Payback AU: What If

Act 2.9 - More Than Anyone Else

There was an eerie atmosphere inside Dream's executive conference room. But for the CEO, it's not as grim as he thought it should be. When trying to persecute a personnel for their fatal mistake, it was important to make the room feel as suffocating as possible, so the person in question would really feel like their head were on a chopping block—less bullshit and excuses coming out of their arse.

And Yoon Jay was supposed to be the grim inducer the CEO could rely on.

But when the CEO looked at Yoon Jay, he didn't look as pissed off as he should be, considering he need to work harder than anyone else to plan out their way out of this mess. "You seemed to be in a good mood." the CEO made sure his voice was loud enough to be heard across the room.

"Yes." Yoon Jay answered without looking up, not sure how he knew the question was meant for him. His eyes were busy scanning the reports stacked in front of him.

Now that was interesting. The CEO was probably the one who knows about Jay's antics and whim the most in Dream. After all, he was the one who personally head-hunted him. Hearing Yoon Jay having a good mood when he hadn't slept for almost three days and needed to clean up other people's shit just after he came back from a business trip was like hearing Korea would be unified the next day—miraculous, unprecedented. It was enough for the room to be quite down immediately.

The CEO raised his eyebrow. There must be something, he thought. Then his sight went to the surface of his phone, where today's date was displayed. March 14th. He was again reminded of the text sent by his son earlier, reminding the CEO to send White Day's gift for his wife. The CEO's eyebrow raised even higher. It couldn't be, could it?

"Good! Having a good mood is good—yes, it's good!" but the silence of the conference room was broken by someone's shout while the CEO mulling over Yoon Jay and White Day. Director Kim was smiling widely, perhaps feeling like he wouldn't be in too much trouble if the vicious Director Yoon was in a good mood. The CEO sighed—he got to strike.

"Today's White Day." The CEO said, seemingly out of nowhere. The eyes of every executive and their assistants shifted to their boss—except for Yoon Jay, still busy with a stack of papers. "You guys buying something for your spouse?" the light-hearted tone didn't seem to match the overall tense atmosphere.

The CEO's mark, however, was on something else. "What about you, Director Yoon?" the room grew even quieter—if that's even possible. "Is it a date?" it was easy to understand that this question pertained to Yoon Jay's admission on him being in a good mood.

The executives and the assistants were exchanging glances with each other. Director Yoon was a bona fide workaholic that would stay in the office until late at night and seldom took a day off. Sometimes he even worked on weekends. Despite his overwhelmingly desirable appearance, no one had ever seen Yoon Jay accepting people's advances despite how many—and how vary—attempted to. Especially those actresses and actors who wish to have him as a sponsor to climb the entertainment world's ladder. So the notion of him having a date was strange for them. Each of these people thought there was no way and it couldn't be in their head.

But the CEO saw Manager Park and Manager Shin looking at each other with a rather strange expressions on their face. And in the next second, Jay answered with a clear voice. "Yes."

This time, he lifted his head, throwing the document he read a while ago into the table. "Which is why, I'd prefer to have this shit solved as fast as possible." the pale eyes and deep smile exuded intent threat the likes they never witnessed before. The room suddenly felt even colder and the knot inside everyone's stomach just got tighter.

The CEO smiled in satisfaction.

* * *

It didn't take much time for Director Kim to discard his pride and beg for forgiveness, what with the feel of a predator ready to bite his neck off looming over him. Still, they spent more time planning out the countermeasure, and Jay hated every second of it.