"Good morning everyone," called the manager, walking into the office, straightening his tie as he entered.  

"Good morning," the business men and women mumbled back in mundane unison, eyes fixated on their screens. 

"There will be another office dinner, just for this office block, Thursday night, if you can make it. It’s at 6 o'clock in Bistro Miru down the road. I hope to see you all there to discuss our latest trading contract,” the manager finished, walking out of the room as everyone bowed slightly in their seats. 

Kyuhyun groaned quietly to himself. Another dinner party? He sighed and shook his head, continuing typing but stopping suddenly as he had a light bulb moment. 

"Manager!" he called, shooting up from his desk and jogging out of the office to catch up with him.

"Mr Cho?" the manager asked, turning around and slowing his walking pace for Kyuhyun to catch up. 

“I’m sorry, Manager, I just remembered that I already had plans on Thursday to meet with a good friend," he lied, "but I really don't want to miss the dinner party,” lies again, “may I bring him along?" 

The manager pondered for a second before nodding. 

"I don't see why not, people bring along their partner sometimes, so a good friend, why not?" he smiled. 

Kyuhyun bowed.

"Thank you so much Manager! See you there," he thanked, bowing once more quickly and heading back to the office and pulling his phone out of his pocket and creating a new text. 

'Ryeowook, there's a staff dinner party on Thursday, Manager said I can bring you along, for once it won't be boring!' 

Kyuhyun pressed send and waited for the little 'seen' signal to pop up followed by a typing bubble. 

'Oh? I'd love to. I can meet your friends! But I don't have a suit....and I can't afford one.....' Ryeowook replied, sending a crying face emoticon. Kyuhyun pursed his lips and pondered for a minute before replying. 

'I'll buy you one, I finish work in an hour- meet me in the shopping centre in an hour and a half, I'll wait next to that indoor tree' he replied. 

'Really? Thank you Kyuhyun...see you later!' Ryeowook replied with a cute animated emoticon. Kyuhyun giggled slightly at his phone and put it back in his pocket. 

"Kyuhyun, you just giggled at your phone," one of his co workers informed him bluntly, not even turning to face him. 

"What? I…no, no of course I didn’t, what are you-” Kyuhyun began in defence, clearing his throat to lower his voice and restore some manhood. 

“Do I detect a lady in the picture?” a different co worker asked cheekily. Kyuhyun scoffed in obvious defence. 

“Um, no, this is just one of my guy friends!" he snapped, quickly realising the mistake he had just made. 

"Wait-" he said quickly. 

"You giggled at a text from one of your guy friends? Are you, well, you know, do you bat for the other team? If you know what I mean, I don’t want to pry but-” the first co worked asked carefully. Kyuhyun shook his head vigorously. 

"No no no, straight, I'm straight I just, I just was reading, uh, he said that, that I um, we were just talking about, a joke, he made a joke, and I, well you know when, you don’t, you know what? I really need to go to the bathroom all of a sudden," he panicked, fake smiling in an overly happy way, letting out a loud awkward chuckle and standing up from his desk, knocking over the pot of pens on the desk from the force of it.  

"The bathroom? You just went to the bathroom barely 5 minutes ago,” someone pointed out. 

“Yeah well maybe I don't need to pee!" Kyuhyun retorted quickly, so quickly that he only just realised his second mistake. 'Why did I say that?' he muttered, speed walking across the room.

"Why are you taking your phone to the bathroom?" one of the co workers from before asked, the whole office now finding this utterly amusing. 

"I need to make a call!" Kyuhyun yelled in defence. 

"To your guy friend?" 

"Oh for the love of God,” Kyuhyun wailed, now running out of the office. 

______________________________________________________________________________

"Ryeowook you can go home now if you want," Ryeowook's manager kindly offered. 

"Are you sure? I have 20 minutes left still-" Ryeowook gushed. 

"Of course," the manager laughed, "it's not busy and I overheard you talking about going shopping with someone later so you have more time to get ready now." 

“Wow thank you, manager! You're the best," Ryeowook declared as he skipped over and got his coat and reached behind his back to untie his apron and sling it over a chair in the staff room for next time. 

"See you tomorrow!" he called as he left the coffee shop happily, catching the bus home and getting changed into clothes that didn't smell like coffee. That was the worst thing about working somewhere like that, you always smell like the food or drinks served at the place that you work at. 

"Hey Bella, I'm going out now I'm sorry, I’ll be back soon I promise,” Ryeowook apologised to the playful Dalmatian who was clearly excited to see him. Bella of course had no idea what he just said and continued to jump at him excitedly as he tried to get to his room to get changed. 

Ryeowook changed into black skinny jeans, a plain black t-shirt, and a blue denim jacket, which would be finished off with grey high-top converse. 

He messed around with his hair in the mirror for a minute before leaving his bedroom and putting on his coat. 

"I'll be back!” he reiterated to the happy Dalmatian, bending down next to her and petting her fondly before standing back up and leaving the house to get the bus to the shopping centre. 

Ryeowook looked out of the window in deep thought, wondering how he was lucky enough to meet Kyuhyun, he didn't even realise how much he was longing for a friend like this, someone he would go as far as to call his 'best friend'. He'd never had a best friend- apart from Bella of course- but he didn't generally tell people that. 

"Ah!" he exclaimed, noticing the sign outside and almost missing his chance to get off at his stop. ‘Tree’ he thought, walking into the bustling shopping centre, having a rough idea of which tree Kyuhyun was talking about earlier and heading to where he thought it was. 

"Kyu!" he exclaimed, spotting his friend sitting next to it like he said. 

"Ah you're here, come with me," Kyuhyun beckoned, waving his hand towards a different part of the building. 

"Which store are we going to?" Ryeowook asked curiously, only being accustomed to the cheaper stores. Kyuhyun smiled. 

"You'll see." 

The pair walked casually through the centre, Kyuhyun looking straight forward while he walked, and Ryeowook looking into all the shop windows he passed, marvelling at everything he couldn't afford. 

"Here," Kyuhyun gestured to the store to their left. 

"Here? Whoa, really?” Ryeowook muttered, stepping into the suits wonderland. 

"This is my usual suit store, the suits are nice, yet not too expensive as you just buy a suit in your size, rather than having one tailored for you. I only have 2 tailored suits for special occasions, the rest are just from here for work and dinner parties," Kyuhyun explained, watching Ryeowook check the price tag of each suits. 

"Ch-cheap?" he spluttered. Kyuhyun laughed in amusement. 

"In the rich world, yes," he responded. Ryeowook shook his head in amazement. 

"You don't have to buy me one of these, they sell suits in reasonable priced clothes stores, we don’t have to buy it from a ‘suit shop’ it’s fine,” 

"Shut up Wookie, I'll get whatever looks good on you," Kyuhyun teased, ignoring Ryeowook's protests. Ryeowook perked up at the pet name and looked at Kyuhyun with big eyes. 

"Wookie?" 

"Yeah, I don't know, it's cute sounding, has no one ever called you Wookie before?" Kyuhyun asked, still browsing suits for Ryeowook. 

"No," Ryeowook shook his head, "I've had Wook a couple of times; not Wookie. It is cute..." he blushed. He'd never been given a pet name like this before. Another sign of a best friend: pet names. 

"What would my pet name for you be then?" Ryeowook asked, sifting through a rack of shirts, frowning at the price tag on each of them. 

"Hmm, Kyu?" Kyuhyun suggested. 

"Noooo," Ryeowook complained, "that's so obvious and common, it's just shortening it!" 

"Well then, how about Kyuhyunnie?" Kyuhyun suggested, Ryeowook tilted his head in thought.

“Yeah, that’s better, okay then," he agreed, settling on Kyuhyunnie before stopping and questioning this situation. 

"Wait, Kyuhyun, why are we picking cute pet names for each other? Isn't that a bit-" 

"Of course not," Kyuhyun interrupted sharply, clearing his throat awkwardly, "how about this shirt?" 

"Uh, yeah, sure, that one's nice,” Ryeowook mumbled as he watched Kyuhyun fiddling awkwardly with the shirt, as if he was trying to keep his mind off something. 

Kyuhyun hurried over to the jackets and chose out one he knew would go well with that shirt, and then went to the ties and chose one that matches, and then finished off with just plain black trousers. 

"Here, try this on. You don't seem too, fashionable, as in you're not extremely out there with your clothes choices, so I went for simple and moderately plain," Kyuhyun said, explaining his choices. Ryeowook wasn't sure whether to feel offended that he noticed that, or impressed that he...noticed that. 

"Oh, okay, that makes sense. I'll go and try it on," he said as he went into the changing rooms of the store and changed into his possible new suit and checking it in the mirror, deciding that it was nice. Kyuhyun seemed to know a lot about what works well together applied to different types of people. More than he'd probably let on. 

"Well?" Kyuhyun called from outside the changing room. 

"I think it suits me!" Ryeowook called back, leaving the changing room and displaying his outfit to Kyuhyun, who nodded in approval. Inspecting the outfit up and down. 

"I would say my fashion choices are quite good," he bragged. 

"Yeah you're quite knowledgable about this stuff," Ryeowook agreed, feeding Kyuhyun's ego. 

"Lets buy it! You can wear this on Thursday then," Kyuhyun smiled, Ryeowook nodded once and smiled back. 

"Do you think your colleagues will like me?" he asked nervously. Kyuhyun frowned sadly. 

"Of course they will, why would you question that?" he asked, concerned. 

"I don't know, they're all rich business people and I’m a barista! Wait, oh my god do they remember what happened at the last dinner party when I dropped the plates? Are they going to know it’s me?” Ryeowook panicked, face getting flustered all over again from the memory of that night. 

"Hey, listen," Kyuhyun began standing up and walking to him, putting his hands on Ryeowook's shoulders before continuing. 

"They may be rich, but they're not snobs, they're just normal people like you. You're a great person, I'm sure they'll love you! Just forget about that night, I’m sure they have too, it really wasn’t as big of a deal to them as it was to you, don’t worry yourself,” Kyuhyun encouraged, smiling kindly at the smaller man. “Okay?" he nudged his shoulder gently.

Ryeowook smiled brightly, perking up again now.

"Okay, Kyuhyunnie," he winked. 

"Did you just wink?" Kyuhyun asked. 

"No," Ryeowook retorted quickly, scoffing as he headed back to the changing room to take the suit off.