It all started four years ago, when Junhui was hired as Pledis Monthly’s travel column copy editor.

 

////////////

 

Junhui is in the break room, pouring himself a cup of coffee when he hears someone clear their throat behind him.

Disturbed by the sudden ripple in the break room’s ocean of silence, he sharply turns around to find Xu Minghao standing behind him.

Xu Minghao was not just any Pledis Month employee. No, this man was Pledis Monthly’s top managing editor.

Everyone recognized him for his, simply put, magnificent abilities as an editor. Because of this, the entire company knew who he was, from his face to his name.

He was only in his second year working for the company, but already received a promotion from copy editor to managing editor, and there was no doubt he would eventually rise to the highest ranking as Pledis Monthly’s editor in chief.

And yet here he was, a seemingly ordinary guy, facing Junhui dressed in a work uniform of a sweater and jeans (the polar opposite of Junhui’s button up shirt and tie with black pants ensemble).

It wasn't a look Junhui would personally go for, but for Minghao, he wore it extremely well. The sweater was slightly fitted, showing his figure, but not too fitted that it was unflattering.

“May I help you?” Junhui asks, raising an eyebrow.

He's momentarily confused. It's only his fifth day on the job, he didn't think he'd be approached by anyone so important so soon.

Minghao shakes his head no, and reaches behind Junhui to grab a cup of his own. Junhui steps aside so Minghao can reach the coffee pot.

As he's pouring, Minghao looks up at Junhui and initiates their first conversation.

“You're the new intern guy, right?”

Junhui, who was taking a sip of his beverage, almost spits it out (which would've made for quality comedic timing) but instead he swallows it, despite the fact that it's as hot as lava.

He isn't sure what to say. Minghao is awaiting a response.

“No, actually,” Junhui says assuredly, after a long period of silence. “My name is Wen Junhui. I'm the newest copy editor for the travel column. Hired five days ago.”

He sips his coffee again (it's less hot this time), as congratulatory sip to himself for standing his ground.

Mid sip, Junhui realizes that he's forgotten creamer and sugar, but it's out of arm’s reach atop the table across from them.

He would leave his current spot to retrieve some, but he figures it would be rude of him to abandon Minghao so suddenly, even though he just delivered a massive blow to his ego.

Minghao’s eyes widen in surprise, partly because of his mistake and partly because he wasn't expecting the new employee to be Chinese.

His Mandarin was starting to get rusty; maybe he could converse on the daily with this Junhui guy.

Or what if he didn't speak Mandarin and spoke Cantonese? That would only make matters more awkward for the two of them.

That aside, Minghao had to address the current predicament facing him.

“Oh no! I'm so sorry!” he cries. “You just look really young, I thought the new copy editor would be someone older!”

That was another thing. He didn't expect the new employee to be Chinese, or have one of the youngest looking faces he's ever seen on a person who works as a copy editor.

Junhui grins at him. It's a bit awkward for him to be called ‘young’ by someone who he knows is actually a year younger.

He opts out of sharing this at the moment, since he doesn't want to be in this conversation any longer and he just wants to get back to work.

“Xu Minghao. I've heard about you throughout the office. Congrats on your success. It was lovely meeting you,” Junhui bows slightly, and waves goodbye as he saunters out of the break room and back to his cubicle.

From the door, he calls, “See you around!” and finally disappears from sight.

Minghao watches Junhui make his dramatic exit, and once he's alone he sighs, slapping his forehead.

Minghao lets out a disgruntled sigh. Damn it! If I'm ever going to be editor in chief one day, the least I could do is know everyone's name!

As he leaves the break room, he can't help but admire the way Junhui stood up for himself, with the kind of confidence not too many people seem to have these days.

Not to mention the way Junhui’s dress pants hug his legs oh so nicely.

 

////////////

 

Junhui has been at Pledis Monthly for half a year now. He loves it; editing the travel column is such a pleasure.

Although he himself isn't doing the traveling, he figures reading about other people’s experiences traveling is just as good.

Since their first meeting in the break room, he sees daily Minghao throughout the office, mostly when Minghao checks up on him at his desk to view his progress. They make small talk, with Minghao cracking the occasional joke and they would share a laugh.

It's a Tuesday morning, and Junhui has already completed his edits for the day.

“All done!” Junhui announces cheerfully, holding up his freshly edited papers to Minghao, decorated with a plethora of red markings.

Minghao looks down at the stack of documents, nodding his head slightly as he flicks through them, and looks at Junhui.

“Wow, you work fast!” Minghao says. “Didn't I just give you these this morning?”

Junhui nods. “You bet!” He smiles at Minghao, giving him a thumbs up.

Impressive was an understatement when it came to Junhui. If you gave him an entire issue of Pledis Monthly to edit at 8am and told him to have it done by noon, he'd hand it in by 11am accompanied by some ‘extra work’ he brought upon himself.

Last month, the entire editing department was on the verge of disaster. Three copy editors were out sick and two were on their vacation, and Junhui stepped in and did all of it on top of his own work, before Minghao could even lift a finger.

“Anything else I can do?” Junhui inquires.

Minghao glances up at the office clock. It was only 10:10 in the morning, and Junhui already finished 6 hours worth of work in a matter of two hours.

“Well, I guess I'll have to find something for you to do, Junhui,” he tells him. “So for now, I guess you can go on break.”

Junhui’s face falls. “Oh, ok,” he responds, slumping in his chair. He picks up a scrambled rubik’s cube laying on his desk.

Contrary to popular belief, Junhui actually enjoys working. He loves the sense of accomplishment he gets completing his assignments in record time. It was a shame he'd be left with nothing for the rest of the day.

As he's walking away, Minghao remembers the newest issue of Pledis Monthly that he needs to edit and finalize before the end of the week.

He could always use an extra set of eyes, right?

Minghao returns to Junhui’s cubicle, peeking his head over the partition panel such that only the top half of his head can be seen.

He raps the side of the panel with his fist, startling an unsuspecting Junhui trying to finish the white side of the cube.

“Jeez! You scared me!” Junhui playfully hits the top of Minghao’s head with his free hand.

“OW!” Minghao exclaims. “Now I know not to startle you anymore.” He winces at the pain and hears Junhui chuckle from his chair.

The pain begins to alleviate as Minghao recalls his original intention for returning to Junhui.

“Look, I need your help with something. Come with me.” Minghao gestures for Junhui to follow him.

Surprised, Junhui obliges, puts the Rubik's cube down, and walks with Minghao to his office.

 

////////////

 

“I think this should centered a little more,” Junhui says as he points out a huge title in bold, black print headlining the fashion section of the magazine.

Minghao lifts the page, squinting a little, and nods in agreement.

“You're right. It looks like it's a bit too much to the left.” Minghao picks up his red pen, circling it and scrawling a little note down on the side.

They're sitting together in Minghao’s office, which is slightly smaller compared to the editor in chief office located right next door.

He has a fairly large desk, though that's really all there is to the room, complete with his own cushioned armchair on his side of the desk and two foldable ones on the other.

The walls around it have shelves attached to them, occupied by some books and some succulents Minghao somehow imported from China.

There was also an empty photo frame on one of the shelves; Junhui notices but decides not to ask why.

The pages of Pledis Monthly’s upcoming issue are scattered across the length of the desk.

Minghao and Junhui are hovering above them, each with red pens in hand ready to create markings wherever necessary.

It's almost 6pm, the end of the workday. Junhui begins to organize them into piles of ‘edited’ and ‘unedited.’ Minghao helps him, and together they nearly arrange the papers into two manila folders with their respective labels.

The papers are equally distributed for the most part, but Minghao is satisfied knowing the ‘edited’ pile has approximately three pages more than the ‘unedited.'

Once they're finished and making their way out of the office, Junhui looks at Minghao with a disappointed expression on his face.

 

“I feel like I could've gotten more pages out of the way if I didn't nitpick every single detail,” he says as his shoulders fall.

 

Minghao reaches out and awkwardly places a hand on Junhui’s shoulder in attempt to comfort him.

They haven't been alone to speak one another ever since the mistaken intern conversation.

But now, it was only them, and Minghao had to find some way to console the shockingly vulnerable Junhui slumped before him.

He decides now would be a good time to break out the Mandarin.

“That's alright,” he tries, and glimpses at Junhui’s face, which now has a shocked expression from the change in language.

Junhui takes a moment to formulate a response. He hasn't had an opportunity to speak Mandarin in ages.

They'd been so occupied in their work for their Korea-based magazine, they'd practically forgotten their own China-based roots.

“No, it's not,” he finally replies, feeling the words flow naturally from his mouth. “I wanted to get everything done.”

Junhui is exhausted and overwhelmed. “I feel like no one’s noticed me,” he continues.  “I just want to impress everyone and prove my skills as copy editor.”

Minghao, who isn't sure what to say, pulls Junhui into his arms and holds him in an embrace so that Junhui’s head is resting on Minghao’s shoulder. The sudden intimacy is a surprise, but oddly enough, Junhui doesn't seem to mind.

“Junhui,” Minghao says, looking down on his tousled blonde hair. “In your six months working here, I doubt they couldn't have hired a better copy editor than you.”

Junhui slowly unfolds himself from Minghao’s gentle embrace, and stands in front of him, their eyes meeting one another's.

Minghao grins. Junhui stands up a little, and runs a hand through his hair.

“You really think so?”

“Oh please. From the things I’ve seen you do, I know so.”

 

////////////

 

A few more months pass. Junhui hits his first year at Pledis Monthly and Minghao couldn't be more proud.

The two have grown closer. Junhui finds himself in Minghao’s office for the duration of their work days, where they've developed the ability to talk and edit and the same time.

They spend time reminiscing over life back in China, and talk about missing their families and “real, quality Chinese food, not the imposter kind Seoul has,” as Minghao had said, making Junhui laugh.

Out of all the “real, quality, Chinese foods” Seoul lacks, Junhui says he misses the mooncakes from his local bakery in Shenzhen the most.

“Man, those were the best,” he sighs, as he's talking to Minghao one day during their lunch break. “Especially the ones filled with the jinmen danhuang.”

Minghao stops chewing his noodles for a moment.

“Oh yeah! The egg yolk filling! Those are delicious!”

“I know right! It's the best! I miss it so much.”

 

////////////

 

These days, Junhui and Minghao are the editing dream team.

Together, they sort through the paper drafts of Pledis Monthly and report back to the publishers on time with a finalized issue in hand.

Or at least, that's what happens some of the time.

Most of the time, Junhui and Minghao are running through the office, trying to contact specific people in specific departments who need to make specific changes to their sections of the magazine to ensure that it's absolutely perfect.

Unfortunately for them, most of their coworkers were atrocious when it came to deadlines.

A lot of them, way too many of them, had tendency to hand their drafts in at the very last second.

“Hao! Did we contact the head of the writing department yet? We need that food column in right now!” Junhui calls from his new cubicle, situated directly outside Minghao’s office. He's frantically sorting through pages on his desk.

The final draft of the October Pledis Monthly issue needs to be submitted for printing by 4:30pm, and it’s currently 3:52pm.

Junhui has one half of it on his desk. The other half is spread out on Minghao’s desk.

“No!” Minghao shouts in response. “He hasn't responded! This column has so many grammar errors, and he's the one with the original file on his computer, the least he could do is get back to us and change it himself!”

They're screaming at each other from across their respective workspaces in Mandarin. At first, the sudden change in language startled their fellow coworkers, but it's become something that takes place so frequently nowadays that no one cares to bat an eyelash at it.

Minghao is frazzled.

God, this entire office is filled with imbeciles!

If everyone had handed their columns in on time, then him and Junhui wouldn't be in this mess, trying to get everything sorted out less than an hour before everything was due to the publishers.

On the bright side, there were barely any errors.

On the downside, no one from the writing department cared enough to fix them.

As much as the two of them were capable of changing it themselves, they didn't want to change anything too major on accident and infuriate the writers.

However, desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Jun!” Minghao calls out.

Junhui shoots out of his chair and makes his way to Minghao’s office, who has planted himself in the armchair behind his desk on a laptop stacked on piles of the draft papers.

He rushes in, and begins to organize the papers, sorting them into neat piles based on section (Travel, Romance & Dating, Food) and scurries behind the desk to stand behind Minghao, who is overcome by stress.

“This one damn column!” Minghao wails. He turns to Junhui and lifts up the paper with the flawed column to his face, as if that'll help the errors magically disappear. “They need to fire some of these dim witted writers who can't seem to do anything!”

Minghao angrily slams the paper back onto his desk, crumpling it into a ball. He cradles his face in both hands, and wants to hold back tears, but he's so frustrated right now that the waterworks begin to flow ever so subtly.

Junhui notices, and reaches for a tissue on the corner of Minghao’s desk. He forces him to sit up by lightly pushing his shoulder so he can dry off his eyes.

“Hey. Minghao,” Junhui whispers calmly. He kneels down as he begins gently pressing the tissue on Minghao’s face.

Minghao lets him do so, but once he's done he continues to sob quietly, putting his face in his hands again.

Junhui has never seen Minghao like this before. It wasn't helping that the time frame they had was getting narrower and narrower, so one of them had to think of something.

“Hao,” Junhui attempts once more. “You can get through this. It's just one column. I know you. You can figure something out.”

Junhui stands up to toss away the tear soaked tissue. He leans on the side of Minghao’s desk, his back comfortingly until the sobbing ceases and he's fully calmed down.

Minghao rotates his chair so it's facing his laptop. He gingerly unfolds the column he crushed, and begins to flatten it out so it’s laying out on his desk.

He begins to furrow his eyebrows, glimpsing up at the ceiling as Junhui gazes down at him, anticipating an idea to come out of Minghao at any second.

The clock strikes 4:00pm. A half hour left.

Finally, Minghao takes a deep breath and exhales. He now has a look of determination on his face, and he looks to Junhui with a glimmer in his eyes.

“Jun. I can type about 76 words per minute. How about you?”

Junhui smiles. “Funny you say that, Hao, because I can do 77 words, so I win,” he gloats.

Minghao smirks. “Great. While I put the pages together, you can type out the unfinished column and correct all the mistakes, Mr. Speed Racer,” he says, nudging Junhui’s side with his elbow.

He doesn't give Junhui much of a choice as he stands up and pushes him into the armchair, setting the laptop in front of him.

Minghao sits on the folding chairs opposite his desk as he organizes the pages together based on their numbers, and eventually it begins to look like a legitimate issue of Pledis Monthly.

Junhui’s typing is making rapid click sounds as his fingers come in contact with the keyboard. He finishes the final version version of the article, and urgently hands it to Minghao, who wastes no time sorting it in with the rest of the magazine.

They squeal with excitement upon finishing, and rush to the publishing department to hand the final draft in for printing.

At last, when it's handed in, they take the time to look at the clock, which reads 4:29pm.

Once they arrive back at Minghao’s office, they embrace, arms wrapped around one another in a tight hug and they're jumping up and down, overcome with relief and happiness.

They eventually untangle themselves from one another, and their eyes meet as a smile spreads on each of their faces.

“Xu Minghao! I knew you could do it” Junhui beams, excitedly shaking the other's shoulders.

Minghao is still smiling from ear to ear. “I couldn't have done it without you, Wen Junhui!” he happily shouts back.

The room suddenly grows silent.

“I couldn't have done it without you, Wen Junhui,” Minghao repeats, a more hushed tone to his voice.

They're standing facing one another, and Junhui slowly begins to lean in. Minghao instinctively does the same, but soon enough the banging sound of a door swinging open interrupts.

They turn around to see the publisher standing in the door frame. Minghao jumps and faces him, bowing once they make eye contact.

“You did an excellent job with this issue. I flipped through it.” the publisher states. “I'm quite impressed. But I heard there were some--complications.”

Minghao looks over at Junhui, who makes an I mean I guess we should tell him face.

“Well, you see sir, we had some issues with the writing department,” Minghao explains. “They don't hand in their drafts on time, so we,” he pauses, waving his finger back and forth between him and Junhui, “don't have the allotted time frame we need to edit.”

The publisher has his hand resting underneath his chin. He stands in deep thought for a moment, and finally looks up at Minghao.

“Well, I must say, the two of you handled it with an excellent sense of professionalism,” the publisher says. Minghao turns to Junhui with a thumbs up, and Junhui nods back.

“I'll put a word in with the CEO, and let him know about the writing department,” the publisher decides. He bows to Minghao and Junhui, finally exiting the office.

The two look at each other and laugh.

“Wanna go to the break room for some celebratory coffee?” Junhui suggests.

Minghao nods, leading the way to the door.

“Sure,” he responds. “You have to make mine for me, though. I'm so tired I can barely make the walk to the break room.”

Junhui rolls his eyes. “You lazy oaf,” he teases, lightly shoving Minghao, who just chuckles in response.

Despite Minghao’s exhaustion, they walk to the break room together anyway,

Upon approaching the coffee station, Junhui takes two cups, holding one up in front of Minghao.

“Two sugars, dash of creamer for you, your highness?” Junhui jests, doing a pretend curtsy.

“You know me so well, my liege,” Minghao jeers.

 

////////////

 

“Happy Holidays, Jun!”

Minghao hovers over Junhui’s cubicle, a shiny wrapped box with a giant bow in hand.

The red paper on the box crinkles as Junhui takes the parcel from him, eyes widened in disbelief.

“Oh my goodness, what is this? You didn't have to get me anything,” he insists. “I thought we were just doing an office Secret Santa and leaving it at that.”

He fondles the box before placing it on top of his desk, smoothing out the wrinkles in the paper.

Much nicer already than the $15 Amazon gift Junhui anonymously received.

Regret washed over him immediately when he’d opened it, knowing he'd spent most of his month’s salary on a nice cashmere sweater for the person he'd gotten.

“They better treasure that sweater like it’s the last article of clothing they'll ever lay their hands on,” he’d sneered to Minghao the other day, who was sat across from him in the break room.

But now Minghao is standing above him, resting his head on top of the cubicle edge.

He nods towards the present on Junhui’s lap.

“Open it,” he says.

Junhui begins to unravel the bow, setting the ribbon aside as he starts removing the paper.

Minghao stands up straighter and begins to lean against the panel, hoping his weight won't cause it to fall over.

Finally, the paper is removed to reveal a shiny tin box, adorned with Mandarin characters that read Shenzhen Bakery.

Junhui gasps. “Minghao!” he shrieks. “Is this what I think it is?”

Minghao smiles. Junhui is still awestruck as he removes the lid, which reveals a dozen neatly laid out mooncakes.

The same exact ones Junhui remembers from his days back in Shenzhen.

“How did you-” Junhui breathes, picking one out of the box and tearing a piece off. It's still steaming, and he takes a bite, letting out a sigh of content.

“These are incredible,” he says dreamily. “Just as delicious as they used to be.”

He turns his head towards Minghao, who starts giggling.

“There's no way these are from here,” Junhui laughs. “Did you have to sell your soul to the devil or something, Hao?”

Minghao’s eyes dart to the right. “Well,” he begins, “not exactly.” He pauses for a moment to ponder.

“The idea came to me that time you told me how much you missed these,” Minghao says, gesturing towards the mooncakes.

“I had to scour the Internet to find Shenzen Bakery online, and when I did I sent them an email asking if they remembered a certain Wen Junhui who used to enjoy their mooncakes,” he continues, reaching down to ruffle Junhui’s hair.

Junhui blushes. He takes another bite. “And then what?” he asks, mouth full of pastry.

“They agreed to send me a dozen before the holidays came around!” Minghao finishes, throwing his hands up in the air. “They came in the post to my apartment about three days ago.”

“Then how did you get them-like this?” Junhui points out the steam coming out of the mooncake as he tears another piece off, offering it to Minghao.

“I heated them up in my oven before coming here this morning,” Minghao responds, taking the morsel Junhui holds up to him and putting it in his mouth.

It all comes together so perfectly. The texture of the cake, paired with egg yolk filling is divine, and he immediately understands why Junhui loves these so much.

Junhui smiles at the sight of Minghao taking pleasure in his mooncake bite. He takes a full one out of the box, handing it over to him. Minghao gratefully accepts.

“I bet these taste so much better when they're fresh out of the oven, though,” Minghao observes, rotating the pastry in his hand, analyzing it.

He feels a hand reach up to gently caress his face, and he realizes it’s Junhui, who’s stood up from his chair.

“Hao, these are perfect,” he soothes. Junhui’s eyes are starting to tear up.

“This is the nicest thing someone has ever done for me. Thank you so much.”

Minghao smiles down at his friend.

“Only the best for you, Jun.”

 

////////////

 

“Aw, man.”

It's raining cats and dogs outside. Junhui forgot his umbrella at home, and this meant he would have to trudge back five blocks, sopping wet.

The rain around the Pledis Monthly office was never this torrential. Usually it was a light drizzle.

Junhui could do light drizzles.

Not this.

Minghao steps out of his office, closing the door behind him and takes out his key to lock it.

He sees Junhui, staring forlornly out the window as the rain splashed against the glass paneling.

Minghao approaches him, planting himself by his side.

 

Junhui acknowledges him by turning in his direction with a slight nod of his head.

“Hao,” he whines, “what do I do?”

Minghao wraps his arm around Junhui’s shoulders.

“Let me drive you home, Jun,” he suggests.

Normally, Jun wouldn't accept. In fact, he never did, regardless of how many times Minghao would offer.

Minghao drives a black sedan to work every day that he parks outside the Pledis Monthly office. He tells Junhui that he's had it ever since his university days, and it hasn't failed him since.

“Okay,” Junhui complies.

They make their way outside, and are momentarily battered by the rainfall as they sprint towards Minghao’s car.

Junhui frantically grabs the door handle as he flies into the passenger seat. Minghao isn't far behind, as he sinks into the driver side with a sigh of relief.

“Make the first left here, keep going straight until you see Kyeom Avenue, and it's the first apartment complex two buildings down,” Junhui instructs.

“Roger that,” Minghao replies, starting up the car.

 

It's easily a five minute ride, but from the driver’s seat Minghao can see Junhui beginning to doze off, and he eventually hears snoring.

 

He turns into Kyeom Avenue when he suddenly hears Junhui begin mumbling incoherently.

Minghao pulls up in front of the apartment complex, barely missing the curb as he shifts the gears of his car to park.

He unbuckles and leans over to look at Junhui, who’s completely knocked out in the seat with his head drooping towards Minghao.

“Hey, all you people,” he grumbles sleepily.

Minghao is surprised; all this time he's known Junhui and it never occurred to him he'd be a sleep talker.

Minghao leans closer, waiting with bated breath for this important announcement Sleeping Junhui had to make.

“Xu Minghao,” Junhui mumbles, “is the bestest person in the whole wide world.”

He yawns loudly, stretching his arms out, almost hitting Minghao in the face. He gently swats his hands out of the way, and decides to let his friend sleep a little longer before forcing him out of his car and commanding he go up to his apartment.

In the meantime, he admires how adorable Junhui looks as he's sleeping. His mouth is slightly open, and he has both eyebrows raised. It's so comical, and Minghao is tempted to take a picture of him.

Junhui make a noise as if he's about to say something else.

“Hey, you,” he says, throwing his hand in the air. “Do you think Xu Minghao knows how great of a person he is? No, wait,” Sleeping Junhui stops himself.

He proceeds. “Do you think he knows how I think how great of a person he is?”

Minghao silently chuckles to himself.

“Oh, beli