Hyejin couldn't help but watch as Chen staggered to the coffee machine for the umpteenth time the next morning. Her hangover was bad, yes, but she'd drunk the tea Joonmyeon had apparently given to her (when, though? She couldn't remember) and felt much better afterward. Chen, though, looked like he had stayed up the entire night or had a hangover a hundred times worse than hers. His fingers fumbled for the capsule and he clumsily started up the machine. Furrowing his eyebrows, he clutched his head with one hand and grabbed onto the counter for support with the other. The coffee machine sounded, but he didn't react until much later, as if he didn't hear it over some sort of cacophony in his head. 

Dragging his feet back to his desk, he yawned once, twice, before plunking his mug down on his desk — which hardly had space for anything due to the papers and documents strewn all over — and blinked slowly at his computer screen. His eyelids looked like they'd been weighed down by the dark bags under his eyes. 

If Hyejin was tired, Chen looked exhausted. If her headache was bad, his seemed terrifyingly worse — maybe that's why her head seemed to clear and her hangover disappear. Instead, her mind was occupied with a brewing worry about the tired man. 

Biting her lip, Hyejin walked over to Chen's desk, and stood at a small distance away. 

A pause. "You okay?" 

No response. Hyejin cleared . "What's wrong?" 

"Nothing," Chen croaked softly, but Hyejin knew the 'nothing' meant something. 

"Tell me soon, okay?" Hyejin said quietly. "Whenever you're comfortable." She hovered there for a second. 

"Where do you want to go for lunch?" She blurted abruptly, albeit knowing it probably wasn't the right time to ask something like that. Chen looked up at her for a second, then lifted his hands off his keyboard and bent over slowly, digging in his bag. He rummaged for a while, then put his bag down again and went back to his computer. 

"I brought a sandwich," he stated. Hyejin didn't know how she felt then. All she knew was that Chen probably was lying about the sandwich, and that she didn't have the mood to go get a proper lunch anymore, but she was so utterly confused as to why he was being so weirdly cold recently. It was so unlike him she wondered if there could be something genuinely wrong. 

But Hyejin was, well, Hyejin, and she hadn't the courage to really press on the matter. So she simply headed back to her desk, slathered a smile onto her face and coolly told a happy Taehwan that she would be joining him, as well as Jinkyung and Chaeyoung, for lunch that day. 

She didn't even notice it was lunchtime until Taehwan literally pulled her out of the office. 

"Hwang Hyejin! Are you not hungry? Didn't know you were the hardworking type," Taehwan exclaimed, and Chaeyoung politely laughed. Hyejin rolled her eyes and smiled. 

"Is Jongdae coming with us?" Jinkyung asked the group, but seemed to direct the question at Hyejin, who tensed up subconsciously. Don't glance back, don't glance back, don't glance back.

It didn't work. She still did, at a Chen whose light inside him got dimmer and dimmer every minute. 

"Nope," she forced out after a second, and perhaps they could all sense the finality in her tone, because no one asked anything further, and for a while it was silent as they walked further and further out of the office. 

"So, where are we going to eat?" Jinkyung broke the silence, seemingly directly the question to Hyejin again. 

"Where have you been going to eat recently?" Hyejin asked, just so that she could answer the question without an 'I don't know'. 

"One thing I know is that we are definitely not going to the office canteen." Taehwan made a face as he steered himself away from where the canteen was. The group trailed after him. 

"Maybe we can head to the café we went to last week? The one with the really good pastas," Chaeyoung suggested meekly, and Jinkyung nodded, suddenly grabbing Hyejin by the arm. 

"Oh gosh, yes, Hyejin, you have got to try their marinara pasta. It's my absolute favourite. I swear, I have never tasted anything that good," she exclaimed, grinning and shaking Hyejin's arm. Hyejin chuckled — she was part surprised and part amused. 

"Wow, Jinkyung. It's the first time I see you so enthusiastic about something like this," Taehwan joked, and though Hyejin would've liked to show her agreement, she didn't. Jinkyung cleared and poised herself once again. 

"The walk takes less than five minutes. Let's go." Jinkyung let go of Hyejin's arm as if she had just realised what she had just done and walked ahead of the group, smoothening her hair. Chaeyoung let out a small giggle and glanced at Hyejin, who did the same. Taehwan outright laughed, but they could tell it wasn't the mean kind of laughter. It was cute watching Jinkyung like this. 

The meal was outrageously good, though. Hyejin had followed Jinkyung's suggestion to try the marinara pasta and she had enjoyed it thoroughly, just as Jinkyung seemed to have as well. 

"Hyejin, is it true? You have a boyfriend who works in a bank?" Chaeyoung asked suddenly in the middle of their meal, and Hyejin herself almost choked. 

"What?" Hyejin blinked, and Jinkyung let out a teasing laugh. 

"Taehwan told me..." She added meekly, then glanced at Taehwan who was (purposely avoiding eye contact by) eating mouthfuls of his pasta at a go. 

"Never trust Lee Taehwan. Anything that comes out of his mouth is just crap." Hyejin raised her eyebrows and stared accusingly at him. 

"Hey!" He exclaimed with his mouth full of food. Jinkyung cringed as a chewed up piece of pasta landed on her arm. Gingerly, she pulled a tissue from a little basket on the table and wiped the spot that it landed. 

"I'm going to the toilet to clean this up. And no, Taehwan, you don't have to apologise. At least not until you're done with your food," Jinkyung said slowly, edging backwards and in the direction of the toilet.  

Chaeyoung bit her lip. "Jinkyung is funny sometimes." Hyejin smiled in agreement, and Chaeyoung turned to look at her fully. 

"Wait, so the rumour is untrue?" She asked softly, and Hyejin nodded. 

"Of course it is. Taehwan is just spouting rubbish because I met a guy I knew when we were surveying in Yeouido and he asked me out for lunch. That's all." 

 Taehwan popped into the conversation. "And he also called you on your birthday! Kim Joonmyeon!" 

"I swear I will kill you one day, Lee Taehwan." 

"So... You don't like anyone at all?" Chaeyoung confirmed. 

"Nope," Hyejin said in a decisive tone, but for some reason deep inside, she wasn't too sure about her answer. And it wasn't because of Joonmyeon. Nor was it because of Taehwan. Nor anyone else, for that matter of fact. At least she thought. She didn't want to stop to think about the stupid man who lied about packing a sandwich. She didn't even want to consider that option; not for now, because he was making her so annoyingly worried. 

"I'm going to the restroom," Hyejin said as she stood up and walked there. Heading into a cubicle, she heard someone come out of another, and soon, the sound of a typical ringtone. 

"Hello?" The person outside picked up the call, and Hyejin immediately recognised her voice as Jinkyung's. 

"Mum!" Jinkyung exclaimed, her voice going an octave higher than it usually was. Hyejin could easily picture the smile on her face, although she hardly did have a chance to see it in the office. 

"Everything's fine. Yeah, my new colleagues are treating me well and I think I myself am doing well too. You'll have a Managing Director daughter in a few years, I promise!" 

"What? Oh, sis? She hasn't called me as of late, I'm not sure how she's doing as well. But I'm sure she's fine! You know her." 

"Okay, then. Call me again soon, okay, mum? Bye!" Jinkyung chirped. Hyejin inwardly chuckled in her cubicle. Jinkyung really did sound like a five-year-old child, and it was rather adorable. 

That day Hyejin saw a different side of Jinkyung. One that wasn't just enthusiastic about work and promotions and power and money, but also things like marinara pasta and having a conversation with her mother. And Hyejin enjoyed seeing Jinkyung as a human. 

____________________________________________________

Meanwhile back in the office, Jongdae couldn't concentrate on his work no matter how hard he tried. The office was deafeningly silent. He inwardly groaned. He was extremely grumpy today, and thinking that he had played a part in his own grumpiness by hinting for Hyejin not to eat with him made him feel a hundred times worse. 

"She was my lunch date," he mumbled, furrowing his eyebrows. 

But that wasn't the only reason for his moodiness. Well, maybe he hadn't actually changed since his trainee days. He was still affected by how people of higher rank thought of him. He still was ready to bow down and let what other people say affect him, although he was so sure he had changed once he became an official employee. 

That morning started off horrendous — more explicitly, with a text message telling him to report to one of the senior teams. Jongdae had made sure he looked presentable: he smoothed down the creases on his shirt and even slipped on a tie. But when he got there, he knew the seniors that day wouldn't be bothered to look at his attire, no matter what he wore. The first thing he received was a empty ring file hurled in his direction. 

"As someone with a big responsibility like yours, we would expect much more than what you're doing at your level right now." The senior's voice was icy, and Jongdae felt himself freeze into place. 

"The standard of your work is unacceptable, Mr. Kim Jongdae. As an official employee of WS Group, and your team's leader, you should take more pride in what you are doing and not give us substandard work like this." 

He swallowed. Should he tell now? "Sorry to cut in so suddenly, but actually, I think recently I've been given just a little too much —" 

"Excuses, excuses!" The senior threw her hands up into the air in frustration, and Jongdae stopped short of speaking. "You should know the workload of a team leader, or even a regular employee by now. You ought to manage your time better so your work can be done properly. And to think you hold a position in a long line of great heirs. We're extremely disappointed, Mr. Kim Jongdae." 

Jongdae wanted to put in his point that he had been given an especially huge workload, one that was nearly impossible to handle, even if he stayed up every night just doing work. He wanted to ask what they meant by 'holding a position in a long line of great heirs'. But instead, he lowered his head. "I apologise." His voice was unintentionally soft. 

"If you keep this attitude of yours, you'll seriously get fired in no time. Mark my words." The senior her heel and left, leaving Jongdae to deal with the inconspicuous stares of the other employees all alone. 

Back in the present, Jongdae wasn't feeling any better. Fatigue piled onto his bad mood, and all in all he just wanted to go home, crawl under his blanket and never come out again. But there was no way he could, and that was the worst part. 

______________________________________________________

"I wonder why Jongdae is always cooped up in the office. You've come out a few times, why hasn't he?" Taehwan scratched his head. Hyejin held back the urge to tell them that he had indeed gone out to eat, just that he was always with Hyejin, and only her. 

But this thought didn't make her happy. It just made her even grumpier that Chen was being so weird and cold recently. If he had something on his mind, he should share it with her, not keep it to himself! And to think he was the one who urged her to share her own problems the last time. 

Hyejin was about to pull her hair out from utter frustration, worry, and grouchiness in general. 

On the way back to their office, they passed by a vending machine in the lobby that sold sandwiches, and the thought of Chen immediately swept past her mind. 

"I'll go grab something, you all can head upstairs first," Hyejin said without really thinking, her eyes glued onto the machine. 

"Need me to accompany you?" Taehwan asked. She shook her head no. 

While the rest made their way back, she continued to stare, then started to pace around the vending machine, biting her lip. She pulled her wallet out of her bag, then dropped it back in again. Hyejin shook her head to dispel her thoughts, lugging herself away from the vending machine, but a few steps was all it took for her to return back to her starting point. Sighing, she fished out her wallet again and decisively stuck a bill into the machine. Pressing the button for the first option (getting a club sandwich was always a good idea), she watched as a sandwich plopped itself on the dispenser. 

The sandwich was hot. Holding it at the tip of her fingers, she dashed for the lift, hoping it wouldn't get cold by the time it was delivered to Chen. She repeatedly hit the 'up' button impatiently and slipped herself into the lift the moment the door opened, and started then to jab the 'door close' button. 

What she didn't realise was that in her haste, she hadn't waited for another person to enter the lift together with her like she usually did, so that her phobia of being alone in a cramped space wouldn't act up. Hyejin had told Chen about this before, so he always took the lift with her all the way to their office, no matter what. But she told herself that it was only going to be for a few seconds at most and that she would reach the office in no time. 

Clutching onto her sandwich, Hyejin held her breath and watched as the lift inched up the levels: 4, 5, 6, 7… and then the small screen went blank. She hiccuped. The lift hurtled to a stop at an unknown level, but the doors didn't open. Blinking several times, Hyejin tried to walk towards the door of the lift, but it was hard enough to peel herself off the wall and take a single step. 

And the lights all went out. 

She felt her heart plummet, and start beating obsessively at her chest, as if it was begging to be let out. Hyejin's breaths were getting more shallow by the millisecond, and she let go of the sandwich, using her hand to instead grab onto her heart. Her legs gave way as she stumbled backwards, and the thump as she landed on the floor was the loudest thing besides the silence that she had heard the entire day. 

Everywhere her eyes darted to was pitch black. She lifted a trembling hand to grasp onto something for support, but her fingers closed upon nothingness. She felt terribly sick, like she was going to throw up anytime, and her mind seemed to idly float around consciousness and its opposite. Hyejin didn't even know if she was fainting because she couldn't see. 

"H-Hello," she called in a hoarse voice. "I-Is anyone there?" 

The silence only seemed more engulfing. 

Hyejin tried to bite her lip to stop herself from crying but even that was difficult — she couldn't do anything but tremble with her knees pulled to her chest and hands on her ears. It was as if her body wasn't in her control; she couldn't feel any part except her heart, which was beating too hard to be ignored. She winced as she attempted to take a deep breath in, but apparently that was a huge mistake because she started not being able to feel her own breaths. Hyejin was going to die, she was sure of it — man, she couldn't even breathe properly. 

The lift jerked downwards slightly, and Hyejin screamed, squeezing her eyes shut. If she was little less scared, she would have been convinced she was trapped forever, but right then she was too petrified to even think straight. 

"H-Hello? S-Someone's s-stuck," she tried again, and this time she lowered her head and let her tears flow. 

______________________________________________

The trainees returned back to the office, and although Jongdae told himself not to look upwards in case he made eye contact with Hyejin, he found his eyes still tracing the figures of the trainees as they entered — all of them, except for Hyejin's. For some reason, she hadn't returned yet. He sighed. 

"Yo, Jongdae!" Taehwan saluted casually, then grinned. "Had a good lunch?" 

"Hey, mate. I did, thanks," Jongdae answered back, because there was no reason for him to tell Taehwan that he hadn't actually had his lunch. 

"Why're you darting your eyes around like this? Why, am I too handsome?" Taehwan posed comically. Jongdae would have poked him with a long stick, but he couldn't keep in his laughter and shook his head, which made Taehwan stop. 

"Where's Hyejin? I need to talk to her about…" He grabbed a random file (that contained actually nothing that related to them) off his table, and swung it awkwardly in the air. "This." 

Taehwan glanced at Jinkyung and Chaeyoung, who both shrugged. "She said she was going to get something. I don't know but I think she'll come back soon," Jinkyung replied. Chen nodded, then told them to get back to work. She would come back. Eventually, at least. 

Jongdae soon found out that apparently, Hyejin's definition of 'soon' was nothing less than half an hour. It was long past the end of their lunch break but she still was nowhere to be seen. Even when he finally gave her a call after what seemed like forever, she didn't pick up her phone. 

When he couldn't take it anymore, Jongdae grabbed his coat and strode out of the office, listening to the ringback tone of his phone reverberate against his ear. She still wasn't picking up. He stood in front of the lift and pressed the 'down' button a few times, then stepped back to wait. It was then that he realised that the lift didn't seem to be working — the screen indicating which floor the lift was at was not on, and when he pressed the 'down' button it didn't light up as it was supposed to as well. 

"It broke down, I think," someone whom Jongdae had never seen before commented as he walked past, as if he could read his mind. Jongdae offered him a quick thanks and was about to head for the stairs when a gnawing feeling attacked his heart. He had a feeling something was not quite right somehow, and he worriedly stood still, eyes on the still lift. 

Following his instinct, he pressed his ear against the lift door and listened.  

One second. Two seconds. Nothing. 

He figured that maybe his heart was toying with him just because he was worried (and yes, he couldn't deny his heart wrenched when he realised it had been so long since the break was over but the person he missed the most hadn't returned yet). Just as he was about to remove his body from the cold metal of the lift door, he caught a whisper of a bang against it. 

And Jongdae became horribly paranoid — against his will. "Hello?" His voice was shaky, as were his hands, and his body was now completely glued onto the door. "I'm Kim Jongdae, an employee. Is there anyone in there?"

A soft cry this time. Jongdae felt his heart drop from the highest of heights. 

"There's someone inside, isn't there?" He shouted, banging against the door and getting terribly jumpy. 

There was a lady inside. Definitely so. And judging by the amount of sound coming from inside, that lady was alone. He didn't even want to think about the possibility that the lady could be — 

"C-Chen." 

Jongdae nearly cursed out loud. There was only one person who would call him that. 

"Jasmine!" He cried, working himself up into a frenzy. He knew he shouldn't be panicking but it was hard not to, especially when he knew of Hyejin's phobia of being alone in small spaces. It made him want to crumble in absolute fear to think that she had to endure that for who-knows-how-long. 

"I'll save you, baby. Wait for me," he called without second thought, making sure Hyejin knew he was there and she was safe. Her voice sounded so weak it pained Jongdae. 

He knew she was a few levels down, judging by where her voice, as well as the soft banging, came from. So he flung open the emergency exit staircase and dashed down, dialling the security and anxiously informing them of the lift breakdown, and of the fact that someone was trapped. 

When he reached nearer the floor Hyejin was trapped at, Jongdae pinned himself to the lift door again, ignoring the curious stares of a few employees who were passing by. "Jasmine, I'm still here. Don't worry," he assured in as calm a voice as possible. His nerves were eating him up at a pace faster than he thought ever possible, but Jongdae had to be calm for Hyejin. He clasped his hands together and unclasped them. Jongdae was pretty sure his fingers were trembling but he couldn't be fully certain — it seemed like his entire body, including his mind, was jumping chaotically at an unstoppable rate. 

"I'm… going to… die." Hyejin's voice was soft, and it sounded as if she was breathless. An image of Hyejin suffering in the lift seeped its way into Jongdae's mind and at that very moment, the alarm in his body rung louder than ever. 

"Baby, you're not going to die. You're going to come out safe and sound, and you'll be totally fine, and you'll see me the moment you step out," he cried out resolutely, albeit feeling a little breathless himself. 

"You're not alone, Jasmine. I'm here with you."