lever/age hazards
Lever/age Hazards
Kai/D.O | Sehun/Lu Han | Kai+Lu Han
~6.2k
Investment banking AU. Sehun is the new intern in Jongin and Kyungsoo's group.
When illusions don't matter as long as the results are real.
lever/age hazards
"All I'm saying--," Jongin mumbles around a mouthful of overpriced salad, "--is that people shouldn't call themselves investment bankers if they're not in a front-office, client-facing, revenue-generating position."
"Listen to yourself," Kyungsoo says, not even looking over from where his fingers are flying across the keyboard. "What happened to the boy who showed up to work the first day in mismatched socks?"
"He sold his soul to pay for New York rent," Jongin replies with a roll of his eyes. "And the only one who noticed was you!"
But of course Kyungsoo had noticed - he can spot an extra space in a thousand-word memo on the first read-through. It's what separates the career bankers from those just counting down to the end of a two-year contract. Jongin's not sure which camp he belongs in yet; he had never planned on going into investment banking when he was younger, but it's the exit path with least resistance when you run with a high-achieving social group in school and have no interest in going into medicine or law.
He braces himself for one of Kyungsoo's inevitable lectures on the importance of sartorial propriety in the workplace when the elevator doors across the hall from their cubicle suite slide open, and he recognizes Joonmyun, one of the Human Resource managers, step out with a clipboard in hand. Someone else trails behind him, dressed in a ubiquitous white button-down and dark slacks and sporting an expression grim enough to scare away a tax auditor.
"This is Kyungsoo and Jongin, they're part of the Leveraged Finance division," Joonmyun gestures toward them and then turns back to the stranger. "Sehun's your new summer analyst. He just finished orientation this morning."
Kyungsoo stands up and leans over his cubicle wall. "I thought our group wasn't getting an intern this summer because of the hiring freeze."
"Last minute change," Joonmyun answers brightly, steering Sehun toward an empty desk to set down his bag, before leaning down to whisper, "He's related to someone important, so be nice."
Jongin stares up at him and tries not to think about how Joonmyun's smile eerily never seems to dim no matter what he says. "Nepotism destroyed stronger empires than us, you know," he says solemnly.
"Jongin, how do you think you got hired," Kyungsoo scoffs.
Joonmyun hastily clears his throat and adds, "Everyone at the bank still goes through a rigorous screening process, of course."
"Of course," Jongin echoes innocently.
"Anyway, I trust that I'm leaving Sehun in capable hands." Joonmyun tries to pat his shoulder, and Jongin instinctively flexes away. There's an awkward pause before Kyungsoo finally takes pity on him and offers to look over the paperwork to make sure everything is in order, and he walks Joonmyun back to the elevator. Jongin takes the opportunity to study the new intern curiously; Sehun can't be much younger than him, but he definitely looks older than someone who's probably still in college. Sehun looks up from his desk, and their eyes meet briefly. It's his face, Jongin decides - it's always easy to spot interns around the office by the trail of eagerness and naiveté they leave behind, but Sehun looks almost sullen, his eyebrows knitted together in a seemingly permanent angry slope.
Kyungsoo reappears behind him, shuffling though a sheaf of papers. "Sorry, our group's in the middle of some re-structuring right now," he says to Sehun. "Typically summer interns work under an associate, but ours got poached last week by a hedge fund--"
"That traitor," Jongin cuts in darkly.
"--so it looks like you'll be reporting to me for now," Kyungsoo finishes.
"So you're both analysts?" Sehun appraises them with a critical eye, as if trying to decide how much authority he ought to give them.
"I'm a second-year analyst, so I have seniority," he corrects while Jongin makes a noise in his throat that's a cross between a snort and a cough. Sehun still doesn't look very impressed, but his face rapidly changes from detached skepticism to alarm when Kyungsoo drops a heavy training manual on his desk and pulls up a chair next to him so they can make a detailed list of his professional goals for the summer. Sehun glances over at Jongin after the fifth question about his educational background, his eyes an unspoken plea for help. Jongin smirks and turns back to his computer screen.
--
Sehun is given several important responsibilities for the rest of the day, one of which is looping around the office every fifteen minutes after 5 PM to check if all the vice-presidents and managing directors have gone home yet.
"Is there a reason I'm doing this?" he finally asks after the third circuit.
"We don't leave until they've left," Kyungsoo explains. "And you don't get to leave until we do."
"But you aren't even doing work anymore." Sehun peeks his head over the cubicle wall. "I mean, Jongin's playing Angry Birds on his phone right now."
"Jongin!" Kyungsoo calls out in exasperation, and Jongin narrows his eyes and lobbies an eraser at Sehun's head before hissing, "Tattletale."
"It doesn't matter if there's work or not," he continues. "We always stay until the office is empty."
"This doesn't happen often, so don't get used to it," Jongin warns and bends back over his phone screen, ignoring the small huff that Sehun lets out. It's a rare slow week for their group, the brief illusion of calm after finishing a deal and before preparing for the next pitch, but banking is nothing without the constant perception of overwork and productivity, and he's been in the system long enough to not question the expectations for face-time and keeping an image.
They send Sehun out to pick up dinner, and Jongin decides the new intern isn't so bad after all when he spends their entire meal expense on two bags of candy from the convenience store, much to Kyungsoo's horror, and stubbornly insists that it's the only trade-off he'll accept for staying late. The last VP finally leaves just as the sky outside their windows darkens into dusk, and the three of them scramble out five minutes later. The humidity hits them as soon as they push through the heavy revolving doors, and the sudden assault of noisy street chatter feels like stepping from one portal to another, from gleaming marble floors and air-conditioned walls to scuffed sidewalks and car exhaust.
Jongin turns to ask Sehun which direction he's heading, and his jaw drops when he learns that Sehun's summer sublet is in the Upper East Side, a few blocks short of East Harlem.
"Why?" he demands.
Sehun shrugs. "I'm rooming with a college friend who's interning at a nonprofit."
His mouth is already forming another why when Kyungsoo pinches him in the arm.
"What about you?" Sehun asks with a slight edge of defensiveness.
Kyungsoo motions at Jongin and says, "We live around Union Square."
"Wait, so you live together? And you also work together? Don't you get tired of each other?"
"Kyungsoo likes spending time with me," Jongin answers smugly.
"Our lease isn't up until September, so let's pretend that's true for a few more months," Kyungsoo adds with a resigned air, paying no attention to Jongin's wounded expression. "We knew each other in college, and I recruited him to the bank last year. Before you ask, yes, I regret that decision now."
"There's a lot to regret when it comes to Jongin," a voice pipes up before Jongin can defend himself, and he registers a familiar smiling face that seems to materialize out of a cloud of pollution.
"Lu Han," he blurts out, surprise coloring his voice. "What are you doing here? You hate Midtown."
"Usually just the people in it," Lu Han replies cheerfully. "And there was an event at Bryant Park."
"You two know each other?" Sehun stares curiously at him, the first genuine sign of interest he's shown all day.
"We went to prep school together," Jongin grouses. "Years ago, though. I barely remember him."
"You saw me last week," Lu Han chides, serenely bypassing the snub.
A light sheen of sweat starts beading on the skin where Jongin's shirt collar digs uncomfortably into his neck, and it's doubtlessly a natural consequence of the warm summer evening and not at all related to the irrational spasm of discomfort that runs through him whenever Lu Han leans in too close, a tradition that started back in their school days and doesn't appear ready to disappear any time soon. They first met when they joined the same intramural soccer league, but Lu Han had been several years older, and age only skimmed the surface of their differences. Jongin came from a family well-off enough to afford private school but still short of the kind of wealth that matters, the kind that would've bought him out of the obligatory sell-side analyst years where he probably shortens his lifespan by months at a time for every continuous all-nighter he has to pull. Instead, it's the sort of wealth that gets him on the right ladder, but it's up to him how far he's willing to climb.
Lu Han, in contrast, was one of the many exchange students from Asia that their school targeted in earnest back then - ostensibly as an initiative for increased diversity, though the reality of the motivation fell closer to the exorbitant international fees that surfaced in the tuition around the same time. While Jongin had spent his teenage years crafting the ideal college application under the careful guidance of his academic counselor, Lu Han treated prep school more as a social playground, occasionally skipping classes and flitting between groups. He's not surprised that they'd both ended up in New York after college; many of their old classmates do, and Lu Han's family owns property around the city, but he had figured their paths would never cross after learning that Lu Han now works in new media (whatever that means). And yet.
"I forget how small this city feels sometimes," he mutters.
"Who's this?" Lu Han tilts his head and smiles pleasantly at Sehun.
"Sehun's my new intern for the next couple months." Kyungsoo rests a hand on his shoulder, and Sehun is still too occupied with staring at Lu Han to even shrug him off. A wave of annoyance crests up Jongin's chest.
"Let's go," he says abruptly and pulls Kyungsoo toward the opposite direction, who inadvertently drags Sehun along in a headlock.
"It was nice meeting you!" Lu Han calls out after them. Jongin ignores Sehun's insistent protests and doesn't bother looking back.
--
Later that week, Kyungsoo coaxes Jongin into going to the launch for a new restaurant after work instead of another night of staying in to marathon six straight hours of StarCraft 2, because he argues that they should remind themselves that there's an entire world to New York outside of what they see through the windows of their glass skyscraper. He also promises that there'll be an open bar.
It's one of those fusion places, the kind that's opened by American chefs from a culinary institute abroad after they spend a soul-searching month in an Asian country to justify their expertise, one that'll inevitably get a glowing review in the New York Times and then will eventually be discounted as overhyped and a disappointment by the Village Voice.
There's already a healthy turn-out by the time they arrive, and Jongin spies a group of analysts from other banks predictably clustered together by the bar, because even when they decide to venture out of the office for social events they somehow always end up gravitating toward each other, using the guise of complaining about work to discreetly brag about how many hours they've pulled that week or the size of their projected bonuses (sadly literal, Jongin thinks, though a few possibly speak in euphemism) or the last major heist they managed to expense. He and Kyungsoo make their way across the room, and someone smoothly puts a drink in his hand before he's even shrugged off his jacket.
A flash of red catches his eye, and this time he's not surprised to spy the crown of light brown hair mixed in with the crowd, because this is exactly the type of place that Jongin always sees Lu Han checking into on Foursquare (which he only tracks so he knows where to avoid), and sometimes he's convinced that Lu Han only attends launch parties for a living, anyway. He has his face turned up mid-laughter, the light from the restaurant's hanging lamps accenting the sharp curves of his cheekbones, and his cherry-colored cardigan stands out like a flame in a forest, which Jongin finds completely unnecessary because Lu Han has never had problems attracting attention just by existing. Their eyes meet, and Jongin doesn't look away in time before Lu Han notices and waves, already starting to move toward their group. There's someone with him - Jongin squints and recognizes Yixing, one of Lu Han's friends he met a couple months ago who edits for an East Asian literature magazine. Or not even a magazine, maybe a webzine? Lu Han has always collected the oddest assortment of people.
Then again, he muses, it's easy to be generous with time and who to spend it with when you don't have to calculate your professional value by how many hours you clock per week, when your biggest selling point isn't how much you can let the industry consume you, how much you're willing to give of yourself. Jongin downs a large gulp of his drink and turns his attention back the circle of analysts.
"Heard you lost your associate last week?" one of them asks, nudging Kyungsoo's arm.
"He left for a hedge fund," Jongin confirms. "In Connecticut. Moved out of the city and everything."
There's a brief moment of silence before someone good-naturedly murmurs, "Happens to the best of us."
"Kyungsoo's hoping to get placed in the empty associate position," Jongin reveals slyly, and Kyungsoo goes a little pink in his cheeks.
Lu Han and Yixing arrive in time to catch the tail-end of the conversation, their cotton v-necks and fitted denim a clear contrast to the sea of starched collars, and Lu Han flashes a smile at Kyungsoo. "Will you get better hours as an associate?"
Kyungsoo thinks for a second. "No," he answers, "but I'll get paid more."
"Oh." Lu Han's eyes dim the slightest amount, so imperceptible that Jongin wonders if he imagines it. "Exciting."
Jongin defensively wraps an arm around Kyungsoo's shoulders and edges out, "It is exciting."
Everyone else shuffles their feet, and Lu Han clears his throat. "So," he segues. "Sehun is pretty cute."
"No way," Jongin says immediately, vehemently shaking his head. "He's my intern!"
"I thought he's Kyungsoo's intern," Lu Han points out.
"Whatever is Kyungsoo's is mine, too!"
"Guys, I'm right here," Kyungsoo sighs, his face disgruntled from where Jongin still has his arm hooked around his neck.
"Don't even try," he warns, and Lu Han tips up his glass to take a sip of his drink, which Jongin strongly suspects he only does to hide an eye-roll.
"How's your intern so far?" another analyst asks. "Ours actually thought she'd get to work on deals, it's cute."
"We have so much to teach him," Jongin laments. "He's living on 104th street this summer."
"Is that even in the same zip code?" Light laughter ripples through their group. "I didn't think cabs went that far."
"I live in Queens," Yixing speaks up unexpectedly, surprising all of them.
"Never heard of it before," someone snickers, and Jongin can see Lu Han's eyes narrow and his fingers tighten around his glass.
"I need another drink," he announces and tugs on Yixing's arm, excusing the two of them with a stiff smile, and Jongin watches them go before impulsively untangling himself from Kyungsoo and following them.
"Lu Han, wait," he calls out, catching the other's elbow, and the red cardigan feels soft and luxurious rubbed against his fingers. Must be cashmere, he thinks off-hand.
Yixing turns around, and Lu Han waves him ahead before pivoting around to face Jongin.
"Sorry, my friends are douchebags," he says, his words coming out strangely breathless.
"At least you're self-aware," Lu Han replies flatly.
The hair on the back of Jongin's neck bristles, and he sets his jaw. "Hey, it's not like you're a saint, either. I know you think banking is a waste of time."
Lu Han goes quiet and turns his empty drink glass in his hands. The gentle lighting bathes his entire face in a warm glow, and Jongin's eyes follow the scar below his bottom lip - he's known about it since prep school but for some reason he's taken aback every time he sees it again. Jongin's always found it peculiar, how so obvious a flaw goes so often unnoticed, but everything about Lu Han inspires at least a little curiosity.
"People can live their lives how they want," he finally dismisses.
Jongin realizes too late that he's still holding onto a handful of Lu Han's cardigan and immediately lets go, one foot instinctively stepping backward. "You do judge, though," he murmurs.
Lu Han looks away, and Jongin's fists clench. He's not disillusioned with banking; he knows it's hard for outsiders to see past the media hype and stereotypes of the industry, to understand the chill of paranoia whenever his work Blackberry isn't within reach or the paralyzing fear of making a mistake on a memo that only two people will read anyway. He knows that banking is filled with mirages, that there's nothing glamorous about spreadsheets filled with numbers but that it's easy to compensate with elitism when you have the right expense account. Only people willing to play by its rules get it - that despite the inhuman hours and cutthroat competition, there's something comforting about the strict hierarchy in high finance, of knowing exactly where you stand, what level you fall on the corporate ladder. You always know whether you're stagnant or moving forward.
Maybe that's it, he thinks, when their eyes meet again. Jongin hates the feeling of staying still for too long; he needs to know he's going somewhere, and talking with Lu Han feels like moving in circles. No matter how far he pushes, he somehow always ends up one step short of where he started.
--
After a few weeks, Sehun gets upgraded to formatting memos. One, because they run out of useless tasks to give him and, two, because their group gets swamped with work, and Jongin is too busy to even torment him by Google-stalking out his old yearbook pictures and attaching them on floor-wide e-mail chains. The bank is in a frenzy over a recent tip that a juggernaut in the technology sector has plans of merging with a high-profile clean energy firm, and their group kicks into overdrive to prepare a pitch to win the rights to handle the transaction.
Jongin spends his morning exchanging passive-aggressive e-mails with the leverage finance group of another bank who've been assigned to work with them as joint bookrunners for the pitch and then spends his afternoon exchanging angry phone calls with their analyst.
"I'm telling you, our logos are the same size on the cover!"
"You definitely made your bank's logo bigger!" Zitao argues back.
Kyungsoo blows up the Word document to 400% view on the computer and whips out a measuring tape from his desk drawer, laying it flat against the monitor screen to take down the exact increments. He calmly intercepts the phone from Jongin.
"The logos are the same size. It's just that yours is stretched horizontally, and ours is stretched vertically," he says while Jongin silently seethes in the background.
There's a pause as Kyungsoo listens to Zitao's reply, and then he affirms, "Yes, the two logos are the same pixel quality."
Jongin lets out a growl and wrestles the phone away from Kyungsoo. "Let me talk to your associate," he bristles.
"Kris has more important things to do," Zitao dismisses.
He's about to describe in detail just what Kris can do with the pitch book and where to shove it when Zitao tells him he has a conference call on the other line and abruptly puts him on hold. Jongin slams down the phone receiver grumpily.
"Both logos are tiny anyway," Sehun quips from behind him. "Is it that important?"
"Presentation is everything," Jongin says, clearly annoyed. "Our two banks are working together for this pitch now, but next time we'll be competing for the same deals."
Sehun grumbles under his breath and sets a stack of memos he just finished formatting down on Kyungsoo's desk, who barely glances at them before handing them back. "Great," he says. "Now do them over again."
"You didn't even look at them!"
"We never do anything just once," Kyungsoo instructs. He tries to twirl a ballpoint pen over his knuckles and looks a bit sheepish when it slips between his fingers, the pen rolling a few feet away on the dark carpet. He straightens in his seat again. "That's how mistakes happen."
Sehun stares at him like he's a rare specimen escaped from a wildlife reservation, and Jongin pushes back on his swivel chair and tosses a plastic packet into his hands. "Here, this will help."
"What is it?" He turns it over in his palm.
"Army-grade caffeine gum," Jongin tells him. "That stuff's a hot commodity around these floors, so use it wisely."
Sehun looks from him to Kyungsoo and back again. "I want a refund on my internship," he says darkly.
Obviously it's time for the next stage of this apprenticeship, Jongin decides. He gets up and indulgently locks Sehun's head in a loose grip. "I think the problem is that we're not giving you the full investment banking experience," he says with a grin. "Clear your weekend."
--
Jongin takes Sehun out clubbing, because he reasons that Sehun's banking checklist wouldn't be complete without showing him how to spend money, too. He books a table at a club in the Meatpacking District, one that charges several hundred per bottle of alcohol and flies in DJs from the West Coast on weekend nights. Kyungsoo disapproves, but he resigns himself to going along because otherwise the alternative is abandoning his lone summer analyst to Jongin's questionable sense of judgment. Music spills out from tinted windows onto the sidewalk where a long line snakes behind the doors, and the bouncer unhooks the velvet rope to usher them in the direction of the private entrance.
"Are you sure you're okay? You look like you're about to fall asleep standing up." Sehun eyes Jongin doubtfully.
"I'm fine," Jongin insists even as he stifles a yawn with the back of his hand. They're led into the VIP section, an elevated platform with a birds-eye view of the dance floor where bartenders hoist bottles of Grey Goose and Patron with sparklers attached at the top as they walk past so everyone can show off how much alcohol they're ordering that night. Jongin flinches when the sparks from one brush too close to his head, the flash momentarily causing his vision to swim. It clears by the time the hostess shows them to their table, and he nearly trips over a cushion when he sees who's at the next table over.
This can't be mere coincidence, he thinks. At this point it's like fate is just playing a practical joke on him.
"You have to be kidding me," he exhales. "What are you doing here? You hate clubs."
Lu Han looks up in surprise, and a smile blossoms over his face. "Usually just--"
"--yes, just the people in them," Jongin finishes irritably. "I get it, you hate everyone I know."
"That's not true," he refutes as he slides across the seat divider. "I don't hate Sehun."
Sehun looks delighted that Lu Han remembers his name, and Jongin rolls his eyes so hard that he nearly blacks himself out. "Lu Han, right?" he asks shyly, as if Jongin hadn't caught him trying to look up the other's Facebook just two days ago. He wonders if it's too early to vomit into the champagne bucket.
Lu Han tilts his head as he studies Jongin's face and suddenly raises a hand to trace a faint line underneath Jongin's left eye. "Is everything okay? You look tired."
Jongin visibly jumps back, and the hand falls away. "We're working on a pitch right now," he mumbles, still startled. "I had to stay late a couple times."
"He was in the office until 3 AM the last three nights," Sehun clarifies. Jongin deliberately steps on his foot.
"Is it really worth it?" Lu Han's voice is soft, barely audible over the music from the dance floor, and his concern only fuels Jongin's irritation.
"It's not about what's worth it," he snaps. "It's about what I have to do."
Lu Han regards him quietly before his expression clears, and he nudges Sehun playfully. "If you end up in banking after this, don't turn out like Jongin, okay?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" There's a hard edge to his words, and Kyungsoo touches his leg in tacit warning.
"Just friendly advice, no need to take it personally," Lu Han muses and slides back to reach for his drink.
It takes five shots of vodka for the tension to start releasing from Jongin's muscles. The floor lightly reverberates to the rhythm of the bass beat, and he lets his head fall against the cushions, the music growing indistinct as it mixes with the buzzing in his ears. He's aware of figures moving back and forth, the cool sprays of mist that diffuse from the ceiling vents, multi-colored lights that transform and dance along shadows overhead, and the last thing he remembers is his glass falling from his palm before someone is shaking him awake and Kyungsoo's face comes into sharp focus. He pulls Jongin into an upright position and forcibly maneuvers him through the crush of sweaty bodies, and Jongin's legs feel like lead, one foot moving in front of the other on muscle memory alone. He faintly registers the sound of street traffic when Kyungsoo pushes him through a door, and Jongin breathes in the fresh night air in greedy gulps, his mind still in a haze.
"Wait, the bill--," he says in confusion.
"Don't worry, I took care of it." Kyungsoo keeps a steady hand on his arm and directs him to a car waiting at the curb.
"Sehun--" Jongin tries again even as he's herded gently into the backseat.
"He's fine," Kyungsoo reassures him. "I saw Lu Han putting him in a cab."
Jongin checks his reflection in the rearview mirror, and he rubs at his flushed cheeks, his dark hair tousled like a rogue bird nest, before he drops his head on Kyungsoo's shoulder. His eyelids flutter once in an effort to stay open and then succumb back to the alluring pull of sleep.
--
Joonmyun shows up on their floor the following Monday, which immediately sets Jongin and Kyungsoo on alert because Human Resources only ever surfaces unannounced to drown them in corporate red-tape.
"It pains me to have this conversation," he starts, and Jongin inwardly agrees that the feeling is mutual. "As I hope the two of you already know, company policy discourages staff from taking interns to any unauthorized social events outside of work."
He pauses, and Kyungsoo leans over to hiss at Jongin, "I told you they GPS-track us through our Blackberrys."
Jongin kicks at his leg and begins to explain, "If this is about us taking Sehun clubbing, it was so tame that I fell asleep--"
"I'd prefer not to hear the details due to disclosure conflicts," Joonmyun interrupts. "The point is that we don't want anything that could be misconstrued as coercion."
That would end up as a lawsuit, Jongin wordlessly finishes for him. They all know the story of the summer analyst from a couple years ago who went public after his managing director took him to a burlesque bar and forced him into finishing a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label to test his stamina for future business negotiations. Corporate hazing isn't anything new, and there are many schools of thought on Wall Street who swear by it, but everyone is especially sensitive to public scrutiny these days, especially with banks as the favorite scapegoat for the recent economic downturn.
"This is your first offense, so I'll just leave you with a verbal warning this time," Joonmyun tells them. "Next time I'll actually have to file paperwork."
"We'll be more careful," Kyungsoo promises.
Joonmyun's shoulders relax and he ducks down to whisper conspiratorially, "I shouldn't say anything yet, but there's a good chance Sehun will get an offer letter next month, so make sure to keep him out of trouble."
The news makes Jongin brighten, and he waits until Joonmyun has retreated back to the elevators before finding Sehun on the floor of the print room, surrounded by tall piles of glossy paper that he's resentfully rebinding into pitch books because Kyungsoo made him tear apart the first attempt when one margin had printed a quarter inch wider than another.
"HR stopped by and gave us a warning for taking you out over the weekend," Jongin says breathlessly and waves a hand at Sehun's furrowed brows. "Don't worry about it, Joonmyun can't do anything to us. What's more important is that he let slip that you'll probably get a full-time offer for next year."
Sehun blinks slowly at him. "Oh," he says. "I guess I'll think about it when the time comes."
"What's there to think about?" Jongin frowns and rests a hand on Sehun's shoulder. The material of his sweater feels familiar, and he glances down to notice that Sehun is wearing a red cardigan, a deviation from his usual clothing palette of monochrome black and white, and suddenly the color triggers his memory.
"Is that Lu Han's cardigan?" he demands.
To his credit, guilt flashes across Sehun's face. "He lent it to me when--"
"Did he tell you not to go into banking? Because I know he thinks banking crushes souls, but-- I mean-- he works in new media," Jongin fumes. "What does that even do?"
Sehun carefully sets aside a finished pitch book and helpfully recites, "The purpose of new media is to serv--"
"He doesn't even have to work," he bursts out. "His family already has money."
Jongin knows that, currently, there are thousands of summer analysts scattered across dozens of financial institutions in the city and thousands more who didn't manage to land a banking internship, and nearly all of them are waiting for that coveted offer letter, but he doesn't realize until now how much he wants Sehun to be one of them. There's no shortage of validation on Wall Street - you see it in the annual bonus numbers, your group's name as lead-left bookrunner on the front cover of a transaction contract, in the commission percentage after a successful IPO launch, but the trade-off is the blurring between personal and professional identities, so much so that Sehun's ambivalence to banking stings, as if he's rejecting Jongin himself.
"I'd rather not get caught between you two," Sehun says after a few long breaths. He lays out the next stack of papers and adds, "I'm not so stupid that I'd base career decisions on some guy I met a couple weeks ago," and Jongin doesn't point out how he subconsciously pulls the cardigan closer around him even as he says it.
--
Jongin wakes up the morning of the pitch to merciless sunlight streaming onto his face, and he blinks in confusion before he realizes that Kyungsoo must've opened his blinds so he wouldn't oversleep the alarm. A quick peek into the other bedroom at the empty bed confirms his suspicions - Kyungsoo always goes into the office early on pitch days to run through the presentation one last time before the official send-out, never mind that the two of them triplechecked the slides only a few hours earlier. Analysts don't usually get to attend the actual pitch, but the client this time specifically invited them to join the meeting at their headquarters in the Financial District, and Jongin knows Kyungsoo must be nervous, especially with his performance review coming up and the associate position still vacant.
He stumbles through their living room and smiles when he sees the granola bar and apple left out for him on the kitchen counter, even as he tosses both of them into the trash and rummages through the cupboard for his emergency stash of potato chips. He's already on his second piece of caffeine gum by the time he steps off the elevator onto their floor, and Kyungsoo glances up from his desk, a large coffee in hand.
"Good, you're here," he says briskly and then does a double take before asking incredulously, "Are you wearing a mismatching suit?"
Jongin looks down at himself and belatedly notices how his slacks are a shade of gray darker than his jacket. A sigh escapes his lips, and he presses two fingers along his temple to calm the tremor of muscles that threaten to spill into a headache. "Close enough," he finally says.
"Attention to detail, Jongin," Kyungsoo reprimands. "We're meeting with clients today."
There's the sound of movement and distant voices down the hallway, the air humming with taut anticipation only found on pitch days, and Jongin leans against a window, his head heavy from lack of sleep and his eyes straining against the bright reflection of the glass. He looks down at the sharp drop to the streets below, where the pedestrians and yellow cabs appear more like parts of a miniature toy set than real people, and the vertigo forces him to shut his eyelids. The problem with hierarchies and ladders is that how high you're willing to climb is the same as how far you're willing to fall.
"Do you ever get tired of keeping up appearances?" Jongin asks, his voice traitorously steeped with exhaustion.
Kyungsoo looks up, and his usually expressive eyes are now unreadable, closed off. "We can talk about this after we win the deal," he says after a short pause. "The town car is picking us up any minute."
His Blackberry buzzes as if on cue, and Kyungsoo hastily sticks a to-do list on Sehun's desk for when he gets in that day and loads his arms with a dozen perfectly-pressed pitch books. If he's bothered by Jongin's moment of weakness, he doesn't show it. Jongin doesn't bring up the topic again, and Kyungsoo doesn't ask him about it.
--
A year into the industry with a dozen deals in his portfolio, and seeing a pitch happen in real-time still doesn't lose its thrill. Jongin watches as a month's worth of work and all-nighters are condensed into a few PowerPoint slides and colorful graphs; none of the analysts say a word, of course, but they listen as their managing directors crunch the tiny rows of numbers into a compelling story on why the clients should trust them and no one else to handle the billion dollar transaction. He looks at the faces in rapt attention around the table, and Jongin is reminded that while there hadn't been any glamour in the endless spreadsheets in the weeks leading up to the presentation, no one in the room cares about whether perceptions are real or not when a five minute speech will translate into a hundred million tacked onto their group's revenue ledger in the coming weeks. That for all the emphasis that banking puts on image, in the end the results are always real.
The vice-president flashes them a thumbs up afterward; Kyungsoo squeezes his arm, and he knows they must mirror identical expressions of elation on their faces. They pass by Zitao and Kris on the way out, and Jongin grins, "Happy with the logos?"
"They were acceptable," Zitao allows.
He resists the urge to roll his eyes, and he can see even Kyungsoo biting back a smile. The executives stay behind with the clients as the two of them pile back into the town car, still giddy from the successful pitch.
"They'll definitely promote you to associate," Jongin declares confidently. "You're good at this."
"You're good at this, too." Kyungsoo lightly cuffs his shoulder. "At least, when you're actually awake and well-fed."
Jongin slouches down on the leather seats and leans his head against Kyungsoo's arm, his eyelids heavy again as the adrenaline starts to drain from his system. Skyscrapers fill the windows on either side, and the gentle motion of the car as it smoothly weaves through the streets makes him temporarily forget that there's still a stack of marked-up absolute valuation models waiting for him on his desk. More memos to proof, more due diligence reports to write. Even as he lets his eyes close, he can feel his muscles tense in preparation, his body already calibrating for the next pitch and next IPO launch. Always moving forward.
"I don't think Sehun is going to accept the full-time offer," he sighs, rolling his face on the soft wool of Kyungsoo's suit jacket.
"He never figured out how to standardize margins in Excel," Kyungsoo replies without missing a beat. "We don't need him."
a/n:
- why are AUs so hard /flops
- this is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever attempted
- blame falls on the usual suspects who kept telling me yes when they should've told me no
Kai/D.O | Sehun/Lu Han | Kai+Lu Han
~6.2k
Investment banking AU. Sehun is the new intern in Jongin and Kyungsoo's group.
When illusions don't matter as long as the results are real.
lever/age hazards
"All I'm saying--," Jongin mumbles around a mouthful of overpriced salad, "--is that people shouldn't call themselves investment bankers if they're not in a front-office, client-facing, revenue-generating position."
"Listen to yourself," Kyungsoo says, not even looking over from where his fingers are flying across the keyboard. "What happened to the boy who showed up to work the first day in mismatched socks?"
"He sold his soul to pay for New York rent," Jongin replies with a roll of his eyes. "And the only one who noticed was you!"
But of course Kyungsoo had noticed - he can spot an extra space in a thousand-word memo on the first read-through. It's what separates the career bankers from those just counting down to the end of a two-year contract. Jongin's not sure which camp he belongs in yet; he had never planned on going into investment banking when he was younger, but it's the exit path with least resistance when you run with a high-achieving social group in school and have no interest in going into medicine or law.
He braces himself for one of Kyungsoo's inevitable lectures on the importance of sartorial propriety in the workplace when the elevator doors across the hall from their cubicle suite slide open, and he recognizes Joonmyun, one of the Human Resource managers, step out with a clipboard in hand. Someone else trails behind him, dressed in a ubiquitous white button-down and dark slacks and sporting an expression grim enough to scare away a tax auditor.
"This is Kyungsoo and Jongin, they're part of the Leveraged Finance division," Joonmyun gestures toward them and then turns back to the stranger. "Sehun's your new summer analyst. He just finished orientation this morning."
Kyungsoo stands up and leans over his cubicle wall. "I thought our group wasn't getting an intern this summer because of the hiring freeze."
"Last minute change," Joonmyun answers brightly, steering Sehun toward an empty desk to set down his bag, before leaning down to whisper, "He's related to someone important, so be nice."
Jongin stares up at him and tries not to think about how Joonmyun's smile eerily never seems to dim no matter what he says. "Nepotism destroyed stronger empires than us, you know," he says solemnly.
"Jongin, how do you think you got hired," Kyungsoo scoffs.
Joonmyun hastily clears his throat and adds, "Everyone at the bank still goes through a rigorous screening process, of course."
"Of course," Jongin echoes innocently.
"Anyway, I trust that I'm leaving Sehun in capable hands." Joonmyun tries to pat his shoulder, and Jongin instinctively flexes away. There's an awkward pause before Kyungsoo finally takes pity on him and offers to look over the paperwork to make sure everything is in order, and he walks Joonmyun back to the elevator. Jongin takes the opportunity to study the new intern curiously; Sehun can't be much younger than him, but he definitely looks older than someone who's probably still in college. Sehun looks up from his desk, and their eyes meet briefly. It's his face, Jongin decides - it's always easy to spot interns around the office by the trail of eagerness and naiveté they leave behind, but Sehun looks almost sullen, his eyebrows knitted together in a seemingly permanent angry slope.
Kyungsoo reappears behind him, shuffling though a sheaf of papers. "Sorry, our group's in the middle of some re-structuring right now," he says to Sehun. "Typically summer interns work under an associate, but ours got poached last week by a hedge fund--"
"That traitor," Jongin cuts in darkly.
"--so it looks like you'll be reporting to me for now," Kyungsoo finishes.
"So you're both analysts?" Sehun appraises them with a critical eye, as if trying to decide how much authority he ought to give them.
"I'm a second-year analyst, so I have seniority," he corrects while Jongin makes a noise in his throat that's a cross between a snort and a cough. Sehun still doesn't look very impressed, but his face rapidly changes from detached skepticism to alarm when Kyungsoo drops a heavy training manual on his desk and pulls up a chair next to him so they can make a detailed list of his professional goals for the summer. Sehun glances over at Jongin after the fifth question about his educational background, his eyes an unspoken plea for help. Jongin smirks and turns back to his computer screen.
--
Sehun is given several important responsibilities for the rest of the day, one of which is looping around the office every fifteen minutes after 5 PM to check if all the vice-presidents and managing directors have gone home yet.
"Is there a reason I'm doing this?" he finally asks after the third circuit.
"We don't leave until they've left," Kyungsoo explains. "And you don't get to leave until we do."
"But you aren't even doing work anymore." Sehun peeks his head over the cubicle wall. "I mean, Jongin's playing Angry Birds on his phone right now."
"Jongin!" Kyungsoo calls out in exasperation, and Jongin narrows his eyes and lobbies an eraser at Sehun's head before hissing, "Tattletale."
"It doesn't matter if there's work or not," he continues. "We always stay until the office is empty."
"This doesn't happen often, so don't get used to it," Jongin warns and bends back over his phone screen, ignoring the small huff that Sehun lets out. It's a rare slow week for their group, the brief illusion of calm after finishing a deal and before preparing for the next pitch, but banking is nothing without the constant perception of overwork and productivity, and he's been in the system long enough to not question the expectations for face-time and keeping an image.
They send Sehun out to pick up dinner, and Jongin decides the new intern isn't so bad after all when he spends their entire meal expense on two bags of candy from the convenience store, much to Kyungsoo's horror, and stubbornly insists that it's the only trade-off he'll accept for staying late. The last VP finally leaves just as the sky outside their windows darkens into dusk, and the three of them scramble out five minutes later. The humidity hits them as soon as they push through the heavy revolving doors, and the sudden assault of noisy street chatter feels like stepping from one portal to another, from gleaming marble floors and air-conditioned walls to scuffed sidewalks and car exhaust.
Jongin turns to ask Sehun which direction he's heading, and his jaw drops when he learns that Sehun's summer sublet is in the Upper East Side, a few blocks short of East Harlem.
"Why?" he demands.
Sehun shrugs. "I'm rooming with a college friend who's interning at a nonprofit."
His mouth is already forming another why when Kyungsoo pinches him in the arm.
"What about you?" Sehun asks with a slight edge of defensiveness.
Kyungsoo motions at Jongin and says, "We live around Union Square."
"Wait, so you live together? And you also work together? Don't you get tired of each other?"
"Kyungsoo likes spending time with me," Jongin answers smugly.
"Our lease isn't up until September, so let's pretend that's true for a few more months," Kyungsoo adds with a resigned air, paying no attention to Jongin's wounded expression. "We knew each other in college, and I recruited him to the bank last year. Before you ask, yes, I regret that decision now."
"There's a lot to regret when it comes to Jongin," a voice pipes up before Jongin can defend himself, and he registers a familiar smiling face that seems to materialize out of a cloud of pollution.
"Lu Han," he blurts out, surprise coloring his voice. "What are you doing here? You hate Midtown."
"Usually just the people in it," Lu Han replies cheerfully. "And there was an event at Bryant Park."
"You two know each other?" Sehun stares curiously at him, the first genuine sign of interest he's shown all day.
"We went to prep school together," Jongin grouses. "Years ago, though. I barely remember him."
"You saw me last week," Lu Han chides, serenely bypassing the snub.
A light sheen of sweat starts beading on the skin where Jongin's shirt collar digs uncomfortably into his neck, and it's doubtlessly a natural consequence of the warm summer evening and not at all related to the irrational spasm of discomfort that runs through him whenever Lu Han leans in too close, a tradition that started back in their school days and doesn't appear ready to disappear any time soon. They first met when they joined the same intramural soccer league, but Lu Han had been several years older, and age only skimmed the surface of their differences. Jongin came from a family well-off enough to afford private school but still short of the kind of wealth that matters, the kind that would've bought him out of the obligatory sell-side analyst years where he probably shortens his lifespan by months at a time for every continuous all-nighter he has to pull. Instead, it's the sort of wealth that gets him on the right ladder, but it's up to him how far he's willing to climb.
Lu Han, in contrast, was one of the many exchange students from Asia that their school targeted in earnest back then - ostensibly as an initiative for increased diversity, though the reality of the motivation fell closer to the exorbitant international fees that surfaced in the tuition around the same time. While Jongin had spent his teenage years crafting the ideal college application under the careful guidance of his academic counselor, Lu Han treated prep school more as a social playground, occasionally skipping classes and flitting between groups. He's not surprised that they'd both ended up in New York after college; many of their old classmates do, and Lu Han's family owns property around the city, but he had figured their paths would never cross after learning that Lu Han now works in new media (whatever that means). And yet.
"I forget how small this city feels sometimes," he mutters.
"Who's this?" Lu Han tilts his head and smiles pleasantly at Sehun.
"Sehun's my new intern for the next couple months." Kyungsoo rests a hand on his shoulder, and Sehun is still too occupied with staring at Lu Han to even shrug him off. A wave of annoyance crests up Jongin's chest.
"Let's go," he says abruptly and pulls Kyungsoo toward the opposite direction, who inadvertently drags Sehun along in a headlock.
"It was nice meeting you!" Lu Han calls out after them. Jongin ignores Sehun's insistent protests and doesn't bother looking back.
--
Later that week, Kyungsoo coaxes Jongin into going to the launch for a new restaurant after work instead of another night of staying in to marathon six straight hours of StarCraft 2, because he argues that they should remind themselves that there's an entire world to New York outside of what they see through the windows of their glass skyscraper. He also promises that there'll be an open bar.
It's one of those fusion places, the kind that's opened by American chefs from a culinary institute abroad after they spend a soul-searching month in an Asian country to justify their expertise, one that'll inevitably get a glowing review in the New York Times and then will eventually be discounted as overhyped and a disappointment by the Village Voice.
There's already a healthy turn-out by the time they arrive, and Jongin spies a group of analysts from other banks predictably clustered together by the bar, because even when they decide to venture out of the office for social events they somehow always end up gravitating toward each other, using the guise of complaining about work to discreetly brag about how many hours they've pulled that week or the size of their projected bonuses (sadly literal, Jongin thinks, though a few possibly speak in euphemism) or the last major heist they managed to expense. He and Kyungsoo make their way across the room, and someone smoothly puts a drink in his hand before he's even shrugged off his jacket.
A flash of red catches his eye, and this time he's not surprised to spy the crown of light brown hair mixed in with the crowd, because this is exactly the type of place that Jongin always sees Lu Han checking into on Foursquare (which he only tracks so he knows where to avoid), and sometimes he's convinced that Lu Han only attends launch parties for a living, anyway. He has his face turned up mid-laughter, the light from the restaurant's hanging lamps accenting the sharp curves of his cheekbones, and his cherry-colored cardigan stands out like a flame in a forest, which Jongin finds completely unnecessary because Lu Han has never had problems attracting attention just by existing. Their eyes meet, and Jongin doesn't look away in time before Lu Han notices and waves, already starting to move toward their group. There's someone with him - Jongin squints and recognizes Yixing, one of Lu Han's friends he met a couple months ago who edits for an East Asian literature magazine. Or not even a magazine, maybe a webzine? Lu Han has always collected the oddest assortment of people.
Then again, he muses, it's easy to be generous with time and who to spend it with when you don't have to calculate your professional value by how many hours you clock per week, when your biggest selling point isn't how much you can let the industry consume you, how much you're willing to give of yourself. Jongin downs a large gulp of his drink and turns his attention back the circle of analysts.
"Heard you lost your associate last week?" one of them asks, nudging Kyungsoo's arm.
"He left for a hedge fund," Jongin confirms. "In Connecticut. Moved out of the city and everything."
There's a brief moment of silence before someone good-naturedly murmurs, "Happens to the best of us."
"Kyungsoo's hoping to get placed in the empty associate position," Jongin reveals slyly, and Kyungsoo goes a little pink in his cheeks.
Lu Han and Yixing arrive in time to catch the tail-end of the conversation, their cotton v-necks and fitted denim a clear contrast to the sea of starched collars, and Lu Han flashes a smile at Kyungsoo. "Will you get better hours as an associate?"
Kyungsoo thinks for a second. "No," he answers, "but I'll get paid more."
"Oh." Lu Han's eyes dim the slightest amount, so imperceptible that Jongin wonders if he imagines it. "Exciting."
Jongin defensively wraps an arm around Kyungsoo's shoulders and edges out, "It is exciting."
Everyone else shuffles their feet, and Lu Han clears his throat. "So," he segues. "Sehun is pretty cute."
"No way," Jongin says immediately, vehemently shaking his head. "He's my intern!"
"I thought he's Kyungsoo's intern," Lu Han points out.
"Whatever is Kyungsoo's is mine, too!"
"Guys, I'm right here," Kyungsoo sighs, his face disgruntled from where Jongin still has his arm hooked around his neck.
"Don't even try," he warns, and Lu Han tips up his glass to take a sip of his drink, which Jongin strongly suspects he only does to hide an eye-roll.
"How's your intern so far?" another analyst asks. "Ours actually thought she'd get to work on deals, it's cute."
"We have so much to teach him," Jongin laments. "He's living on 104th street this summer."
"Is that even in the same zip code?" Light laughter ripples through their group. "I didn't think cabs went that far."
"I live in Queens," Yixing speaks up unexpectedly, surprising all of them.
"Never heard of it before," someone snickers, and Jongin can see Lu Han's eyes narrow and his fingers tighten around his glass.
"I need another drink," he announces and tugs on Yixing's arm, excusing the two of them with a stiff smile, and Jongin watches them go before impulsively untangling himself from Kyungsoo and following them.
"Lu Han, wait," he calls out, catching the other's elbow, and the red cardigan feels soft and luxurious rubbed against his fingers. Must be cashmere, he thinks off-hand.
Yixing turns around, and Lu Han waves him ahead before pivoting around to face Jongin.
"Sorry, my friends are douchebags," he says, his words coming out strangely breathless.
"At least you're self-aware," Lu Han replies flatly.
The hair on the back of Jongin's neck bristles, and he sets his jaw. "Hey, it's not like you're a saint, either. I know you think banking is a waste of time."
Lu Han goes quiet and turns his empty drink glass in his hands. The gentle lighting bathes his entire face in a warm glow, and Jongin's eyes follow the scar below his bottom lip - he's known about it since prep school but for some reason he's taken aback every time he sees it again. Jongin's always found it peculiar, how so obvious a flaw goes so often unnoticed, but everything about Lu Han inspires at least a little curiosity.
"People can live their lives how they want," he finally dismisses.
Jongin realizes too late that he's still holding onto a handful of Lu Han's cardigan and immediately lets go, one foot instinctively stepping backward. "You do judge, though," he murmurs.
Lu Han looks away, and Jongin's fists clench. He's not disillusioned with banking; he knows it's hard for outsiders to see past the media hype and stereotypes of the industry, to understand the chill of paranoia whenever his work Blackberry isn't within reach or the paralyzing fear of making a mistake on a memo that only two people will read anyway. He knows that banking is filled with mirages, that there's nothing glamorous about spreadsheets filled with numbers but that it's easy to compensate with elitism when you have the right expense account. Only people willing to play by its rules get it - that despite the inhuman hours and cutthroat competition, there's something comforting about the strict hierarchy in high finance, of knowing exactly where you stand, what level you fall on the corporate ladder. You always know whether you're stagnant or moving forward.
Maybe that's it, he thinks, when their eyes meet again. Jongin hates the feeling of staying still for too long; he needs to know he's going somewhere, and talking with Lu Han feels like moving in circles. No matter how far he pushes, he somehow always ends up one step short of where he started.
--
After a few weeks, Sehun gets upgraded to formatting memos. One, because they run out of useless tasks to give him and, two, because their group gets swamped with work, and Jongin is too busy to even torment him by Google-stalking out his old yearbook pictures and attaching them on floor-wide e-mail chains. The bank is in a frenzy over a recent tip that a juggernaut in the technology sector has plans of merging with a high-profile clean energy firm, and their group kicks into overdrive to prepare a pitch to win the rights to handle the transaction.
Jongin spends his morning exchanging passive-aggressive e-mails with the leverage finance group of another bank who've been assigned to work with them as joint bookrunners for the pitch and then spends his afternoon exchanging angry phone calls with their analyst.
"I'm telling you, our logos are the same size on the cover!"
"You definitely made your bank's logo bigger!" Zitao argues back.
Kyungsoo blows up the Word document to 400% view on the computer and whips out a measuring tape from his desk drawer, laying it flat against the monitor screen to take down the exact increments. He calmly intercepts the phone from Jongin.
"The logos are the same size. It's just that yours is stretched horizontally, and ours is stretched vertically," he says while Jongin silently seethes in the background.
There's a pause as Kyungsoo listens to Zitao's reply, and then he affirms, "Yes, the two logos are the same pixel quality."
Jongin lets out a growl and wrestles the phone away from Kyungsoo. "Let me talk to your associate," he bristles.
"Kris has more important things to do," Zitao dismisses.
He's about to describe in detail just what Kris can do with the pitch book and where to shove it when Zitao tells him he has a conference call on the other line and abruptly puts him on hold. Jongin slams down the phone receiver grumpily.
"Both logos are tiny anyway," Sehun quips from behind him. "Is it that important?"
"Presentation is everything," Jongin says, clearly annoyed. "Our two banks are working together for this pitch now, but next time we'll be competing for the same deals."
Sehun grumbles under his breath and sets a stack of memos he just finished formatting down on Kyungsoo's desk, who barely glances at them before handing them back. "Great," he says. "Now do them over again."
"You didn't even look at them!"
"We never do anything just once," Kyungsoo instructs. He tries to twirl a ballpoint pen over his knuckles and looks a bit sheepish when it slips between his fingers, the pen rolling a few feet away on the dark carpet. He straightens in his seat again. "That's how mistakes happen."
Sehun stares at him like he's a rare specimen escaped from a wildlife reservation, and Jongin pushes back on his swivel chair and tosses a plastic packet into his hands. "Here, this will help."
"What is it?" He turns it over in his palm.
"Army-grade caffeine gum," Jongin tells him. "That stuff's a hot commodity around these floors, so use it wisely."
Sehun looks from him to Kyungsoo and back again. "I want a refund on my internship," he says darkly.
Obviously it's time for the next stage of this apprenticeship, Jongin decides. He gets up and indulgently locks Sehun's head in a loose grip. "I think the problem is that we're not giving you the full investment banking experience," he says with a grin. "Clear your weekend."
--
Jongin takes Sehun out clubbing, because he reasons that Sehun's banking checklist wouldn't be complete without showing him how to spend money, too. He books a table at a club in the Meatpacking District, one that charges several hundred per bottle of alcohol and flies in DJs from the West Coast on weekend nights. Kyungsoo disapproves, but he resigns himself to going along because otherwise the alternative is abandoning his lone summer analyst to Jongin's questionable sense of judgment. Music spills out from tinted windows onto the sidewalk where a long line snakes behind the doors, and the bouncer unhooks the velvet rope to usher them in the direction of the private entrance.
"Are you sure you're okay? You look like you're about to fall asleep standing up." Sehun eyes Jongin doubtfully.
"I'm fine," Jongin insists even as he stifles a yawn with the back of his hand. They're led into the VIP section, an elevated platform with a birds-eye view of the dance floor where bartenders hoist bottles of Grey Goose and Patron with sparklers attached at the top as they walk past so everyone can show off how much alcohol they're ordering that night. Jongin flinches when the sparks from one brush too close to his head, the flash momentarily causing his vision to swim. It clears by the time the hostess shows them to their table, and he nearly trips over a cushion when he sees who's at the next table over.
This can't be mere coincidence, he thinks. At this point it's like fate is just playing a practical joke on him.
"You have to be kidding me," he exhales. "What are you doing here? You hate clubs."
Lu Han looks up in surprise, and a smile blossoms over his face. "Usually just--"
"--yes, just the people in them," Jongin finishes irritably. "I get it, you hate everyone I know."
"That's not true," he refutes as he slides across the seat divider. "I don't hate Sehun."
Sehun looks delighted that Lu Han remembers his name, and Jongin rolls his eyes so hard that he nearly blacks himself out. "Lu Han, right?" he asks shyly, as if Jongin hadn't caught him trying to look up the other's Facebook just two days ago. He wonders if it's too early to vomit into the champagne bucket.
Lu Han tilts his head as he studies Jongin's face and suddenly raises a hand to trace a faint line underneath Jongin's left eye. "Is everything okay? You look tired."
Jongin visibly jumps back, and the hand falls away. "We're working on a pitch right now," he mumbles, still startled. "I had to stay late a couple times."
"He was in the office until 3 AM the last three nights," Sehun clarifies. Jongin deliberately steps on his foot.
"Is it really worth it?" Lu Han's voice is soft, barely audible over the music from the dance floor, and his concern only fuels Jongin's irritation.
"It's not about what's worth it," he snaps. "It's about what I have to do."
Lu Han regards him quietly before his expression clears, and he nudges Sehun playfully. "If you end up in banking after this, don't turn out like Jongin, okay?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" There's a hard edge to his words, and Kyungsoo touches his leg in tacit warning.
"Just friendly advice, no need to take it personally," Lu Han muses and slides back to reach for his drink.
It takes five shots of vodka for the tension to start releasing from Jongin's muscles. The floor lightly reverberates to the rhythm of the bass beat, and he lets his head fall against the cushions, the music growing indistinct as it mixes with the buzzing in his ears. He's aware of figures moving back and forth, the cool sprays of mist that diffuse from the ceiling vents, multi-colored lights that transform and dance along shadows overhead, and the last thing he remembers is his glass falling from his palm before someone is shaking him awake and Kyungsoo's face comes into sharp focus. He pulls Jongin into an upright position and forcibly maneuvers him through the crush of sweaty bodies, and Jongin's legs feel like lead, one foot moving in front of the other on muscle memory alone. He faintly registers the sound of street traffic when Kyungsoo pushes him through a door, and Jongin breathes in the fresh night air in greedy gulps, his mind still in a haze.
"Wait, the bill--," he says in confusion.
"Don't worry, I took care of it." Kyungsoo keeps a steady hand on his arm and directs him to a car waiting at the curb.
"Sehun--" Jongin tries again even as he's herded gently into the backseat.
"He's fine," Kyungsoo reassures him. "I saw Lu Han putting him in a cab."
Jongin checks his reflection in the rearview mirror, and he rubs at his flushed cheeks, his dark hair tousled like a rogue bird nest, before he drops his head on Kyungsoo's shoulder. His eyelids flutter once in an effort to stay open and then succumb back to the alluring pull of sleep.
--
Joonmyun shows up on their floor the following Monday, which immediately sets Jongin and Kyungsoo on alert because Human Resources only ever surfaces unannounced to drown them in corporate red-tape.
"It pains me to have this conversation," he starts, and Jongin inwardly agrees that the feeling is mutual. "As I hope the two of you already know, company policy discourages staff from taking interns to any unauthorized social events outside of work."
He pauses, and Kyungsoo leans over to hiss at Jongin, "I told you they GPS-track us through our Blackberrys."
Jongin kicks at his leg and begins to explain, "If this is about us taking Sehun clubbing, it was so tame that I fell asleep--"
"I'd prefer not to hear the details due to disclosure conflicts," Joonmyun interrupts. "The point is that we don't want anything that could be misconstrued as coercion."
That would end up as a lawsuit, Jongin wordlessly finishes for him. They all know the story of the summer analyst from a couple years ago who went public after his managing director took him to a burlesque bar and forced him into finishing a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label to test his stamina for future business negotiations. Corporate hazing isn't anything new, and there are many schools of thought on Wall Street who swear by it, but everyone is especially sensitive to public scrutiny these days, especially with banks as the favorite scapegoat for the recent economic downturn.
"This is your first offense, so I'll just leave you with a verbal warning this time," Joonmyun tells them. "Next time I'll actually have to file paperwork."
"We'll be more careful," Kyungsoo promises.
Joonmyun's shoulders relax and he ducks down to whisper conspiratorially, "I shouldn't say anything yet, but there's a good chance Sehun will get an offer letter next month, so make sure to keep him out of trouble."
The news makes Jongin brighten, and he waits until Joonmyun has retreated back to the elevators before finding Sehun on the floor of the print room, surrounded by tall piles of glossy paper that he's resentfully rebinding into pitch books because Kyungsoo made him tear apart the first attempt when one margin had printed a quarter inch wider than another.
"HR stopped by and gave us a warning for taking you out over the weekend," Jongin says breathlessly and waves a hand at Sehun's furrowed brows. "Don't worry about it, Joonmyun can't do anything to us. What's more important is that he let slip that you'll probably get a full-time offer for next year."
Sehun blinks slowly at him. "Oh," he says. "I guess I'll think about it when the time comes."
"What's there to think about?" Jongin frowns and rests a hand on Sehun's shoulder. The material of his sweater feels familiar, and he glances down to notice that Sehun is wearing a red cardigan, a deviation from his usual clothing palette of monochrome black and white, and suddenly the color triggers his memory.
"Is that Lu Han's cardigan?" he demands.
To his credit, guilt flashes across Sehun's face. "He lent it to me when--"
"Did he tell you not to go into banking? Because I know he thinks banking crushes souls, but-- I mean-- he works in new media," Jongin fumes. "What does that even do?"
Sehun carefully sets aside a finished pitch book and helpfully recites, "The purpose of new media is to serv--"
"He doesn't even have to work," he bursts out. "His family already has money."
Jongin knows that, currently, there are thousands of summer analysts scattered across dozens of financial institutions in the city and thousands more who didn't manage to land a banking internship, and nearly all of them are waiting for that coveted offer letter, but he doesn't realize until now how much he wants Sehun to be one of them. There's no shortage of validation on Wall Street - you see it in the annual bonus numbers, your group's name as lead-left bookrunner on the front cover of a transaction contract, in the commission percentage after a successful IPO launch, but the trade-off is the blurring between personal and professional identities, so much so that Sehun's ambivalence to banking stings, as if he's rejecting Jongin himself.
"I'd rather not get caught between you two," Sehun says after a few long breaths. He lays out the next stack of papers and adds, "I'm not so stupid that I'd base career decisions on some guy I met a couple weeks ago," and Jongin doesn't point out how he subconsciously pulls the cardigan closer around him even as he says it.
--
Jongin wakes up the morning of the pitch to merciless sunlight streaming onto his face, and he blinks in confusion before he realizes that Kyungsoo must've opened his blinds so he wouldn't oversleep the alarm. A quick peek into the other bedroom at the empty bed confirms his suspicions - Kyungsoo always goes into the office early on pitch days to run through the presentation one last time before the official send-out, never mind that the two of them triplechecked the slides only a few hours earlier. Analysts don't usually get to attend the actual pitch, but the client this time specifically invited them to join the meeting at their headquarters in the Financial District, and Jongin knows Kyungsoo must be nervous, especially with his performance review coming up and the associate position still vacant.
He stumbles through their living room and smiles when he sees the granola bar and apple left out for him on the kitchen counter, even as he tosses both of them into the trash and rummages through the cupboard for his emergency stash of potato chips. He's already on his second piece of caffeine gum by the time he steps off the elevator onto their floor, and Kyungsoo glances up from his desk, a large coffee in hand.
"Good, you're here," he says briskly and then does a double take before asking incredulously, "Are you wearing a mismatching suit?"
Jongin looks down at himself and belatedly notices how his slacks are a shade of gray darker than his jacket. A sigh escapes his lips, and he presses two fingers along his temple to calm the tremor of muscles that threaten to spill into a headache. "Close enough," he finally says.
"Attention to detail, Jongin," Kyungsoo reprimands. "We're meeting with clients today."
There's the sound of movement and distant voices down the hallway, the air humming with taut anticipation only found on pitch days, and Jongin leans against a window, his head heavy from lack of sleep and his eyes straining against the bright reflection of the glass. He looks down at the sharp drop to the streets below, where the pedestrians and yellow cabs appear more like parts of a miniature toy set than real people, and the vertigo forces him to shut his eyelids. The problem with hierarchies and ladders is that how high you're willing to climb is the same as how far you're willing to fall.
"Do you ever get tired of keeping up appearances?" Jongin asks, his voice traitorously steeped with exhaustion.
Kyungsoo looks up, and his usually expressive eyes are now unreadable, closed off. "We can talk about this after we win the deal," he says after a short pause. "The town car is picking us up any minute."
His Blackberry buzzes as if on cue, and Kyungsoo hastily sticks a to-do list on Sehun's desk for when he gets in that day and loads his arms with a dozen perfectly-pressed pitch books. If he's bothered by Jongin's moment of weakness, he doesn't show it. Jongin doesn't bring up the topic again, and Kyungsoo doesn't ask him about it.
--
A year into the industry with a dozen deals in his portfolio, and seeing a pitch happen in real-time still doesn't lose its thrill. Jongin watches as a month's worth of work and all-nighters are condensed into a few PowerPoint slides and colorful graphs; none of the analysts say a word, of course, but they listen as their managing directors crunch the tiny rows of numbers into a compelling story on why the clients should trust them and no one else to handle the billion dollar transaction. He looks at the faces in rapt attention around the table, and Jongin is reminded that while there hadn't been any glamour in the endless spreadsheets in the weeks leading up to the presentation, no one in the room cares about whether perceptions are real or not when a five minute speech will translate into a hundred million tacked onto their group's revenue ledger in the coming weeks. That for all the emphasis that banking puts on image, in the end the results are always real.
The vice-president flashes them a thumbs up afterward; Kyungsoo squeezes his arm, and he knows they must mirror identical expressions of elation on their faces. They pass by Zitao and Kris on the way out, and Jongin grins, "Happy with the logos?"
"They were acceptable," Zitao allows.
He resists the urge to roll his eyes, and he can see even Kyungsoo biting back a smile. The executives stay behind with the clients as the two of them pile back into the town car, still giddy from the successful pitch.
"They'll definitely promote you to associate," Jongin declares confidently. "You're good at this."
"You're good at this, too." Kyungsoo lightly cuffs his shoulder. "At least, when you're actually awake and well-fed."
Jongin slouches down on the leather seats and leans his head against Kyungsoo's arm, his eyelids heavy again as the adrenaline starts to drain from his system. Skyscrapers fill the windows on either side, and the gentle motion of the car as it smoothly weaves through the streets makes him temporarily forget that there's still a stack of marked-up absolute valuation models waiting for him on his desk. More memos to proof, more due diligence reports to write. Even as he lets his eyes close, he can feel his muscles tense in preparation, his body already calibrating for the next pitch and next IPO launch. Always moving forward.
"I don't think Sehun is going to accept the full-time offer," he sighs, rolling his face on the soft wool of Kyungsoo's suit jacket.
"He never figured out how to standardize margins in Excel," Kyungsoo replies without missing a beat. "We don't need him."
a/n:
- why are AUs so hard /flops
- this is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever attempted
- blame falls on the usual suspects who kept telling me yes when they should've told me no