His Assistant

Mine

- June 29, 2021 -

***

Five years working at Polaris Publishing, Tee was never been late (even when he was still in his father's company, he was never been late) but why his boss was saying his late?

"You're late."

He quickly glanced at his watch before turning his wrist in his boss's direction. "I'm two minutes early. Sir."

"Tae." Tae corrected, looking down at him as he took his coffee from the tray he was holding. "And it feels like you're late. I haven't seen you in-" He grabbed his wrist and made a show of tilting his head to look at his watch, "Ten hours. This coffee is cold."

Tee rolled his eyes. They both knew perfectly well that Tae had his own damn coffee making contraption and expensive bloody imported beans that he ground himself in the pantry, but God forbid he pass up a chance to make him run across town to get his coffee from his favourite Moka Pot coffee shop.

"I have to sleep sometime, sir." Tee replied good-naturedly.

"Tae." He corrected for what had to be the millionth time. The assistant ignored him as always, glancing down at the extra cup Tae had him order before looking around the room.

"Should I bring this to Wayo? Or just leave it here?" he tried and mostly succeeded in keeping the acid from his tone when he spoke the current boy-toy's name. Thankfully, it seemed Tae was totally oblivious of his jealousy and thought his dislike stemmed from thinking Wayo was a distraction. If he knew the real reason, well, Tee wouldn't be standing here.

"Wayo isn't here..." Tae said slowly, looking up from his phone like Tee was a complete and utter imbecile. "Why would you give your coffee to Wayo?"

"Mine, sir?" he looked at it in confusion. "I thought it was for Wayo."

"I haven't been seeing him for almost three months now."

"Huh." he shrugged. "I guess I didn't notice, sir."

Tae frowned at that, as if anything Tee did affected him in any way. Which believe me, it did not.

In the five years Tee has been working under Tae, he barely cared a little for anything he did or didn't do. It's not as if he ignored him, they were friends, he supposed, but he also knew his place. Previous employees had been fired for taking liberties or assuming they were part of Tae's inner-circle based purely on the fact that they worked closely with him. Even after surviving five years as assistant to him, he wasn't used to to being included needlessly. Senseless as it might have been, the coffee totally threw me.

Tae's face changed, softening into a rare, genuine smile. "You know, when you first started working for me, I thought the whole meek, gossip avoiding, and putting everyone before yourself thing was a strategy to get on my good side."

Tee bit his lip to hide a smile and placed the coffee tray on the glossy marble table. He paced to the other side for a little distance, but kept his tone playful as he spoke. "And how do you know that I'm not a gossip when I'm elsewhere, sir?"

Tae placed his phone down and walked around the table, rendering his effort at space void by coming a little too close for comfort. He perched there on the edge of the table barely two feet from where Tee stood behind one of the high-back leather chairs, his large hands resting casually on either side of himself. "For starters, after half a decade at my side, you know what I'm capable of. I keep a sharp eye on all of my employees. Nothing gets by me, Tee, you know that."

His eyes widened slightly before he forced his features into emptiness with a fool's hope that he hadn't caught it. Of course he'd always assumed he kept a close eye on things... but he never thought of himself as important enough to actually be one of those things.