Author’s Note: I’m feeling really productive lately with all the MinSu and WonKyu. xD Hope you enjoy this chapter and please leave me a comment! ^^

Chapter 2

By: zielddhy/Sharl

“No, I’s okay, take your time. I don’t mind waiting a bit, besides you know Jaejoong and Yunho will keep me entertained,” Changmin pulled his car into a park and locked the vehicle with a slight click. Still talking to Kyuhyun on the phone, he crossed the street and walked over to Jaejoong’s restaurant.

It was Sunday afternoon and the two best friends agreed to meet up for a brunch. Although the two of them had met just two days prior, they both felt it was about time to meet each other again. And so, when Changmin got out from a shower this morning feeling more hungry than usual –he skipped dinner last night to catch up with a new project– he called his best friend and Kyuhyun readily agreed to meet him.

“Just don’t start eating without me, okay?” Kyuhyun said in firm tone from the other line.

“But-why?! Seriously, I’m really hungry, I haven’t eaten a thing in-“ Changmin consulted his watch, “20 hours.”

“Then an extra five minutes wouldn’t hurt, right?”

The architect huffed. “Fine. But five minutes from now I’ll order something whether you’re here or not.”

He could swear he heard Kyuhyun smirked. “Deal.”

“Okay, see you in five.” Changmin touched his phone to end the call and entered the crowded restaurant. As soon as he stepped into the room, the delicious smells of coffees, teas, omelets, bacon, sausages, pancakes, waffles and few others immediately hit his senses.

“Changminie!” Yunho’s voice called out among the noisy crowd.

Changmin wanted to pretend that he hadn’t heard him but alas, there was no empty table left. And so he grudgingly made his way towards where the CEO was and plopped down on the chair across him. “Hey Hyung, where’s Jaejoong-hyung?”

Yunho sighed mournfully. “In the kitchen. He forbid me to come in there after that one time when we did it next to the fridge and one of his employees walked in on us. She later sued him for ually-hostile workplace environment, claiming that we gave her trauma.”

Changmin raised an eyebrow. What a bunch of idiots. “Seriously, you guys live together and all, why do you need to maul him in his workplace as well?”

The CEO smiled, “Because I can.”

The other eyebrow was also raised, “Okay.”

“This is what happens when you got a partnership, dude. You love them so ing much you sees fireworks every time you have with them and only them. It’s an amazing feeling and you get addicted to it, man.” Yunho leaned back, with one arm sling casually on the next chair.

Here we go again. The architect thought about it for a moment and shrugged, “I feel like that every time I have an .”

Yunho continued as if he didn’t hear him, “It’s the most awesome thing that can happen, making love to the one person you love more than anything.”

“Do you think I should the toast, bacon and eggs set? But pancakes sounds pretty nice too…”

The CEO threw him a withering glare and Changmin smiled innocently.

Yunho heaved a deep breath, “Changmin, what is it that I always tell you?” he looked at the younger as if Changmin was five all over again.

“Make enough money and everything else will follow?”

“Exactly! You’ve got the money part, now it’s time to sit back and enjoy everything!”

“And I do, I just don’t count partnership in that equation of everything.”

“Well, if you happen to have at least a boyfriend, you wouldn’t be eating brunch here alone,” Yunho said with a smug smile.

“Actually I’m meeting Kyuhyun. You don’t mind if he sit here, do you? And no, we’re just friends.” Changmin added before the CEO could question him about his friend again. Seriously, why did people always think that they are boyfriends?

As if on cue, the novelist showed up. He looked at Yunho and nodded his greetings before sitting down besides Changmin. They shared few pleasantries and the waiter showed up to take their order. It didn’t take long before the food was there –Jaejoong’s kitchen was very efficient, but Yunho insisted it was because he wasn’t there as a distraction.

“So, what are you doing tomorrow?” Changmin asked as he took a bite of his toast.

Swallowing the hash brown he was chewing, Kyuhyun answered, “I’m going to see the lawyer Leeteuk-hyung recommends.”

“Is he any good?”

“Apparently,” Kyuhyun replied, “I googled him last night. Turns out he’s this super expensive lawyer representing high-powered clients, some fortune 500 companies, those kind of thing.”

Changmin frowned, “Is he familiar with plagiarism?”

“I don’t know; guess we can find out tomorrow.” The novelist took a sip on his coffee, “What about you? What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m going to a client’s construction site. They want to make an apartment and they ask me to design the whole building.”

“Sounds boring.”

Changmin shrugged, “It pays well. And the view there supposes to be pretty nice so I can design lots of balconies with ocean view and all.”

Kyuhyun snorted, “Sounds extravagantly boring.”

“Are you talking about that new apartment block? The one developed by James Howard Corp?” Yunho joined in the conversation.

The architect nodded, “Yeah, you know them?”

“James is a friend,” Yunho said with a casual shrug.

Changmin narrowed his eyes. James Howard Corp was one of the biggest developer companies in Asia, if not in the world, and his hyung knew the owner personally? He seriously began to doubt the nature of Jung Yunho’s business.

****************************

The lawyer was late.

Kyuhyun had been waiting for almost one and a half hour now and yet the perky receptionist hadn’t said anything except a brief ‘Choi Siwon-shi is still in a meeting, may I have your autograph please?’ And after Kyuhyun gave her his autograph, he sat on one of those really-expensive-but-not-very-comfortable chairs. He felt somewhat out of place that evening in the lobby area of Choi and Partners, and the posh décor did a terrible job to make him feel welcomed.

Maybe it was to intimidate people who aren’t clients.

And it intimidated Kyuhyun too. Just a little bit though, but still.

After another fifteen minutes, Kyuhyun was ready the walk out. It was really impolite to make people wait that long, even when the man in question was extremely busy and apparently had an extremely important meeting and Kyuhyun was just an author and everybody assumed that writers have so many leisure time when they are not writing but this was really impolite, if not bordering rude.

Just when he was about to stand and leave, one of the meeting rooms’ door opened and walked out five fuming middle-aged men. One of them stopped and said vehemently to whomever inside the room, “See you in court Choi Siwon-shi, I hope your client will pay damages so high he can’t even pay his fees to you.”

A confident voice replied, “I think you realize that my client is more than capable to pay any damages should the court order him too, but I do feel he won’t even need to go such length. You will lose, you know that don’t you?”

The man sneered, “Let’s just see what happen next week.” With that, he and his four companions walked away.

The receptionist then used her phone, “Sir, there is a Cho Kyuhyun waiting for you. No sir, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she threw Kyuhyun an uncomfortable glance. “You see, he has been waiting for more than an hour.”

Kyuhyun scowled. So this guy didn’t even want to see him after he waited for two freaking hours?

“Very well sir, I’ll send him in now.” The perky receptionist then said to Kyuhyun, “Cho-shi, you can go in now. He is waiting for you in his office. Just go through that door there.”

Nodding a brief thank you to her, Kyuhyun walked towards the lawyer’s office. He then stepped into yet another luxuriously décor room. A man, who he assumed was Choi Siwon, sat on a big chair behind a ridiculously big mahogany desk and another two chairs in front of it.

“Hello, you must be Cho Kyuhyun,” the lawyer stood up and said with a tired smile. “My name is Choi Siwon.” He gestured towards the chairs in front of him and Kyuhyun sat down.

“So, you are a writer?” Siwon asked.

Kyuhyun nodded. “Mostly thriller stuff, but I also write a few children detective books.”

“Are you, uh… well known?”

The novelist shrugged, “I don’t know about that, but your receptionist seems to know me. She asked for my autograph earlier.”

“Ah, I see.” Right at that moment, Siwon’s cell phone rang. The lawyer immediately answered it and soon he was engaged in heated discussion. Kyuhyun scowled again; it was obvious this man paid him no mind. He didn’t even bother to excuse himself to answer the phone, even if it was only as a courtesy to Kyuhyun.

Ten minutes later, Siwon ended the call. “Sorry about that,” he apologized to Kyuhyun, “it’s just I have this case, it’s really tough and my client can be very demanding.”

“I understand,” Kyuhyun said sarcastically.

“So uh… Leeteuk said your fellow writer plagiarize one of your works?”

“Yes, you might heard of it. The book is titled ‘Death on the Road’, it’s the best seller of thriller novel category last year.”

Siwon shook his head, “I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with it; I don’t usually read such books.”

Kyuhyun’s mouth curled into a tight line. Okay, that’s it, he couldn’t take this anymore. “And you don’t have to. I’m sorry I don’t think we can work together. You are also obviously very busy so I won’t bother you much longer.”

With that, Kyuhyun stood and left Siwon’s office, leaving the other behind. Siwon cursed as he realized he just unconsciously insulted his newest client. The lawyer sighed; he needed to fix this, even if only to apologize.

*************************************

Changmin scowled.

The sun was really hot and the sky was clear blue, not a single cloud floated. Why the hell did he decide to be an architect again? Oh yeah, because when he was a kid he thought it was cool to sketch and design a building. What he didn’t know back then was that the work actually involves inspecting construction site, sometimes in bad weather or in this case: a blistering summer heat. Then again, Changmin thought as he skipped over few rocks, the job pays really well so he shouldn’t complain.

He was there with a representative from James Howard Corp and some people from the construction company they hired to do the job. Currently all of them except him was safely protected from the sun by standing under a big tree nearby. Unfortunately, Changmin as the architect needed to check the site to its’ every little corner to make sure his designs could be implemented. Some people thought this was the civil engineer’s job, and while that was true, he liked to check few things himself.

Suddenly an egg flew towards him.

Fortunately, he was an athletic person back in college days so he was able to avoid it. By the time the egg hit the ground, he realized it was a rotten egg and he huffed in relief. It would be really if the egg hit him.

He turned around to look at who dared to throw that egg at him. At one corner, only a few feet away, a man with a handful of eggs –rotten, Changmin suspected– stood and looked very angry. Changmin had never seen him before and so he couldn’t help but being slightly irritated in return.

“What the hell, man?” Changmin asked.

“Do you know that the oceans occupy nearly 71% of our planet’s surface?”

“…what?”

The man looked at him as if he was a disgusting piece of meat, “Eighty percent of all pollution in the seas and oceans comes from land-based activities. Less than one half a per cent of marine habitats are protected while on the land area, that number is 11.5 percent. And you, by building this apartment here, actually participate in reducing that number.”

Changmin blinked, “the…11.5 percent?”

The man moved as if to throw yet another egg at him, and Changmin immediately shouted, “Don’t throw that again!” The architect relaxed slightly as the other put the egg down a bit.

“So you’re um, environmentalist?” he cautiously asked.

“Marine biologist.”

“I see. And you’re here doing a protest I assume?”

The man scowled. “Do you realize that by building a residential area here, you will jeopardize the marine life? Plastic waste alone kills up to 1 million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and countless fish each year; while you enjoy tons of money you make by being an ignorant .”

“Hey, watch your mouth, man. I’m just doing my job here.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You mean destroying the ocean and completely obliterate its whole inhabitants?”

Changmin sighed. “No, I literally mean I’m just doing my job. I’m an architect, I design buildings and although yes, I’m the one who designs this apartment, I’m just doing what I get paid for. And do you mind putting down those eggs? They’re freaking me out.”

Thankfully, the other put the eggs down. Feeling much safer now, the architect continued, “Thank you. I’m Shim Changmin by the way,” he added and offered the other a handshake.

The man cautiously shook his hand, “Kim Junsu.”

“Look, I understand that you’re objecting to an apartment being developed here but you’re protesting to the wrong guy. My client is under one of those trees over there, and if you want to do a protest I think you should do that to the developer not to the architect.”

“Do you think I give a damn about that?!” Junsu screamed.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Changmin shouted back, “I’m just an architect here and to be honest you, I don’t really care about the ocean and all that .”

The man widened his eyes. “More than 97 percent of our entire planet’s water is contained in the ocean! And you tell me that you don’t care about that?!”

Changmin shrugged, “Frankly, no. The ocean will still be there whether we make this apartment or not. The sea mammals will still be there, and so will the fish. Besides it’s ridiculous for me to turn down this job, this is a really big project. The success fee alone can make me retire for five years not doing anything. And I won’t say no to that.”

Junsu gaped. “You’re the biggest I’ve ever known!” With a huff, the man turned around and left.

Changmin raised an eyebrow, that man was seriously deranged. He needed to talk to the security not to let him in the future. Hopefully he would never see Junsu or whatever his name was again.

-End Chapter 2-

Disclaimer: the marine facts in this chapter is from this link below.

http://www.savethesea.org/STS%20ocean_facts.htm