"Improve Your Strategy" Yuta said to his colleague, checking the presentation.
"Once it's done, email it to me." The guy nodded and left the cabin.
Yuta returned to work, unaware his phone was buzzing with notifications. The alarm rang, signaling his meeting with the CEO and board members.
He closed his laptop, grabbed his phone, and saw the notifications, but decided to check them later. He didn't want to be late. He headed to the conference room, knowing he'd face criticism about his work.
As he took his seat, one of the board members spoke up, "We need a better marketing strategy for the fall collection, unlike the spring collection, where we suffered losses in the Korean market for two consecutive years."
The member glared at Yuta, disappointed he had failed the company's prestige in the home market again.
"We did expect something much better from you and your team, but the marketing department failed us once again," another member said, and Yuta listened silently, knowing they were partly right.
He knew the department had worked hard, and it wasn't fair to say they hadn't.
"But we shouldn't forget that our international market value is in great shape, and that's because of them," one of the board members said, putting a positive spin on things.
The conversation paused, but it didn't last.
"That doesn't change the fact that our brand is losing its value on home ground," another member countered.
Mark, who'd been listening quietly, finally spoke up. "Rather than wasting time thinking about what happened, we should think about why it happened and what we can do to change it." He looked at Yuta, signaling him to share his thoughts.
"First of all, I want to apologise for the loss the company had to face because of the failed marketing strategies, and I take full responsibility for that," Yuta began, his eyes on the CEO, who he knew had high trust in him.
The CEO's expression remained neutral, but Yuta knew he was disappointed.
"We don't want your apology, Yuta. We want results," a board member said, earning nods from the others, except Mark and the lady who'd defended Yuta earlier.
Yuta's gaze swept the room. "We're continuously reviewing and changing our marketing plans as needed. Once the plan is finalised, I'll present it to you all." The CEO nodded in approval.
The male board member's expression turned stern. "I hope this time you won't disappoint us, otherwise it would cause big problems for you."
Mark sighed, looking at Yuta. "The board members have decided that if the fall collection doesn't perform well in the Korean market this time... we'll have to replace you."
Yuta's expression didn't change, he'd expected this. He sat in silence, his eyes steady, as the weight of the ultimatum settled in.
"It's your last chance to prove your and your team's worth," Mark said, and the meeting ended.
The board members seemed satisfied, but Yuta knew it was a hollow victory.
If it weren't for Mark and Jackson, who was absent due to other commitments, Yuta would have been replaced long ago.
Yuta left the building, feeling drained from the meeting and the weight of his job on the line. "Can things get any worse?" he muttered to himself, sighing as he headed to his car.
His phone buzzed in his hand, and he reluctantly checked it, seeing a slew of pending messages and emails, most of them work-related.
He decided to ignore them for now, not wanting to deal with work anymore.
Scrolling down, a message caught Yuta's attention, making him pause in surprise. After years, he'd received a personal message - not from Kun or family, but from Hoshi.
Yuta's energy renewed, he quickly opened it.
The message read
"Hey, it's hoshi đź‘‹. Hope you saved my contact no. Haha. I just wanted to ask, if you're free tonight then can we dinner together? At my place?"
Yuta couldn't help but smile, touched by Hoshi's awkward text. He never thought the Korean male would invite him for dinner.
Checking the timing, Yuta mentally kicked himself for not checking his phone sooner.
After a minute's thought, Yuta typed back a simple "ok", hoping he'd made the right decision. He was still unsure about his and Hoshi's friendship, which had begun just yesterday.
[]
"Can you suggest me some good restaurant which have the best Japanese food in korea?" Hoshi asked to jeonghan on call caughting the male off guard.
"Are you going on a date?" And unlike any other person whose first question might be 'why'.
Meet jeonghan who is on next level with his wittiness asking such question which can make anyone question his/her decision of asking help from him and hoshi is no expectation, whose face turned red in embarassment but luckily no one is there to see it.
"Why are you like this? I should've asked taeyong or Mingyu instead of you"
Hoshi said regretting his choice of calling jeonghan to seek help with today's menu where he want to have Japanese food in order to make the Japanese male happy.
But as he don't know where to order from he decided to ask jeonghan as the male travel a lot because of his work and sometimes just to try different cuisines so he might know better.
"Yeah even I am thinking about that too, I mean taeyong must be pretty busy that you have to call me"
jeonghan remarked sassily as he is highly jealous of how come hoshi is so close with taeyong to a point that whenever he get into trouble his must ask for help option is taeyong.
when it should be jeonghan as he became friend with hoshi first followed by joshua and then taeyong.
"Yeah he is busy with his work so I don't want to disturb him, just help me out with this" Hoshi said getting impatient as he need to arrange evetything before yuta come and here jeonghan is playing with his mind.
"There are some that I know of, if you want to have the best then go to kojima or kauri" jeonghan suggested earning a unclear sound from the other sound as if hoshi was muttering something which is not clearly audible.
"Ok, thanks" Hoshi said hunging up the call but jeonghan spoke up stopping the male.
"Tell me are you really going on a date? With someone who love Japanese, do I know that person? Or wait did you find yourself a Japanese partner? Wow hosh! Who is it?" Hoshi rolled his eyes at how hyper jeonghan is getting over nothing.
"You better take rest" Hoshi said to jeonghan who first hummed in response then half- shouted making hoshi pulling out the phone away from his left ear.
"Are you ok? What the fuck was that for?"
Hoshi asked and heared the male giggling as he made a wild guess about who that person might possibly be after thinking hard about if he knows someone who is either a Japanese or someone who love Japanese food and after a lot of thinking, he came up with one name to make a wild guess on.
"What?"
"Is it yuta?"
To be continued.....