Chapter Text
Luo Binghe has not needed an alarm to wake up since the early years of his career. It didn’t matter if he went to bed in the early evening or early morning, he would open his eyes to the sun cracking over the horizon and he would be unable to close them until the day had ended. He doesn’t know why–doesn’t particularly care–especially considering how convenient it is. But, he wonders, sometimes, when he wakes up groggy and half-dead at dawn on Saturday, stumbling and rubbing gunk from his eyes. What would it be like to sleep till late morning? Till noon? To wake not in tandem with the sun, but with it already high and golden, breaking through the window to usher him awake.
You’ve slept so late! The rays would say. It’s time to get up! Rise and shine, Luo Binghe!
Then, he splashes cool water on his face, pats it with the witch hazel toner that burns just a bit, and grounds himself once more. Being woken is for lay-abouts and children. He would never be the former–would never let himself be such a waste–and it has been a long, long time since he was the latter.
*
His coffee sits room-temp and neglected on his desk. He had had two sips when it was freshly brewed, just shy of scalding and flooded his senses with rich and bitter, and it had almost improved his morning. Then, he had sat down at his desk, skimmed all the emails he needed to read but not respond to, the metrics, the alarms, the headlines his PR department wouldn’t stop sending him, and had forgotten all about it. He is only reminded of its presence when Shang Qinghua, of all people, is knocking at his door and awkwardly waving through the office window.
He twitches a hand in an almost wave, since, according to his inbox, he cannot afford to ignore his PR manager, even if he really, really wants to.
Shang Qinghua opens the door just enough to inelegantly slide through the crack. He’s wearing a nervous smile, an ill-fitting suit, and a messily knotted tie. There’s a red-brown stain on the breast pocket of his button-up that could only be marinara in origin. Luo Binghe hates him.
“Good morning, Mr. Luo,” the nervous smile twitches in what is probably an attempt to widen it. A failed one, as most of Shang Qinghua’s attempts are. “Having a good morning?”
In lieu of responding, Luo Binghe takes a sip of his coffee. It’s terrible, cold and flat with no satisfaction. He keeps his face still, though he’d like to wrinkle his nose in disgust, and places the mug back on his desk, staring at Shang Qinghua over the top of his desk top.
“...well, that’s good to hear! So, um… due to the, uh, increased workload in my department…” Shang Qinghua shifts on his feet, poorly concealing his fidgeting hands behind his back. A moment of silence passes.
Luo Binghe continues to stare.
“...right, okay. So, we’ve hired an intern and he starts next week!” the manager’s hands come up fingers-spread, jazz-hands without any real soul.
An intern? The image of a college undergrad, bright-eyed, hopeful, and naive to the bone comes to his head. Stuttering, over-polite flattery that wastes time. Documents put in the wrong place, emails sent to the wrong people, a noticeable increase in snack consumption from the breakroom. Luo Binghe does not want an intern in his office. “An intern? You hired an intern? Who signed off on that?” He doesn’t quite spit, “it certainly wasn’t me, Mr. Shang.”
“Director Mobei-jun, sir! And, really, he’s only an intern by name! He’s kinda famous in the field actually–public relations, I mean–but he took a couple years off and…well, anyways, he’ll be a huge asset! And it’s only for six months! Just until we’ve gotten everything, ah… smoothed over.”
Feeling the opposite of assured, Luo Binghe sighs. So, some mystery temp-hire who took a couple years off is going to be in his office, probably acting like a know-it-all if “famous in the field” was any indication. Luo Binghe hates prodigies. Though, how anyone could be prodigious in PR of all things was beyond him. “Okay. Fine. New intern,” he finger-quotes with one hand, “starts next week. This warranted coming to my office because…?”
“Well…we at the PR department were thinking that the, uh, severity of the current situation needs a little more of a… hands-on approach, if you will.” Shang Qinghua is looking down now, very engrossed in the fidgeting of his own hands.
“Meaning?”
“Um… Shen Yuan–that’s the intern–will be working very closely with you, sir, in order to advise your actions going forward.”
“What.”
“It’s only for six months! That’ll give the rest of the department time to do damage control and then he’ll leave and all of this will be a funny memory!” Shang Qinghua lets out a strangled laugh.
“Shang Qinghua.”
“He starts Monday! And, wow, would you look at the time–I have a meeting with Ms. Sha in five so I better get going!”
And with that insolent farewell, Mr. Shang is sliding back through the door and down the hall. Fleeing. Because, of course, despite his many, many flaws: Shang Qinghua is not an idiot. He knew that Luo Binghe would be furious. Anyone with a functioning neuron would know. Luo Binghe already clashes with the PR department as a whole on the daily. Fundamentally, they just want different things; Luo Binghe wants to do what he wants, the PR department wants him to be well-liked by the general public, and these two wants cannot be simultaneously satisfied. And now, their newly hired little agent was going to be “working closely” with him for six months. Lurking over his shoulder, whispering unwanted advice, bossing him around, telling him to smile and be polite and please, just deign to look at the press, that’s all we ask.
Luo Binghe looks at his neglected, bitter coffee and considers throwing the mug against the wall. Might as well make another mess for that damn Shang Qinghua to clean up.
*
Shen Yuan hates many things. Early mornings, weak plots, two-dimensional characters, black coffee, asparagus, traffic, last minute assignments, being late, people who eat on public transportation, party politics, dentist offices, any breed of dog with a smushed face covered in sinus fluids and that wheezes when it breathes–the list goes on. But, with very little competition, what he hates the most is the dreaded question: “What happened?”
And it’s not just when it’s said aloud–it’s when it’s written in the light scrunch of someone’s eyebrows, the bafflement in their eyes, the purse of their lips, that “well, it’s not me, I guess” tone of voice that takes over. He hates it. He hates it because he doesn’t really have an answer. Despite what his family and friends and coworkers and fellow students have all seemed to think, Shen Yuan never really knows what he’s doing at any given time. Things just happen to him. For a while, those things were success. Papers published as an undergraduate, awards won left and right, early internships at prestigious companies, letters of recommendation from pop stars, famed professors, politicians. Every corner he blindly turned happened to have some shining gold opportunity.
But then, those things were late nights and take-out and weeks upon weeks inside his apartment, wasting. Things were ignoring his family’s calls, his boss's angry emails, his former mentor’s concerned letters. Things were packing a backpack and flying across the continent and not looking back for three years. He doesn’t know why or what or how, things just happened and suddenly, he was in one place and looking back on another. That’s all.
And, it was hard to face people’s concerned, baffled, judgement when he felt no regret. Maybe he would skip the conflict, the drama, the months of rotting alone, but otherwise? The way life happened to him was just fine, and he’d let it happen again in an instant.
*
“Okay, so, as your dearest bro, I feel that I should be apologizing right now.”
Shen Yuan pops a cube of tofu in his mouth and chews. Crispy on the outside, light and soft on the inside, perfectly seasoned. He’d missed this place in the time he’d been away. “And why is that? You got me a job.”
“Yeah, well,” Shang Qinghua twirls a bite of noodles around his chopsticks, “I got you a job with Luo Binghe.”
“And?”
“Working Luo Binghe’s PR is like, I don’t know, some form of karmic punishment.” Shang Qinghua shoves the noodles in his mouth, cheeks puffed out around the bite.
Shen Yuan picks up another piece of tofu.
With an exaggerated swallow, his dining partner continues, “which, like, I probably deserve–”
Shen Yuan nods sagely. Shang Qinghua is one of his only remaining friends from college and by far the closest of them. This closeness means Shen Yuan is the best around to confirm that his friend is absolutely due for karmic punishment.
“But, you probably don’t–at least not to this level. You’re just a bit of a hater and that only warrants, like,” Shang Quinghua pinches his chopstick so the tips are just a centimeter or so apart, “this much karmic punishment.”
“I think you’re exaggerating.”
“Bro, from the bottom of my heart: I am not.”
“I dealt with Jiu-ge just fine. You remember him, right? Shen Jiu?”
“Of-fucking-course I remember you worked for the Shen Qingqiu as a little scrap fucking college sophomore.” Shang Qinghua shoves a piece of beef in his mouth, chewing furiously, “please, do not call him Jiu-ge in front of me.”
“Why not? And don’t speak with your mouth full, you animal.”
“Uh, because it’s strange and unsettling? That man is no one’s gege. He’s probably the devil or something.”
“He wasn’t that bad once we got that whole thing with Yue Qingyuan sorted.”
“Literally only you think that,” Shang Qinghua placed his chopsticks down and popped the clear plastic lid over the remaining noodles. “Anyways, Luo Binghe is worse.”
Shen Yuan thought of the child abuse accusations, the teenage arsonry reveals, the tragic star-crossed lover sequence, the hot tea. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Well, okay, not…” Shang Qinghua visibly rolls words around in his head, which must take a moment considering his head is largely empty, “circumstantially. But like, boss-wise? He’s the fucking worst.”
The first couple months Shen Yuan had worked under Shen Jiu, he was referred to simply as “the intern” with the same distaste someone would refer to a roach. He had been ordered to sort through files for the entire eight hours he was there, twice a week, in one of the lower levels with no windows. Once and a while, Shen Jiu would come by with more papers–news articles, printed emails, press releases–and drop them on the desk with some snide remark about how the other piles and piles and piles of files had barely been touched. He did not think that Luo Binghe would be worse than this, and he says so.
“Okay, look, you’ll see on Monday, he’s a complete fucking nightmare and you’re going to hate me for getting you this job, so this is me apologizing in advance so you can’t kill me in, like,” his friend pauses to settle his packed-up noodles and a handful of soy sauce in his bag, “a week.”
“I’ll probably have another reason to kill you in a week,” Shen Yuan, despite–or perhaps because of–their many years of friendship, wants to kill Shang Qinghua regularly.
“Yeah, yeah, thanks for dinner, bro.” Shen Yuan had covered Shang Qinghua’s portion in gratitude for the job offer–the same job offer his friend has spent the last hour trying to convince him he doesn’t want. “See you Monday!”
Shen Yuan gives a half-hearted wave and his own “see you,” albeit at a much lower volume.
*
There is a man in his office. Though, “man” is probably generous considering that he–whoever he was–stood at the same low height as Sha Hualing, with narrow shoulders and what can only be described as a dainty face. Small nose, slender eyes, slim cheeks, adorned with thin rectangular glasses. He’s dressed in a pale-grey-bordering-sage suit that has clearly been neatly ironed and tailored. So, he probably isn’t some kid off the street that the receptionist accidentally let in. That had happened once, with that brat from Huan Hua that went into the wrong building.
“Hello,” the stranger gives a small but polite smile, “I’m Shen Yuan. Are you Mr. Luo?”
Fuck. Shen Yuan. The starts-on-Monday intern. The shadow that bastard Shang Qinghua had gone behind his back to attach. It’s Monday. “Who else would I be?”
The man, Shen Yuan, blinks. “Ah… well, Shang Qinghua showed me to your office, Director Mobei gave me an itinerary for the next week, and Ms. Sha dropped in to give her greetings. Who’s to say who you are?”
Luo Binghe feels his simmering irritation spike up to a low boil. “Don’t be smart with me, I’ll have you out of here by lunch.”
“That would breach my employment contract, Mr. Luo.”
Of course it would. He lets himself glare while a few moments slip by. Shen Yuan maintains eye contact, his face passive, but his small smile has dropped.
Luo Binghe breaks. “I was told you weren’t a college student.”
Shen Yuan inclines his head. “I am not.”
“You look like one.”
“Thank you.”
“That was not a compliment.”
The smile returns, not so politely. “I will take it as one, anyway, Mr. Luo.”