After wrapping up the mission with Dyo, Kai works on interpreting a few other maps, drafting notes in the margins for future missions. The “In Progress” database has a seemingly endless list of blueprints in it: Sometimes, Kai thinks they must have every building in Korea in there plus half the ones in China. His contract with Prudence, Inc. states that he needs to review and annotate three per week, but Kai typically manages to get through a dozen. He was originally just seeing how many he could feasibly do in the span of seven days, but then noticed his paycheck had an extra 100,000 won the first time he exceeded the minimum requirement. He brought it up with Kris, mentioning the error, only to be told “there were no mistakes in payroll” with a meaningful stare. Kai stood there with his mouth trying to formulate something other than “uhhh” before he was dismissed and quickly fled the boss’s office. (Kris’s cold stare gives him the creeps.) But point taken: Kris was happy to reward his extra effort provided he didn’t blab to the other navigators about the pay-per-map deal. He guesses it’s one of those figure-it-out-to-deserve-it things.

Kai shuts everything down later than usual. It’s 6:30am as he heads to the lobby bathroom. He removes his tie, rolls up the sleeves of his white dress shirt to his elbows, and slips on his black-rimmed glasses. A few hand ruffles through his gelled hair give it a more casual, fluffy appearance. He rolls his suit jacket up neatly into his leather satchel, and Jongin exits onto the early-morning streets of Seoul.

A couple of subway stops later, and he disembarks at the small station in his neighborhood. Jongin follows his familiar morning path up a steep hill, and pushes through the wooden door of Chateau des Chats.

A small bell announces his entrance, causing the owner to pop his head up from behind the counter along the left-side wall. “Good morning, Luhan,” he greets him with a smile.

“Morning, Jongin! You’re a tad later than usual today. I threw out your latte a little while ago. I’ll brew you another,” Luhan replies cheerily. His blond hair bounces as he busies himself with the coffee machine, moving with a swift gracefulness that complements his many cats in the room.

Jongin sits at his usual table near the front window, and waits no more than a few seconds before a young tabby cat climbs up to greet him. "Good morning, Mimi," he coos at her, giving her cheekbones gentle scratches as she tries to return the favor, nuzzling his chin and mewing out her greetings.

He stumbled across this cat café over a year ago, after a particularly rough day at work left him dreading going home to an empty house. Cat companionship sounded appealing: a warm, snuggly being to share your troubles with, who couldn’t judge you but would help defuse your stress with each pet? Yes, please. It was immensely therapeutic. He hadn’t counted on getting human companionship with it, but Luhan turned out to be a lovely package blessing. The young owner had immigrated to Korea after his grandfather passed away, to help his grandmother transition and take over the family's many business ventures. In the end, she had sold them all save for the cat cafe, saying it brought her husband (and hence, her) the most joy. Luhan ran the cafe alongside her until she passed away and felt similarly compelled to keep the cafe alive. Which...

Honestly, Jongin is convinced Lu must have other assets, because aside from himself, he's only ever seen three other customers in the place. They're all regulars, and they're all present this morning as usual. There's a widow who knew Luhan's grandmother. She’s a plain, older woman who sits on the sofa in the middle, reading the daily newspaper and petting the older cats that sleep on the cat tree beside her. Two high school-aged students sit closer to the back of the cafe but at different tables. The girl prefers the kittens and will occasionally take breaks from studying/cursing calculus to play with them using the feather toy, while the boy is perpetually asleep, gray hoodie pulled up and facing away from the morning sunlight of the front windows, surrounded by required grade 2 novels that Jongin's never seen him crack open.

The one thing they all seem to have in common is an appreciation for solitude: Everyone keeps to themselves. Except for Luhan, of course. The owner brings Jongin's latte to his table and leans against the spare chair to chat for a bit.

"So, you have trouble waking up this morning?" he teases. "You could always adopt Yerin. She's very punctual. Climbs on my face at 5am sharp each morning."

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