the soulmate factory ✦ j.sc | ✔

eleven

Two weeks later, and you and Sungchan were going to The Soulmate Factory for your interviews. You were sort of surprised it had taken them this long to talk to you, but at the same time, that it was happening this quickly. It felt weird going to the Factory not in your jumpsuit, but you knew that would've been possibly the worst choice. So you instead put on something nice, presentable, but not overly formal. After all, it wasn't your job interview again.

Sungchan was wearing a button-up shirt, a stark contrast to the rather casual attire you'd always seen him in before. As the two of you entered the lobby of the Factory, you could see him looking around at everything with an air of suspicion.

You stopped at the front desk, giving the attendant a polite smile and starting to introduce yourself, despite having just been colleagues a few weeks ago, "Hi, uhm Y/L/N Y/N and Jung Sungchan, here for a 9:00 appointment with Ms. Kwon?"

"Of course," she nodded, looking between you and Sungchan with a strained smile of her own. "You... two can have a seat. I'll let her know you're here."

Leading Sungchan over to sit on a settee nearby, you looked around, taking a few deep breaths as your knee bounced up and down nervously on its own. You had gotten the two of you here fifteen minutes early, so you already knew that you'd be waiting for some time.

"Why did she say it like that?" He hissed to you under his breath.

"Say what?" You whispered back, looking at her out of the corner of your eye to see if she was listening, but it looked like she was taking an incoming call.

"You two can have a seat." He repeated snidely. "And the way she looked at us? Looked at you? Like we're the weird ones for being soulmates?"

"I told you, Sungchan, there's a reason Bureau employees don't get soulmates. People will think I rigged it somehow. Even other employees."

"You said it was impossible for you to have messed with it. Shouldn't they of all people know that?"

"Well, with me being a matchmaker..." You tried to think of how to succinctly sum this up without telling Sungchan too much stuff that he wasn't supposed to know right before his interview. "Even other Bureau employees don't know what goes on in the matchmaking room. I'm sure there's been rumors since I've left."

"But you didn't do anything. What's the point of working here if you're just as bad as the people who don't?"

"They also probably think that when this gets out I'm going to give the Bureau and the employees here a bad rep, make the public distrust them for a while. Even the employees that don't think I did anything will probably hate me at least a little for that."

"Well I still don't like it," he huffed, resting an arm along the back of the furniture behind you.

"You're allowed to not like it. I'm just saying there's not much we can do about it."

He proceeded to focus his hater energy on making comments about the décor being tacky, and you couldn't help but giggle quietly and join in. You never really thought about it much before, but being called The Soulmate Factory and having a color palette of red, pink, and white was a bit much. You two also had a small game of how many "subtle" red lines you could find in the designs of decorative throw pillows, rugs, carpeting, and pieces of abstract art on the walls. Finally, you heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and looked up to see a somewhat familiar face.