Wearing his nicest business suit, Jin headed for his meeting, with Jungkook seated next to him in the car. Jin stared out the window as he wondered how boring this appointment would be. The things he did for Appa. He shook his head.
“Are you nervous?” Jungkook asked him while he smoothed his own suit jacket. Black, of course. He looked like a million bucks. Crisp, white shirt, black dress slacks, his hair as perfectly coiffed as he could do himself. Which wasn’t perfect. But close enough. He had missed his hairdresser this morning. He’d had to blow dry it himself. Not his favorite thing.
“Why would I be nervous? I don’t really care about this deal. Except that I don’t want to disappoint Appa. But I won’t. How could this worldwide handsome face fail me today?” Jin held his hands up underneath his chin to frame it, his fingers almost cradling his face, the bottoms of his palms up and touching each other.
Jungkook smiled sadly. He understood exactly what Jin wasn’t saying.
Does anybody see me? The me buried beneath this skin, so far down that sometimes even I can’t recognize my true self. Does anybody love the real me?
Jungkook sighed. Even with his precious Hyejin, he still wondered that sometimes himself.
—
Flipping the pen in her hand back and forth between her fingers, Julieta sat in the small conference room staring down at the proposal in front of her. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. She’d been in a hundred meetings like this upcoming one. She sighed. It’s just that so much was riding on today’s outcome. She needed BTS to agree to sponsor her product. She needed this win. She was moving here to South Korea, and today’s meeting would set the tone for her future endeavors. If she could close the deal with the biggest band in the world, she’d be appreciated, sought after. Her boss would be vindicated for fighting for her to get this position as the vice president in charge of their Seoul office.
She would have proven herself at the tender age of twenty-five. She had rocketed to the top of her company in part because it had originally been her father’s endeavor. Though at his death, his shares in the company were evenly split between her and her sister, they didn’t hold enough stock to make any major decisions. She had had to prove her worth every step of the way. She had worked very hard to climb every single rung on the ladder to success. But she had been given some backing because she was her father’s heir. She was sure it had weighed in her favor when she was offered this role in Seoul. Now she just needed to seal the deal.
Just then the door opened, and two extremely good-looking men walked through the doorway. She blinked as she stared at Jin. She had seen several pictures of him, but they did not do him justice. He was beautiful in a very sweet way.
He had an adorable, flopping fringe of dark brown hair that completely hid his forehead from view. His hair was nearly stabbing him in his gorgeous eyes. She fell headlong into those almond-shaped, chocolate brown eyes. They were simply beautiful and soulful. He also had a cute, straight nose and extremely full, pale pink lips. Had he ever been kissed?
Where did that ridiculous question come from? Focus, Julieta! Focus on the task at hand!
To distract herself from Jin’s beauty, she glanced at Jungkook. Big mistake. She was being assaulted from both sides by two very attractive men. Jungkook’s long, dark hair was definitely stabbing him in the eyes. He kept running his hand through it, pulling it away from his forehead. It was a futile effort. Every time he slid his hand through his hair, it simply flopped back down to cover his eyes once more.
Both men were dressed to the nines in dark suits with white, button-down, long-sleeved shirts. They both looked like they’d stepped off the cover of a gentleman’s quarterly magazine. Somehow, though, she preferred Jin’s sweet, open expression to Jungkook’s poker face. She sensed that they were both quite reserved. Much like herself, she rather suspected.
She stood up to greet them. She bowed to them as she spoke to them in fluent Korean.
“Welcome, gentlemen. I am Julieta Flores.”
Jin smiled at her, revealing a beautiful set of perfect, white teeth, straightly aligned. “Hello. I am Kim Seokjin, and this is Jeon Jeongguk.” He gestured towards the raven-haired young man standing next to him.
“Please have a seat,” she pointed to the two chairs across from her at the table. “Gentlemen, thank you for giving me your time today. We’re here to talk about working with you to promote our product line here in South Korea.”
“What is your product?” Jungkook finally spoke up.
“Argentine snack cakes. We have several different flavors. Our most popular flavor is dulce de leche. We will do a test run here to see how well Korea accepts our nation’s favorite flavor. We also make chocolate mousse filled cakes covered in chocolate.”
Jungkook’s mouth was watering. So where were the samples? If he was going to sponsor a product, he needed to try it first.
He tried to focus as she droned on, “Our third most popular flavor is a cake filled with strawberry jam. Our product is known as Los Gemelos because the cakes are always sold in packs of two; hence, The Twins. They are two light snack cake rounds with the filling sandwiched between them. The dulce de leche are made with a lemon-vanilla cake and dulce de leche filling and then are rolled in dried coconut. The chocolate mousse filled cakes are triple chocolate. The cake, filling, and coating are all chocolate flavored. The strawberry filled ones are a vanilla-lemon cake base also. Here are some samples. Please try them.”
Jungkook nearly lunged for the treats. He was starving! He ripped open the first package randomly and shoved the dulce de leche flavored cake into his mouth, chomping down on it. Jin laughed as he watched Jungkook eating.
“What do you think?”
But Jungkook was too busy chewing to answer. It tasted so good! He crammed the second cake in his mouth. Then he glanced at Jin and nodded his head.
Jin gingerly opened his package of dulce de leche cakes. He liked neither strawberry-flavored foods nor chocolate, so he would let Jungkook try those. He bit into the cake; it was reminiscent of caramel. He closed his eyes for a moment to savor it.
“This is delicious!” he opined, opening his eyes to meet those of Julieta.
He hadn’t been able to avoid noticing how pretty she was, even dressed in her business suit. The very first thing he’d noticed was her unusual eyes. They were jade green, shining like two polished jade stones set beautifully in her head. She had a cute, snub nose that slightly rounded on its tip. She had a pretty mouth that spread into a wide smile every time her face relaxed, as though her default response to life was happiness.
“Please try all three,” Julieta encouraged Jin, pushing the package of strawberry cakes towards him.
Jin swallowed, then he reached for the package, a moment later taking a tiny bite of the strawberry flavored cake. It wasn’t awful. It actually tasted pretty good. He glanced at Jungkook who had just swallowed a strawberry cake whole. Jin held up his nearly untouched strawberry cake and its perfect twin. “Care for more?”
Jungkook grabbed them from his hands and happily began to devour them too.
“You didn’t like them?” Julieta asked Jin.
He shrugged. “I’m not fond of strawberry flavoring.”
“We actually don’t add flavoring to our products except for pure vanilla extract and real lemon zest. We make real strawberry jam from strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, pectin, and water for the cake you just ate.”
“That would explain why it tasted pretty good.”
“Here. Try the chocolate.”
Jin slowly opened the package. He didn’t care for chocolate either.
“We have begun selling these three flavors at a few 7-Eleven stores throughout South Korea.”
As Jin listened to Julieta speaking, he took a bite of the chocolate cake. For something chocolate-flavored, it was all right. He passed the remaining cakes to his very hungry friend, the bottomless pit, Jeon Jungkook of BTS. Jungkook gratefully accepted them.
“These are tasty!” he exclaimed in Korean.
“Tae-sty!” Jin reverted to English for a second, and he and Jungkook laughed while Julieta stared at them, perplexed.
Jin’s eyes met hers a moment later, and he explained. “Our good friend, another band mate, is named Tae.”
“It’s one of Jin’s famous dad jokes,” Jungkook informed her by way of explanation.
“Oh. Oh, I see.” Julieta was fluent in Spanish, English, French, and Korean. She smiled at the bad joke before continuing to market her product. “We are planning to branch out into other convenience stores around the beginning of the new year. And we are anticipating being in all the 7-Elevens throughout South Korea by then too.”
The boys nodded at her.
“We are still a pretty small company. I can’t begin to offer you the incentives of a larger corporation, but I would greatly appreciate your help marketing our cakes. We offer a quality product made of all-natural ingredients at a competitive price.” She paused for a moment before continuing, “My father started this company. I know he would be proud of what we’ve become over the last five years.”
Jin detected a hint of sorrow in her normally sunny voice. How had her father died? Had Jin and Julieta been alone, he would have asked, but since they weren’t, he remained silent.
She spoke for a few more minutes on the advantages of their working with her company before asking, “Jin, would this be a solo project for you? Or would you, Jungkook, also like to help us promote our product? We would, of course, be delighted to work with all seven of you.”
Jin glanced at Jungkook. How closely would he get to work with Julieta in the future if he accepted this offer?
Jungkook tilted his chin up in response to Jin’s unspoken question.
“We are definitely interested. We’ll have to set up a meeting with the rest of BTS, so they can hear your pitch too. They weren’t available today to come with us. What all would our job entail?”
“Mostly photo shoots and commercials. We’re going to use a lot of social media to promote our product.”
“So, we’d get to eat lots of your cakes?” Jungkook sounded hopeful. He had especially liked the chocolate one.
Julieta’s face spread into a wide grin as her eyes twinkled at him. “All you can eat.”
“Oh, no. Don’t promise him that! You have no idea how much this guy can eat! Especially when he’s working out!”
Julieta glanced at Jungkook and then laughed.
