Tally Marks- soulmate au

Chapter Five: Sometimes It Just Happens

Just like that, everything fell back into a regular, mundane pace. Droplets of the days fell with the winter snow, then melted away as the early days of spring blossomed. Junhui and his friends had managed to keep their jobs for another six months, and the whole ordeal was almost forgotten. Wonwoo had taken Junhui to get that cat they were talking about and she now lived in Wonwoo's home, which had enticed many, many visits from Junhui so he could help take care of their little girl. They had agreed to name her Ruby, but had soon learned that she never responded to that, so they often stuck with 'kitty'. Every weekend, Wonwoo would come over to Junhui's and bring their cat so she wasn't cooped up in Wonwoo's house all the time. During those times, they would take the initiative to go shopping for her and buy all her necessities. And as May rolled around, nothing had changed. Well, nothing except for their two hearts, which had grown in size and filled with quiet admiration one another. Junhui had missed that feeling of undeniable fear clouded in a hazy fog of joy that sat just below the bars of his rib cage. It was exciting, and every time Wonwoo had done something new, Junhui's heart became a red butterfly that spread it's wings to coat his cheeks in a blissful shade. Chills would crawl up from his toes and lace his body in ecstasy whenever he felt Wonwoo's touch upon his body. Whether it be a simple brush of the hands or a hug that held their souls together. Each moment was endless. And that spring morning, when the two of them laughed and joked on their way to the office, Junhui's heart beat just as it did every time he was near the taller man.

However, that happy mood he had gained just from being around Wonwoo had quickly vanished as soon as he had walked into his office to find Anne with a scowl painted upon her face, sitting at her desk with a stack of papers in her hand. She sat with her head held high and her legs crossed, obviously waiting for Junhui. And when he arrived, she didn't say a thing. She just sat there and stared at him. He looked at her with so many questions racing around in his mind but most of them were stained in fear. And his fears were told to be correct when Anne spoke.

"Have a seat, Junhui." she gestured to the chair in front her desk and Junhui took a seat.

"Do you know what this is?" She asked him while holding up a small file.

"No, I don't." He said, a bit timidly. Her demeanor was putting him in an uncomfortable situation.

She tossed the file onto the desk in front of Junhui. It landed with a loud smack that nearly startled him. "Go on, pick it up." And so he did, he picked up the file, and opened it up . He began to read over some of the papers as she continued to talk. "These papers are the revenue intake files from the past 9 months. Do you remember what you told me when we had this discussion 6 months ago?"

He only shook his head. He had been too distracted.

"You told me that we shouldn't fire the newest branch of department because they hadn't done anything wrong. Instead we only fire part of the Productions department. That would solve all of our problems." Her voice was becoming more and more pissed of. She was mad, and was trying real hard not to yell at the man, but his silence was only ticking her off even more. "This was your call! Now look at us! We're worse off than when we started!" Yup, she was definitely mad. "That whole department was a mistake! Both of them! And now you've got me losing investors!" By this point she was standing up and leaning both her palms into desk. "Those departments are screwing up my business! I don't need their lazy asses roaming around and taking my money! They obviously aren't good at their job and someone needs to let them know that they're doing a piss poor job at trying to keep it. They should have quit ages ago."

She kept going on and on. And all Junhui could think about was how much shit she was talking about his friends. Those were the only people who and stuck by his side for the past 9 months, the only people he could really talk to and be himself around. And she just wouldn't shut up about them. About the only people he cared about right now. He was fuming. Every word she spat out only increased the risk of him completely exploding. And when she said, "They're all just useless whores who need to stop bagging off my company like leeches." he lost it.

"Shut up." he said calmly.

She stopped and looked at him. "What did you say?"

"I said, shut up! Those are my friends you're talking about! And you don't have the right to talk about them as if you know them. You've probably never even seen them. You don't know what their lives are like! You don't know the struggles they're going through!" he had also stood up and was now in her face yelling at her.

"Who gave you the right to talk to me like that? Have you forgotten that you work for me?!"

He scoffed. "I gave myself to right to speak however I want! I have my rights to freedom of speech and you can't take that away from me!"

She paused for a moment and Junhui felt a burst of pride as he thought he had won the argument. That was until she leaned back, took a deep breath, brushed of her clothes, and smirked. She walked over to the door without another word and she swayed her hips in a confident manner. She leaned out and called in one of her employees into her office. She then walked back to her desk as a young girl walked in and followed her like a puppy. Anne reached onto her desk and picked up one of the many papers that were upon it and handed it to the woman. Then, she stared directly at Junhui as she spoke to the woman. "I want you to fire every person on this list. As you may notice, this is the entire productions team along with the everyone from our newest department. Junhui here will be rebuilding both departments from scratch." The lady nodded and started to head for the door but as her hand reached the handle, Anne called out for her.

"Oh, and start with Jeon Wonwoo and Choi Seungcheol. That will be all." The lady once again nodded and made her way out the door as Anne crossed her arms over her chest.

"Don't ever question my authority again."

Junhui was now on the verge of releasing his tears of frustration and screams scratched at his throat as they begged to crawl from his lips. "What is wrong with you?" he shakely whispered out.

"Oh, there's nothing wrong with me, you just need to be put in your place. You think just because you have far more tally marks than any one person should have that everyone will pity you. Well I don't. I couldn't care less, in fact, since you've been living so long, maybe you should think about stopping the pity, stopping everything. Just end it already, I don't think fate has anything good in store for you."

A small tear fell down the curves of his face. He had lost.

"Starting tomorrow you will begin to reassemble the departments that you let fall apart. I will have a list of requirements on your desk by tomorrow morning."

There was a moment of silence before Junhui dropped his head and whispered out, "I quit."

Anne, once again, surprised Junhui as she began laughing. "You think it's that easy. You think you can quit just like that. If it were that easy I would have fired you ages ago. You and your bad decisions are ruining my company. But we have a contract, you can't leave unless we both come to an agreement and sign a new contract of release. And I am not going to allow you to do that."

She had now sat back down into her desk chair and Junhui had slumped back into the chair he was previously seated in.

"Why not?"

"Because, Wen Junhui, you need to clean up the messes you've made."

Then she said something that struck Junhui's soul, so hard it sent him into an uncontrollable feeling of anger and sadness.

She said, "Plus, I want you to suffer, I want you to know what it's like to ruin the lives of those closest to you while you still thrive and move on without them. They'll hate you. You guys were so close and look what you've done to them. This is all your fault, Junhui."

That was it, that was the final push that caused his feet to slip over the edge of the cliff. He ran out the door and slammed it behind him and ran out of the building with only one thought on his mind.

I need to apologize to Wonwoo.