In a short total of two weeks' lunchtimes, Jongdae had been dragged to eat more Chinese food, barbecued pork belly, Odeng at a small roadside cart, Chicken cutlets, Pad Thai, Army Stew (he was still curious as to why Hyejin would crave that in the middle of summer), Hangover soup (ditto the previous when she wasn't even hung over — she sure was quirky) and even more Chinese food. 

 

Jongdae didn't know if the food or the idea of lunch with Hyejin made him energized, but it did, and it seemed to do the same for Hyejin as well. Sometimes, before lunch she'd look a little sad (especially on those days he heard Jinkyung talking to Hyejin more, he noticed), but after lunch she seemed to get her smile back on her face, and that was always one of the best parts for Jongdae, actually. 

 

He looked forward to lunch, and that was good, he guessed. 

 

He had only eaten one sandwich this fortnight, and that was when Hyejin was dragged by the rest out somewhere and no one had asked Jongdae because they assumed he was still insistent on not going out of the office building for lunch. Hyejin had tried to give Jongdae a hopeful look, but he shooed her away and told her to enjoy lunch with the rest. 

 

And on that day, even though that meant that he would be able to complete a little more of the overwhelming piles of work that was dumped into him (the seniors really were busy, Jongdae figured), he felt a strange sense of… emptiness. 

 

As much as Jongdae was glad he could get some work done and have less stress later on in the day, he honestly, admittedly, missed lunch with Hyejin — just a little bit. On that day, his sandwich tasted quite sad and soggy, actually. 

 

Another thing was that Jongdae was happy he had finally gotten over his "fear" of eating lunch out on workdays. That fortnight of lunches was the best in his entire working life. As for the reason to his strange phobia, he decided to simply forget all about it. After all, the past wouldn't repeat itself, at least not for the remaining months he had as a team leader. 

 

He wasn't the old Jongdae anymore. He was the Troll King Jongdae. The team leader Jongdae. The cool one. He would probably never again feel the same way as he did in the past, not anymore. 

 

 

Now, he just had to get over the stress of work. It was extremely, extremely tiring, and he had coffee (but mostly jasmine tea) at least thrice a day. Sometimes, he had as little as two hours of sleep, but the next day he still was greeted by a new pile of work, and another next-to-sleepless night. The number of documents the seniors gave him seemed to never end, and he always wondered at the start of the day if he would be able to finish it. 

 

It was utterly exhausting. Luckily jasmine tea was there to help save the day. 

 

 

___________________________________________

 

 

"You really should stop, Hyejin." 

 

Jongdae looked up from his pile of work from suddenly hearing Jinkyung's voice, which was sterner and colder than usual that day.  What was happening? He thought. Stop what? 

 

"Huh?" Hyejin let out a surprised sound as she twitched up from her seat a little and suddenly averted her gaze from the computer screen to Jinkyung. Jongdae couldn't see, but he imagined Hyejin's eyes widening again. 

 

"You know, stop being distracted," Jinkyung told her curtly. "You've been on the same screen since a little less than one hour ago and what you're typing doesn't seem work-related." 

 

Taehwan glanced over from his seat. "Chill, mate. Hyejin's working hard, I can see from here." 

 

Jinkyung cut in. "Well, I can too, and what she's 'working hard' on really doesn't seem work-related." 

 

"But—" Taehwan started, and Hyejin turned to him as if to ask him to stop. Taehwan sighed lightly and patted Hyejin on the back, as if to encourage her, but didn't say anything else before he went back to his work. Even Chaeyoung, at this time, turned to look worriedly at Hyejin. 

 

"If you're that free you can ask Jongdae for more work. This is just advice coming from a friend. If I were you I would do that but somehow Jongdae's giving me work that needs lots of brain power and takes up a lot of time. Well, personally, I think that says something, but if you think it doesn't then you can forget about what I just said." 

 

"Excuse me, Jinkyu —" Taehwan tried to defend Hyejin again, but she gave him that same pleading look again which made him stop. Then Hyejin turned to Jinkyung and Jongdae thought he heard a soft chuckle coming from her. "Sorry, I guess I'm way too lazy for my own good. I'll work harder, I promise." 

 

Jongdae tried to mark out any sarcasm in Hyejin's words and tone, but he couldn't. What she said seemed completely sincere and… sad. 

 

"I'm your friend, right? I've always been nice and friendly to you. So just listen to me," Jinkyung icily said whilst looking at her own work. 

 

"Yup, I will." Hyejin sounded sadder than before (Jongdae could find the nuances in her breezy tone). 

 

"Hey, guys," Jongdae decided to suddenly shout over to the group of trainees, who all turned to look at him. "We can have a nice chat later, but now it's time to work on your own things, alright?" He tried to make his voice as gentle as he could, but he had a feeling it still came out a little too stern. 

 

Jongdae was admittedly angry. Very angry. Furious. 

 

But because he was a senior, and a team leader at that, he had to be impartial. It took every cell in his body to control himself from scolding Jinkyung flat-out and telling her that what she said definitely wasn't the case and that even if it was, she did not have to go around saying things like that. She's a trainee, Jongdae told himself as he took deep breaths to calm down. Just a trainee. Don't be harsh on her. Even if she's annoying, don't get annoyed. 

 

Be nice, Kim Jongdae. You're Chen — the daybreak, the dawn, he repeated in his brain. You're Chen.  

 

 

However, Jongdae could tell Hyejin was hurt. (Who wouldn't be, if they were talked to like that by a fellow trainee?) Jongdae once again held back comforting her personally in case the rest thought he was being biased towards Hyejin (…Was he? Jongdae wasn't sure either), but the thing was, she seemed fine after that, and continued joking with Taehwan and Chaeyoung afterward. Hyejin even made friendly banter with Jinkyung later in the day. All seemed well after a while, at least from where Jongdae was observing. 

 

Still, near to the end of the day, Jongdae decided to send Hyejin a text asking her if she was alright. 

 

When Hyejin received it, she turned around and gave a grateful smile to Jongdae, and he beckoned her over to the coffee machine, where he had somehow ended up at again to ease his tiredness. 

 

"I'm alright," Hyejin smiled when she came over, as if she knew he would ask once again if Hyejin was okay. "Thanks." 

 

"You sure?" Jongdae was only half-convinced. Even though Hyejin's smile seemed completely sincere, he still thought the possibility of her being really okay was minuscule. 

 

"May I never smell of jasmines again if I'm not," she joked, and Jongdae was a little more assured this time. 

 

"Okay, then. But if you feel sad or anything you can always talk to me, okay? I'll always be here," Jongdae said, then quickly added, red-faced, "And Taehwan and Chaeyoung and your other friends and everyone." 

 

Jongdae cleared his throat stiffly as Hyejin chuckled. "Yeah, I'll remember that." 

 

"Anyway, what Jinkyung said isn't true, okay? And I'm sorry I couldn't help you just now," he continued, and Hyejin nodded again. 

 

"She's probably just trying to be condescending to improve her own crappy esteem. Don't bother about her," he blurted, rolling his eyes slightly. Jongdae knew he had said something wrong right after the words had escaped his mouth, but he wasn't that bothered about it. Oh well — what he said was true, anyway. 

 

Hyejin burst into laughter and hit Jongdae playfully. "Chen! How could you say that!" 

 

"What?" He asked indignantly. "It's probably true." 

 

"Still!" Hyejin continued to laugh. "You're our team leader, man." 

 

Jongdae didn't answer to that, and instead his mouth started curving itself into a thin smile. "You're laughing," he said with satisfaction in his tone. 

 

Hyejin raised her eyebrows as her laugh faded to a soft chuckle. 

 

"You're laughing!' Chen exclaimed, beaming and holding Hyejin by her shoulders. "That means you're really okay, thank goodness. Alright, it's about time anyway, you can go tell the rest that they can get off work already." 

 

Hyejin checked her watch, a little puzzled this time. "It's not six yet, though." 

 

"Thirty minutes is close enough! And all of you have finished most of your tasks anyway, so it's alright to leave now. Just for today." Jongdae shooed Hyejin back into the main office room. "Tell them, alright? See you tomorrow, jasmine." 

 

Somehow Jongdae felt a huge weight being lifted off his shoulders when Hyejin started to laugh. It was... Nice. He pocketed her euphonious laughter in his mind, replaying it a few times as he drank his tea just to lift his on spirits. 

 

____________________________________________

 

"Do you want to know?" 

 

Jongdae almost choked on his drink from the shock of the sudden voice behind him. Putting his mug down on his work table and turning around, he found himself face-to-face with the owner of the voice.

 

"Oh, hey, Jinkyung," Jongdae said, then glanced up at the clock on the wall, which showed six-thirty-five. "The rest would already be at home right now, what are you doing in the office?" 

 

"Working," Jinkyung said tersely. 

 

Jongdae nodded. "Go home soon, okay? I gave you all an early dismissal time so that you could rest for today. It's not good for a trainee like you to work so much, you might miss the restful evenings after." He smiled and waved, expecting Jinkyung to leave. "If I'm giving you too much work just tell me, I don't want anyone to overwork themselves." 

 

However, Jinkyung stood in her spot, and tilted her head to one side. "Aren't you curious? Don't you want to know?"

 

"About what?" 

 

"Hwang Hyejin," came a once again terse reply. 

 

"What about her?" 

 

"Her distractions." 

 

"Oh, that. Um, okay, yeah, I guess if you want to tell me," Jongdae said, not knowing what to do. 

 

"She's been blogging." Jinkyung folded her arms and leaned her body on the edge of Jongdae's large computer monitor screen. 

 

"Blogging?" 

 

"Yeah. Her blog address is something about trolls and some flower or something like that. I think it's "something-something-and-me". I'm not sure what she's blogging about but yeah, just in case you were curious." Jinkyung held open like she was going to say more, but closed it in the end and bent down to pick up her bag which she had placed on the floor. She was silent for a while. "Okay, I'll get going. I've said what I thought you needed to know. See you tomorrow, Jongdae." 

 

"Oh, bye, Jinkyung." He waved absentmindedly at the figure leaving the office. 

 

"Blogging..?" Jongdae muttered to himself as he tapped his pen on his paper. "That's something she didn't tell me she did." He made a mental note to check out Hyejin's blog when he had finished his work. 

 

_____________________________________________

 

 

It was late in the night, and Jongdae's hair was still wet but he couldn't really be bothered to wait for it to dry. Giving it a casual brush with his hand, he flopped onto his bed and buried himself into his array of pillows. He was finally home, and had finally taken a shower, and was finally, finally heading off to bed. 

 

Grabbing his phone from his bedside table, he leaned on one side of his body and went on the Internet. Since he was more energetic than expected, Jongdae decided to try to find Hyejin's blog. He tried to remember what Jinkyung told him about Hyejin's blog address. Something about flowers... And trolls, did she say? And... her? What did she mean by that? 

 

Jongdae's memory had failed him, he concluded. But he might as well try, he thought, since he was curious anyway.  

 

Trolls, he typed first. That was the thing he remembered the clearest, because he found it funny of Hyejin (it was referring to him…right?). And if it really were flowers, Hyejin would make an effort to write specifically the name of the flower — Jasmine, of course. Biting his lip, he typed that into the search box, then let the blue cursor beside the last letter blink continuously as he thought some more. 

 

Trolls...jasmines..? And... Me? Jongdae blinked at his screen, then laughed the ridiculous address off. Nah, Hyejin wouldn't come up with a blog address like that. And probably it was fate that he had pressed the 'enter' key by accident instead of the backspace one. 

 

Still, Jongdae waited as the screen loaded. It was a real site? He thought that no one would possibly come up with a blog address like that. It was too coincidental, or at least he thought. 

 

A simple, cream background appeared, then a header image of a bouquet of jasmines, then the blog title: Hwang Hyejin's Blog. Jongdae sat up straighter in his bed and couldn't help but smile to himself and give a small victorious punch in the air. He had gotten the blog address right in one try — how unexpectedly great was that? Jongdae decided that he finally could call himself a genius. 

 

Once again snuggling down into his pillows, he began to slowly read her posts. 

 

_______________________________________

 

 

Hyejin couldn't sleep. Lying in her covers, she stared at her ceiling, blinking occasionally. It was quiet in her room, and a little too cold for comfort. She knew she shouldn't let Jinkyung's words affect her, but they did, and she felt like a burden once again. 

 

Hyejin sighed softly as her shoulders drooped. 

 

"One sheep... Two sheep..." She tried muttering, but she knew it wouldn't help her — she never counted sheep to get herself to sleep, and actually didn't know of anyone who did that as well. Hyejin covered her entire head with her blanket and pulled out her phone which she kept under her pillow during the night. 

 

Joonmyeon — Hyejin's blind-date-turned-friend — was awake: he had just commented on his friend's post on Facebook. She decided to message him just to pass time, but he didn't reply.

 

Hyejin refreshed the page several times, before quitting the application. Guess Joonmyeon had gone to sleep too — who wouldn't have, at 2:55 in the morning? 

 

She sighed again. This was going to be one long night. 

 

Hyejin stared at her lock screen, tapping it at regular intervals to make sure it didn't go back to sleep mode. She watched as the time slowly crept by, and at one minute to three she was ready to let the screen slowly darken and to stuff the phone back under her pillow, but just as she was about to do that she received a call. 

 

Startled, she answered it without looking at the caller. 

 

"Hwang Hyejin!" An all-too-familiar voice came through the receiver, and it was louder than usual. 

 

"Chen?" Hyejin was surprised. What was he doing calling her at almost three in the morning? She was half-expecting it to be Joonmyeon because she thought he was awake, but having Chen call her was a surprise. 

 

"Why even are you not asleep!" He seemed angry, and worried, but that just amused Hyejin. 

 

Hyejin raised her eyebrows and laughed. "If you called me didn't you expect me to be awake?" 

 

"Hwang Hyejin, you need to get enough rest!" Chen was being extra shouty that night. 

 

"You need to, too. So, anyway, why did you call me all of a sudden?" 

 

No answer. The line seemed to have gone dead. 

 

"H-Hello? Are you still there, Chen?" Hyejin called out. 

 

"Oh my gosh." Chen seemed to be out of breath and suddenly... sad, on the other side of the line, and Hyejin couldn't imagine why. She could hear Chen falling on his bed or somewhere soft in the background.  

 

"Hey, what happened?" She asked, holding the phone with two hands. "And how come you're not asleep? It's three a.m." 

 

"Hwang Hyejin," Chen called her name again, but softer this time, and Hyejin was confused again. 

 

"What happened?" She asked once more, concerned. 

 

Chen didn't speak, and after a while there was yet another sigh coming from him. "What do we do?" He seemed extremely worried. 

 

"Chen." Hyejin bit her lip. "What exactly happened? Are you okay?" 

 

"Why are you asking me that!" He shouted through the receiver, and Hyejin shrunk back. "Wait, Jasmine, sorry, I just…" He tried again, seeming like he was about to cry this time. 

 

"It's okay." 

 

He let the line die out in silence again. "What do we do?" Chen then cried out. Hyejin played with her blanket in one hand. 

 

"Do you need a listening ear?" She tried asking softly. 

 

Chen seemed exasperated, however. "It's not you who should be asking me that!" He snapped. "Seriously, Hwang Hyejin. How could you not tell anyone?" 

 

Feeling puzzled was an understatement — Hyejin completely couldn't comprehend what Chen was saying. "What? Wait, why are you so angry?" 

 

"Your blo-" Chen started off loudly again, then stopped midway and sighed again. "It's okay, Jasmine, we'll do this some other time. I'm sorry for shouting so much. I'm not angry, I promise. I'm so sorry. Get some sleep, Hwang Hyejin." 

 

"Wait, Che-" 

 

"Goodnight, Hwang Hyejin," Chen said in a defeated tone, then hung up. 

 

Hyejin stared at her phone, waiting for Chen to call back to explain his abrupt and strange phone call. When he didn't, she decided to call him instead. 

 

Hyejin tapped her fingers on her blanket worriedly as she held her phone to her ear. The phone was ringing, which meant Chen's phone wasn't switched off yet. There was something wrong with him, Hyejin knew, and she had to get to the bottom of it. 

 

__________________________________

 

 

Jongdae squeezed his eyes shut as he rubbed his forehead and flopped down onto the bed, letting his phone fall on the sheets. 

 

He was dizzy — dizzy with thoughts and questions swirling around his head. 

 

Honestly, he had no idea why he called Hyejin as well. He couldn't speak about the matter over the phone in the middle of the night, could he? 

 

Perhaps it was just because he was way, way too worried after reading her blog. 

 

During the phone call, Hyejin had seemed so calm. How did she? He tried to remember the days she was at work, and couldn't remember much about her being especially emotional as well. Well, except some days like the day they went out for their first company dinner, where he didn't know why Hyejin looked a little down in the dumps. But now he knew, and he felt horribly, horribly guilty for not knowing about it earlier. 

 

What if he had never found Hyejin's blog? What kind of a catastrophe would that be? 

 

Jongdae squirmed in his bed as he what he read in her blog, particular lines from many different entries at that, came crashing back into his mind like angry waves. 

 

"After thinking about it the whole day I've concluded it's bad that I've been born as Hwang Hyejin." 

 

"Writing this blog helps in getting my mind off from how good the other trainees in WS Group are." 

 

"This is the umpteenth time I've written this, but I really wish I was someone else other than myself."  

 

"It's good that no one has found this blog so that I can write all these down without anyone knowing. Why can't I do anything right? I feel so stupid." 

 

"When Jinkyung reprimanded me today it kind of made me realise that she'll always be in a better position than I am." 

 

"I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay. Why am I feeling this way? Hwang Hyejin, it's not time to feel pity for yourself. Get your head on straight." 

 

"I don't think I'll ever be as good as the rest." 

 

"I will be okay." 

 

"Will I feel like this forever?" 

 

"No, I'm okay." 

 

 

"I hate myself." 

 

 

Jongdae opened his eyes again and sat up worriedly, yet resolutely. He had to find a way to make her feel better. Hyejin must have felt so sad the past month or so, and no one had helped her. 

 

Her self esteem was so low. Jongdae felt his heart drop every time he thought that. 

 

Biting his lip, he typed out an anonymous comment to leave on Hyejin's blog: It's difficult, I know, but please be strong! I'm sure you're a great, great person so cheer up, because the people around you will always cherish you the way you are. I'll be always here if you need me. 

 

After pressing 'publish', Jongdae lay back down on his bed, forcefully shutting his eyes. Thinking about Hyejin and how he hadn't noticed her low self esteem or taken special care of her when she looked a little down hurt — so bad. Jongdae was extremely ill at ease concerning this. 

 

If only he could go to Hyejin and give her a tight, big hug right now, just to let her know there was someone by her side. Okay, he had gone mad — Jongdae admitted. But there had to be a way he could make her feel better without letting her know that he had found and read her blog, or seeming too senior-ish, or looking like an overly concerned, hovering mother as well. 

 

He sighed. 

 

Hyejin was calling him back, but how was he to answer? Jongdae was definitely not going to get any sleep today, especially with Hwang Hyejin on his mind.