I'm A Little Rusty - Tumblr Posts
The Impossible Order | Ch. 1
Summary line: Mr. Min is a stoic boss who will never outwardly show appreciation for you. Not until you’re gone does he recognize how much you do. And what you do matters to him.
ceo!Yoongi | best.friend!Hoseok | romance, fluff, angst, and stuff
Loosely inspired by Secretary Kim and this third bullet point of the prompt list
Your brisk walk will only take you so far in these heels that you’ve been in for half the day now. It’s time I replace these heel cushions. You think to yourself as you wince every other step you take.
Mr. Min’s meeting with the Princess of Bhutan, your most high-profile client the company, is starting in 15 minutes. And he is always ten minutes early. Which means you have to already be there. Documents displayed, projector and presentation ready, steaming coffee in hand. Normally you’re already there 20 minutes early, however today, the copy machine was jammed, and someone didn’t refill copy paper. Really? Of all days…
You burst through the meeting room doors with a pretty wide swing. You quickly put everything down and got to work on turning on the projector and getting the presentation ready. Damn it. This computer is supposed to be on sleep, not completely off. You groan when you turn on the computer and see the updating circle spinning.
While it updates, you walk over to the documents to display it the way Mr. Min wants it. All pages there.
Damn.
Due to the jammed copy machine, the first three papers had a little ink smudge on the bottom left corner. You rush to the computer to see that it had finished updating and the home login screen is waiting for you. You type in the login password and groan at the login circle entering the account. The moment the desktop showed, you rush to open the USB file and print out the first three pages again. Now, it is just the matter of grabbing the paper from copier.
As soon as you open the PowerPoint file, you start walking to the entrance but see the shadow of your boss behind the frosted glass. You nearly trip, from physical instincts over conscious recognition, to grab his coffee on the table and straighten up the moment he walks in.
Ever the dramatic and yet so stoic, Mr. Min makes a double door entrance into the meeting and first sees you, standing straight with a gentle smile on your face and coffee in hand. Luckily, of all things going wrong, his coffee is still steaming.
As he walks towards you, he notices the presentation file is up, but not in slideshow mode. His documents are displayed well, but the left side seems to have less papers than the right.
“Good morning, Mr. Min. The copy machine was jammed this morning, so I’m printing out the first three pages again, so they still look clean and crisp.” You say as you hand him his coffee. Without looking at you, he grabs his coffee and takes his sip while he stands there and look over to the empty space where the documents are missing. He grunts in acknowledgement.
You nod your head and go on your way to the copier. Your gentle smile slowly fades each step you take away from him.
~•~
“Well, since we agree with the current stage of the design, we will move forward with creating the final product. It will take 2 weeks to finish the final product. It will take 3 days to assemble the parts, but the special silver and ceramic piece takes a week and a half to mold and take shape.” Mr. Min explains.
The client looks over the design on the paper in front of her and smiles, “I’m looking forward to coming back and seeing the results. My mother’s Silver Jubilee is coming up the night of. I hope everything works out the way your designer envisions.” The client nods over at Seokjin, the designer of the jewelry.
“I assure you; I will be following this Jubilee project very closely. I will be supervising every step.” Seokjin smiles.
“Good.” She gets up as does everyone else in the room. Mr. Min and Seokjin both outstretch their arm to kiss the hand of the princess before she leaves. After the princess and her entourage leave the room, Seokjin and Mr. Min finally relax their movements. Seokjin helps you by gathering his documents and handing it to you before stuffing his hands in his pockets and walk to Mr. Min, “Hey Yoongi, I’m meeting Namjoon for lunch at Sushi Palace. Want to join?”
“Yeah, sure,” Mr. Min turns to you with his finger up, “Y/N, what time is our afternoon meeting?”
“2:15pm, sir.” You reply, phone in hand, ready to show him his schedule.
“Mm. Push it to 2:45.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seokjin smiles at you before leaving the room with Mr. Min. You let out a breath of relief and type into the team chat who have a meeting with Mr. Min. Meeting has been pushed to 2:45pm. You instantly see a lot of relieved reactions and hearts. You chuckle before gathering the remnant documents of the meeting that just took place and turning off the presentation.
That gives you more time for lunch too.
~•~
“So, how ‘bout it, Yoongs?” Seokjin claps the back of his friend after he swallows his sushi, “The Princess of Bhutan? Hand-delivering an invitation to the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. That’s about as subtle as a princess can be in showing interest.”
“A princess? Wow, but you’re so stoic.” Namjoon comments. Yoongi just side glances him as he takes a sip of his tea.
“Thanks for that. But regardless, I’m not interested.” Yoongi thinks about the invitation still in his inside coat pocket. Right after the meeting, as Yoongi and Seokjin left the company’s front doors, the princess was waiting by her car standing right outside the curb. It was shocking for Yoongi, but he always maintains a cool composure wherever. He graciously thanked the princess and helped her into her car.
“Why not? She’s pretty, sophisticated, filial, wise, and kind. She’s got everything, really.” Seokjin checks off as if he imagines her as his ideal woman.
“If I could transfer the invitation, I would. Then you can take her.” Yoongi remarks, putting down his tea to take up the chopsticks for another sushi.
“Don’t need to. I’m already going. As the designer of the Queen’s Jubilee present from her daughter, I already get an invite. But mine was delivered through mail.” Seokjin reminding Yoongi about the hand-delivered invite from the princess.
“She only invited me. She didn’t even request that I escort her anyway. You guys think too much.” Yoongi shrugs off Namjoon’s arm around his shoulder. Namjoon puts it back anyway, “But you have to understand the implications. She really wants you there. Imagine the night of the celebration, she will be hunting you down in that ballroom.”
Yoongi’s phone rings and he takes it out of his pocket to look at the caller ID, you. Saved by the bell.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mr. Min. Sorry to disturb you, but I needed to remind you that it is already 2:00pm. Before you meet with the JP team, you and Seokjin have to look over the previous meeting highlights.” Without another word, he hangs up and grabs his coat from the chair.
“Let’s go, Seokjin.” Yoongi leaves without another word and Seokjin pats Namjoon’s shoulder before he leaves, “This one’s on you, thanks!”
“Next one is on Yoongi!” Namjoon shouts back to the disappearing figures.
~•~
“So, the princess actually decided she likes the tourmaline and topaz rather than the peach jade and emerald. And she’s also chosen the engraving on the titanium plating.” Seokjin relays the decisions made with the princess to the JP team.
“Ok. So, the production time will take a little longer. We’re recently in high demand of tourmaline, so we’re running out of supply. We’re down to 300 ct. If it weren’t for the heavy amounts for the projects we have, we’d normally do fine. Our supplier will give us the turnaround time by tomorrow.”
“Do we have enough to get started on this project though? We can pause the other tourmaline projects for two weeks?” Mr. Min inquires.
“We do, but if we pause the other projects, it may be more than two weeks. The fastest turnaround time our supplier normally gives us is a month for 500 ct of tourmaline.”
“Any other high-profile clients we’re currently working with who is using tourmaline for their product?”
“Four others. We’re working with the artist Kim Taehyung. He is having his newest art unveiling at the end of this month and he’s working with Jimin to have him create the jeweled frame for his piece. Your father is currently requesting something made for your parent’s anniversary next month. Beyoncé will be meeting with us next week to go over her pieces she’s wearing for the Met Gala coming up the end of next month. And I believe Yoo Jae Suk just reached out to us for a Running Man anniversary gift he’s giving to his coworkers. In his initial inquiry, he’s already thought of using tourmaline. The anniversary is the beginning of next month.”
Mr. Min curses below his breath. Kim Taehyung not only is a high-profile, as well as elusive artist, he’s also a close friend of his other designer, and friend, Jimin. He can talk to his dad about changing tourmaline into something else for the anniversary gift. Yoo Jae Suk only initially reached out. He can have Seokjin create some other designs, no tourmaline required, and maybe some of them can spark Yoo Jae Suk’s interest. Beyoncé and Kim Taehyung are probably the two who will have a harder time going over this issue with.
“Y/N,” You look up from your computer as you’re typing the meeting minutes, “We need a few more ethically-sourced tourmaline suppliers. Reach out to 10 of them and see how much tourmaline we can get by a week and a half. I need their answers by 4pm.”
“Yes, Mr. Min.”
“Ok. For now, let’s move forward with Jubilee for now. It’s the one with the most time constraint. You said 300 ct. How much is required to make the Jubilee?”
“275 ct. We’ll have just enough.”
“Ok. Move forward. We’ll cut it close, but we can do this. Pause the production of our current stock products that deal with tourmaline for now. They will have to be backordered until the end of next month. Y/N, speak with marketing and PR and get me their decision on how to appease our other tourmaline customers for now I need that by 4pm as well.”
“Yes, Mr. Min.”
You glance at your watch. Sigh…it’s 3:35. You quickly pull up the chat box for you and the PR and marketing team.
~•~
At the end of the meeting, you rushed to get the list of ethical suppliers from the sourcing team. You got the list and quickly drafted the inquiry for the suppliers. Depending on the time zones of different suppliers, you had to call, fax, email, and any other way you can to get a hold of the suppliers and make sure to get their attention so they can reply to you before 4pm your time. You messaged both PR and marketing about the current tourmaline crisis. The marketing director and PR manager will have a meeting right now and give you their final decision by 3:55pm as well.
You let out of breath of frustration as Mr. Min messaged you, telling you to get him another cup of coffee. You’re on the phone with another supplier.
It’s 3:54pm now. Marketing and PR haven’t messaged you back and 7 suppliers have given you their answer so far. All 7 suppliers can only provide less than 100 ct for now. Well, that’s why they’re not the main supplier for tourmaline.
As you leave the kitchen, you get fax from the 10th supplier on the list. They can deliver 200 ct! And by next week. Score.
You smile at the good news and grab the fax to look over their quote. A little high, but it is worth it during this time.
Marketing finally messaged you back. 3:57pm.
~•~
You knock on the door to Mr. Min’s office and you hear his faint words to grant you entrance.
You walk in with good news and steaming coffee, “8 suppliers replied back so far. Hestia Sourcing is the only one with the more than 200 ct to deliver by next week. Everyone else is less than 100 ct. PR has indicated that staying quiet about the tourmaline crisis to our customers is vital, but for right now, marketing is promoting the sourcing suppliers and material and we maintain the angle of ethical sourcing. For anyone who is ordering tourmaline at this time, we’ll let them know there’s currently a backorder on them, and as a complimentary gift for their patience on tourmaline, they will receive 50% off on their next purchase as well as the VIP customer gift we send out for our company anniversary coming up in September.”
He takes the coffee from you, “What happened to the remaining two suppliers? I wanted to know about all ten of them.” You press down the bubbling fire within you, “Those remaining suppliers are in Peru and it’s currently 2am…as ethical sources, they’re likely letting their employees sleep.” You reminded him. He only grunts.
“Can you contact Jimin? Let him know of the current crisis and we might need to change tourmaline into zultanite. Check in with Beyoncé’s designer. See if tourmaline can switch out tourmaline and give alexandrite instead. Have the designer contact Beyoncé’s assistant as well to sell the alexandrite. I’ll have dinner with my father and mother tonight. I’ll find a chance to speak to my father about the tourmaline. And before Yoo Jae Suk meets with Seokjin, we’ll have Seokjin create some other pieces without tourmaline.”
“Yes, Mr. Min.”
“And, Y/N?”
“Yes, Mr. Min?”
“Another, please.” Yoongi raised his cup to you again. You do your best to hide your large intake of breath before smiling to take the cup. If he finished the cup so quick and wants another after 4pm, you shouldn’t be expecting to get off work until past 9pm tonight.
“What time is your dinner with your parents?” You asked, hinting that he shouldn’t leave so late tonight.
“7pm. I’ll leave here at 6:45pm. For the Peruvian tourmaline suppliers, contact them when they open. I want an answer tonight before we move any further with Hestia Sourcing.” Peruvian suppliers open at 9am…yup, my job’s not over until after 11pm…
“Yes, Mr. Min.”
~•~
You sigh in relief as you finally close the door to your home and take off your heels. You lean against the wall to rub your feet for a minute before moving to the living room to drop everything and lay down.
You stayed past 9pm in the office to draft the letters to Beyoncé’s assistant and edited the draft the PR manager sent you regarding the letter of apology to give to tourmaline customers. You’ve already spoken with Jimin about the Kim Taehyung frame. Mr. Min wants you to contact the suppliers, but you can do that in the comfort of your own home.
Your dog comes over to lick your hand and bark at you. You lazily turn over to smile and pet your dog.
“Hi, Yeontan. Did you keep home secure today?” He yips at you and his fluffy butt twitches in excitement to see you home, “Did I leave enough food in your meal container?” Yip.
You lift your head to glance up to his meal bowl. It’s connected to a dog food storage that is timed to release a certain amount of food at his designated lunch and dinner times. Empty.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.” You roll off the couch and walk over to refill it right now. Yeontan follows your steps, excited to think of the food he’s expecting.
As you pour his food, you’re reminded that you haven’t eaten dinner either. He immediately chows down to the overdue-released food. You open the fridge to see it well-stocked, but it all takes time to cook. Right now, you just want to lay down. You groan and rest your head on the door of the fridge. At the same time, the doorbell rings.
You go to turn on the security camera to see who’s at the door. You see a familiar head way too close to the camera, smiling at you in the way that will show his dimples. You chuckle before pressing the unlock button for your guest to come in.
“Y/N!” Hoseok greets you and lifts his bag to show you the food delivery.
“Life saver!” You cry, reaching out towards him. He opens his arms for a hug, but you reach out for the food and grabs it instead.
“Oh, wow. Fine. I see how it is. Your food is more important than your best friend. I see how it is. I thought we were like this, Y/N.” He locks his middle and index fingers together and curls them to show his meaning.
“Right now, yeah. Sorry, bruh.” You quickly move to the living room to sit down and open the bag to bring the food out.
“Damn.” He clutches his heart in dramatic pain, “And to think, how much I cherish our friendship. I went to get you your favorite food before it closed. You left work hella late; it would have closed a whole hour before you got out. Just imagine. Me. In the pouring rain. Personally, pounding the restaurant doors late at night. Now, hand-delivering the food to you. And I can’t even get a hug.”
“Oh my God. Chill out. It’s not even raining,” you laugh, “And knowing you, you just ordered delivery for yourself and left me some.”
“Hey, that’s not true. I ordered a whole thing for you. But I did eat my own stuff first,” he took his shoes off before coming over to sit next to you, “I had that ordered at 7. When did you leave work? Probably past 9.”
“Yeah, I literally just got back.” You lifted some of your food in your chopsticks and fed him a piece of your food.
“Mmm. Nom, nom, nom.” he chews annoyingly in your ear.
“Ew, get away from me.” He laughs and hugs your waist halfway as he leans back into the couch while you’re still hunched over your food, pushing him away from your ear.
“How’s your day?” You ask, focused on your food.
“Pretty good. We’re working on the last section of the dance right now. I had to replace one of the girls, Anna, with Christie since Anna just sprained her ankle.” You made an o face before grabbing your next piece to feed him, “How long till Anna is ok?”
“Three weeks. Past the performance, for sure. Poor thing was crying while she watched us practice on the sidelines.”
“She’s only a sophomore, she’ll be fine.”
“Heartless. Do you know in my occupation, each performance is a portfolio piece? And recruiters start scouting in her year.”
“She’s in a prestigious dance college. This is not the only performance this year, nor is it the biggest.”
“Each one counts.”
“Okay.” You shrug. He lifts himself up to give you a longer hug from behind, “How’s your day?”
“Long. Obviously. We’re working with a Princess from Bhutan and all other projects are pushed aside. We just hope to have enough material and time to get everything done. And that’s just the jewelry business. Tomorrow, my boss is tackling real estate and technology issues. And lemme tell you, every hour, I’ve been putting out fires with issues with them. By tomorrow, the storm will have passed and I’m only delivering results. Unless more issues come up tomorrow.”
“Gotcha…” He trails off into his own thoughts. You recognize the silence and turn around, “What’s up?”
“Well…I kind of needed your help.”
“With what?
“So, you helped me compose and engineer the song for the spring showcase…but our director wants us going for a different vibe. Something a little gentler. ‘Like a spring fairy dancing in the wind’, he says,” Hoseok scoffs, “So I was hoping you can help rearrange it.”
“Mmm…” You slowly chew on your last piece of dinner.
“But you sound like you’re pretty busy. I’ll check with our music producers to see if they can do anything instead.”
“Mmm,” You pat his knee and got up, gesturing him to come with you, “Come here.” You both walk into your room to your office desk. You have an L-shaped desk. One side for actual work, the other for your music production. You sit on the office chair and swivel to the music side while Hoseok sat at the corner of the bed behind you, leaning his elbows on his knees.
“So, remember when you first recruited me for this, I had five songs done, but we ultimately went with the one you chose. I actually saved the other four. Listen to the third one. I think the whole ‘spring fairy in the wind’ thing can kind of go with the vibe of this song.” You hand him the headphones and presses play. You laugh, watching his reactions as he bobs his head to the song and has really animated facial expressions.
“This might be what we’re looking for. Can I grab all four? I’ll run them by our director tomorrow. See if he’ll go for it. It’s really good so hopefully he doesn’t want to change anything.” You nod as you copy all four files into a USB and hand it to him but holds back when he tried to reach for it.
“What do I get in return?”
“You got dinner.”
“This is already an after-dinner request. You need to give me something else.”
“What kind of friendship do you think we have? Always exchanging favors. Is this relationship we have conditional?” He gasps. You sigh, “Guilt tripper.” You hand him the USB.
“Only ‘cause it’s you. And generally, I’m good at it. And if we were conditional, you’d have to give me something for the dinner.”
“Yeah…eh.” You shrug and get up, but he grabs your waist and tackles you on the bed to tickle you.
“I get to tickle you!” He roars with maniacal laughter. While he tickles you, Yeontan runs into the room and jumps on Hoseok to get in on the action and do his best to defend you.
You laugh with him as you two calm down, both petting Yeontan in-between you two laying down on your bed.
“If you ever quit your company, I can get a good word for you to be a music producer for us; it’s what you originally studied for anyway.”
“Honestly, it’s fun. But I’m not gonna lie, I think I was made for problem solving, putting out fires like I do at work. It’s fun too. It’s just overwhelming sometimes. And my boss is the kind of guy to see that if you can handle the tasks he has you juggle; and if you can, he adds more onto your plate and see when you break. That’s super frustrating. And disrespectful. The guy will never acknowledge a job well done. He just moves to the next task.” You vent as you stare at your ceiling.
“Yeah. If your boss doesn’t appreciate you, you can find another job that can do the same thing but with a more appreciative boss.”
“Yeah but think of my salary. I’m working at the number one of the top 10 companies in the country; one of the top 50 in the world. Despite how unappreciative and overwhelming he is, and the number of tasks I can handle matches my salary. Anywhere else I go, I promise you, I’m just wasted talent with a lower salary. It’s not worth it.” Yeontan sneezes, cutting you off.
You and Hoseok lift your head to look at your little pup.
“Yeontan-ie, are you getting sick?” Hoseok says, using a baby voice. You smile at his voice and leans down to kiss Yeontan on the head, “He actually hasn’t been feeling too well. It’s my fault, I’ve forgot to refill his food storage lately. I think he’s malnourished.”
“You gonna take him to the vet?”
“I don’t have the time lately. In the next 2 months, I don’t expect to take any personal time off with so many things going on right now at work.”
“I’ll take him.”
“No, it’s ok. I’ll take him after everything calms down.”
“Your boss is damn near a slave driver. You haven’t taken any personal time off in almost a year, and you expect to do so after? No. Plus Yeontan is sick. There’s no waiting for that. I got this. Give me his vet contact information.”
“And here I thought, you were done doing favors for me.” You grinned. Hoseok picked up Yeontan and sat up to give you a forehead kiss, “You’re an idiot, Y/N.”
You smiled at him before looking at the clock behind him to see that it’s already 11:05.
“Oh crap. I gotta call Peru.” You dash off to the living room to grab your phone that you left there. Hoseok is left there, petting Yeontan and speaking to him in a baby voice, “Your mommy is an idiot, huh?” Hoseok smiles at Yeontan. But even Yeontan can see the shadows behind the sunshine.
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