Father, Baek Heeu, Kwon Haeil.
It felt like all of them were grabbing invisible strings and shaking him whichever way they pleased.
A voice drained of emotion came out of Kanghyeon’s mouth.
“Will that be enough for you?”
“Hm?”
“If there’s anything else you want, say it. I’ll accommodate you as much as possible.”
The clash between Kanghyeon’s formal tone and the content twisted Haeil’s face into something odd. He looked like he was frowning, confused, and baffled all at once.
“Hey, what are you doing right now?”
“If there are additional things Representative Kwon wants…”
“Hold it, hold it, hold it.”
In a flustered voice, Haeil cut him off.
He squinted one eye, then the other, eyes darting busily.
“Did I say something wrong? No, that’s not it…”
Muttering to himself, Haeil fixed his gaze squarely back on Kanghyeon.
“Like I said before—I didn’t ask Division Head Baek out on a date.”
“…?”
Kanghyeon didn’t immediately understand him. He had clearly said it to him, and yet now he was saying that wasn’t it—what was he talking about?
Then the words Haeil had said earlier resurfaced.
—You know, there’s something I want to ask not Division Head Baek, but Mr. Baek Kanghyeon.
Come to think of it, Haeil had said he was asking “Baek Kanghyeon,” not “Division Head Baek.”
He realized the difference belatedly.
“You must be mistaken about me—I’m not the type to leverage a contract to throw my weight around. Business is business, private is private.”
“…For that, you did say earlier you wanted to put something about me into the contract, didn’t you?”
What Haeil had proposed adding to the contract wasn’t only the dispatch of a project manager, but also language that Division Head Baek Kanghyeon would visit frequently.
Whether to tease or to pull on the person named Baek Kanghyeon, that kind of clause could certainly be considered private. In his personal capacity, he wasn’t in a position to refuse Haeil’s proposal easily; it could very well feel like abuse.
But Haeil sounded perfectly unapologetic about the added term, as if to say why would that be a problem.
“How is that private?”
“You’re saying it isn’t?”
Haeil tilted his head.
“Of course it isn’t. Division Head Baek Kanghyeon is the one who completed a proposal of that caliber.”
At the certainty in Haeil’s voice, Kanghyeon flinched a beat.
There wasn’t a single part of the proposal his hand hadn’t touched.
It was true he had worked on it with many staff from the Finance Management Division, including the Head of Strategic Planning who’d come to the meeting. But it was unmistakably Baek Kanghyeon who had constructed the overall frame and the fine-grained composition to perfection.
Even so, he couldn’t be proud of his own result.
It wasn’t false. The basic skeleton of the proposal had been Father’s design, after all.
Even so, Haeil didn’t say “Ah, I see” and let it go.
“Is that easy?”
He spoke with genuine admiration.
“That proposal kept surprising me the whole way through. Every part of the plan is almost errorless in its detail.”
If his hands hadn’t been gripping the railing, he looked ready to clap right in front of him. That’s how much the proposal had pleased him.
“The best way to reduce error is to simulate it to death. There’s no trick to it—you just ram into it, ram into it, and ram into it again.”
And it wasn’t just the proposal that had pleased him.
“That’s what you did, Division Head Baek.”
Haeil deliberately attached the title “Division Head,” as if to emphasize that his evaluation right now wasn’t a private, feelings-muddied take.
And yet he spoke with what he knew, as if to say the person Baek Kanghyeon and the Division Head Baek Kanghyeon were by no means separate.
“You kept ramming into it, day after day of overtime, to shave down the error—and that’s why a proposal like that came out.”
His eyes softened kindly.
“Not just anyone can do that. Most people, when their head starts bleeding from ramming into it, dust off their hands and rush to settle for something ‘good enough.’”
Listening quietly, Kanghyeon felt something in him shift, oddly.
“What I’m saying is: the person named Baek Kanghyeon is far more of a heavyweight than I thought.”
Why was that.
Kwon Haeil was a careless, flippant man. Not knowing what he was thinking was the default, and he was forever barging in out of nowhere with a freewheeling push that left you flustered.
And yet, out of that infuriating man’s mouth, words recognizing Baek Kanghyeon kept flowing out.
As an outsider, what he said was clearly not an evaluation manufactured by Father’s arrangements. He wasn’t like the people who, because of Baek’s background, spat out flattery first and thought later. It wasn’t the sycophancy babbled by those who, lacking fear, were desperate to tie themselves to a Dominant Alpha.
Kwon Haeil considered no shadow, no background, no trait.
He simply evaluated what he saw and felt of Baek Kanghyeon’s ability.
That simple, nothing-but-the-point fact felt like it was smoothing the tightness out of Kanghyeon’s chest.
“If this deal goes through, I want Division Head Baek to personally look over every piece and lead it. That’s the only way we’ll end up with a result as satisfying as the detailed proposal.”
His voice, serious until now, began to turn almost petulant, like a complaint.
“No matter how many other people you stick on, I’m still uneasy.”
His tone said there was no way anyone but Kanghyeon would satisfy him.
That’s strange.
Kanghyeon looked into the black eyes reflecting him straight on. Unwavering, and today, somehow, deeper than usual.
He was such an aggravating man, and yet—somehow—he didn’t want to push him away. Being caged within Kwon Haeil’s arms like this even felt, inexplicably, perfectly comfortable.
The hard iron railing bracing his back no longer felt cold. Thanks to the warmth of Baek Kanghyeon leaning against it and to Kwon Haeil’s hands gripping the railing at arm’s length, it had gone tepid. If he kept leaning a little longer like this, it felt like it might even grow warm enough to feel cozy. Find the original chapter at novelping(.)com.
“Do you understand now? You won’t misunderstand, right?”
At Haeil’s cautious-sounding line, Kanghyeon let out an involuntary little laugh.
“Understood. I’ll take you at your word.”
His manner of speaking had returned not to “Division Head Baek Kanghyeon,” but to his usual “Baek Kanghyeon.”
As his face eased a little, Haeil wore a pretty smile befitting his radiant face.
“Great. Then I’ll ask again.”
Grinning, he asked,
“Not Division Head Baek—Mr. Baek Kanghyeon. Would you consider going on a date with me?”
“No.”
“…?”
“I said no.”
As if the answer had come without a moment’s thought, Haeil’s eyes went wide, then his lids pinched at the corners.
“Aw, whaaat—!”
“I’m busy with work. When the meeting ends, I’m going straight back to the office.”
“Who said we had to go today? Let’s go when you’re free.”
“I don’t have free days.”
“You must have days you just rest at home. Weekends, holidays.”
“I work at home on those.”
“Wow. Rabid workaholic.”
Haeil exaggerated an expression of horror. His eyes alone seemed to say, Is this guy even human?
“Fine. Then how about just a meal? You do eat, right?”
At his question, Kanghyeon naturally ran through today’s schedule in his head.
Once the meeting ended, he needed to swing by the office at once and work through feedback on what had been discussed today. After the staff went home, he planned to stay behind alone to prepare himself the adjustments to portions of the proposal and a meeting to revise the contract.
On top of that, to draft a contract in line with Representative Kwon Haeil’s tendencies and review it multiple times, he’d have to work late yet again today.
He was about to say he didn’t have time for that either, but Haeil pressed on with the air of someone who already knew it all.
“I know you’re insanely busy. I’m not saying we have to eat today. I’m saying, once when you can. That much is fine, right?”
In truth, he’d been about to answer that he’d be busy whenever. He didn’t have a hobby of sitting across from an aggravating man to share a meal.
But was it really okay to keep refusing like this?
Anyway, “Let’s grab a meal sometime” is the kind of thing everyone says… isn’t it?
Because of that thought, he paused without meaning to, leaving the door cracked.
Not missing it, Haeil grinned like he’d caught him.
“I eat anything, and I’ve got a lot of time I can make. Any time is fine—let’s go try whatever you like.”
With him putting it that way, even Kanghyeon found himself considering it.
Building rapport with the representative of club WAVE was by no means a bad thing. Whether publicly or privately, the closer he got to him, the smoother things would inevitably go in the work ahead.