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“I think you’ll like this one, Heenim.”
Heechul considers the man in front of him and then turns to his assistant. “Henry”, his tone friendly, Heechul beckons his assistant closer. Henry leans his head in and Heechul snatches the clipboard out of his hand to whack him on the head with it. Henry yelps and clutches at his head, trying to back away but Heechul grips his tie and pulls him close so Heechul can hiss in his ear, “I said hung like a horse, not face like a horse.”
The man in front of them shifts from foot to foot and frowns slightly. Apparently Heechul wasn’t as quiet as he thought. Oops.
Heechul glances at the clipboard and pastes something like a smile on his face. “Siwon, was it? Thank you for your time, you may go.”
Siwon frowns a little harder and goes to say something, but Henry’s suddenly remembered his job and is ushering him out before he can see the bitch no expression on Heechul’s face.
When Henry returns, Heechul is slumped in one of his throne-like chairs by the office window with a hand dramatically covering his face. Heechul drops his hand when Henry comes to stand in front of him and glares up at him through the curtain of his long black hair. “Please tell me you have someone, anyone, better than horse face?”
Henry winces and makes a note to send out apology gift bags to all the men his boss has rejected today, if only to try to salvage his boss’s reputation. He hears Heechul muttering something about it was a joke anyway and maybe a porn star? and hastily interrupts. “I have a few more, hyungnim, but they’re full Chinese. Speak limited to no Korean...”
Heechul sighs dramatically and roles his eyes to the ceiling. “Henry. We have 5 hours to find an acceptably handsome man to pretend to be my boyfriend and teach him everything he needs to know about me and etiquette so that I can attend my own party. At this point I may as well call the whole thing off!”
Henry thinks of all the months of work and all the extra hours he put into planning Heechul’s party and dies quietly inside. “Heenim, please, no! Don’t worry, we’ll find someone. Stay right there, I’ll be right back!” He waves his hands down, palms flat, like he’s trying to tell a plane to land, and dashes out the door.
Heechul sits up long enough to shout after Henry, “And bring a martini back with you!” before slumping back down into his seat. “Heebummie”, he groans at the ceiling, “come console your master, you bastard.” He leans up to look over at the cat in question. The black panther regards him for a moment before flicking his ear and laying his head back down on his large gold cushion.
“Bastard,” Heechul mutters and hoists himself up to go sit at his desk. He sits at his computer and reads five emails from his underlings before Heebum gets up and pads over to lay back down on Heechul feet under the desk. “Bastard”, Heechul says again, fondly this time. He reads another two emails and sends one reprimanding a manager before Henry returns.
His assistant sets a dry martini on the desk and beckons the man hovering by the door closer. “Heenim, this is Zhoumi.” He puts a clipboard on Heechul’s desk with Zhoumi’s information on it.
Heechul glances at it and then looks up at Zhoumi. He’s tall, good-looking, and he has a big, bright smile. Too bright of a smile. Blinding Heechul thinks and hands Henry the clipboard back. “Thank you for coming, Zhoumi, but you’re not quite what I’m looking for,” he says in decent Chinese. Zhoumi’s smile enhances by at least 50 watts and Heechul’s a second away from scrabbling for his pink sunglasses before Zhoumi bows and Henry shows him out.
“Next one, Henry!” Heechul yells and takes a sip of his martini. Heebum huffs his irritation at the noise and settles back down. “You’re heavy, bastard,” Heechul mutters down at him and his knee is flicked by a long black tail.
Henry clears his throat from in front of his desk and Heechul’s head shoots up, startled. His eyes narrow at Henry, “Yah! I told you not to sneak up on me like that!”
Henry ignores him and sets a clipboard on the desk in front of Heechul and gestures to the man standing a few feet behind him. “Heenim, this is Hangeng.”
Heechul focuses on the man in front of him and pauses in surprise. Potential he thinks as he takes in the tall, lean figure, piercing dark eyes, and a serious, handsome face.
He looks down and digs his toes into Heebum’s stomach. “Get up, bastard”, and the panther gets up, growly grumbly and slinks out from under the desk back over to his golden cushion.
Heechul looks back up at Hangeng in time to catch his startled expression and smirks. He gets up and circles around Hangeng before stopping in front of him. He has to tip his chin up slightly to look the chinaman in the eye. “Do you speak Korean?” Heechul asks in Chinese.
“No,” Hangeng answers in Chinese.
Heechul looks back at Henry to see him watching with a mixture of anxiousness and hope. He regards Hangeng again, who stares right back, but he says to Henry in Korean, “you finally found a handsome one.”
“Thank you,” Hangeng says in accented but perfect Korean.
Heechul raises a challenging eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t speak Korean.”
Hangeng smiles his first real smile and Heechul looks him in the eye and an answering smile spreads across his face.
Blinding Heechul thinks.
“You’ll do.”