Resolutions: King factory

I didn’t know what it would do. I mean, sure, I’d heard all the rumors, but no one on earth actually believed them. All I knew was that our slowest-selling product had become a worldwide joke, the company had packed up and vanished down the storm drain of corporate failure, and I had a crate of unwanted concentrate to pack away in the darkest corner of my factory, there to fade into the obscurity that had befallen its band and everyone associated with it.

Then, on what was already the stormiest day of my placid life as the most minor captain of industry in the whole of the Pacific Rim, I found out the truth… and it’s not much of an exaggeration to say it changed everything. Would I go back to how it was before? My life might be stranger now, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

There is a man whom they say surpasses all men in possessing beauty, charisma, and utter coldness in equal measure. A man whose stare could pierce your heart even as the most infinitesimal shift of his lips in disapproval, the subtlest sneer, stopped you dead and weakened your knees in shame. He was the son and heir of FKU Group, known for possessing all the hauteur and imperiousness their immense power and resources imbued in every chairman, scion, spouse, and in-law—and twice as much of his own besides. Bu Jin-ho, the Ice King, desired by all who saw him and feared by all who met him. And he was coming here.

“The Ice King?” I repeated with a frown. I’d been snatched by the arm coming out of the break room by my earnest and, at the moment, very distressed-looking assistant, Kwang-sun. If nothing else, I could’ve known he was upset just from the fact that his dark purple tie—chosen to complement his skinny, perfectly tailored lilac dress shirt and his deep-plum-dyed hair—was slightly askew, a sure sign that he’d been twitching at it nervously as he worked. One of the benefits of being a forgotten little middle-of-nowhere alternative sweeteners factory like us was that we could be modern enough that the management team (if you can call a harried, undersized crew of me, my trusty admin, and the three overburdened heads of production, shipping, and finance a proper management team) forsook the suits and ties of our fathers; but Kwang-sun, the lone exception, didn’t care about the protocols of business attire, either. He just liked dressing up.

By way of answer, he turned his tablet around and, gripping it one-handed by the top as he often did, pushed the screen at me.

It was my own schedule he was showing me, I saw, and, strangely enough, it looked like a new item that hadn’t been there before had suddenly appeared on it. “Meeting with Bu Jin-ho,” it said tersely. My frown deepened. No one from FKU Group had ever visited, or, as far as I was aware, even paid the slightest attention to Sun-Love Factory, the most paltry, insignificant, and frankly forgettable of their assets by any conceivable measure. My stomach twisted, mercilessly squeezing the vending machine jerk chicken wrap I’d just wolfed down while I’d scrolled through industry news. Why was he here? We were being sold? Closed? I could think of no other reason for the chaebol son to descend to our corner of the world. It would be my job to inform my workers if the owners had decided to wipe out their employment and livelihoods, and alongside my queasiness a flicker of anger kindled.

Kwang-sun pointed urgently at the little yellow block with his free hand, his anxiety palpable, and I realized the fact of the meeting itself was not the whole of the bad news. The location, according to the scheduling calendar, was my office, and the time was right fucking now.

I glanced up at him, now as alarmed as he was, and we shared a look of mutual fear and dread before we turned together and ran, hoping against hope as we pelted like maniacs down the wide store-room-lined corridors of the building’s administrative annex that fastidious punctuality was not among the many traits of the Ice King liable to lead to the anguish and discomfort of those unfortunate enough to deal with him.

It was a close thing. I had barely made it to my large but unremarkable corner office, positioning myself hurriedly in the center of the indigo-carpeted space to receive my guest with Kwang-sun beside me, when he arrived, spectacularly throwing open the double doors and sweeping into the room with all the presence and stone-faced arrogance of a newly crowned idol striding through a swarm of fawning reporters and paparazzi, ignoring them all as beneath him as they fed upon each other. It could almost have been in slow-motion, scored with some brash guitar tune designed to highlight his status and disdain, but reality was more dramatic in its own way: apart from the distant, omnipresent background thrum of the factory floor I never heard anymore, all was painfully silent, and the clattering of the wooden doors as he entered and the thumping of my heart were almost deafening as a result.

Bu Jin-ho ignored us, too, choosing first to look over the room with a keen and disapproving eye. I felt instant chagrin (and a matching annoyance) as he perused and catalogued my humble and entirely functional space, with its paneled walls covered with taped up calendars, blueprints, and workflow diagrams, the wide windows that (I now belatedly noticed) were rather grimy and in need of a wash, and the wide, battered desk with its newish workstation almost hidden by stacks of papers, binders, and brown accordion files.

On the other hand, Bu Jin-ho’s snub afforded me the opportunity to drink in the man himself, an expenditure of a few moments liable to repay extensive dividends in future solo moments of self-satisfaction, starting with the long, steamy shower I was planning on taking the moment I got home and stripped my own clothing off. Everything about him was a superlative, almost as though he had been artificially designed to be better than everyone, and me in particular. I had always been taller than all my male friends and coworkers by at least a half a head, the lanky, elegantly skinny fashion-plate Kwang-sun included; but the Ice King was a further half-head taller than me, dominating the room almost with his height alone. I was usually called handsome (and not only by my mother), at university having been distinguished from another, unrelated Cha Jae-sang by means of a blush-inducing epithet bestowed by my friends, “Handsome Cha”; but the planes of Jun-ho’s cheekbones and jawline, the curve of his red lips and the arch of his elegant brows, the lustrous frame of his surprisingly long hair—all of it was so exquisite, so compelling, that (rather to my horror) my cock responded in a shuddering jolt of interest, shifting and swelling impetuously in my briefs even before I cast my eyes down the rest of the man.

There, too, I felt short in a category in which I had always been confident. I was a gymnast at school, finding training and the physical invigoration a relief from the slog of business studies, and had determinedly kept my defined, athletic form as a gesture of self-respect; and yet… even from within the fine layers of his dark, expensive, expertly tailored three-piece suit Jin-ho’s body trumpeted its superior form. Every inch of him was muscled, perfectly proportioned, and profoundly arousing, from his wide shoulders and narrow waist to his round, hard ass and long, shapely legs.

There was another area where I was uncommonly blessed, one more intimate than the others and known only to a select few, and couldn’t decide whether I wanted to learn that the Ice King had bettered me on this score, as well, or if for once I held my own. Somehow I felt certain that no one but him knew the answer, and the fantasy of becoming party to that knowledge was already taking hold in the darker and dirtier corners of my very vivid imagination.

But my flickering visions of pulling that suit off him bit by bit and layer by layer, slowly exposing the tan skin and masculine strength beneath, came to a screeching halt when he spoke.

“This will do,” he said, still not looking at me. His voice was strangely soft, like a man who never spoke in anger. His words, in contrast, were much harder.

My brows furrowed. “‘Do’?” I repeated stupidly.

Jin-ho was moving, and to my surprise he was moving toward my wide, cluttered desk. He rounded it and, to my amazement, he sat down in the chair, casting a quick, disparaging glance over the piles and stacks before steepling his fingers and finally meeting my gaze.

I had turned on point toward him as he’d moved around me, almost automatically, and now found I was facing him across my own desk. The master instantly turned subordinate—or, worse, supplicant, I thought, heat rising up my back. “What do you mean, ‘do’?” I repeated, a little more forcefully this time.

He made no answer, having already succinctly demonstrated what he’d meant. Instead he raked his eyes over me top to bottom, giving me the same meticulous assessment he’d given the office he’d just claimed from me.

“Cha Jae-sang,” he said, meeting my eyes again. He pronounced the syllables of my name distinctly, as if names were all that mattered in his world. The barest of smirks brushed those lovely lips. “I see now why they called you ‘Handsome Cha’,” he added.

I pressed my lips together. From behind me I felt the burn of Kwang-sun’s shocked and, no doubt, engrossed stare, but I was more concerned with the import of Jin-ho’s words. I had expected to be treated dismissively, as beneath his notice, so to find out he had researched me, and wanted me to know it, left me nonplussed. I rallied myself, gathering my pride. “Bu Jin-ho,” I said, insolently mimicking his pronunciation. If I were any sassier I might have asked him if he knew what he was called when his back was turned, but I tended to leave the sarcasm to Kwang-sun—he was better at it. Instead I held my chin high. “Am I… fired?” I asked, my throat catching on the word.

He lifted his sculpted brows. “Not at all,” he said, as if surprised the thought had even occurred to me. “I need you, Handsome Cha.” The glint in his eye and that faint smirk as he said the words sent a spark of hot excitement up my spine, and my helpless cock, already awakened by this man’s excessive glamor and delicious form, jumped and swelled a little more. Fuck, I hope he didn’t see that, I thought.

To distract us both I held to my point. “You’ve taken my desk,” I reminded him. I was very curious to know why he had done so, too, but I did not ask. Not why he’d taken the desk—that was clearly an elementary power play—but why he had come here at all. My first thought had been that he’d stormed the place temporarily, either for liquidation or some kind of audit; but as I stood there facing him down across my own desk I was becoming more certain by the second that he was here to stay. He was taking over the factory. This factory, the backwateriest of backwaters in the FKU firmament.

I couldn’t help but wonder what could drive such a fiercely important and self-sure man to come here of all places. Here he was, charging dramatically into Sun-Love Factory, the pimple on the butt of FKU Group, like he was taking over the world. What would make that happen? Chaebol in-fighting? Secret debts? Something darker?

He held my gaze, shrugging deliberately. “There are other desks,” he suggested, as though offices and desks grew on trees.

I shook my head. The admin section of the factory annex was not very expansive, and all the rooms were accounted for. We didn’t even have a conference room. “There are no free offices,” I said.

The Ice King shifted his gaze behind me toward a corner of the room and nodded his chin in that direction. I glanced over my shoulder, just to make sure he was looking at what I thought he was looking at: the smallish round faux-walnut table set by the filing cabinets, four matching seats pushed in around it. The one I used for working meetings and weekly conferences with the department heads. That was where he was consigning me, as though I were a newly-conscripted intern rather than the factory administrator.

I turned slowly back to him, my gaze as steely and cold as the man himself.

“It’s convenient, right?” he said blandly. “We’ll be working closely together, after all, and I might require your attention at any time.”

My pulse fluttered, and my neck heated. Does he even know what he’s saying? I thought, as my already-chubbed cock started twitching and lengthening again against the confines of my briefs. His arctic demeanor and arrogance said he had no idea, but that constant quarter-smirk and the way he looked at me—the way he kept lingering ever so slightly over that nickname, Handsome Cha—implied that he knew exactly what he was doing to me. Either way, my lizard-brain was too busy recording every word for later for me to analyze it too deeply.

I said nothing to his proposal, letting my silence speak for me. Agreeing no response was required, Jin-ho let his piercing gaze slide off me and fix on Kwang-sun behind me. “Secretary Do,” he said.

“Y-yes,” Kwang-sun said, sounding startled. This guy really did do his research, I thought. He probably knew all the names down to the assembly line and custodial staff.

Jin-ho nodded toward the clutter on my—or, rather, his—desk. “Have this cleared away,” he said, “and prepare all the current production and inventory schedules.” To me he added, with unexpected candor, “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

It was late, maybe eight or nine o’clock, before we got to Schedule DX—Deprecated Inventory. I had sent Kwang-sun home, and we had no overnight shifts in the factory itself, so there was no one on the grounds at all but us two, and Jin-ho was showing no signs of slowing down. It looked like I wasn’t going home to my sexy shower anytime soon.

We were clustered at my round conference-table-turned-desk-of-subordination flipping through screens and binders, a single overhead light burning patiently above us in the otherwise dark room. Jin-ho was making neat, careful notes about everything, the poshness of his high-end fountain pen a fun contrast to the mundane yellow legal pad he was using, retrieved from company stores at the start of this endless meeting.

Jin-ho had taken off his suit jacket a while back as he’d dug into the printouts, and I was distracting myself from my fatigue and hunger by pretending not to stare at the swell of his upper arms against his cornflower-blue dress shirt when he broke the silence abruptly. “What’s this?” he asked.

I glanced up at his face, my rational brain experiencing a momentary lag. His beauty made him seem strangely ageless—I hadn’t been sure when he’d arrived whether he was twenty-five or forty—but over the hours since he had relaxed enough with me that his mask had slipped a little, along with a few locks of that long, lush, well-coiffed hair of his. He looked young now, younger than my own thirty-two years, though of course our relative positions in the social strata would prevent me from ever speaking to him as a junior.

His words registered a second later, and I looked over at where his finger was tapping on a page from the hardcopy inventory schedules. “KiSweet concentrate,” I told him, not sure why he was interested. “It’s mixed 1:10 with inactive ingredients to make a sweetening powder we used to distribute. We have fifty kilos of the concentrate still, looks like.”

“Why is it deprecated?” He made the word “deprecated” sound an offense, like any inventory a subsidiary held in such quantity and was not actively leveraging to produce profit was, from the perspective of FKU Group, a telling indicator of either incompetence or betrayal.

I held his gaze. “It’s a discontinued product,” I said. “We stopped making it—” I thought back. “—oh, eighteen months ago.”

He seemed displeased. “Were you ordered to stop making it?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I made the decision,” I said. “It was becoming a joke on the net, and sales were dropping like a rock because of it. Restaurants and cafés stopped taking it. I think it was even outlawed in the States and New Zealand because of all of the rumors on the web.” Also, it tasted terrible, I thought, though I knew that was too subjective to give as a reason to have stopped production. I’d tried a sachet of the finished product once in my coffee and hated it enough to switch to black Americanos from that moment forward. Seriously, it was like wet moss or something.

He curled his lip at me. “Rumors on the web,” he repeated flatly, as if I’d said something idiotic. “If the swell was eighteen months ago, that means now is the exact time to hit hard with a new brand identity.” You’d know that if you had any business acumen, his eyes seem to say, and suddenly I wanted to take his celebrity glamor down a notch or two with an extremely artistic punch to the face.

I struggled to remain polite, though the truth is my anger usually shows on my face no matter what I do, or so I’m told. “We couldn’t resume sales even if we wanted to,” I told him. “The supplier went out of business, for one thing, and our manufacturing and distribution license went with it.”

He tapped the page again. “Fifty kilos mixed one to ten is enough to produce a limited supply range under a new name using existing production lines,” he insisted calmly. “A little hype, a little world of mouth, and you’ll clear your inventory and make treble the revenue over existing brands.”

I gaped at him. I decided not to bring up the license again—probably he thought that an out of business company in another country couldn’t interfere, which was, admittedly, likely true, though regulators might still intervene. Perhaps FKU Group had ways of dealing with minor problems like that as well. Instead I said, “We don’t even know if the concentrate is still viable. It could be damaged, or mislaid, or—”

To my surprise he stood up, looming tall and strong over me in his vest and shirtsleeves. His crotch inches from my face, causing my brain to stall momentarily. “Then let’s go check,” he said, and without another word he strode to the doors and pulled them open, striding imperiously into the darkened, empty building beyond. I watched him go, staring longingly at his ass, so mesmerized by those firm, round glutes I could almost feel my cock sliding between them and pushing deep into the tight, thrilling heat beyond.

Then he was gone and the spell was broken. What was happening to me? I was thinking with my dick around my actual boss, who might be in the process of derailing my entire life. I wanted very much to slap myself. Instead I scrambled to my feet and, pausing only to grab the set of master keys from the top right drawer of my former desk, I hurried after him into the silent gloom.