Fading Away | Taekook

20 - Exotic

⚠️ Body Shaming in this chapter.

Hoseok is in his office alone rereading the contract for the twentieth time. He blindly trusts Namjoon's competence but his perfectionism gets the best of him, so he rereads everything carefully, imagining N scenarios where people might try to distort the clauses to take advantage of the new model. Everything seems safe and he relaxes.

Not for long though, as Jackson enters the room without knocking as usual and heads to the coffee machine, like he owns the fucking place.

"Yeah, you can come in, Jackson. Where's Bogum?"

"I can handle whatever this is about. It's only me."

Hoseok scheduled a meeting with Park Bogum and Jackson Wang to inform them about his new contract, BE rules demanded this. Everyone must share information about new models, so they are available for work on any of the teams. Well, obviously Team Park was an exception and could have exclusive models, generally the ones most sought after by customers.

A few days ago an official offer was made to Taehyung by Namjoon, who guided the boy through each clause and answered every questions. Taehyung luckily accepted the offer and was now officially hired by Bangtan Enterprise.

After brewing his black coffee with no sugar, Jackson threw himself comfortably in the chair in front of Hoseok, signaling for him to say whatever he had to say. Hoseok rolls his eyes and slides a folder towards him across the table, "we hired a new model. As protocol requires, I'm giving you a copy of everything, this is his file. Inside is the contract with Bangtan, the contract with one of our clients and his portfolio."

Jackson reaches for the folder and opens it. Kim Taehyung, twenty-three years old, from Eumseong. Incomplete high school, farmer. No previous modeling work, totally raw. "Is this a joke? A bumpkin with no experience or training; if it were a young guy, but he's already in his middle twenties. Can't be good."

Hoseok remains silent as he watches the asshole run his eyes through the folder. He doesn't care about his malicious and prejudiced comments, after all he really doesn't want Jackson to have any interest in Taehyung. He knows that if he shows any protection towards the boy Jackson will fight for him just for the pleasure of being a son of a bitch.

He starts walking through the contract clauses, raising an eyebrow. Hoseok knows he's smart and as good as Namjoon with contracts, he definitely realized that it's an unusual contract, different from the regular ones. "I'm going to need you to retype this: as the primary contractor, Jung Hoseok has priority over the model in case there is a job dispute or conflict. You know you can't have it, right?"

Caught. And Hobi knows, only Jackson has perks there. "Okay, keep going."

Jackson doesn't seem to be bothered by anything else in the BE contract and moves on to the costumer contract, Taehyung's first job. "You're giving him a contract far above what an inexperienced beginner deserves, this client is demanding. Do you really think he can handle it?"

Hoseok just nodded and continued with his inert facial expression.

"I guess the models who have been here for a long time fighting for this type of opportunity will really love it," he said ironically, "good luck dealing with it."

Jackson then reaches the photo portfolio, that's when he recognizes the boy. The same photos he saw at Team Jung's desk the other day, when Jungkook almost beat him up. "Kim Taehyung, so he's the guy you were hiding that day."

Hoseok is still silent, Jackson takes his time analyzing each photograph of the boy. "I don't see why, actually. He's handsome, but nothing compared to Jimin or Mingyu. And he looks a little overweight, doesn't he?"

"No, he's at his ideal healthy weight. Don't you start with your obsession about being thin."

"Just saying, he has really wide hips and in these headshots he really looks chubby, look at his cheeks. Jungkook gonna have to photoshop a lot."

"Jackson, Kim Taehyung not only has a great profile and body structure for both photography and the modeling, but also has talent and poses naturally. His beauty is undeniable, control your nasty comments."

"Hoseok, I've been a model for many years, you know? I can judge a model better than you, who has never stepped on a red carpet. I'm just showing you that this new contract could be a mistake. His face is the best part of him but it still has too many moles and is really asymmetrical, he will spend a lot of time on makeup. Maybe you should send him to Team Jeong downstairs, you know, he likes those non-standard and exotic guys."

"You done? If you agree to the rest of the contract, you can grab your folder and the meeting is over. I'll send you the new corrected copy tomorrow," Hoseok could only handle so much arrogance, Jackson was already getting on his nerves.

Smiling, satisfied with being able to get Hoseok fumming again, Jackson gets up, taking his folder from the table and not even bothering to throw his coffee cup in the trash, "give Taehyung my best welcome, I definitely don't want him in my team", and then leaves through the door, leaving it open to Hobi's irritation.

"God I hate this guy."