tinywenrene

Instead of meeting in Joohyun’s office like they normally do, they end up sharing lunch together downstairs at the cafe because of their conference call with Canada. It’s unfortunately a working lunch, but Seungwan doesn’t think twice about it. 

Joohyun sits right next to her in the small booth and has her laptop open to Seungwan’s portion of the presentation. It’s overwhelming how close she is, but Seungwan takes it in professional stride. 

“Don’t forget we also need them to send schematics for the prosthetic arm to test,” Seungwan reminds. 

Joohyun nods, writing it down in her notebook on her lap. She quietly repeats Seungwan’s reminder, enunciating each English syllable carefully, “Schematics for prosthetic arm..” 

Seungwan can’t help but smile at how concentrated Joohyun is whenever she repeats back her words. If it were anyone else, Seungwan would be annoyed but Joohyun has been diligent about getting her pronunciation correctly. And honestly, English has never sounded better than when it comes from Joohyun. 

“Hey, Wendy!” 

They both look up to see Eric standing there with a bright smile on his face. 

“I just stopped by your office to find you,” he continues on in English like he normally does whenever he sees her. “I wanted to see if you wanted to have lunch with me.” 

Seungwan doesn’t respond to him in English though. “Aw you shouldn’t have. I’m having a working lunch with Joohyun-sunbaenim, we have a conference call in a little bit.”

Eric looks over to Joohyun finally and his eyes widen. He bows to her quickly. “Sorry, Joohyun-sunbaenim, I didn’t know you were working.”

Joohyun looks like she isn’t going to say anything, but she does. “We still have a lot to discuss,” she simply informs. At that, Eric dismisses himself quickly, looking over his shoulder sadly after Seungwan, but scuttling away when Joohyun leans into his line of sight.

Seungwan giggles. “Thank you for that. I’m running out of excuses to not have lunch with him.” 

Joohyun doesn’t look at Seungwan, instead changing the presentation slide. It seems like she doesn’t care about the situation anymore until she says, “If you aren’t interested in him, you should tell him.” She pauses and glances to Seungwan. “Unless you are interested.”

“I’m not interested!” Seungwan practically exclaims, grabbing onto Joohyun’s arm. This catches the older woman’s attention and she simply turns her head to Seungwan with a curious look. “I’m not interested in dating him, which I mean probably doesn’t matter to you because I’m not about to discuss my personal life with my boss, but I’m just saying that he’s not interesting to me in that way. I’m just still new to Korea so I’m not trying to burn bridges if I don’t need to. I’m still trying to be polite and such, you know? Trying to make a friend at least.” Seungwan feels like her cheeks are on fire for rambling to Joohyun and she still hasn’t though to remove her hand until Joohyun looks down at it curiously. She pulls back like it’s fire. 

Joohyun takes Seungwan’s explanation as is it seems, turning her attention back to the laptop. “You should tell him that you want to be friends,” she settles on, making an edit to the slide in front of her. “If you don’t do it, I will.”

Seungwan gapes at her. “What? Why would you do it?” 

Joohyun actually freezes mid typing, her eyes widen as if she realizes what she said. She brushes it off quickly with, “Why would I do it?” as if she didn’t even say anything. “It’s none of my business.” 

Irene: Erm... it’s nice see your smile when you win!

~Later~

Wendy: She’s probably just staring at my ass, isn’t she?

Wendy: Oh, I already ate with Seulgi, but what do you want?

Irene: ….