Mr. Lee

22. Associate

Your conversation with Mr. Nam had been successful. He had happily promised to invest in your art gallery. Having lost Mr. Lee out of sight you started introducing yourself to the potential investors you needed to secure. It was far less than ideal, but time was of the essence and you didn't want to waste any.

Now and then you seemed to lose track of your pitch as you thought you spotted Mr. Lee in the mass of people. But when you noticed it wasn't him you quickly composed yourself and carried on.

After having secured three more investors and moving on to the fourth and last essential one, you finally spotted him again. Mr. Lee appeared not too far away from you with Miss Kim still by his side. She was talking to him amicably and he reacted politely. He didn't at all seem to be having trouble being nice to her, you thought to yourself as you downed your fourth glass of champagne before introducing yourself to the last person on your list.

Your pitch went awful. When Mr. Lee hadn't been there you could stay focussed, although with a lot of difficulties, but you had just re-imagined his face when he had first said her name to you and that had eased your heart. Now that he was talking to her like old friends, it was a lot harder not to think about the two of them together.

Eventually, when it came to the high point of your pitch, you couldn't take it anymore. It was easy to see that the potential investor you were talking to didn't seem interested anyway. Probably because your pitch had been far too messy because you got distracted.

You decided to give up and excuse yourself.

Feeling agitated and not even being able to revel in the fact that you had secured three out of four investors you walked over to the bar to get yourself another drink.

The fifth champagne glass went down in one go as you stared sulkily at Mr. Lee and Miss Kim's figures.

Too close.

They were far too close to each other.

'Aren't you absolutely bored to death?' a voice spoke near you. It caught your attention and you turned.

A handsome young man of around your age pulled his eyebrow up to you. He seemed to be alone, so he must've been talking to you.

'I mean, these kinds of events only serve one purpose,' he said dully.

You raised his eyebrows at him.

He moved his fingers over one another to indicate money.

'See and be seen. Associate. Sell or invest. That's all this is,' He shrugged lazily.

'If you don't like it why are you here?' you asked him sounding slightly rudely. The alcohol had gotten to you.

'Sell and be seen,' he sighed in a grave voice. 'You?'

'Associate and sell,' you said.

The young man clacked his tongue and took a few steps closer to you.

'Hwang Hyun-jin,' He introduced himself nodding curtly.

'Han Y/n,' you answered him.

'You know this is the most fun of all of it,' Hyun-jin said looking at the crowd of people.

'What?' You asked, grabbing another glass and gulping half of it down when you saw Miss Kim laugh at something Mr. Lee had said.

'This,' Hyun-jin repeated. 'Getting shitfaced drunk, and watching all of those losers beg for more money,' he spoked bored as he stared over the heads of the crowd.

'Aren't we a part of those losers?' You asked.

'Sadly we are,' Hyun-jin sighed again. 'But then again, money is everything,'