“Are you alright?” sungjong asked woohyun who was staring into oblivion ever since they had come in for a break to get coffee. His coffee was still untouched in his hand and his head was definitely not on planet earth.

He nodded expressionless to him without even hearing what sungjong had asked, he had been disturbed ever since morning when he got a call from sunggyu that he was not coming for breakfast because he was staying at his friend’s place and he couldn’t meet him up at the office too since he was in a meeting with the higher ups all day that he went straight upstairs to the chairman’s floor without even going to his room.

“You aren’t his mother woohyun, stop thinking about him” woohyun chanting this in his mind feeling weird to be worrying about sunggyu for not returning home last night and have breakfast. He shouldn’t be obsessing over such a fact. He suddenly stood up placed the coffee on the table ignoring the babbles of sungjong and went straight to his cabin to start his work he had been postponing to do since morning.

It was already late afternoon, he of course skipped lunch with the spirit of typing on reports in full force he didn’t realize he was hungry until his stomach started to growl in need to be filled with food, he let out a low groan and got up from his seat to get something from the cafeteria downstairs.

He grabbed a sandwich with some egg salad and placed them in a box to eat in his office since he never really ate in the cafeteria, he was making his way upstairs when he bumped into someone almost dropping his food. Closing his eyes to let out a deep frustrated huff he looked up to see the wonderful person who just spoiled his mood more than it already was.

“Sorry” sunggyu smiled cheekily while checking to see if the food container was safe,

Woohyun just nodded and walked past after a short bow, he didn’t know what overcame but he really didn’t want to speak to anybody especially sunggyu. He could still hear him call out but decided to ignore it although he knew it would be rude to be doing that inside an office building to his boss, if it was his apartment he wouldn’t care any less but this wasn’t the time to do it but he just felt like rebelling for once. For even though he told himself to stop thinking he was still pissed off for the fact he had to eat alone in the morning, after the struggle he took up of cooking for two people. He remembered sunggyu saying he hated food being wasted and got more irritated for the fact of how much of a hypocrite he was for not showing up to eat when he clearly knew woohyun was cooking for the two and didn’t even have the courtesy to call him a bit earlier to ask him not to cook two portions. He finally reached his cabin and even locked it just in case his boss would walk in anytime.

For rest of the day, he stayed inside doing his work since he knew he didn’t need to send out anything for a while till he finished up everything and if so he had anything to communicate to sunggyu, sungjong or anybody he just sent out a mail. Very unlikely of him, but he felt like doing it.

“Why should I always be doing things for other, being considerate for them? I am going to get selfish, I won’t care if they tell me I changed well people change over time they aren’t robots to stay the same right?” woohyun spoke to himself, convincing himself though not sure for what reason. He remembered dongwoo’s words of him being self-protective; well it was something good he was doing to himself. He wasn’t hurting or offending anybody he was just changing a few ways from how he did things. If people found it new, they just got to accept it. He wasn’t going to change for anyone but himself. Woohyun felt like he was counseling himself, his subconscious being his own shrink. He was bringing back the meticulous man he was back, but with some changes.

His thoughts were interrupted with his phone buzzing somewhere under a pile of paper strewn all over his table, it took a few seconds to find it near his computer under a binder file.

“I found you a date, it’s on Friday” dongwoo squealed as soon as woohyun took the call,

“What?” woohyun was confused for a second before he understood what his best friend meant, “That soon?” woohyun exclaimed.

“Well I thought it would take a while but remember our senior from college who introduced me to howon, he kind of knew someone so I told him yes immediately” dongwoo giggled,

“YAH! You should have at least asked me first before saying yes to him” woohyun whined but slightly relieved that it wasn’t some crazy random app blind dates he feared dongwoo would set him up.

“Dude you know that almost every couple the man set up ended up in marriage, I keep telling him to start up a business with his high success rates” dongwoo said laughing as woohyun joined him too, they continued to talk about their college times for a while before he had to hang up when he heard someone knocking his door.

Half guessing who it might be, woohyun stood there with his hand on the knob for a few seconds when the knocks started to become impatient, he opened to be face with a slight error in his guess. A sleepy looking sungjong stood there with a big scowl on his face, “What the were you doing inside?” he growled in a low tone rubbing his temple, “It’s past 10 woohyun, do you have any idea of leaving the office and go home because I ing want too and so do others but because of your overworking we are incredibly suffering, I really can’t stand it anymore” he spoke with the same low tone filled with so much anger, “Hyung wouldn’t let us go because of you”.

Woohyun wanted to retort but he turned to look at his subordinates close to crying as they stood in a line behind sungjong, “Sorry guys, why don’t you head home while I talk to boss and wrap up things” he smiled weakly,

“Yeah right like I wouldn’t have done that, thanks to your new found change of exchanging mails on trivial stuff he has resorted to the same and wouldn’t come out of his office nor answer to the knocks or mails I’ve sent him. He legit mailed me earlier asking me to not to keep going into the break room every hour because the door squeaking was giving him a headache, whatever you both are trying to do would get us all killed at some point because he ain't replying to mails anymore after that” sungjong spoke with the unchanging scowl on his face.

“What do you want me to do then?” woohyun let out a loud sigh, regretting what he had done as he could see how it had impacted everybody when he thought it wouldn’t.

“You have to take sunggyu back home just like you always do, like right now” he said pointing at their boss’s room at the far end of the corridor.

“But I still have some report to fini-“he was cut out by a deathly glare sungjong gave towering over him,

“Fine fine, I’ll finish them later. Head home guys I’ll take care of boss” woohyun said before sungjong smacked him in front of their juniors. He swore he could see them all running for their life fearing he would change his mind any second; they legit took their bags and fled towards the elevator. Sungjong gave him a small thank you in the same tone from before as he himself headed to his own room to get his bags to leave.

Cursing under his breath, woohyun closed his room’s door after arranging his files and picking up his bag, he knocked the door calling out for sunggyu. He heard some shuffling inside but the door never opened even the blinds were folded in so he couldn’t signal to sunggyu.

He finally opened his phone to call him after all the fails of opening the door and talking to his boss, sunggyu picked up the phone even before the first ring finished, “WHAT?” he scowled which could only make woohyun roll his eyes since he felt he was only one who was allowed to be angry.

“We are going home. Come to my car NOW” woohyun said firmly and cut the call without giving sunggyu time to hear him out. With that he made his way quickly to the car himself without waiting up, though he was a little scare of all the lines he crossed today that sunggyu would, either wouldn’t show up or would show up and beat the hell out of him. He prayed a little for the first one as he sat in his car head resting on the steering wheel with his fingers restlessly tapping on it, his body stiffened when he heard the door open after what seemed like forever. Woohyun was getting ready to be yelled at but when he saw a panting sunggyu looking pale as a dead person, his arms immediately flung around his arm helping the elder sit properly, “Are you okay?” woohyun asked him as he saw his eyes close as soon his head hit the headrest.

Sunggyu only nodded and whispered “Home” before he out, woohyun could feel his heart at his throat as he started to panic since sunggyu wouldn’t answer any of his questions and looked very sick. They reached home in records time that woohyun himself was surprised at how they made it safely in one piece with how he drove.

He had to completely carry sunggyu since all the attempts to wake him up failed miserably, thank god for the late hours there was hardly anybody around the lobby nor elevator, after punching his apartment’s code with sunggyu in his arms he took him straight to his room and laid him there peeling off his shoes, socks and blazer. He undid a few buttons on his shirt since sunggyu looked like he was having a hard time to breathe. Woohyun stood there for a few minutes until he heard the even breathing and watched sunggyu’s chest rise and fall, he was relieved that he didn’t actually faint but was just worn out from exhaustion.

The older man definitely didn’t look like he was going to wake up any soon so woohyun slipped into the shower and changed into something comfortable. He then headed out to make something for both of them to eat, he knew sunggyu would just start nagging if he was woken up to eat but he had to do it because of the condition he looked. Woohyun was close to finishing the curry and took out the bowls to place them in when he stopped suddenly remembering all those resolutions he made in the afternoon. Wasn’t he mad at sunggyu for not showing up for breakfast? Wasn’t he planning on ignoring him and not cook for him for a while since sunggyu didn’t feel like he was obligated to eat why was he doing the same? What happened to all the self-protective goals he took? you woohyun, I can’t believe from all the changes you wanted in life you became an indecisive . He was starting to get scared of how capricious he was becoming to his own thoughts. When will all these tormenting end? He desperately wanted to go back to the old routine of how diligent and disciplined he used to be.

He was shook back to reality when he felt someone touch his shoulder, woohyun turned to see sunggyu rubbing his eyes adorning a hilarious bed hair that he couldn’t hold in the chuckle. Scrunching his already tiny eyes, “Look who’s daydreaming leaving the curry to boil” sunggyu mocked him.

Woohyun only glared at him moving past to get back to putting the food in the bowls he was holding as sunggyu made his way to the table folding up his sleeves.

“How did we get here?” he asked woohyun while drinking some water,

Woohyun kept his glare up and sat down with the bowl and began to eat wordlessly, wanting to hold it at least for some time till the older cracks it with some remarks of it. Sunggyu looked up once more and asked the same thing but got no response once again, he was started to get annoyed with the silent treatment woohyun was giving without even telling him what he was upset about. So he purposefully left the bowl on the table after finishing and took some folded laundry on the couch to the room to get changed from his work attire. Woohyun could only watch him with his jaw open and murmured about how rude he was being carrying on to clean the table and the dishes.

He went back to his room only to get more shocked seeing sunggyu sleeping soundly sprawled on his bed looking way too comfortable, as much as he wanted to kick him awake and push him to his own apartment he stood there fixing the duvet to have him fully covered.

Coming to think of it, it was his first time seeing sunggyu sleeping, well he had woken him up a few times at their office when he was sleeping on his chair but he usually gets up as soon he calls out for him so this was the first time he actually looked at the man in deep slumber and he had to say how ethereal he looked. His fringe strewn messily across his forehead his fingers were itching to move aside, his breath in a steady rhythm that his face to moved accordingly with, the most intriguing and distracting part were his thin rose lips which were formed in a short pout not like the one he does when he’s angry but this was different and v