“What’s this?” Minho asked distractedly, sparing the slip of paper the aide into his hands the briefest of glance before his attention shifted. Looking about and putting his height to good use, he spotted the head of brunette hair he was searching for. “Seungyong!” he called out, “Where’s the updated report by CMI? I need the stats before we go for the meeting with the Chinese!”

Said aide waved a thick manila envelope in the air and immediately started making her way towards Minho, weaving and sliding her way past the thong of bodies comprising of the American delegates. Gods, at times, Minho felt as if they had transported the whole White House staff here. Not only so, but also brought along their share of tagger-ons from the other offices—First Lady’s, Vice President’s and etc.

Supposedly, there were only sixty-eight staffers, but now, he felt as if they had been multiplied tenfold. And was that the latte boy from the White House mess he just saw? Minho squinted his eyes and tried to get a better look at the face when a sharp, pointy edge poked him in his back. By the time he turned around to unleash the full force of his wrath on the unfortunate soul who had the audacity to stick pointy objects in a grumpy sleep-deprived Minho, the staffer had already continued on his way and was in the midst of terrorizing other people.

Minho had initially thought the source of his irritation was files and folders. But it turned out to be a half-opened umbrella that couldn’t seem to make up its mind between closing or opening. The staffer struggled with it for a few seconds more and nearly took out the eye of a passing guy from Kibum’s department. (Why would anyone need an umbrella inside a hotel, Minho would never know. Nonetheless, he stored the incident into the depths of his memory banks, to be tapped upon when the time came for him to write his own book on his experience in the White House. ‘Eccentrics, all of them.’ He could already imagine himself saying that laughingly to the editor in charge.)

Minho closed his eyes. It was like a circus in here.

“It’s a new directive from Washington,” the aide with the memo finally replied, having gathered up sufficient courage to talk to the awesome deputy Chief of Staff (the aide was new in there). “It has been decided by State that rogue nations shall now be called states of concern.”

Minho frowned, “Are we removing or reducing the severity of the economic sanctions we’ve set in place?”

“No,” the aide said slowly, “I don’t think so.”

“Do we intend to adopt a more conciliatory approach when it comes to dealing with nations like North Korea and Iran?”

“Erm, I wouldn’t know?”

“Are we in any way, softening our stance towards them?”

“No? I don’t know, sir.”

“You do know that’s just like kicking a donkey and thinking it won’t kick back at you or will hate you even less if you called it a ‘horse’ while doing so.”

“Sir?”

“Ok. That’s a bad analogy and I admit it,” Minho hold his hand to his eyes, “But I refuse to go and look dumb in front of the press.”

“Sir? This is a directive from State.”

“Well yea, tell them neither Iran nor North Korea, or Iraq or Cuba for that matter would feel any warmer towards us just because we decided to refer to them by a different name.”

“Sir,” the aide flapped his hands in the air worriedly, “That’s outside my capability.”

“Just pick up a phone and make the call? How hard could it be?”

“It’s a directive, sir! Mr. Kibum would be making the same press release in the White House today.”

“Kibum signed off on it?” Minho asked incredulously, “He agreed to go and look dumb in front of the press?”

“Sir, I believe what State hopes to do is to show that we are genuine and sincere when we talk about reaching out to them—“

“I get what State hopes to achieve, just that I don’t think they will achieve it this way.” Minho then waved his hands at the aide dismissively when he saw the distraught expression, “Oh alright, I will do it. Tell Victoria I think it’s dumb though.”

The aide gaped before he scurried away hurriedly. Brunette Hair soon replaced him as she delivered the manila envelope into Minho’s hands, having finally finished navigating the treacherous course filled with dangerous obstacles otherwise known as White House staffers who had to wake up at an unearthly hour of 5am or earlier today. They were even more irritable than usual.

“You should treat him nicer,” Brunette Hair reproached, “Yoseob is new.”

Minho busied himself with opening the envelope and scouring through the first few pages, ensuring that it’s the right package he received, “This is good. Thanks, Seungyong.”

“Now he won’t come back because he thinks the White House is all filled with people like you.”

“What’s wrong with people like me? I am such a nice guy; girls can’t get enough of me.”

“You flatter yourself.”

“Seungyong—“ Minho was interrupted when a pair of hands latched themselves onto his arm in a somewhat urgent manner. He looked to his right, “Tiffany?”

“I can’t find Jonghyun,” Tiffany said desperately, wisps of hair loosely hanging out of her ponytail as she adopted a look of frazzled dishevelment.

Minho eyed her critically, “Did you get enough sleep, Tiffany?”

“I spent hours, hours preparing his materials last night and organizing the documents that Washington kept sending over all night long because it was afternoon there and hence their working hours nevermind the fact that I barely caught 4 hours of sleep the day before. And I had to note down the pages Jonghyun would have to sign and highlight the key remarks because if I don’t he will never get it done. I even woke up especially at 5am today, after 15 minutes of sleep so to get him to complete all this before we set off, because the deadline is 10 minutes from now.” Tiffany took in a deep breath and increased her volume, “But he is nowhere to be seen!”

Minho opened his eyes wider. “Wow.”

Tiffany began pacing the floor up and down agitatedly, “I have never handed in my job late. Never failed to beat the deadline. But now, I still can’t find Jonghyun. I have tried his room, the dining area, the pool, everything! But he is still nowhere to be found, and the lavender scented shampoo is driving me crazy and do you know I keep seeing tiny ponies in the corner of my eyes?”

“Tiffany.” Minho stopped her from running the floor down by holding onto her shoulders, “You need to rest.”

“I can’t!” She flung her hands into the air, “I need to find Jonghyun because—“

“Look, Tiffany, we can find him for you. I am sure he will turn up like a bad penny once we stopped looking for him,” Minho said, speaking as if he was trying to calm an animal. He even looked about, pretending that he was searching for Jonghyun so as to convince Tiffany of the veracity of his claims when he spotted a familiar head of brown. “You know what, I think I found him.”

Tiffany immediately spun around, tiptoeing as she looked into the general direction Minho was looking at. Giving out a happy (strangled?) cry, Tiffany rushed towards Jonghyun instantly, heedless of the people in between them.

“Jonghyun!” she cried out.

“You guys have no idea how glad I am to see you,” Jonghyun exclaimed with heartfelt relief, slightly panting and not noticing Tiffany’s state of mind, “I was totally afraid I wouldn’t be able to make it on time and the motorcade would leave without me, but—“

He was interrupted when a heap of papers was dumped into his arms unceremoniously and a pen into his hand. Without giving Jonghyun time to recover or take stock of the items, Tiffany immediately began pointing to the sheets of papers, “Sign here, here, here and here.”

Jonghyun fumbled with them for a moment, trying to figure out how to sign with his hands full before Tiffany dragged him frustratedly over to a coffee table in the hotel’s lounge, shooing away the previous occupants. Minho followed along, always up for a good show.

Tiffany tapped a finger impatiently at the first of many lines Jonghyun would have to sign, “Hurry! I got to fax them back by 8.30am.”

Jonghyun obliged and Tiffany flipped the page, “Now here and here. Full signature, with the date.”

“You guys have no idea what I’ve been through.”

“Here and here. Hurry up.”

“I have a massive headache.”

“This line and this one too.”

“Am I signing my life anyway?”

“Kibum proof-read them for you already and I went through them again last night.”

Jonghyun paused. “Are you saying Kibum went through these docs on my behalf?”

“Yes, here and here too. Don’t stop.”

“Tiffany, if I sign myself into eternal slavery for Kim Kibum, I am blaming you—“

Tiffany poked a blunt finger (she never liked long nails; they break too easily) hard into Jonghyun’s chest, saying in a low voice, “I stayed up all night preparing all this for you. I stayed up all night, vetting these for you and preparing briefs for today’s summit session. I stayed up all night, only napping for 15 minutes. I stayed up all night, and don’t you dare give me sass today. If you want to be smart and witty and funny, do it somewhere else because today, I don’t give a care whether are you my boss or not.”

The silence that elapsed was broken only when Minho commented, “Wow. Tiffany cursed.” Jonghyun blinked once, brought out of the stunned mode he had gone into when his gentle assistant exploded on him like that. Obediently, he started signing the papers at a breakneck speed, because if there was one thing he feared, it was a quiet man’s (or woman’s) anger. They were the most frightening.

Tiffany leaned back and closed her eyes, “I am sorry, I don’t what has gotten into me. I shouldn’t have said that—“

“Don’t be, it’s alright. It’s my fault.”

“No matter what, I still apologise—“

“I shouldn’t have gotten drunk and slept with Onew anyway.”

-

“Seungho, do you have a minute?” Minho asked the moment the door was opened.

“I like how you guys treat my hotel room like an office,” Seungho commented drily as he closed the door after letting Minho in, “And how you guys enjoying paying me calls at 1am in the morning.”

“You aren’t asleep anyway,” Minho pointed out.

“That’s beside the point,” Seungho settled himself in an armchair, “I was looking forward to some time alone packing my luggage.”

“You like packing luggage?”

“A man has to find delight in whatever small joys he can.”

After a short judgmental pause, Minho started again. “Anyway, I came here to iron out some last minute issues with you. With regards to compliance to copyrights of American products, President Chan is having second thoughts on the sustainability of such an effort—“

“No, no, no!” Seungho shook his head as he exclaimed forcefully, “We’ve gone through this for hours! Days even! Wrangling over such issues even though it is obvious to any ethical and moral society that adherence is not an option when it comes to a civilized world; that for creativity, innovation and trade to thrive, laws and regulations must be strictly regulated! I am not visiting the issue again! I’m not having any of this!”

“Well.” Minho commented intelligently in the ensuing silence, “Ok.”

Seungho tapped his fingers impatiently against the armrest and amended, “Tell him in a nicer manner.”

“I will get the ambassador’s office to get to it.”

“Good.”

“There’s also some dispute between Nancy’s and Sungyeol’s groups about who’s in charge of the post-summit affairs.”

“Sungyeol. He gets along better with the Chinese.”

“Ok. The president also wants to postpone tomorrow’s breakfast.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t really say.”

“Ok, speak to the Chinese about it.”

“Can I delegate?”

“Get Sungyeol. Might as well get him used to his role of acting as liaison between our two countries.”

“Ok.”

“Good.”

“So.”

“Anything else?”

“Well.”

“If there’s nothing else, I would like you to get out please. I need to get back to my packing.”

“Well.”

“Minho, clock’s a-ticking.”

“Do you know Jonghyun and Lee Onew slept together?”

Seungho’s head snapped up, “I am sorry?”

“Lee Onew from the Washington Post.”

“Jonghyun slept with a reporter?” the incredulity in Seungho’s voice was evident.

“As in, they spent the night together.”

“Isn’t that what it means to sleep together?”

“In the sense they slept on the same bed, but did not have any…” Minho fumbled for words, because it was not everyday he had to have such a conversation with the Chief of Staff of the White House. “ual relations with the other,” he settled.

Seungho looked relieved, “Oh. So you meant he slept over at this reporter’s room but did not have .”

“Yes. Putting it bluntly, yes.”

“So it was not a one-night stand or anything?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Alright then. I don’t see how that is any of my concern.” Seungho brushed off the topic easily. It was not about to be a scandal and neither was the White House going to get angry reporters sniping at them every possible moment as a result of personal grievances. The last time that happened (and it was Jonghyun’s fault too), the White House had to endure  fraudulent ed-ops from the Atlanta fortnightly.

“Don’t you think… Jonghyun is getting a bit too close to the press? Some of the senators in the party are getting quite concerned about how familiar the two seem to be.”

“Jonghyun’s free to make friends with whomever he wants. I cannot forbid him to stop seeing Onew if that’s what you mean.” Seungho grimaced, “Although sleeping over at someone’s hotel is really odd when you already have your own room in Mariott.”

“They are worried he might let slip certain sensitive information to Lee Onew.”

“Let’s trust Jonghyun a little more than that.”

Minho stared at Seungho and the two locked gaze. Seungho held steady. “Ok then,” Minho acceded, “I will tell the senators not to worry.”

Seungho nodded distractedly as he had already stood up and was in the midst of folding some shirts. Minho went to the door and made to let himself out. He was stopped by a shout from Seungho.

“Hey.”

“Yea?”

“Do you think Jonghyun is gay?”

A pregnant pause that was laden with possibilities. “Well, he dated Luna for 5 months.”

-

“So, Jonghyun, are you gay?”

Jonghyun spluttered and spat out the mouthful of water (thank goodness it was water) in his mouth. “W-What?”

“Are you gay?” Minho repeated slowly and loudly, as if Jonghyun was hard of hearing.

Looking mortified, Jonghyun immediately slapped his hand over Minho’s mouth, “We are just a cabin away from the press!”

Minho shrugged unaffectedly, “So, are you?”

“What in the world can make you think so, Minho? For goodness sake, I dated Luna!”

“Seungho seems to think so.”

“What?”

“I mean, you were the one who said you slept with Onew.”

“That was just a slip of the tongue and you know it!”

“So, you aren’t?”

“I am not having this discussion with you. I am not.” Jonghyun declared.

After a suitable period of time (roughly around two minutes), when Minho deemed Jonghyun had forgotten about his previous declaration, Minho asked again, “So, do you think I am hot?” 

That's it. I am closing arc 5. This has gone on for too long. Let's bring them back to Washington already lol.

P.S. If you guys read every single chapter, take pride in the fact that you have read roughly about 63k words in total, excluding my author's notes :D This fic has grown into a monster.