The CEO and his Appointed Secretary
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Chapter 2: He's the Sole Heir
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His high school years passed in a blur of fooling around with anyone and everyone and coming to the realization that he didn't like girls.
He told Taemin when they were sitting around in his living room one day, while Taemin was looking through a suspiciously pink magazine.
"I'm gay."
Taemin shrugged his shoulders as he flipped to another page. "Okay."
"Did you even hear what I said?"
"Yes, I heard. And I said okay."
"Okay?" Jaehyun had persisted, tense, as nerves ate him up from the inside.
"Yes, okay because I already guessed, you idiot. I'm not stupid."
Jaehyun sat up. "What do you even mean?"
"You have the picture of a shirtless dude on your phone, you frequent the second-floor washroom to fool around with other guys. I've never even seen you look at a girl."
"Well, fuck." Jaehyun had replied, running a hand through his hair.
"Don't worry, I just noticed because you're my best friend," Taemin replied with a grin, returning to his magazine.
After that conversation, Taemin didn't treat him any differently. They still hung out together, they still talked, they were still close and comfortable with each other. Jaehyun still expected disgust, despite his best friend's reassurances.
He expected Taemin to put some kind of distance between them but it never happened. And for that Jaehyun will forever be grateful to him. Later though, he found out that Taemin isn't exactly as straight as a ruler either. 'I like people' he had said to Jaehyun one day after he saw him making out with a guy from the basketball team in the locker room.
He was internally glad to not be alone in this attraction to the same-sex business, if he is being completely honest.
He shakes himself out of his reverie to come back to the present, once again focusing on his reflection. His dark eyes stare back at him; his hair is parted down the side (on the insistence of his mother once again).
He looks hot, damn it. Jaehyun knows he has his looks going for him at the very least.
Jaehyun might find it easy to worm his way into someone's heart (or pants, yes pants are more accurate), but throw him into a meeting, party or whatever like this and all the confidence leaves his body in an embarrassing heap.
He just has to get through a couple of hours, then it will be over and he can go back to pretending he's the capable heir and that's why he was chosen as the CEO, not because he's the default choice as the sole heir.
Jaehyun can't help but envy Taemin a little. He makes friends with anyone he talks to, he has a social circle outside of Jaehyun but he is kind of a lone wolf.
Taemin will go and hang out with his other, more exciting friends and Jaehyun will be thrown into the deep end of the business world. Or Taemin will lock himself in his apartment for days and say 'I was inspired', and come up with his next bestseller.
Yeah, he is loaded but he's not well known to the general public, not as much as Jaehyun is anyway. He went below the radar after high school and somehow made himself scarce, yet another thing that Jaehyun can't help but envy him a little for.
He's not the sole heir like Jaehyun is and was actually able to choose what he wanted to do in life.
Jaehyun supposes he had a choice. It's his fault for not choosing what he wanted.
So maybe he had rebelled a little bit in high school. Maybe to get a reaction, any reaction at all.
Because the thing is, Jaehyun still remembers bringing the pictures he drew at school to his family. Each time he would run to his grandfather in excitement to show the colourful scribbles on pristine paper, he would be met with a disinterested stare.
His grandfather wasn't very generous with his praise; he was quite hard to impress.
Art was not on the list of hobbies that he approved of. When Jaehyun was fifteen and won the regional wrestling championship, he was given a nod of approval which was already way more than he could've ever hoped for. Jaehyun suspects it was because his grandfather believes that wrestling is manly, while art is not.
Another one of his ancient ideas that he doesn't agree with.
What stung the most was being ignored by his family, not being acknowledged.
Jaehyun would sit at the dinner table with his grandfather and his parents, back when his father was still around. They would all be talking about business at first and he would try to chime in to tell them how school went.
Wasn't that what other families did? Didn't parents ask their kids how school was? 'What did you learn today?' he would always see in dramas and movies he watched.
Instead, he was always met with a curt, 'Don't interrupt the adults when they're talking, Jaehyun -ah.' But his turn to speak never came. The 'adults' always talked while Jaehyun would sit quietly and push the food around on his plate.
The food that was prepared by the executive chef of a three Michelin star restaurant from Paris, 'world class' in the words of his mother, yet it tasted like nothing.
Jaehyun got a tattoo first. When his parents and grandfather went to Taiwan for business, he traveled to a shady, underground place with a bundle of cash clutched tightly in his hand.
He was only sixteen at the time, not even allowed to get one but money gets you things—as he learned at a very young age. He got a full sleeve tattoo before his family came back. A beautiful, intricate design.
They didn't even notice.
Next, he got his ears pierced. Because why the fuck not?
He got black gauges to stretch his ears, again, why the fuck not? Then got piercings.
No one noticed that time either. So he stopped caring as much. He tried alcohol at a party he went to. He was getting smashed pretty quickly, embarrassingly enough. Taemin had taken the soju bottle away from him with a pat on the head.
Smoking was another one of his ventures, which he still takes up when stress gets too much to ignore.
In high school, he also found his passion in art. First when he went to that shady tattoo parlour, he was impressed with all the colourful and intricate designs. He tried photography next. It wasn't difficult to get a DSLR with his weekly allowance at all.
When Jeon Jaehyun wanted something, he got it, especially things with a price tag. In all this life, he'd never been denied anything.
"CEO Jeon?" A voice calls, a butler assisting Jaehyun for the day.
"Yes?" CEO. He likes the sound of that, a lot. If Jaehyun is being completely honest, it's a massive ego boost, if nothing else.
"The car is ready for you, sir." He says with a bow.
"I'll be right down." Jaehyun replies with a smile. Fake it till you make it! He remembers from one of Taemin's teenage girl magazines. The headlines were an alarming shade of pink with, 'How to get him to notice you: 10 Steps!' as the title.
Taemin had bought it for him after the whole coming out ordeal.
"We'll find you a boyfriend, Jaehyun-ah!" He had yelled excitedly.
"I don't want a boyfriend." Jaehyun had replied disinterestedly back then. He still agrees with that sentiment, the last thing he wants is a boyfriend. He doesn't get attached. Jeon Jaehyun fucks and moves on, that's a fact of life.
He turns around to check himself out one last time in the full-length mirror, adjusting the cuff-links once again. He tries not to fiddle with his hair because despite looking simple, it took almost an hour to get it to look this good.
Jaehyun makes his way down from his 30th-floorth floor penthouse to the lobby of the condo where the driver is waiting for him, courtesy of his grandfather who sent him a sleek, black Jaguar XJ.
Originally he wanted to show up in his own red GT-R with style but his grandfather had refused, always a stick in the mud.
Not that it should matter too much since the hotel isn't even that far. It's only about a ten-minute drive from his place. The driver opens the passenger door for him with a polite bow of his head.
He throws himself onto the leather seat with a weary sigh, already exhausted from thinking ahead to this little 'party'. Just a couple of hours, he tells himself over and over again. Some alcohol when he gets there will help. Grandpa Jeon is especially fond of aged whiskey so it won't be a problem.
As the city lights blur past him on the tinted windows, he resists the urge to fiddle with the collar of his shirt, feeling constricted. It's too much all of a sudden. He has a fucking tie clip on for fuck's sake. A pocket square too. He hates it. He hates it. He hates it. He rolls down the window, the cool autumn air is a welcomed relief.
It might only be a ten-minute drive but it might be the longest ten minutes he's ever experienced.
Okay, so he's dreading this whole becoming a CEO thing a little bit. So what? He's Jeon Jaehyun. He'll get over it, just like he got over everything else. Fuck.
Too soon, the car pulls up to the hotel, flashes of what seems like a million cameras alerting him of their arrival.
The car comes to a stop and Jaehyun waits for the driver to open the door for him. As soon as the door is opened he's bombarded by the reporters.
Questions being yelled out, blinding flashes of cameras directed at him.
"How do you feel about becoming a CEO so young?!"