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.
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.”
