#CHAN YEOL ft. annette

[seolinah]

It was difficult not to react in some way to the question. That careful expression-free mask he usually tried to don tended to slip when questions about his parents came up. Especially when the answer to it was lengthy and complicated and overall bad. "It'd be easier if it was only my work life," he mumbled. He blinked, suddenly remembering his place. Swallowing, his lips pressed together in a stilted smile. "Like I said, they tend to hover." Chalking it up to them not trusting him would be easier, but he knew they just wanted to be able to control everything. Including his life apparently. His shoulders shrugged as he gave her a small shake of his head. "It's... fine. It's not like I'm not like that at times," he offered in response. "So does this mean things between us are fine?"

it had made sense that chan-yeol didn’t make the complaint, she doubted he’d have the gall to come over after complaining about her, he just didn’t seem the sort. “do your parents typically interfere with your work life?” the question was brazen and riddled in curiosity. knowing that he didn’t personally complain was somewhat reassuring, though nettie couldn’t help but think that having parents so willing to meddle into affairs which didn’t concern them was somewhat problematic, especially in a working environment. “i’m sorry for being so… standoffish."

[seolinah]

She had him there. Usually he wouldn't have bothered making conversation with his colleagues, especially since most people ended up being passing faces to him, but he had paid slight more attention to Annette. It was all further weird circumstances he was putting himself in. But it was news to him that she thought he was complaining about her to someone. Yeol frowned at the notion and shook his head. "I didn't..." Though now that she'd said something, he could guess who would have. "This might be odd to mention, but uh... It's probably someone that talks to my parents. They tend to, um, hover."

the click-clacking of nettie's keyboard had come to a halt, her eyes had finally left the many bar charts and graphs on the screen as she had finally looked up at chan-yeol. "what are you doing now if not idly chatting?" her tone was less harsh now. the realisation that he could possibly complain to his parents and have her fired within a second had sunk in. the insinuation of him having zero confidence in her to do her own job also stung. "you haven't done anything personally, but one of the secretaries warned me that i should be focusing more on my work... have you complained about me? you're the only one i talk to during the day." her mother had always told her jumping to conclusions would be the end of her yet nettie could never stop herself.

[seolinah]

His brows rose over his face. The tone caught him off guard, especially since Yeol wasn't sure where it was coming from. "I'm not--I don't do that..." At least he didn't think he did that. Idly chatting to anyone wasn't a favorite pass time of his, but he did get a lot of interruptions because his parents were busybodies. Someone always happened to be checking in on him or letting him know about some event he needed to attend to or asking him to attend some last minute meeting with so and so. It had Yeol wondering if that was somehow impacting Annette. "Did I do something specifically?"

the plan of seduction had so far been a success (if one could call what she was doing seduction, nettie had used that word loosely). until she had realised how deep she was in and that you can't just seduce your boss's son. how naive she had been to assume she could just flirt her way into a better position at the expense of another worker's own position. and perhaps she did somewhat like his personality enough not to automatically give up her plan of workplace success. "you haven't done anything, chan-yeol, perhaps that's the problem, isn't it? what could you actually do to help me? some of us actually have to put effort into our work and can't sit idly chatting."