Chained | Bang Chan

f o r t y - t w o

I had become immensely popular around the office, especially as the wedding drew closer. A lot of the girls seemed to be hinting that they wanted a wedding invitation from me, despite never having spoke to me before I was engaged to Chan.

It felt weird to suddenly be popular. It was something I had never been before. In high school, I was bullied. It all was rooted in the fact I was poor: it was that my clothes were clearly second hand, that my hair was often greasy, that I skipped most meals because I couldn't afford to eat three meals a day.

But now, I was popular. Almost for the exact opposite reasons to why I was bullied before. I was rich now, influential in a way - so now everyone wanted to be my friend.

Today after work me and Chan were meeting his parents to visit a venue that they had picked out. Of course, me and Chan wouldn't get much of a say in the matter. The only reasons that we had actually been invited at all was because it might look odd if we weren't there.

His Mother had come around. Well, sort of. She still gave me death glares and made her little snide comments but the important thing was that the wedding was going on nonetheless. I sat currently at my desk, doing paperwork. I was oddly happy to be doing it.

Sitting around your house for weeks sounds fun but it gets pretty boring. My brain was enjoying having something difficult to do, rather than just playing Kunwoo and Ji-Yeon at fortnite. I was pulled out of my thoughts by a voice behind me.

"Hey, Mina."

Sang-hoon. I was surprised to see him. He didn't usually come up to this floor, he was meant to stay in the recept hall. "Hi! What are you doing up here?"

"There was a security scare on the floor above. Don't worry though, was some big misunderstanding. Anyway, I thought I may as well drop by and say hello well I'm all the way up here."

"That was nice of you."

In another life, who knows, me and Sang-hoon could have ended up together. That was a weird thought and made me oddly sad. I bet he wouldn't be as hot and cold as Chan. Maybe I would have been happier, in that other life.

"We haven't had much of a chance to talk properly recently," He said, sounding genuinely sad about it.

Everytime I came in the building now, I was with Chan, who had a look that could kill. He had actually been pretty relaxed recently with me, we had been getting on. It was just with Sang-hoon that this certain look appeared. I would try to talk to Sang-hoon and he would go completely quiet. Which I could understand. Chan is definitely scary.

"Yeah, I miss it."

He leaned against my desk and seemed to look around a little. "Hey, why did you never tell me about you and Chan?"

Because there was nothing to tell.

"We were keeping it a secret."

"Yeah but...I don't know." He looked away and sighed deeply, seeming to to take a moment to think. "It feels like you should have told me."

I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. "We literally didn't tell most our family about it, Sang-hoon."

That oddly enough didn't seem to satisfy him. In fact, he just looked more pissed off than before. "Whatever."

I sighed. I guess Sang-hoon can be hot and cold as well. After I thought he was so calm and nice all this time.

"It feels like you're mad at me."

"I mean, it was obvious I liked you and you just...lead me on. I don't understand why you would do that to me. Was it just because you were bored or something?"

Now I was really confused. "I didn't lead you on."

"We talked literally everyday."

"And that's leading you on?"

"You don't think so? Plus, you were so flirty with it."

"I..." My words cut off.

I was speechless. I hadn't actually thought Sang-hoon romantically liked me until Chan had said so. Now, he was trying to act like we had been flirting for years.

"I'm sorry if you felt that way but I genuinely didn't know you liked me. I thought we were just friends."

He let out a weird noise at that. He was still clearly annoyed. "I better go. They'll be wondering where I am."

At first, I wanted to protest. We hadn't left things in a good place. But I just let him leave. He was upset and clearly wasn't going to budge no matter what I had to say to him.

I hoped that this was all some sort of overreaction from the shock of me and Chan's sudden engagement announcement. I hoped that if I left him a week or two, he would calm down and come to his senses that he was being unfair and overreacting.

I have the worse luck with men!

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what do we think about what sanghoon had to say👀