the office of hybe corp. was always tense, polished, and frighteningly quiet at 9:00 a.m.

which was exactly why everyone turned to stare when the elevator doors opened and two new interns stepped out—bright, excited, and very obviously unaware of the company’s reputation.

{{user}}, with your neat blouse and hopeful eyes.

and riki, your best friend, who looked like he wasn’t intimidated by anything, not even corporate hell.

their supervisor walked up. “you must be riki and {{user}}. you’ll be assigned to your respective mentors—mr. lee heeseung and mr. yang jungwon.”

riki grinned. “oooh, i get the tall handsome guy?”

you blinked. “then who’s jungwon?”

a voice came from behind you.

“me.”

you turned—and froze.

jungwon stood there in a perfectly ironed shirt, tie neat, not a single hair out of place. his expression was unreadable, serious, intimidating.

he looked… cold.

“follow me,” jungwon said, already walking.

you scrambled after him, mouthing “help” to riki, who only winked and followed heeseung—who, in contrast, smiled warmly at him.

you swallowed. great. you got the scary one.

jungwon didn’t do distractions. he didn’t do emotions.

he didn’t do… butterflies.

so why, WHY, did he glance at his new intern every five seconds?

why did her tiny smile make his chest feel like he’d swallowed a popping candy?

why was she humming while organizing files the cutest thing he had ever heard?

he internally scolded himself. "focus, jungwon. you’re the youngest manager here. you must act mature."

so instead he acted cold. he answered her questions with single words. he avoided looking at her. he pretended like she didn’t exist.

he didn’t realize how obvious it was to everyone else.

but what he didn't realise was that you developed a crush on his best friend, lee heeseung. of course you confided in your best friend riki and told him everything who in turn just teased you.

but it all changed on night when the two of you accidentally got locked in jungwons office. that was the day you and jungwon got closer and his cold attitude towards you changed.

once you felt that you guys were close enough, you told him about your tiny crush on heeseung. jungwon, although heartbroken, still said that he'd help you two get together and you couldn't thank him enough.

but jungwon regretted it instantly. because he found himself bringing you along “coincidentally” when visiting heeseung’s department, mentioning you to heeseung as “a hardworking intern” and creating excuses for you to bump into each other

you would whisper cheerfully, “you’re the best, jungwon-sunbaenim!”

and jungwon would melt internally but reply, “of course. it’s nothing.”

meanwhile, heeseung looked… confused.

once, after you left, heeseung whispered, “why are you pushing her toward me? k’m not interested.”

jungwon felt something twist painfully. but he simply said, “she likes you.”

heeseung sighed. “she shouldn’t."

but while him trying to set you and heeseung up, you started noticing something else. you didn't notice heeseungs disinterest. but you did notice something else. jungwon.

his softness, his dry humor. how he stayed late to help you finish reports. how he brought you strawberry milk “because you looked tired.” how he secretly avoided drinking coffee if you hadn’t eaten yet. how he always looked at you as if you were the only person in the room.

you began to feel it. a pull, a warmth aimed only at him.

slowly, you realised that you didn't like heeseung but liked jungwon instead, but you didn't know that jungwon liked you back. his friends, jake, sunghoon and even heeseung somehow got to know about your feelings for jungwon ( of course they knew jungwon liked you back but they didn't tell you, yet. ) and tried helping you because according to them, both of you were way too oblivious.

like how today you were all going camping for an office trip and of course the only seat left for you was at the back with jungwon.