The corporate heads were all looking nervous, which wasn’t what I was used to. There was Chairman Wong, sitting in the center of his side of the table, the marketing executive to his right, the head of research and development to his left, the finance executive farther down the line. I also recognized the company lawyer standing off in the far corner, looking especially clean.

I realized they were all looking at me expectantly. The chairman, especially so, his eyes shining with relief – something I wasn’t used to seeing on him at all. Chairman Wong ran this company for over 15 years, and brought us from a small chain of themed cafés to a multinational conglomerate that not only produced high end foods, drinks, and ingredients all over the world, but additionally held over half the café market share in several countries. He was the kind of CEO that made everything he touched turn to gold.

The rest of the room shone as a result of his effort. Spotlessly white – everything. From the tables to the chairs to the walls, and even to the screen blanked out above the corporate heads, the place looked more like a pharmaceutical company than a business that started with a focus on cafes.

Under the chairman, Artful Existence Foods prided itself on the highest standards of professional food production. As a result, everything in the company was spotlessly clean, and white, white, white. It was funny; for food company, they really wanted to make sure that there was literally no speck of food outside of the research lab or the factories themselves. The atmosphere was perfectly blank, like a chefs apron, like a table spread.

“Thank you for being just in time, Miss Jung Hwa,” said the chairman to me from underneath his own set of glasses. The same brand the assistant was wearing, no doubt to try and impress him.

“I’m always happy to help,” I said, bowing. I looked around the room. “Now… where should I sit?”

“Oh. No.” The head of Research and Development shook her head. She was a mean, pinched looking woman with her hair pulled back so tight I thought she would snap in two. “You’ll stand over in the corner, and you’re going to just be there to help him feel that we’re very serious about food.” I didn’t have any time, or any standing at all, with which to argue with her. My heart sank as the funny little idea that I’d actually sit down at a conference table for any reason disappeared.

When a little chime went off from the chairman’s pocked, he snapped his attention to the double doors across from me and whispered, “they’ve just left the elevator.” Any second now, Do Hyun was about to walk in.

I had all kinds of expectations as to what he’d look like. Star chefs were all different shapes and sizes. Maybe he was old, ancient, and learned everything he did over decades of work and practice. Or maybe he was younger, maybe a disheveled genius artist of some kind.

But whatever he was, I was losing hope that he’d find the food any good. Maybe he wouldn't want to get any of the stuff at all. Maybe he wouldn't want much of anything. Or maybe he would be so disgusted by our pitiful attempts that—

The double doors opened.

And time seemed to slow down.

And I could feel my heart beating in a slow, halting thump.

A man in a jet black outfit stepped through, his stride long and the glittering shine of his shoes in dark contrast to the whiteness of the room. I could tell he was young. Maybe my age. Maybe only a little older. I could tell immediately, based on the way he stepped in with pure and derisive confidence, that he was Do Hyun, and that he already had all of the power in the negotiation. His jacket was clearly made of silk, and underneath he wore a turtleneck that hinted at how lithe he was, how lean, how coiled he seemed to me, humming with an intensity I could almost see.

I could also tell, based on how long his hair was, and how it flowed from his head in artful strands loosened from his ponytail, that he would not play by the rules of politeness and procedure that we were so ready to work by.

And his face… his cheekbones were sharp, like knives, but his lips… they looked soft, almost a bloody pink, but they were drawn in a tight and stern look that made me shiver with awe. He meant business. And his lips were so… pretty.

He didn’t look like a chef. He didn’t look like he owned a café. He looked like he modeled for one, some dark and mysterious café that was in another world, where the coffee was sculpted and the company was… beautiful.

But more with all those things I noticed, the first thing that struck me, harder than anything else, were his eyes.

Dark, glimmering, and…

…Hateful.