Chapter Text
Junho was this close to exploding the damn building.
Seriously.
Who knew that the little blunder he caught last Friday was going to turn into the biggest shithole he’s ever seen. It was fucking ludicrous, that’s what it was. Worse still that the issue brought in the rest of the higher ups.
All before his allotted Gihun time.
Hands in his face, Junho allowed himself a little whimper in the safety of his office.
Early morning, no breakfast, three cups of black coffee, and not even a whiff of Gihun rushing by his office door. Usually, the secretary popped in once in a while to say hi, but the mess that manager had left behind was keeping Inho, and by extension, Gihun, busy. Which meant Junho was fucking remiss of the other man.
He whimpered again.
And there were still so. Many. Emails.
That’s it. He was going to die here.
“Mr. Hwang?”
He pooled against the table, face pressed against the cool mahogany. That wasn’t Gihun at his door so he didn’t care.
“Mr. Hwang.”
It was just Noeul.
“... Okay. I’m coming in.”
And that was the image that Noeul walked in on. Hwang Junho, Hwang Inho’s younger brother, CFO of Ink Industries, collapsed on his desk with his nose smushed up against the wood and muttering under his breath about how to best get away with murder.
She sighed, stepping up to the desk and digging her pen into the soft spot on his head. “Sir, please.” She muttered around his pained complaints as Daeho watched in muted horror, “you need to get your act together.”
He pouted up at her. “But Noona,” he whined, “there’s just so much!”
“I’m well aware,” Noeul rolled her eyes. “But Mr. Hwang’s confirmed the meeting at twenty-four-hundred hours so I suggest,” she said none too nicely, “that you sit up straight and start organizing.”
“Twenty-four-hundred hours,” he grumbled, but at least he sat up. “Can’t you talk like a normal person and just say two o’clock?”
“No.”
Junho sighed. “Fair enough.”
Noeul bowed back, face unreadable as she watched him drain his fourth cup of coffee. Wordlessly, she swiped the empty cups into the trash can by his desk. “I’ll have management send up their report soon, they’re just going over some final copies.”
With another sigh, Junho smoothed over his hair. In about three seconds, he went from man in a mid-life crisis to scarily composed Chief Financial Officer. “Please do,” he flicked his fingers to dismiss them. “Thank you for your hard work Noeul-ssi, and thank you again Mr. Kang for the list you sent me earlier, it’s helped narrow a few things down.” He tapped at the folder he’d been previously crying over.
“Of course sir, thank you sir,” the young man nodded nervously. “Mr. Hwang and Hy— Gihun-ssi said the same.”
Just his name was enough to make Junho’s shoulders droop.
Gihun-hyung…
With another, even heavier sigh, Noeul placed her fingers on Daeho’s shoulder and dragged him back. “We’ll leave you to your work, Mr. Hwang, please prepare accordingly for the meeting.”
Chin to his chest, he nodded morosely. “See you, noona.”
It was only his financial controller’s cool demeanor that saved his door hinges from being abused as she shut it tightly behind her.
Left in the silence, Junho begrudgingly pulled himself back together, adjusting his suit and swiping away eraser shavings from earlier. With a few clicks, he pulled up all the information they’d gathered on his computer.
Jang Yunseo. The cause of all this mess. He’d worked with a small team on floor twelve; busy, dedicated, a harsh man that got the job done. That was the general description that his team had written in their notes, along with an aside that despite his cooperation, Yunseo just wasn’t an enthusiastic team player.
Junho double checked the information, highlighting certain lines as he went through. He snorted at a note one of the other managers left in the margins.
Yeah. Not a team player. It seemed that despite their attempts to be close with him, Yunseo rejected and often looked down on their behavior; he had no close friends within the company, no real friends outside of work (as observed by a Ms. Go), a terse relationship with his family (another observation by Ms. Go), and was in general, a real piece of shit.
He shook his head, scrolling through.
But that didn’t explain why he did what he did.
It couldn’t have been the money. As a manager, Jang was paid exceptionally well, not to mention the fact that he didn’t take all of the money for himself. However, there was still a very real chance that the man had a separate account that he was funneling the stolen funds into, or was in debt and that was where the money was going.
Fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose, Junho sighed. But if the funds weren’t being used personally, then where were they going? Could it be blackmail? If so then for how long?
He clicked open another tab, a record of all the times Jang had blamed interns for an allocation mistake. Thankfully it wasn’t that long ago, barely even a month. But that brought up another question. Just how was he getting access to the money in the first place? The obvious scapegoat was through the interns in accounting and investment, but they were assigned specific supervisors to be responsible for them, so how was Jang able to bypass them in the first place?
Were there more moles hidden in the company?
Right hand still scrolling down, he picked up his phone at the first ring with his left. “Hello?”
“Junho-ssi!”
Wincing, he yanked the phone away as Wooseok’s enthusiasm burst through the speaker. He scowled down at the screen and begrudgingly put it back up to his face. “What? What? And isn’t this Kim’s phone? Why are you calling from his phone?”
“Aish, forget that! Listen, it’s about that manager you’re investigating.”
He felt his brow twitch upward. “How’d you know about that?”
“A-ah…” On the other end, the man chuckled sheepishly. “Uh, well, mh, you know how I have contacts in the police because of Kim so…”
After all these years and Wooseok was still a terrible liar.
Abandoning his computer, Junho leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Wooseok?”
“Mhm?”
“How’d you really know about this?”
A smirk pulled at his lips as Wooseok whined through the other end. “Junho-ssi! Please, I’m telling you the truth you know! Honest—!”
“Wooseok,” he muttered warningly.
“Fine! Fine, no need to twist my arm!” The other man cried out, relenting immediately. “Mr. Seong called Kim a while ago and I overheard, okay! That’s all! And besides, I really do have some information that I think you’d like to know.”
Humming, Junho pulled up a separate document. “Thanks for being honest,” he chuckled sarcastically. “Now, what was it?”
Fingers digging deep into his temple, Junho groaned at the notes he’d written down, his phone screen empty with Wooseok off to do his own “investigating.” The information wasn’t much but at least they now had confirmation that Jang Yunseo wasn’t taking the money for himself in any capacity. However, that still kept the question as to where it was going, because now that they knew it wasn’t going into his own pockets or debt, it meant that the money trail was going to be that much harder to find.
Damn. He could feel a headache beginning to bloom right behind his eyes.
With a flick, he checked his watch and scowled at the time. It’d be early, but it’d be better to take his lunch now so he could finish finalizing everything for the meeting. Perhaps he could eat in the cafeteria? Gihun would probably be there, right?
Just the thought of seeing the older man was enough to send Junho rocketing up from his chair.
Watching over the sea of employees that flitted about the floor, Junho stood awkwardly at the end of the line with a full tray in his hands. He didn’t quite think things through. Such as what he should do if Gihun didn’t show up.
“Mr. Hwang?”
Oh thank God.
“Ms. Cho!” He greeted back, relief evident in his voice as the woman walked over. “How are you?”
Hyunju smiled back, curious eyes looking him up and down. “I’m alright, thank you. I wasn’t expecting you to be down here Mr. Hwang.” She gestured behind her with a newly painted thumb. “Would you like to join us?”
He waved away the formalities, they had started around the same time after all. “Junho is fine, Hyunju-ssi, and yeah, if you wouldn’t mind,” he chuckled sheepishly.
She rolled her eyes good naturedly, turning and having him follow behind her like a puppy on a lead. “I did offer, and the same goes for you too, Junho. Just Hyunju is fine.”
“Everyone!” She announced, and several familiar heads turned up to his silent mortification. “We have a very special guest joining us for lunch.”
“Oh my god,” he muttered.
Junhee at least turned politely to laugh into her palm. The others just snickered openly.
Semi pulled out a seat and mimed dusting it off. With an incline of her head she gestured to him with a regal, “your highness,” spilling out of her mouth.
Without saying anything, Junho turned on his heel.
Laughter rang loudly as Hyunju spun him back around by the shoulders and forcibly sat him down at their table. “You can’t escape us,” she intoned ominously.
Maybe, Junho thought to himself, this was a mistake.
“So,” Junhee started off kindly, “did you come down to see if Gihun-ssi was here?”
Or not.
“No,” he lied.
In front of him, Daeho snorted so hard into his rice Junho thought he choked, and the other girls turned to look at him incredulously.
Alright damn.
“Maybe,” he muttered.
“Don’t you already have his number?” Semi pointed her chopsticks. “Just ask him to eat lunch with you.”
“Or you could ask him yourself,” Junhee smiled, a healthy glow around her cheeks. She looked down at her tray, chewing on the inside of her mouth thoughtfully. “Do you think they’ll give me more kimchi? This is really good.”
As one, the four of them pushed her their own side dishes, which she received gratefully.
“No and definitely no,” Junho answered the two girls. Morosely, he stabbed his spoon into his rice and pouted. “I haven’t even seen him once all day!”
Rice halfway to his mouth, his hand froze as all eyebrows shot up. “What?”
Semi grinned, lips pulled mischievously in a way that made Junho shudder. “So you haven’t seen?”
“What?” He looked between them. “Seen what?”
Leaning around his shoulder, Hyunju mimicked the same expression on Semi’s face, which— coming from her— was ten times more terrifying. “Looks like you’re about to find out.”
Oh, there was no damn way he was sticking around for that.
Feeling impending doom hover over his head, Junho shot to his feet as he fumbled with his tray, scattering some food across the table as his so-called friends laughed. Hurriedly, he did his best to correct his mess while cursing them out.
“Ah, seriously,” he glared. “None of you are any help at all! I should get you guys demoted or- or fired! Seriously, I’ll fire you.”
“Really?”
“Really!” He huffed and jabbed a finger in each of their directions, calling out, “fired, fired, fired— maybe not you, Junhee. Because unlike some other people here, you’re an angel and you definitely need to break up with that low-ball bastard M—”
“Junho-ah?”
Junho flinched violently, dropping the napkins he’d been using to wipe up his spilled pork. “Gihun-ssi!” He whirled around, a wide, sheepish smile already plastered to his face that dropped instantly when he saw him.
“Ah, this?” Gihun chuckled nervously, running a hand over his head. “Gayeong got gum stuck in it, so we had to cut it off.”
Thank you Gayeong-ah. Maybe Junho should send her a gift basket.
A small part of him mourned Gihun’s longer hair, but the rest of him was growing more and more in love with the new style every second. It sharpened his already prominent cheekbones and highlighted his jaw, and the tufts that fell across his forehead made Junho want to ruffle them.
And some… other things.
In the muted silence, growing more awkward by the minute, Junho jolted and put forth a strained smile as he fought down the redness rising in the tip of his ears. “It looks good!” He said finally, shaking himself from his awe. “Like, really good! Do you like it?”
Gihun nodded, a shy, relieved smile stretching across his face. “Yeah,” he chuckled, “I might keep it like this for a while. Inho said the same thing.”
“Well, if Inho says so,” Junho snorted fondly with a shake of his head. “But that’s two for two, right? So now you have to keep it,” he teased, and feeling a little daring, he took a step closer and swept gentle fingers through Gihun’s bangs. They were soft, just as soft as he imagined. He glanced into Gihun’s wide eyes, round and dark as they breathed each other’s air.
“It’s good,” he said again, softly. He swept his fingers through it one more time, watching as they settled back in place against the man’s forehead. “I like it.”
Even though he’d put himself in this situation, Junho felt himself grow flustered from the lack of distance between them, so close that he could count every individual eyelash. He couldn’t help himself from taking in the pink blooming across Gihun’s cheeks, or the practically invisible dotting of sun-freckles just over the bridge of his nose, or the bareness of his neck now that his hair couldn’t cover the expanse of skin. It was long and slim; asking to be marked by Junho’s mouth.
What he wouldn’t give to cover that pale neck with kisses, blooming with a heated bruise as they fell into each other. To have him under him, feel him tremble, to swallow down every sound he’d make. It was shameless, the way Junho would put his teeth to Gihun’s neck and fuck him like that, knowing the jump and race of his heartbeat through the flat of his tongue. To make him scream, to make him cry, to make him beg for mo—
Daeho coughed behind him and Junho ripped himself out of the fantasy so quickly it nearly gave him whiplash. Almost immediately, Inho’s disappointed face flashed through his mind— the one his older brother had given him when he found him hiding porn magazines under his bed when he was sixteen.
“Sorry,” Junho muttered, stepping back with a fierce flush racing down his face. “Uh, have you eaten yet, hyung?”
Gihun cleared his throat, eyes flickering down and about, all too nervous to look him in the eyes. “No, not yet,” he admitted. “I was planning to eat after the meeting; I only came down to get more coffee for us.”
It didn’t need to be explicitly stated as to who the ‘us’ in question was, but even knowing that it was Inho who Gihun was talking about didn’t stop the sharp prick of jealousy from piercing Junho through the throat.
Clearing it away, Junho hustled Gihun back to the cafeteria, one hand hovering over the man’s lower back as he resolutely ignored the barely covered snickering happening behind him. “Well, you should eat now! It’s not good to put it off that long, you know. And let’s grab something for Inho-hyung too.”
Gihun snorted but allowed himself to be moved. “It won’t be anything either of us have done before.”
“Still!” He huffed, “seriously, you two should be making better decisions for yourselves.”
“Yah,” Gihun whistled lowly. “When did you get the authority to scold us, huh? Last I checked we were still older than you.”
“With this diet? I doubt it.”