose. I make it a point not to pay too close attention to that… end.”
“I’m offended. Ouch. Look, you’ve wounded me.”
“I’m sure you can handle it.” He smiles a little, hesitates before resuming. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you, if that’s your implication.”
You wave it off with a shrug. It still kinda stings, but curiosity bites at you more fervently than any kind of insecurity about your day job. “What’s it got to do with, then? Or who, I guess.”
Jumin scoffs. “Women.”
“Yeouch.”
“That isn’t— you aren’t—”
“Jumin. I know.” You’re ready to laugh it off, but there’s a deeper kind of trouble in his eyes. It makes the grin at your lips ebb, and you reach a hand out across the table, an olive branch.
He stares at it, as if worried. “I didn’t mean that you—”
“Would you tell me about it?”
He reaches out then. You think— you hope— it’s the first of many where he’ll do this, in all confidence and uncertainty. It makes you wonder how many times he’s been given the opportunity to reach out, to reach back to a hand willing to listen.
His hand is kind of cold, not quite so calloused and probably moisturized regularly with some luxury brand lotion. There’s a joke dying at the back of your throat about that, but you figure that isn’t really important right. Jumin looks down at your hands, one on the other, and then he talks.
His relationship with his father from what you’ve seen and what you’ve heard is mostly good, but it makes him so worried. There’s this crease between his brows that you want to press flat with your fingers, borne out of a concoction of worry and love for his father and it permeates him like an ominous cloud as he talks over the incident that had happened earlier that year.
Every gay rumor you’ve ever heard about him is starting to come together like some sad, convoluted tabloid puzzle.
Jumin finishes his story, falling action, and he almost sounds insecure about it all, about being manipulated and forced into his father’s impulses— overt in some hindered tone that he takes like he’s trying to defend himself with it.
“I’ve— I am not a relationship person.” Jumin says. “I don’t believe I am.” He squeezes your fingers just slightly, trying to cement the feeling as he looks back at you. “I hadn’t wanted to be.”
This is also the longest you’ve ever had any kind of physical contact with him. It’s soft and mundane, easy like another routine you wouldn’t mind committing to memory. “Well, what now?” It’s much quieter than it had been before, silence like a blanket.
“I worry that I’m going to end up like him,” Jumin confesses. “What makes it any different?”
“I think everyone worries about becoming their parents at some point,” you say, and he doesn’t look very reassured by it. “That’s the first part of– of healing, though, isn’t it? Coming to terms with your dad’s habits and then wanting out of that cycle.”
“He wants romance just like any other person, I think.” Jumin says. “I couldn’t tell you why those women were all….”
“Like that?”
He lets out a noncommittal hum. “Like that.”
“I’m different though,” you say confidently, and it’s meant to come out as a joke but he nods in agreement so quickly it gives you whiplash.
“You are.”
“You too,” you say, sort of brokenly, but it slips out and you’re not quite sure what you meant by it.
Neither is he, apparently. He asks, “How so?” and it makes you shrink a little in your seat. He’s tracing patterns on the back of your hand and you zero in on it so intensely that you notice the neat trim of his nail beds.
“I dunno,” you confess. “I was kind of thinking you’d just be a distant work crush forever. This is different from that, it isn’t… it’s not Hallmark, you know? It’s good-different.”
“Good-different?”
“Good. Different.”
“That’s good.”
“Good.” Jumin smiles kind of crookedly at you, so small and human and real that it makes your head spin. He kisses your knuckles then, looking up at you, just barely brushing them with his lips. And you figure that’s the end of that.
-
From there it’s weeks of sideways smiles, of good and different and patterns on the back of your hand, the small of your back. Like a special secret to be let in on.
You ask him about an art exhibit next, pinky-finger in his between murals and portraits and sculptures, tugging him closer by the arm. It’s more comfortable than anything, the heady rush of being near him and around him. The humdrum of it all, the way it warms you to your fingertips, to the apples of your cheeks and the temple where he kisses.
You find his affinity for physical affection at a wine tasting the following week when he nudges at your hand the fifth time since arriving, standing so close that your knuckles brush and you can feel the warmth of him beside you.
It’s a crackling edge at rose colored glasses every time he does, the way he leans into you and you into him. And the only singular, striking thing about all this is its ambiguity– the label you’ve never bothered to give it.
However good and different it is, every time you talk about him to other people it comes like ad-lib: Jumin, the guy I’m seeing, the one who gets me coffee in the mornings, or sometimes just him. Whatever label the two of you are supposed to have, he’s never mentioned it directly to you or vice versa and it makes you wonder if there should have been something to follow his “not a relationship person” remark, dialogue that feels like a lifetime ago.
Maybe he’s scared.
Maybe he thinks it’s implied.
Maybe it’s because you still work together?
And in all truthfulness you realize “all of the above” might also be a viable answer. But you’re a couple to all eyes but each other’s, the dates and the casual intimacy and the ground swallowing you whole whenever he smiles at you in that way he does, the way your name rolls off his tongue like Catholic prayer, more devout than he ever was growing up.
He gives you gifts, too. Lots of them.
It might be a Pavlovian sort of response, or so you’ve garnered. He gets lots of gifts himself, whether they’re from his father or from companies looking for his sponsorship, co-workers and the like. He buys you things like eventually he’s gearing up to give you the world; the moon and stars on a string of pearls. It’s a good feeling, knowing that you are cherished and thought of, the glint in your eye while you’re window shopping with your hand in his or a personal interest that you’ve mentioned offhandedly, excitedly, while Jumin makes note of it.
But you’re starting to get a little fed up.
You spend the afternoon at an arcade, shuffling between new VR sets and old time-y joystick games (he seems to be very good at Q*bert and little else). It’s a quiet drive home past the occasional comment about how many times you’d beaten him in multiplayers, the coincidentally cube-like shapes he’s tracing into your palm in the backseat. Jumin opens the car door for you, walks you to your home and suddenly– very suddenly it’s like he’s crowding you against the door and you haven’t even stuck the key in.
“This was nice,” you say into the crook of his neck, hoping and praying this goodbye hug lasts longer and longer. He smells like expensive cologne and cheap arcade nachos and the juxtaposition is enough to have you grinning even now.
“It was nice until you started going power hungry about your win count,” he whispers back, hand soothing along your back. You laugh softly, tipping your forehead to knock against his chest. He sits his head atop yours like routine. Like it’s easier than rainfall, easy like breathing.
“I think that’s just because you suck.”
“You could stand to have a little decorum, you know.” He leans down for a second, kisses the top of your head, and resumes. “I don’t know how much more public humiliation I can stand.”
Your breath hitches as if to say something, but then Jumin pulls back just far enough to get a good look at you. The way he looks at you isn’t new, like an earth shattering mundanity– it’s tangible and bright in the palm of your hand.
warnings: a lot of trust issues and mentions of betrayal
summary: being a royal courtier has led you to build up an immovable wall, unflinching and unfeeling. sadly, the wall didn't account for bokuto koutarou. maybe it isn't so immovable anymore, is it?
note: this is the angstiest reader i’ve written i’m so sorry if it seems like a lot but also shoutout to @fukurodanni who i wrote this for!! i write a lot of gifts for them because they are lovely and very very kind. also happy belated birthday bokuto!! this is a little late <3
Trustworthy. Such a simple word with so many connotations. Throughout your years inside of palace walls and gilded rooms you have met only one person you think might fit into the word’s neat definition. Akaashi Keiji was your friend since childhood, and the only one who actually decided to stay. Even in the constricting stares of noblemen through court rooms, you know that no matter what you can look over to Akaashi and see someone who you can say anything to. How amusing that you won’t have that soon.
“How long do you think you will be gone?” You try to keep your voice even, almost an instinctual reaction to anything new and changing in your life, where the slightest shift in expression could ruin you, but you can tell Akaashi hears that timber in your voice when he looks over with a pained glance.
“Seven months.”
You turn away. You know it is irrational to be upset with him, because he doesn’t like this just as much as you do, but you can still feel those pinpricks against your chest, whispers of “he wants to leave you” settling across your skin. You shake it off and begin walking away, finding solace in the fact that you knew the footsteps you’d hear behind would still be there for a short while longer. You’ve never gone a day without hearing the soft, yet solid thumps against rich mahogany floors. It fills you with a comfort in the rhythm, a comfort in the stability of knowing you will hear it with you, behind you, that somewhere near you there will always be a friend.
How will the silence feel?
“I’m not going to be leaving you alone.” He says it gently, coaxing you back into speaking with him, with rationalizing, because that was always your relationship with Akaashi. A fine balance of assumptions and reasoning, of instinct and logic. It was how you built your friendship, and it’s also how you pull away and he calls you back.
“Oh really? Because it sounds like you won’t be here for four whole months.” You snap back in a hushed whisper, a knife cutting through the peaceful fog he tried to settle because now was not a time to think rationally.
“I am sending for someone to take my place in court during absence, and I’ve handpicked him. He will not leave you alone.”
“Oh so now it’s two changes! Even better!” You throw your hands in the air as you walk through opulent halls of gold and silver, gaudy showings of wealth until you reach the oh so familiar doors of your room. You throw them open, and even though you feel anger pulsing through your veins you can feel your fingers hold open the door long enough for Akaashi to slip inside.
You take a deep breath, and keep your face away from him. “I know it’s not your fault. I know. But it still…. it still hurts me.” It’s a wound you can’t cauterize, an ache that won't fade and you know it won’t heal until seven months have passed and you can see the soft smile that graces his face when you tease him just right again. “You just have to give me some time to come to terms with it.” You pace across the too big room and settle on the bed, not bothering to iron out the wrinkles that crease along the covers, allowing the fabric to crumple and bend as you bring your eyes up to the only person you’ve ever trusted.
“I will miss you. Terribly.” You can’t help the chuckle that escapes your mouth, however wet and broken it might be. He always seemed to know what to say with you, the knowledge passed on from sneaking out to dim-lit libraries and late night conversations leading to not only befriending you but knowing you. It shows in the soft sparkle in his eyes as he looks at you, a maimed smile stretched across his lips that melts into a grimace when you stand to hug him.
“And I as well, ‘Kaashi.” It’s muffled into his shoulder. You can feel the ruffles across the cuffs of his blouse brush against your back as he hugs you tighter, almost trying to memorize the feeling. You know you will both walk out with puffy eyes and tear stained clothing, but you can’t find it in yourself to care as you try to dig yourself deeper into his embrace, to feel as close as you can before you won’t be able to anymore.
“So who’s this replacement supposed to be? I need to know so I can avoid him.” You can feel his laughter echo from his chest to yours, the reverb bouncing through your body and settling you all at once.
“I think he will be quite difficult to avoid. He is someone I trust, and I know he will be there for you.” You hear his words, and you want to imagine living in a place where you can put that trust in someone, to meet someone and not pick out the flaws and imperfections, to see all the things they are with vulnerability and not judgement. This castle is shiny and tacky all at once, and you’ve learned to shield your eyes from views laced with fake gold. It isn’t worth the fantasy of pricelessness.
“There for me? Sure until he sees something brighter on the other side of the courtroom, then he’ll be out in mere moments.” Akaashi sighs and untangles himself from you, staring down in an almost disappointed, but not surprised, expression. How could he be surprised when he was there for the backstabbing and fake smiles and honeyed words laced with arsenic fed to you until you refused to eat anymore.
“Would you like to wager?” You throw him a confused look, noticing the slight shine to his eyes. The look that he knew something you didn’t. But this was a challenge, and this could get you through the seven arduous months of ghostly footsteps in hallways and lonely libraries. The thought of rubbing a victory in his face when he got back was also just as tempting.
“I’d love nothing more.”
--------
He leaves two days later.
Someone new arrives soon after.
The first thing you notice is that he is big. He is built like a knight rather than a noble, a strength to his movements, and a surety that you have rarely seen in those that surround you. It fills you with a curiosity. Watching through a window of the library you’ve stayed in for the past few days, hiding in a safe haven of memories that can keep you only so content without the one residing in them being beside you.
He is different, broad shoulders and an even broader smile pushing up his cheeks as he greets the party sent to welcome him, and you can’t help but stare through dirt covered panes and the ivy that covers them at the unusualness of it all. This was the one Akaashi trusted to be there for you? He was so open and vulnerable though, and your first assumption is that this is an act. It’s a fake naivete, a foolishness that would only last so long before revealing something deeper. The inevitable unfurling of fangs.
As if feeling a stare, the man’s eyes dart across the lawn, scanning across before looking up to the windows and settling on your figure. You freeze, breath caught in your throat in a vice grip as you lock eyes with him. Even through the window you can see golden irises looking at you with as much curiosity as you feel for him.
He smiles. A wave follows not soon after, instinctual and happy as he looks up at you, and the strangeness of it all tugs the small wave from your arm before you duck down and quickly walk to another section of the library. You are so unsure. It raises a feeling of discomfort in you as you finally sit down in a different corner of the library, far away from any windows or knightly nobles.
It didn’t appear as though he thought anything of you looking down to greet him. He almost seemed…. Excited? Almost childishly happy for the attention you gave him, a complete stranger, and it continues to bother you until you realize that you would eventually have to speak with him, and that confusion leads to intimidation.
This was not at all the man who you would think Akaashi would send to help you.
You manage to avoid him for the better part of the day, but peeking down hallway corridors and avoiding crowded spaces can only get you so far before you eventually feel a tap on your shoulder as you take your place to sit at the large marble table in the center of the castle. You hated court sessions, but you also hate the fact that this new stranger was tapping your shoulder from the same seat Akaashi sat in.
“Hello! It’s a pleasure to meet you, would you happen to be friends with a man named Akaashi?” He greets you warmly, so warmly in fact that you can’t do anything but stare at him in confusion until eventually he drops his arm in concern.
“Did I get the seats mixed up? Akaashi told me that whoever the person was sitting to the right of his seat was his friend, but I might’ve gotten it wrong I’m really sorry-” You watch him ramble for a few moments, and try to decipher what this could possibly mean. Was it a ploy to get on your good side?
“You didn’t get it wrong. I am Akaashi’s friend. I presume you are the man sent to… replace him, while he is gone?” You speak as coolly and calmly as you can, and despite the height difference you see him deflate the smallest bit at your tone.
“Ah! Good! Okay that’s reassuring,” He pushes his seat in more, the legs scraping across the marbled floor with a small squeak as he mutters to himself, "I was almost sure I got it wrong.”
“My name is Bokuto Koutarou, and I’ll be here to ensure your safety while Akaashi is gone.” Hearing that fills you with confidence. You had assessed him properly the first time you saw him.
“You’re a knight? That makes a little more sense-”
You hear a smothered laugh, and look up to see him covering his mouth with his hand. Noticing your incredulous stare he snickers one more time before uncovering his mouth to reveal the shark toothed grin underneath it.
“I’m so sorry, but why does everyone think I’m a knight? If you're looking for a knight in my family, that would be my sister, but I am usually a court advisor.” You can barely manage to cover the surprised look on your face before you smother it. He was a court advisor? How could you have been so far off? The only court advisor you had ever met could barely be considered a person with the fangs they bared in every sneer and subjugating remark they threw.
From what he has shown he was nothing like that, and you didn’t know what to do. It made you nervous.
“Alright then. If you’re such an amazing court advisor that even Akaashi trusts you, what can you tell me about the people sitting here right now?” You motion your hand to the numerous others sitting down preparing for today's council session, and Bokuto’s eyes follow your hand as you point throughout the room.
“I couldn’t tell you that right now, my main focus for today is to sit and watch the meeting. Once I do that, I can start to figure out who each person is and how they act.”
“So you aren’t quite good at your job then, huh? Aren’t court advisors supposed to be able to look in a room and have everyone “figured out” right away.” You motion your hands in air quotes as you look back at him with a smirk, and he gives you a wide smile before leaning closer.
“Nope! I’m actually great at my job, but this is just how I do things. Any court advisor can say they know everything about each person in the room when they walk in, but it’s usually a lie unless they’ve already acclimated themselves with the place.”
That makes you lean back, and turn silent as you turn your direction to the suddenly very interesting grooves in the table. You aren’t sure what confused you more, the honest response, or the way he completely ignored your jab like it was nothing. It didn’t feel like you were winning this exchange, but the even stranger part was that it didn’t feel like he was winning either. It was just… small talk.
You didn’t speak to him for the rest of the meeting, and he seemed just fine with that, as his focus was more so on each member who spoke. His eyes darted across each courtier's face, tapping his finger quickly on the table, almost mouthing the words they spoke with each breath he took. He didn’t just focus on their words, he was in them, and you started to realize by the end of the meeting when everyone left and he stayed behind for a few minutes that he wasn’t kidding when he said he was good at his job.
---------
It is three days later that he manages to catch you outside of a courtroom laced with eyes calculating each of your moves, and you aren’t quite sure what to think as you hear him call your name from down the hallway.
“I need to speak with you privately for a moment.” The sentence should fill you with dread, but instead you feel a sick sense of relief curl up inside of your chest. This was the moment you were waiting for after all, the moment just before the fall, and knowing there will be no one there to catch you. You wondered what it would be this time. What you didn’t like was the small feeling of sadness that snuck into your chest as well as the relief.
“Of course.” You don’t turn around, and you assume he understands to follow you as you hear his assured heavy footfalls against the floor continue again after a few seconds of pause.
You feel the door slip through your fingertips as you step inside of the library, and you can hear Bokuto catch the door with his own hand before coming inside as well.
“So.” You swallow. “What is it?” You almost wanted to brace yourself, but you knew that it wouldn’t change a thing in the end. A pain once felt never quite goes away even if you try to forget the sting.
“The Treasurer has been taking the money that is supposed to be going to the servants in the castle.” If you weren’t so shocked, you would have found it humorous how you have felt more taken aback and surprised in these past few days than you have in years, but that didn’t change the furrowing of your brow.
“What?”
“The Treasurer? The man sitting in the seat directly besi-” You shake your head.
“I knew who that is, and it is already well known that he has been taking money. The only problem is th-”
“He struck a deal with the Chancellor. I know that. I also know that the deal fell through and that he is no longer protected.” You look at him, the determined set of his jaw and fire dancing through his eyes and you come to the sudden thought that maybe Bokuto was created to take you off guard.
“How do you know that?”
“I just know. But I need you to back me up if he tries to challenge the claim.”
“Why me?” The question is blurted out quickly. And you can see a small smile tug at the edges of his lips.
“Because you are Akaashi’s friend, and because I trust you.” You bark out a small laugh.
“Why would you trust me? I have avoided you as much as I can and when we have spoken I have been nothing but cold to you.”
“Because your reaction to me coming here was the only genuine one I’ve seen the entire time I have been here so far. Everyone else was all smiles and ‘it’s so nice to meet you!’” His voice grows in pitch as his smile turns wider when he points a finger at you. “But you were the only person who was honest about how they felt when I came here. Even if that honestly was avoiding me like the plague and disliking me.” His grin lowers a bit as he laughs, hand scratching the back of his neck almost involuntary. “And also because if Akaashi likes you then that means I like you.”
You weren’t quite sure how to respond to that. You came in here with a sword at your throat only to discover that it was never there to begin with. A phantom of times past waved away with a simple smile and golden eyes. It made you want to laugh, but you weren’t sure if it was humor or hysteria clogging your windpipe.
His eyes soften at your confusion, and he reaches out, hesitant with his hand as it lands on your shoulder. “You don’t have to trust me yet, and I don’t want you to force yourself to, but maybe we could call this a ‘maybe you don’t hate me’ start?”
You blink away the tears in your eyes as you begin to calm down, and you look up to see him waiting with just the smallest bit of hope on his face, and you think he might be trying to hide it. He’s bad at it. It makes you smile.
“Maybe I don’t hate you, starting now.”
The grin that you are rewarded with dulls the fear that sentence forced you to face.
-------
The Treasurer quickly crumbled when faced with the quick way Bokuto walked in the next day. It was almost comical the switch from the easy-going attitude fades into seriousness as he describes how servants he went to described the slow loss of money throughout the last few months, to the point where some even reported having not even been paid in the last month. Although you stepped in to corroborate his statements, there was no need, as everyone in the council quickly turned against him.
When you later asked Bokuto how he knew while giving him a proper tour of the castle (he mentioned getting lost several times, and the thought of him asking some of the more skittish maids like Yachi for directions has had you smiling for most of the tour) and he all too willing to explain.
“I just had a feeling. He seemed much more cautious at the last two meetings than he was at the first. He was brazen and bold one day, and reserved and hardly speaking the next, almost trying not to draw attention to himself. Almost like….” He tosses a grin your way, "He didn’t have that nice protection anymore.” Hearing him describe it makes it all seem so easy to spot, from his chipper demeanor down to the way he even made it sound. Like child’s play.
“You make it sound so simple, I feel stupid for not seeing it.” He shakes his head quickly, eyes widening as he turns to face you fully.
“You’re definitely not stupid! It’s just… Most courtiers are so busy putting up their own walls and hiding expressions, they fail to see the cracks in others' defenses. Isn’t it easier to see when you don’t have to scale a mountain to get a clear view?” He says it all gently, and you see that he hasn’t just been reading the others in the meetings as he studies.
“Sometimes a mountain hides a dragon.”
His expression softens.
“And sometimes it doesn’t.”
You go to sleep that night feeling conflicted, because you know that he saw your walls from the first day he met you, and you can feel scratch marks of someone trying to get through when your tired hands graze across their surface.
--------
You start to speak to him more often after that day. It makes you feel almost guilty at the way his eyes light up when you stop to wait for him in the hallway, or invite him to sit with you in the library, as if he can’t quite believe it each time.
It becomes more comfortable, more easy, and you find yourself slowly wrapping your own hands around the bricks you layered on top of each other beside his own. Maybe some walls can come down with the right push.
You can feel a small tap against your shoulder, and you look over to glance at Bokuto with a look so laughably upset that it takes a strength you didn’t know you possessed not to laugh.
“Do they really do this at every meeting? I thought you were kidding before.” You spare a glance to the two bickering, Kuroo and Daishou had never been on good terms with each other from the moment they joined the council’s inner circle, and that certainly hasn’t changed with time.
“Sometimes they like to spice it up. They argue before the meeting and just sit glaring at each other for an hour until they leave to go argue alone.” You turn your head back to face the two arguing about something you aren’t even sure you can decipher at this point, hearing the grumbling sigh as Bokuto lays his head on the table.
You lift your hand underneath the table to pat him gently on the knee. “They’ll be done soon, and after that, we can go to either the gardens you like so much, or the library.”
You can see his hair practically rise back up from how quickly his demeanor shifts, eyes crinkling as he smiles at you. “We can go to the library afterwards!” His voice echoes across the chamber, and he quickly ducks his head down from the withering glares he receives in return from the bickering men sitting in their chairs. You suppress a small chuckle at the sheepish look on his face.
You feel like you have gotten a better read on Bokuto from how much time you have spent with him, and despite being fantastic at his job as a royal advisor, a point that he doesn’t hesitate to state often, he is much louder than many of the other courtiers seated around you. Including yourself. You think that if you didn’t know Bokuto you might find it childish, or a show of arrogance, but seeing it now draws a fond smile to your face.
When the meeting adjourned he practically shot out from his seat quickly walking towards the west wing where the library was located. You had to almost sprint behind him in order to catch up, his fast pace paired with much longer legs always made it difficult to keep up with him when he was on a mission.
“Slow down! If I had a coin for every time you have almost left me behind in these hallways I could pay someone to carry me to your destination.” You grumble as he slows down, laughing and extending his hand to you.
“Can that someone be me?” You eye his hand skeptically.
“That depends, how much money are you charging?”
“Oh for many my services are much too expensive, but for you?” His eyes swim with mirth as he motions for you to come closer. “Free of charge.”
------------
“Have you ever heard the story of Achilles?” He tilts his head to the side, balanced on the palm of one hand as he looks at you curiously. You are both sitting in armchairs over by the window overlooking the entrance to the castle, a book in your hands as he sits relaxed in his own seat, content to simply watch you read.
”No. Could you tell me?” You smiled, glad to have someone interested and willing to hear you talk about something you enjoy. No matter how much you adore Akaashi, he has read each book you reached for in the library you’ve raised yourself inside, but now you have a captive audience. And he has never heard the story before.
“Achilles and Patroclus were lovers, and when Patroclus died in battle, Achilles flew into a rage, and killed Hector, one of the great warriors on the Trojan side of the war, desecrated his body, and disrespected the gods.”
“Didn’t he know not to do that?”
“Yes, that was the point.”
“Hm?” His bright eyes flashed in confusion.
“He wanted to die”, you speak softly, whispering words wrapped in pity for a man you’ve known only on ink stained pages. “Because after Patroclus was gone the only thing he wanted to do was be killed so he could be reunited with Patroclus in Elysium.”
Silence seeps in from the corners of the room before you feel a question hang in the air.
“What do you think Elysium looks like?” He asks you with a sincere look stretched across his face, and you take a moment to let the surprise wash over you before thinking about the question.
“A library. A quiet library where anyone can see each other, and talk as loud as they want without disturbing anyone else. A library with all of the knowledge of the world, ready for everyone to read and discuss. Oh! And comfortable chairs.” The last part draws a bubbling laughter from his chest, head now cradled in his crossed arms as he leans forward onto the arm of the chair.
“What do you think it would be like?” He thinks for a bit, nose scrunched as he concentrates in a way that brings a soft smile to your lips. You see golden irises lock onto yours as he finds his answer.
“I think it would be a field. A great, big field that stretched forever, and had every flower, even the ones that bloom in different seasons, all together at once. I think it would be warm, and I think there would be very comfortable chairs.” He grins at you when you laugh, face shining with pride. You nod sagely, about to say you agree to disagree, but another question comes forward once again, albeit more apprehensively.
“Do you think they are happy?”
You almost tell him it’s a myth, that there is almost no chance that those two men truly existed in any world other than fiction, but then you look at him, rays of sun streaming through the window as bright, technicolored beams shine across the side of his face as he looks at you in a way you don’t think anyone has before. Like he really sees you, even without years of time to get there. You don’t know why that grabs a feeling in your chest that you didn’t know was there.
“I think so.”
You think you can smell flowers when you leave the room later that night.
-------
You tried to avoid him after that moment. You were fine letting a wall down in front of him for now, but there is something else that has slipped through the cracks that you did not anticipate. You have read about it from many different perspectives and genres, but you know it always comes with vulnerability. And you aren’t sure that’s a vulnerability you are willing to spare yet.
But it’s hard to avoid him again when he has become such a fixture in your life now. Almost five months have passed and it feels wrong not to hear his laughter in your ear as you walk through the hallways, or have his comfort and quiet curiosity as he asks you questions in the library. Now you have two ghosts in your life, and you aren’t sure you can handle it.
It also hurts when he notices, the resignation in his form palpable as you see him in the seat next to yours, or when he allows you to leave without a word.
You break all too easily when he asks to see you in the gardens that day. He had discovered them a few weeks back, and had dragged you along to explore every inch of them for two days straight, but it was his favorite place in the castle, and it quickly became your second favorite as well. Despite having memorized their sprawling hedges long ago, you can’t help but smile even as you glance at them now, having filled them with memories of turning pages and whispered conversations.
“Why do you keep on avoiding me?” The question punches you across the jaw, not sparing any mercy as he looks at you with hurt streaked across his features.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You can avoid it. Hide away, stack brick onto brick, mortar laid neatly between the layers as you seal yourself away-
“Please.” Well that just isn’t playing fair.
“I apologize if you believed that was my intent,” you’re praying to any god that might hear you that he can’t register the quiver in your voice as you speak,”but I have been very busy lately, and thus I haven’t been able to spend much time with you.”
“We both know that isn’t true.” He pauses, swallowing as he shifts his gaze from you to the hedges forming the maze surrounding you, the maze that just a week ago you had happily walked through with him in tow, familiar footsteps with a familiar smile.
“Did I do something wrong? If I did, then tell me. I can fix it if I did something wrong, but you need to tell me.”
You are astounded again by just how good he is. An innocent push sends you stumbling, and a naïve question has you gasping for air as you look at him desperately.
“No! You’ve done nothing to me, trust me you have done absolutely nothing I just…. I have to have some space for a while, nothing more.” You hate the way your heart flutters as he looks at you concerned, at the way he reaches out to lay a hand on your shoulder. At how it sends you spinning.
“Are you okay? You can speak to me if you need to, you know I will always be here, but if you wish to do this on your own, I will still be here waiting.” He pulls away, and a part of you screams at the loss. He is going to walk away, you will have pushed him away. Isn’t this what you wanted? But why doesn’t it feel good? He is trying to give you the space you say you want and yet the feeling of his hand on your shoulder gives the first glimpse of peace you have had in one week. The feeling makes you weak, and you quickly shut your eyes.
“Our relationship.” He turns around, eyes wide as he looks at you.
“Our what?”
“Our relationship. I like what we have, and I like the way we are with each other but….” You trail off, words caught in your throat as you try to speak, but the courage you gained from the fear that guided you to speak in the first place has dried up before you could finish.
“But what?” He speaks softly as he turns around fully, broad shouldered and spiked hair just like he looked the first time you saw him, only more confused but no less beautiful.
“But…. I can’t say what I’m trying to say,” It draws a frustrated breath from you as you run a hand through your hair exasperatedly. “I-I want to tell you, but I-” You look at him pleadingly, begging him to understand.
He looks at you for a moment, eyes shifting from confusion to focus as he looks at your panicked form, palms sweaty and outstretched as you gesture for him to unlock your voice from the proverbial trap you’ve led it to. There’s a moment of puzzlement. Before understanding.
“You like what we have, but….” He glances at me once more, "You want more.” You cannot breathe, simply staring at him as he looks at you with an expression you wish you could read as he could read you, but it remains an enigma even as he inches closer.
“Would you want that? To be more?”
A desperate part of your heart you’d thought you had smothered successfully in the panic just before dashed to the edges of your chest. Pounding incessantly in reply.
“I don’t know. I’m scared.”
“Well why are you scared?.” This is the moment when you realize that Bokuto is more like Akaashi than you previously thought, simply analytical and thoughtful at precise moments rather than showing that pensive side all of the time. A hidden ace in a deck of cards.
“You’re the one good thing I’ve ever had, and I’m so scared of ruining it.”
“What about Akaashi?”
“He is also goo-”
“You haven’t hurt Akaashi, have you?”
“Well no-”
“Then what makes you think you’ll ever hurt me?” There’s an amused exasperation in his words, an affectionate swirl of yellow dancing through his eyes as he looks at you.
“I don’t know? Fear? That you won’t like the burden of being around me. That it will be too much. Too heavy.” You can feel yourself clam up, and you grasp at threads of your dress. A hand goes to untangle your fingers as he laces them with his. You don’t raise your head, scared that if you look at him you will shatter just as easily as you did as a child with a softer heart.
“Even if it was a burden, that does not mean it isn’t worth carrying. And I will carry anything you are willing to give me. Whether it be your sadness, your happiness, or your heart.”
Fear wraps around your throat as you realize you want to give it to him. A map of jagged edges and sharp scraps, of thorn bushes that prickle your skin and deep into your open ribcage with whispers of doubt and contempt for those around you. You want to show him everything and that is the most terrifying thing you’ve ever come across in this castle.
Your heart is crumpled and small and tired but it is his if he only asks.
And he did ask.
“I will only oblige if you let me carry yours as well.” It’s uttered in one shaky breath you finally released from your throat. Nervous and scared, but with a wisp of hope cradling your words as you finally manage to look up and meet the gaze of the gold eyes you slowly fell in love with. You almost want to laugh at yourself in your foolishness, that you ever thought for a moment they could be fake, when their brilliance outshines even the gaudiest of jewels a noble might showcase.
He laughs breathlessly and squeezes your hand in his own, as one reaches to cup your cheek with a tenderness you don’t think you’ve ever known. “You have held it in your grasp the moment I waved to you behind a dirty windowpane.”
You’re stunned. Drunk on the euphoria of happiness, dazed from the joy of you’ve never felt, and you can feel a shocked laugh bubble through your chest until it bursts out in a flurry of giggles. Your own abandoned hand finds the crinkle next to his eye as he smiles at you. You stand up, throwing yourself at him and trusting him to catch you.
The familiar feeling of arms encircling you as he tugs you ever closer, as if there will always be too much space separating you from each other. You feel the world spin as he twirls you both around, and you feel a dizziness creep up on you, but you don’t think you care when you can feel yourself soar for the first time in your life in a garden of flowers. You remember your conversation in the library as he sets you down and you lift yourself as high as you can as he leans down to catch your words.
“I think you were right. It is filled with flowers.”
---------
There are only three more days until Akaashi comes back, and you can tell it weighs on Bokuto’s mind as he writes letter after letter to him, figuring out a permanent seat for himself, as well as lodgings inside of the castle with the council as he begins to place his roots down carefully in your home. He almost always comes to bed late, hands stained with ink, and shoulders slouched from leaning forward, but always with a smile.
This time you find him in a tucked away corner in the farthest wing from your room, too focused on the scratching of a pen to paper to notice you slip through the door until he feels a hand ghost across his shoulder. He sighs as he looks to face you with a sheepish smile.
“How did you find me?”
“I was tired, and wanted to find you. So I did.”
“Did you even look anywhere else?” The smile that slowly stretches across your face answers his question as he groans and pulls the chair back to truly face you.
"Even in a room full of thousands I could still find you"
“Because I’m tall?” You couldn’t stop the fond smile stretching across your lips even if you tried, and you cup his cheek as he looks at you with nothing but adoration swimming in an iridescent gold.
“Because you’re you,” you laugh softly, and you watch his face light up, as though all he ever wants is to hear you laugh, “And I will never find anyone as wonderfully brilliant as you.”
“And you’d be able to find me?”
“Always.”
He laughs giddily as he tugs you closer, practically laying on top of each other in the chair you squeezed yourselves in. It has never felt more comfortable.
“Please, let’s go to bed.” He sighs as he melts at your words, already beginning to stand, but not without taking you with him with a laugh at your noise of surprise.
--------
Your filled with a sick sense of anticipation as you retire to your bed for the night, already dreading the smile that will spread across Akaashi’s face when he sees Bokuto’s hand clasped tightly in yours (a habit you would not even begin to think of admonishing him for), and the amount of paperwork you will have to endure for weeks.
But then you feel two arms encircle your waist, and suddenly the punishment seems like a small, trivial thing when compared to what you have gained from losing. A friend, someone who you care for and who will care for you, and trust even in a sea of doubt.
The thought makes you smile as you drift to sleep. Maybe some wagers are worth losing.
love for the rich and emotionally stunted: a comprehensive guide
ch. 2/7 -- prev. -- next.
pairing: jumin han x f!reader
warnings: n/a
series summary: in the months following the incident with his father's most recent paramour, glam choi, the corporate heir of C&R finds himself discovering exactly what it is that makes a person in love so blind.
ao3 link
note: sticking a read more right at the beginning. u kno how it is. thank you for sticking around i'll try my best to keep updates within a week or so!
(weeks prior.)
Jumin Han has entered the chatroom.
Jumin Han
She talked to me today.
ZEN
??
Who?
707
She??
There’s a she?!
Jumin Han
Oh.
I must have neglected to mention it.
ZEN
????
Last time there was a “she”...
Jumin Han
… No.
There’s a woman at my office.
Jaehee Kang
Does she work for you?
Jumin Han
Yes
707
That took an awfully long time for you to type lolol
Are you sure~~
Jumin Han
Yes. She wears a lanyard.
Jaehee Kang
Do you not know her name??
Jumin Han
I should think it would seem impolite after… all that.
Jaehee Kang
???
ZEN
?????
All that WHAT?
Jumin Han
I only caught a glimpse of her lanyard. I don’t know.
ZEN
Dodged my question… T_T
Jaehee Kang
Is this that woman you see in the mornings?
Jumin Han
How did you ....
ZEN
?!?!
707
Is our Jumin finally getting some?!
I’m so proud. Haha T_T
Jumin Han
Getting some… what?
Jaehee Kang
I can look into her.
For research purposes. Of course^^
Jumin Han
;;;
I only just started seeing her this month.
At the door. Seeing her at the door.
707
Seeing her OTL
Maybe she’s your future lover come to save you^^
Jumin Han
I doubt that.
ZEN
Yeah lolol
I doubt it too
And right after the Choi thing?? No way.
707
T_T
Ur right
There’s no way...
-
“Do you play video games, Mr Han?”
That’s a new one. “Where would I find the time?” He asks, thinking of Yoosung. “It’s a useless hobby.”
“That was a quick answer,” you reply. “Who hurt you?”
Jumin raises a brow, inquisitive. “No one.”
“Okay,” you say, the beginnings of a grin playing on your lips. “Who ruined video games for you?”
He thinks of the dark smudges under Yoosung’s eyes, the awful typos and the messages at 3am. It’s only a little funny. The door closes behind them. “No one in particular.”
“You’re smiling, Mr Han. Just a little.” You smile too at this, tilting your head in that curious way of yours. When you reach the lobby and then your separate ways, Jumin spares a glance at you.
He wants to say something more, something lodged very deep in his throat that comes out dry breath. He’s never been too good at small-talk, not with colleagues, not with business outside of work. He wants to be, just a little.
He’s not quite sure how that came to be.
-
It’s beyond embarrassing the way he comes up to you in the cafeteria. “You work here,” he says, a very belated realization.
You blink a few times, as if processing. “Yes,” you say slowly. “I have a lanyard.” You wave the offending item around and Jumin finally, finally catches a glimpse of your name.
“I see,” Jumin says, because that’s all he really can say. “Work hard.”
He consults his phone right away, willing the heat from his face and opening the messenger app. It goes as well as expected when he mentions it so vaguely-- Hyun rags on him for his lack of conversational skills and Yoosung drops a line or two about his own miserable love life. In any case, Assistant Kang’s information on you had only reached him earlier today and in a way he’s still coping. It had been baffling to say the least, finally having everything in front of him rather than scattered in the bits and pieces of your dialogue.
You work, technically, in the same position Assistant Kang does. Only in the fashion department, of which Jumin had strategically ignored after Echo Girl and the Chois. It really isn’t his fault he hadn’t noticed you-- not since before this month when you began arriving so consistently.
“Something on your mind?” Assistant Kang asks, looking up from where she’s shuffling through a stack of papers. It isn’t unusual for her to break the silence with a quip-- she’s always been good at easing into a mode of conversation that takes the edge off. As a good assistant and employee should, of course. Jumin wonders if he should relay this to her.
“Nothing,” he says instead, because surely she already knows. “Is it polite to bring gifts for someone you’re sure you will be seeing every morning?”
She raises a thin brow. “Who-- that woman at the fashion department?”
Jumin deigns not to answer right away, looking down at the state of his nails and the tick of his wristwatch. “Surely there must be some etiquette about that.”
-
Jaehee Kang
Buy her coffee.
ZEN
Get her a promotion lol
707
A new car!!!
Yoosung★
Maybr a nicce pen
??
-
“Any favorite TV shows?” You ask one morning. “Personally, I’m fond of office romances.”
Jumin lags for a moment, waiting to catch up. It isn’t an unusual occurrence. “Is that an innuendo?”
You smile, a little flushed-looking, and wave a hand. “Nope. Not at all.” When you look at the second coffee in his hand, though, it seems you need a second to catch up yourself. You’d mentioned offhandedly how you take your coffee the day before, and today something had stopped him at the threshold of the coffee shop he stops at every morning. Funny how things work like that.
“This is for you,” he says determinedly, and you smile a little but there’s still an edge.
“You dodged my question.” You state simply. Jumin does not know what to say.
He thinks about it for a moment, really thinks about it. The only thing that really comes to mind are the Sunday morning programs, and he doesn’t really know them off the top of his head. Maybe the morning news. “No TV shows. Next question.”
“Okay then,” you say, “Any pet peeves?”
Jumin smiles a little. It isn’t really conscious, but he’s finally figured out a way to respond and he just hopes it takes well. “Women who stop me at the door in the morning.”
“Oh,” you say, taking a sip of your coffee. You hum appreciatively. He feels strangely, indirectly accomplished. “Shame. Mine’s men who give me three word responses when I ask them things.”
He scoffs, although it isn’t as hard as it usually comes out. “I answered that in a sentence.” He says, very assuredly. When he looks back at you there’s a softer smile at your lips, rounded at the corners and not quite so mischievous as he’s seen it look before. It looks fond.
“I know,” you reply. He feels a little warmer now, turning the corner where you two part ways. You offer him a two-fingered salute, a “See you in the morning!” and a final turn.
And then you’re gone.
-
The next time the conversation lingers long past the lobby it’s because you’ve coaxed him into talking about Elizabeth III. There’s a point where you’ve reached the elevator and he’s talking to you about her care routine and the minutiae of what it takes to keep her fur so soft and pristine (much of it is her own work and her natural beauty-- of course) and he’s only barely aware of how long he’s been going on, but he pauses to look at you. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, between Jaehee’s hesitancy and Luciel’s rabid praise and Hyun’s outright disgust--
But there’s something about the way you’re looking at him when he’s finished, curiouser and half-curved into a smile. And he’s been on the receiving end of that before-- his father’s lovers, interviewers and subordinates-- but none of them have ever seemed so affectionate.
He’s seen the same look before when it’s Jaehee with a new photocard, the way Yoosung danced around Rika. It’s the glint in Luciel’s glasses when he gets to working and it’s something, something.
You look like you’ve seen something beautiful.
Which is understandable to him, really, having just shown you pictures of his Elizabeth III. What he understands less is the way you’re looking at him and not the open phone, caught up in a silence that seems way too heavy for a conversation about his cat. Even when the elevator dings it’s with some trepidation that you leave first, a memory, a discovery pulled taut between you two.
“I hope I get to meet her sometime,” you say.
Jumin nods, wordless. The delight on your face at such a simple gesture fixates itself in the forefront of his mind until he returns home to Elizabeth, flickering like hell and unbidden and unexpected but not exactly unwelcome. It’s just as confusing to him as it sounds on paper.
-
Somehow Jaehee gets to you first.
For all the time he’s spent working with Jaehee, working around her and in her general proximity, he doesn’t actually know what time she gets into the building. She seems like an inevitability, something constant and fixed and always there.
So when he holds the door open for two women, Jumin is feeling like he had seen something he wasn’t supposed to. Especially since the two of you seem to be chatting so jovially, shaking her hand with both of yours when you go to part.
There’s another something clogging his throat, a cloying want and a halfhearted desire to draw that same laugh from you, that same open brightness. He hasn’t let himself feel so much about one person-- one particular and fixed point in his life. Jumin feels like he’s chasing-- some feeling, some unnamed ball of fire-- a meteor, blazing and brilliant and too much to be real.
It’s too much to be compared to anything else, not when Sarah Choi was an unlit match next to what a beaming bonfire you are. Suddenly Jumin feels more tightly wound than he usually does.
And really, truly, it feels like a lot to handle, so he turns on his heel after silently handing you the coffee and begins to march. It feels like karmic debt for not having experienced these things as a schoolboy, and then only once as an adult. He doesn’t even know if the one time counted.
“Mr Han--” you say, and it happens at the same time he holds his breath to turn again. Just to look, to see if you appeared as off kilter as he felt. Maybe the world had rotated wrong today.
You stop there in your tracks and he really does believe for a moment that the world has gone astray-- because then it would explain the way air isn’t getting to his lungs right. He inhales just to make sure and before any other dialogue comes from your lips he asks, “Walk with me?”
You both take the elevator then.
-
Jaehee Kang
She’s a very nice woman.
Yoosung★
Huh?
707
U met her?!?!!
Tell me everything
-
It makes your mornings longer, the introduction of the elevator route. He isn’t sure how it became mutual agreement and routine, the same way the cup of coffee steams in your hands and the way you ask after Elizabeth III. The way the door gets held open.
Jumin isn’t sure how many mornings go by, how many of them are spent dreading the chime of the elevator, but one of them brings a much quieter you. And you’re usually such a whirlwind of life, pulling him toward and towards you-- he’d be lying to himself more than usual if he said he wasn’t worried.
You look like you’re steeling yourself too, and you’ve never done that-- there isn’t a thing you’ve said to him that was measured or prepared. You’re kind of like an overexcited puppy, and he’s never been too fond of dogs.
He feels something slide out of place, something like a realization that’s far grander than he knows, hovering at the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t know what it is yet, not really. He’s barely out of his head, ready to ask if you’re alright--
And you cut him off. Like you did that first morning, knocking the breath from his lungs and everything else out of place. Jumin likes things neat and tidy, likes things where they should be, where he’s used to seeing them. You aren’t too good for him, he thinks.
Then you ask, “Would you want to go out sometime?” And he has no reference materials and no forewarning and no prepared response. The odds are against him.
So against all odds and every simmering nerve in his body he says, “Yes.”
love for the rich and emotionally stunted: a comprehensive guide
ch. 1/7 -- prev. -- next.
pairing: jumin han x f!reader
warnings: n/a
series summary: in the months following the incident with his father's most recent paramour, glam choi, the corporate heir of C&R finds himself discovering exactly what it is that makes a person in love so blind.
ao3 link
note: office romance slowburn. featuring hallmark tropes and bad flirting. enjoy the ride. hop into my inbox for a tag if you're interested though! kiss kiss.
-
You don’t mean for it to happen the first time.
Considering the state of your routine and your general efficiency (required when it comes to a job at C&R) it’s easy to say that showing up early is an ingrained habit. It had happened a few times too many when you’d first started working and just sort of stuck. However.
It’s thirty minutes past schedule when you wake up in a state of panic, rushing and grabbing for clothes and keys and wallet before stumbling out the door.
But for as much as you’d worried, it all turns out fine. You’re still on time, a nice man holds the door open for you--you don’t think you’ve seen him before, or maybe you’re so distressed your brain doesn’t recognize the face--and there aren’t any consequences. You don’t get yelled at. You aren’t behind. Really, you should have overslept more often.
So the next day you set your alarm a little later than usual and allow yourself to sleep. It goes much smoother than the day before and you still make it on time, looking much better than you had 24 hours prior. The same man--you think-- holds the door open for you, and you glance back to smile and thank him.
Except you really must have been too stressed to notice because the man you’re staring at is the executive director and immediate heir to C&R.
Your smile falls.
And then you choke out a noise of gratitude that’s supposed to sound like “Thanks,” but the shock in your voice turns it to audible mush. Mr. Han only hums in return and walks past you with all the dignity and poise of a seasoned Calvin Klein model. Your heart hammers with a startling lucidity at the surprise of it all but it isn’t anything that you think much of, so you make it back to your desk on time and it’s all fine, it’s all fine. It isn’t until about an hour later that you realize it’s probably the first time you’ve seen him so close in person.
Not that it matters, of course, but then it does - because it happens again.
And again, and again.
The routine continues for about a week: the “thank you,” the hum of a response, and no further conversation besides that at the door. You’ve gotten to catch longer glimpses of him as this routine has gone on, the shine of his hair, this grey of his eyes, but there’s something that intrigues you infinitely more. You haven’t gotten him to smile and it nags at you, incessant. So you’re determined to do it now.
You crack a joke about his consistency the next time you see him, a smile playing coy at your lips. He just hums again. Killjoy.
“What?”
“What?” You ask, turning on your heel. His voice is much deeper than in the press interviews.
“Were you calling me a killjoy?”
“Not intentionally, no.” You quip back, face feeling hot. You turn again and begin walking back, nursing the humiliation you can already feel pricking at your nerves. “Have a nice day, Mr. Han.”
You think he says something like “You too,” but you wouldn’t notice it over the rush in your ears.
That went well.
-
Another day passes, another routine, rinse and repeat. He doesn’t seem bothered by yesterday’s incident, so you’re planning to talk to him again tomorrow, just to give it a day in between. It’s going to get annoying soon, but he’s neither fired nor closed the door in your face so in all situations, it really is a win-win.
Jumin Han opens the door for you, wordlessly as ever. You spare a glance at him.
“I’d considered arriving late just to get a reaction out of you, and then I realized that I wouldn’t even be there to see it.” You quirk your head in wait, watching as the corners of his lips twitch into an unwitting smile.
Mirth is very becoming on him, you realize. Oh no.
“I’m sure it would be quite the sight, Miss.” He replies, that same almost-smile creasing a dimple into his cheek. When he nods his good morning and walks off to the tippity-top of the C&R building, all the office lights seem a little brighter in the wake.
You shake yourself from your musings and an intern is already brushing past you in their hurry to return to their place-- wherever that may be, and it reminds you to do the same. C&R International, with all its focus on exports, has a wide breadth when it comes to fashion. Having directed several of its projects, you know this firsthand. You also know that when your schedule isn’t filled to the brim, everything else seems like busywork.
For the first time in a few months you feel like a regular, 9-to-5 office worker.
Additionally, this means that you’ve returned to being hyped up on watery coffee all the time. The building’s cafeteria is a modern marvel in and of itself, overpriced as its food may be. Your break is just long enough for you to catch two-thirds of a meal and a conversation if the mood strikes, otherwise a whole meal and a moment to catch up on social media. Having just passed the two-thirds-meal mark, you’re surprised to see someone else approaching your seat.
Funnily, horribly enough, it’s Mr Han himself, who’s looking at you with the same unbidden curiosity that a child might grant a particularly fascinating caterpillar.
“You work here,” he says, without greeting. It’s an innocent enough statement.
Did he not know? That you work here? Was he under the impression that you’d just started showing up for his own personal amusement and one-sided banter at the beginning of the month?
“Uh,” you say. “Yes.”
He blinks at you. You think for a moment that he might fire you on the spot. You don’t know why.
“I have a lanyard,” you say dumbly, holding it up. You wave it around a little. Mr Han nods, looking professional as ever. “I see,” he says. “Work hard.” And then he leaves, Italian leather on polished marble and all. You still need to finish the rest of your salad.
-
It’s almost ironic, the fact that you arrive late the next day.
After the strange half-encounter with Mr. Han, you’ve given yourself a moment of contemplation. Surely if the man hadn’t given a second thought to you besides your shared mornings-- not even a minute, besides-- then there wouldn’t be any point in pursuing him any further. He hadn’t even realized you worked there, not really.
Office romances never work out, anyhow.
You don’t even know if it was an office romance that you were pursuing in the first place. Perhaps it would have been nice, just to have another friend at work. Not that you were lacking, only that everyone had already seemed to settle in their routines and you’d been so busy, and well. Some things work out that way, and it’s not like you’re awful at small talk.
You’re running to the door of the office building, shoes clacking noisily against the pavement. You have to open the door for yourself this time.
“I thought you were kidding about arriving late to see my reaction.”
You think your neck just about cracks with the speed you turn to the noise. Mr Han stands not two meters from you, head tilted curiously in that same innocent wonder. He looks sort of sheepish, though you can’t quite figure why.
“I’m, uh--” You stare at him then, really take him in. Nothing comes. “I’m late for work.”
His eyes widen a fraction. And then he starts chuckling, softly, and it’s petrichor after rain, a deep tenor from low in his throat that has you suddenly, instantly warm. It isn’t much, not really.
But then you start laughing too, familiar and gleeful and it’s almost like you weren’t having a deep monologue about him that spanned most of last night. When you meet his eyes again, warm like the earth, it’s enough to boil hope in you, sunlight spilling over.
You don’t know for what yet, but you figure it’s something you’d like to find out.
snowghoul
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