Internal Affairs | Lee Haechan

the afterlife

"Hey, slow down there champ" Jeno said, quickly taking her 12th cup of wine away before Jia could chug down any more. It was nearing 1am now, majority of the workers decided to take the party elsewhere to a club or a karaoke room. Some staff stayed back to help clean but these were mostly the J6 bunch...including Haechan and Jisung now, so technically J8.

"I wasn't finished with that" she whined, trying to grab the cup back from him but he was quick to chug it into the trash bag. It was only then that Jia looked around to see the decorations gone and all the food tables folded up and ready to be put in the storage room.

"I'm sorry, I should have helped" she said, rubbing her temples from the pain that was starting to form already.

"No worries, the boys helped out a lot" Jeno said

"I'm gonna go and...sleep in my office or something" she said, turning around and stumbling down the hallway

"You don't want a ride home?" Jeno shouted, surprised at her willingness to sleep on the office couch that could barely fit a child horizontally.

"Yeah, I can't deal with my mum right now, I'll just stay here" she said, disappearing into the room and Jeno pressed his lips into a thin line, worried for her a little bit. Not a lot can make Jia drink this much, but looks like Haechan's grandfather was definitely contributing to her liver failure.

"Ah...why did I do this?" She questioned herself as she lazily closed the blinds of her office windows. Turning back around to the pitch black room. She grumbled as she took slow and careful steps towards the door, to try and turn on the lights but she was miserably failing, tripping over the heels she had kicked off in a rush.

A loud yelp was heard escaping her lips as she stubbed her toe along the wooden leg of the coffee table. Hopping on one foot and trying to steer away from the table in pain, her other foot managed to step on another one of her shoes. And another loud thud was heard from her office as her body fell to the ground in defeat.

"Let me just die already!" She whined in pain as she was met with her typical bad luck. She could honestly win the Guinness world record for being the most uncoordinated person when she was drunk. Just as the pain wore off and she was slowly accepting defeat and became one with the cold floor, the bright lights were turned on, catching her off guard and making her wince as her head started spinning. Was this the light everybody talked about as they died? She didn't really mean it.

"It burns!" She shouted and Haechan, who stood completely surprised by the view he was looking at, chuckled at that sentence.

"Hah, that should be my line..get it? Cause I'm a vampire" He said, closing the door behind him, turning the nob down to dim the lights into a more yellow tone.

"You good?" He asked, approaching her and slowly squatting down beside her as she peeled her hands away from her eyes.

"I'm even unlucky in the afterlife?" She asked to no one in particular as she met Haechan face to face in what she thought was heaven. He scoffed and rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek before flicking her forehead.

"Ow!" She yelled, sitting up immediately. She was in fact, still alive.

"Snap out of it" Haechan said, standing back up onto his feet, extending his hand out to help her up which she hesitantly took.

"Couch or chair?" He asked and she let out a goofy smile, catching him off guard before she walked towards the couch herself.

"My mind is in...a bad, bad place" she said, laughing to herself and Haechan couldn't help but break out a smirk after he got the joke.

"Seems like we only get along when you're drunk huh?" He said, more to himself.

"What are you doing here Lee?" She asked, looking at him, the goofy smile still plastered on her face. She was on cloud nine.

"You were pretty off today...a lot more bitter than usual. Did I do something to deserve such pettinesses from an average sized chinese woman?" Haechan asked and she rolled her eyes before patting the space beside her on the couch. He sighed before he walked over to sit down beside her, and the second he did, he was met with a pair of legs on his lap.

"Give me a massage and I'll tell you" she ordered cheekily.

"Absolutely not" he said, pushing her legs back down, fazed by the new energy she was giving him

"Fine then, I won't tell you" she said in a teasing tone making him roll his eyes before slowly grabbing her legs again and putting them back onto his lap.

He nervously looked down at her legs before his hands started pressing down on the rather tense muscles of her calves, probably from walking around in heels.

"This is unethical work behaviour you know, I could show the cctv footage to the board" he challenged, before pressing down on her skin again

"My office doesn't have cctv, nice try though" she said, melting into the massage

"Mmh that feels so nice" she said, in pure bliss. completely forgetting that this was Haechan of all people.

"Start talking" Haechan said sternly, not exactly enjoying being used as a massage machine.

She slowly lifted her head to get a good look at him, biting down on her bottom lip, contemplating whether it was even a good idea telling him. She was brought back to reality when Haechan pinched the toe that she had previously stubbed on the table

"Start. Talking." He said sternly as she looked at him in shock. She rolled her eyes, removing her legs from his lap before sitting upright, leaning one side of her body while her other arm hoisted her legs up onto the couch and Haechan had turned to face her as well.

"I met with your grandfather a few nights ago" She said, looking at him intently to see if he had any idea of what she was talking about but she was met with a blank expression.

"He told me that I'm not good enough to run the company and no one but family should be running the family business" She started and his eyes trailed down, yet they still lacked any sort of remorse

"He said that I need to train you well enough to make sure you get a good rep with the other board members" She said and Haechan met with her eyes again

"Wasn't that always the plan?" He asked

"...No, that was the impression you were under thanks to your grandad, horrible man by the way" she said, bluntly expressing her distaste and he chuckled a little at that

"Your father and I, and all the other board members, know that this is a fair assessment based on competency" She said

"Yeah, you versus me, it's always been that way so...what's new?" Haechan asked, starting to get a little confused already. She sighed before she met with his eyes, his piercing gaze now being challenged by her own.

"Well the difference now is...I've given up"