Chanyeol cursed for the nth time that afternoon. The clock had kept on ticking, slightly irritating the CEO as it reminded him of the sixteen minutes left before the most awaited meeting finally starts. Ever since his secretary had left his office, he had readily snatched the pocket-sized mirror from his drawer and held it in front of his face, practicing his smile just like Hana instructed him to.
He had awfully tried his best to flash the best smile that he could muster, but to no avail. He muttered another round of profanities under his breath and tried smiling at the mirror yet again, his confidence urging him to do it perfectly, and fast.
Hana, on the other hand, watched him through his office's doorway silently, not wanting the latter to discover that she was watching his practice. Apparently, the CEO was too focused on practicing his so-so-smile that he had failed to catch her peeking.
It was a relief that his desk was far from the doorway as well, so it was possible to open the door with less squeaks, if she was careful of course -- and she was.
She then watched her boss do it again in front of the small, rectangular mirror that was pocket-sized, snickering to herself as she realized how awkward he looked.
Has he never smiled since before?
That question had invaded her mind since she peeked through the doorway, wondering how long it was since her boss last smiled that he was even awkward in front of the mirror. The tips of Chanyeol's lips had kept on quivering as he struggled to lift the tips upwards, and almost two of three seconds later, it automatically morphed into a frown, as if it was a natural.
"Fuck," she heard him curse, making her throw a fit of silent giggles as she continued to watch. "Just think of happy thoughts, Chanyeol. Just like you're happy," he murmured, giving it another try but failed yet again. He couldn't help but frown deeply upon realization. How could he smile when he wasn't even happy?
Happy thoughts?
What possible happy thoughts could he even muster? His mother died. His father, whom he considered as his only family since then, had left him for his other family that Chanyeol didn't even know to being with. Then he and his girlfriend had broken up after he discovered how she was cheating on him. Now, he was shouldering the heavy burden upon handling an entire corporation, adding the issues and controversies concerning him and the whole company as well.
Fuck my life, he thought.
"You're doing it all wrong, sir," Hana, who couldn't take it any longer, spoke up and made her way inside his office, closing the door lightly behind her back. She knew that the frown that etched on his face almost immediately had meant that he was thinking deeply into things -- most probably his life -- as he couldn't even smile properly.
Chanyeol, who was obviously startled with his secretary's appearance, jumped up from his seat and immediately opened his drawer and threw the mirror inside, his face flushing from both embarrassment and shame. Hana only chuckled, but didn't say anything further as she knew it best not to infuriate her boss.
"What are you doing in my office, Miss Choi? Have you not learned the proper etiquette to knock on your boss' door before entering?" He said, mustering his most authorative voice, yet the flush on his cheeks had told Hana otherwise making her giggle lowly, which surprisingly took the CEO aback. "Stop laughing," he hissed, a tint of pink rushing to his cheeks from both anger -- because he was caught red-handed -- and embarrassment.
"Can you blame me, sir? You're way too funny," she continued to giggle, successfully ticking her boss. "Anyway, what you said was right, sir. You should think of happy thoughts. It's easier to smile if you think of a moment that you truly treasured perhaps?" She said, immediately speaking as she saw her boss' mouth open to retort.
"I know. I already did that. But apparently, there's no such as 'happy thoughts' in my dictionary," he hissed, thinking of how he tried to smile as he tried his best to think of happy thoughts.
"That's probably because that's two words, sir. You can't find two words in a dictionary," she said.
Hana's lips twitched, wanting to laugh out loud, yet she forced herself not to so as to not ruin the mood. It was rare that the CEO wasn't even telling her to get out of his office, too, and she was going to make us of it.
Needless to say, she was having fun mocking the CEO.
"Miss Choi, there are different types of dictionaries. Trust me. You wouldn't want to know what type of dictionary I am holding," he said, glaring at his secretary. "Never mock me Miss Choi, or else, let's just say goodbye with your God forsaken deal we made."
"No can do, sir. A contract is a contract. We had already binded ourselves through our agreement, hence the signatures we made and the company seal that you stamped on the paper," she said, smirking back, as if she was showing him that she wasn't backing down. "Besides, sir. I had already framed our contract. I had also sent a copy of it to my lawyer friend and got it notarized. You can't back down, sir. Your identity is already sealed within our agreement."
"Are you threatening me now?" Chanyeol growled under his breath, rage building up thinking of the way his secretary was mocking him at the moment.
"Sir, we both know that I am not threatening you whatsoever. I am most definitely aware that you will threaten me to cancel the contract though, so we can just say that I am only making sure that we are both aware of what's at stake here," she said, "Anyway, let's deal with the matter in our hands right now, sir. We only have ten minutes left on the clock. You need to be ready to smile later."
"How about we just forget about the smile and proceed to the meeting, then? I am sure that attending my meeting in due time is more important that flashing a mere smile to my clients," he said.
"Sir, ten minutes is surely a long time for a mere smile," she said, though she did notice the disbelief on her boss' face. "How about this, sir? We get to practice for the remaining ten minutes, and see if you do get the job done. If you don't, then we forget about the whole smiling thing. If you do, however, get to smile at your clients, at least after you finish your proposal, and if the clients happen to agree, then I'll grant you three wishes -- whatever you like or whatever you want me to do. It's your choice, only if it doesn't involve anything connected with that contract. How's that?" She offered, ecstatic.
It was something that she had offered beforehand to a lot of people before, and let's just say that they agreed knowing that they didn't have much to bargain, unlike Hana.
Chanyeol's eyebrows knitted together in thought, contemplating whether he should accept or not. Truthfully, it was a very absurd deal -- a very childish one at that. "Fine, but if I don't manage to convince them, make sure you keep your end of the deal. I don't want you backing out from it when I succeed."
Hana grinned, feeling accomplished. She was surprised that he had accepted that easily, but then again, he didn't have much to lose anyway which was quite understandable. "Don't worry, sir. I always keep my promises. Always," she said, flashing him a bright smile before continuing, "Anyways sir, let's practice."
* * * * *
"As you all know, this is a very important project that the company wants to pursue. We had done enough researches for the past weeks that can prove the effectivity and the efficiency of this project. It will not only be able to utilize our expenses; we will also be able to attract a new market in the suburbs and the provincial areas all around South Korea, which will eventually gain us more market share gradually. Our appliances are proven to be relatively affordable for the market as well. We had discovered that most of the people living in the provinces had been using old appliances daily, which quite hinders most of the small businesses that operate there. The word-of-mouth scheme is high effective in those provinces too, cutting possible costs for advertisements," Chanyeol explained as he stood in front of the conference room.
He was standing upfront, beside the white, projector screen that had been showing the slides of the so-called project he was proposing to the company's most important clients. He continued, "It would be a better move to wipe off our inventory clean as well, rather than exporting them overseas and sell them when we can just sell them here, with less transportation costs, of course."
He had proposed to enlarge the company's market share by invading the whole country first.
He had long realized that most of the company's new products were directed to the other countries, when they can, in fact, gather more market share locally. The research that his departments had conducted had proven the proposal worthy to try as well, seeing as the possibility of success was relatively high. They had also released three new products last month, but with the issues that had emerged from the internet, the sales were affected, along with the company's stocks.
There were a total of ten clients seated inside the conference room, sitting around the big, oval conference desk that was big enough for six more people to occupy. Apparently, there were supposed to be sixteen clients all in all, though they had urgent matters to deal with as they could not attend the meeting.
It was completely absurd though, especially since six people had refused to attend to the meeting all in one day. Chanyeol knew it. Heck, Hana even knew it, too. Chanyeol, being the keen CEO that he was, had promised to take a deeper look into things as soon as the meeting ends.
He would have to request for Kim Minseok's help yet again. He was his best spy.
Hana, on the other hand, was seated on one of the four seats situated at the far side of the conference desk, far away from the clients that had attended the meeting.
She had a laptop in front of her, to which she used to type fast as she struggled to keep up with the minutes of the meeting. She licked her lips, glad that Chanyeol was delivering some sort of speech to convince his clients at the moment. She didn't need to take down notes from it, after all. She had also felt glad that the meeting was conversed in Korean now, despite the two Chinese clients who had attended the meeting.
Hana recognized them as Mr. Huang Zi Tao and Mr. Zhang Yi Xing, the two Chinese clients whom she had known from her first day as she read through their files.
Hana watched the clients' expressions, studying their thoughts and whatnot -- whether they were wary, approving, or annoyingly rejecting the project on hand. As far as she was concerned though, more than half of the clients had sour faces, as if they weren't convinced whatsoever.
Apparently, they weren't, and that made Hana anxious -- badly.
"What makes you think that we'd agree to this proposal, Mr. Park? We're talking about a huge sum of money here. We can't invest our money just like that with your false acknowledgements. We need more proof!" Mr. Huang intervened Chanyeol speech, clearly discouraged with the presentation.
"Mr. Huang, I am duly aware of your concern. However, I did show you slides of financial statements, files, and research information that my departments had managed to gather over a period of time. They are enough to show you how marketable our products will be if we go with this proposal. Think about it, Mr. Huang. As absurd as my proposal might sound to you, we're still talking about risks in the end," Chanyeol said, as genuinely as he could, though his face had remained impassive, like always.
"That's not what I want to hear, Mr. Park. Again, I do not want to waste my money on a worthless piece of proposal. Suburbs? Provinces? What makes you think that people living there would even bother to buy your company products? For all we know, they might most probably opt for cheaper products," Huang Zi Tao argued, his accent showing as he spoke.
"Mr. Huang, with all due respect, we will not know of the results if we don't try. My Marketing Department had already conducted a research about this project, and the results were clearly positive. Nearly ninety percent of the market niche that answered the survey were very much willing to buy our products," Chanyeol defended, thinking of how the client was utterly against his proposal.
Huang Zi Tao, for Chanyeol, didn't really make sense at the moment.
Why was he so against the proposal? It wasn't like he didn't provide enough proof, either.
In fact, Chanyeol never conducts meetings that does not prove solidifying. More so, with Mr. Wu out of the picture, it was clear enough for Chanyeol that Huang Zi Tao was acting up because Kris Wu wasn't present. It was clear that the first one had been bowing under the latter, clearly because Kris Wu owns more and bigger companies that the other clients.
"You know what? This is completely absurd. I don't want to hear anymore. Mr. Kim, Mr. Lee, Mr. Jung, let's go," Mr. Huang said, huffing and fixing his suit and tie before walking out of the conference room, the three other clients walking behind him as if they were chicks following Mr. Huang, the hen.
Hana watched warily as she analyzed the situation.
Thankfully, the other clients had made no attempts in escaping the room like the others did.
The original sixteen clients were now down to merely six clients, Mr. Zhang being the one of them, and the most important client remaining at that. He does, after all, own one of the largest electronic manufacturing companies in China. Hana shifted her eyes to her boss, begging him to start off with his speech and end it properly, just like how they practiced it ten minutes before they went to the meeting.
She waved her hands in the air to gain his attention, relief passing her as the other clients had seemed too dazed and preoccupied to even mind her. Chanyeol, who was silent after a few seconds after the four clients walked out, glanced at his secretary who was waving her hands in the air. He cursed inaudibly, remembering their deal.
Fuck it, Chanyeol. Just suck it up and do it, he thought.
With newly-found determination, he took a deep breath and began his speech, surprising the clients -- and even Hana -- from the very first more than he did. He bowed down in front of them, deeply, at that.
"I am very sorry for the lacking presentation that I had presented this afternoon. I am aware of the time that I am wasting on behalf of you, so I will clearly make this short. To end my presentation, I would like to give you my word on this. As I have stated before, I am aware that we are talking about risks here. However, the risks are low. I had clearly showed that on my slides. The probability of success is high. We just need your help. At least all I can ask for you is a month's time. Let us all see how this proposal works out as we start operation, and then let's talk about the results yet again afterwards," he said, breathing deeply before ending his speech with a very small smile -- a smile that was so small yet recognizable enough to gain Hana and the client's surprise.
"Remember, sir. Just smile naturally as you think of happy thoughts -- happy memories. Think of happy thoughts with your mother, perhaps? And stop being self-conscious with your teeth or your smile will look too forced. Remember, your teeth are perfect."
Chanyeol remembered his secretary's lecture before, reprimanding him about his sensitivity with his teeth. Apparently, Chanyeol had kept on keeping his mouth sealed as he smiled during their practice, which made Hana assume that he was self-conscious with his teeth. That wasn't the case though and he knew it. Showing his teeth would only make him remember how he smiled before, like the ex-happy virus that he was.
As weird as it may sound, it would make him reminisce the past -- something that he didn't want to remember.
If you're not using your smile, you're like a man with a million dollars in the bank and no check book.
That was the line that had made him smile during their practice, nevertheless. It was as if Choi Hana was taunting him. How could a CEO like him not own a mere million dollars nor a check book because of a mere smile? It was a completely absurd idea that had urged him to push through it.
I can't believe I'm doing this, he thought.
Mr. Zhang, along with the other clients, raised their eyebrows in both amusement and astonishment upon seeing the unexpected smile from the CEO.
As far as they were concerned, Park Chanyeol, PCY Corporation's CEO, had never smiled at them before -- not even once -- yet there he was, flashing them a small smile as he ended his speech. Hana, on the other hand, had a very wide grin on her face.
She felt proud, of course. Heck, she just made her boss smile! Who wouldn't feel happy after achieving that? A scoff from one of the clients had washed away her grin though, along with the small smile that lingered on Chanyeol's lips.
"I didn't know that you were so desperate, Mr. Park? Do you think a mere smile would gain you our trust?" The client said, standing up from his seat. "I don't even know why I attended this meeting. As Mr. Huang had stated before, this proposal of yours is complete absurd. I am absolutely sure that I am not investing on this project of yours, as 'effective' as it might be."
Huffing, he exited the room as well, just like Mr. Huang did before.
Silence emerged from the room, with Chanyeol frozen upfront, his face impassive despite the frown that wanted to crawl in his face.
"I agree," Mr. Zhang said, gaining Chanyeol's attention back. Chanyeol felt as if his hopes were crushed. Now, the only client that he was aiming for was opposed as well. That is, until Mr. Zhang continued. "Well, I actually liked your proposal. I'll invest, at any amount that is needed, as long as you agree to collaborate with my company's next project."
The offer surprised Chanyeol, especially since the latter was willing to invest at any amount. "Why?" It was the only question that bothered him. Why?
"Mr. Park, I think it would be best if you agree without any doubts at this matter. I am here, offering you my money. Isn't that enough?" Mr. Zhang said, a small smirk appearing on his lips as if threatening the latter. As much as Chanyeol would like to complain, Mr. Zhang was right. He needed the money.
The company needed the money. He couldn't possibly decline to that. Nodding, he turned to the four remaining clients, who had all agreed with the proposal as well. They soon signed the contract of agreement and soon enough, the meeting ended, after Hana delivered the minutes of the meeting, leaving Mr. Zhang, Chanyeol and Hana inside.
Chanyeol offered his hand to Mr. Zhang for a handshake, to which the latter accepted.
"You're lucky I agreed to your proposal, Mr. Park. I am aware that you badly need the money. I do hope that you keep the end of your bargain," Mr. Zhang said, removing his grasp from the handshake.
"I will, Yixing. Since when did I break my promise?" Chanyeol said, nodding. Hana watched their interaction, wondering what their relation with each other was. Friends? Cousins? They both looked close for some reason, yet they acted too business-like with one another, making her think otherwise, so Hana concluded that they were most probably close acquaintances.
"Touche," Mr. Zhang said, "Well, I'm off now. I have an early flight to China this evening. See you when I see you, Yeol."
Chanyeol rolled his eyes, flinching slightly at the seemingly foreign nickname that the latter gave him, and watched as his client head outside the conference room.
He rubbed his forehead as a headache was forming. "Your three wishes better be worth it," he muttered, making sure that his secretary heard it. He didn't mean to put the day's blame on her though. His clients had indeed acted fishy, and he would be an idiot to not think that some of them were either just dumb to decline the proposal, in need of money like he was, or in cahoots with each other. Hana heard his murmur, luckily, and boy was she not looking forward to it.
"Announce an immediate meeting amongst the department heads, an hour later, so as to discuss the clients' agreement," he ordered, watching as his secretary nodded, gathered her laptop and a few papers along, and scamper out of the conference room.
He then dialled his spy's number, making sure that no one was in the room.
"Kim Minseok, come to my office immediately. We have matters to discuss," he simply said before hanging up the phone, not even fazed that the person on the other line didn't speak whatsoever.
* * * * *
Kim Minseok was sitting on his desk -- a pile of papers atop of it that he was working on, being the new Human Resources department head that he was. He leaned on his seat as he answered the call that he had been waiting for all day. He had long expected Chanyeol's call, knowing that his plan with Wu Yi Fan, also known as Kris Wu, was running smoothly.
He frowned as Chanyeol hanged up the call almost immediately, feeling disgusted by how rude the latter was. Nevertheless, he smirked, as he knew that the CEO would be getting what he had deserved soon enough. Another call had emerged, breaking his line of reverie. It was another call that he was expecting the whole day.
"Yes, sir? You called?"
"It's time to start with our plan. Zhang Yixing has agreed to fund Park Chanyeol's project as we speak. Don't you think that it's a very good time to make our first move?"
"Indeed, it is the perfect time to move, sir. Should I proceed with our plan, then?
"Do you even have to ask, you idiot? Isn't it obvious? Make sure that the deal does not commence. I am not planning on PCY Corporation gaining back their position in the market. That's why I took some of his clients on my side, yet I still have more competition as we speak. Have you gathered the accomplices that I requested about?"
"Yes, sir. I had already talked to them and they are more than willing to participate in our plan. They are, however, claiming a higher pay to do the deed as well as protection in case Park Chanyeol files against them when he discovers their motive."
"Tell them that I'd give them the thrice the money I will offer, but I will not give them protection. I will not risk my name nor my company on the line for them. Make them sign a contract as well to keep their mouths shut. Target their assets, their families, everything. Just make sure they never open their mouths. Otherwise, I will not hesitate to kill them. Tell them that."
The order had surprised Minseok, though not that much. He knew that it was normal for businessmen to kill on and about, especially when their money and reputation was involved. It was a sick world that he knew, yet he just shrugged it off. It was how the world was, and how it will always be as we speak.
He knew that money has never made humans happy, nor will it, but there was nothing in its nature to produce happiness, and he was well aware of that. "Yes, sir. Noted."
"This goes the same for you, Minseok. If you open your mouth, you're dead, along with your family. Remember that."
Minseok gulped, feeling fear from the latter's words. One of the things that he cared most was his family, and he wasn't planning on endangering them, even though he knew that it was already too late for that. "Of course, sir. Why would I, even? You've always had my loyalty. Expect the contract sent to your office tomorrow, along with the information regarding the meeting that commenced a while ago. I'll have to go now, sir. Park Chanyeol wants to see me in his office."
"You better be, Kim Minseok. We'll see each other soon."