As she quietly admired him from the office doorway, Seulki had to admit that there were moments when Himchan was- against all logic- stunning. Making sure she didn't draw attention to herself- the last thing Seulki needed was for Himchan to catch her like this- she watched as he diligently marked up the manuscript resting in front of him. The pen he was using had evidently seen better days, considering the red tint Himchan's fingers had taken on due to the leaking ink, but Himchan was too engrossed in his work to take notice of the mess. It was a surprising image of him that was immediately ruined when he thoughtfully rubbed at his lips and ended up with a red mustache along his upper lip. Even when he was serious, Himchan's natural personality leaked through and enforced the fact that he was nothing more than a big kid in a man's body.

     Shaking her head, Seulki on the office door- despite it already being open- to announce her presence and stepped inside. Looking up from the manuscript, Himchan smiled wearily and tried to greet her, but the pencil he had clenched tightly between his mouth prevented any proper words to be spoken. She could pick out the gist of what he was saying, however, so nodded along as though she had completely understood Himchan.

     "More manuscripts?" Himchan asked after placing the pencil off to the side.

     "No, just general paper work. I was told that this was the most important of the bunch." Resting the documents she had been carrying on the corner of Himchan's desk, Seulki pulled out a single lime-green paper and slid it across to Himchan. He gave it one glance, then raised an eyebrow and looked up at Seulki. "Performance review for Yoo Youngjae, since he temporarily worked for us. All the departments he's visited so far are being asked to complete one." Her tone suggested quite clearly that Seulki was not interested in getting further into the politics of their company.

     "He's getting a little... desperate, don't you think?" Resolving to complete the review later, Himchan tucked the paper into a file folder that may as well have been labeled procrastination and stood to place it in the filing cabinets behind him. As he shuffled across the office, Seulki caught sight of the Hello Kitty socks he was wearing. Biting down hard on her lip to keep from laughing, she took advantage of Himchan's back being turned and quickly peeked under his desk to see where his shoes had gone. Rather than a pair of immaculately polished dress shoes, though, she spotted a Hello Kitty foot warmer. "That wasn't a rhetorical question, Ms- ah, I see you've discovered my loving niece's present!" Blushing, Seulki rushed to straighten her back and pretend as though she hadn't been snooping beneath his desk, but she had obviously been caught red-handed.

     "You have a niece?" Still red in the face, Seulki crossed her arms over her chest and tried to divert the conversation away from herself. Always willing to humor her, Himchan nodded and sat down again.

     "She just turned four a few months ago and will be starting preschool soon!" As she listened to Himchan speak, Seulki picked up on a subtle difference in him. He was trying to sound like his usual chipper self, but there was a distinct lack of energy behind his exclamations. He sounded absolutely exhausted. "Her recent obsession is Hello Kitty, and I guess I agreed enough times with her about Hello Kitty's greatness that she thought it would be a good idea to buy me this for my birthday," he chuckled, not noticing the suspicious look Seulki was giving him.

     "Right. I had meant to do something for your birthday, but then thing's got busy and I couldn't ever find a good time to take you out." Sighing, Seulki put aside her misgivings long enough to apologize to Himchan for seemingly forgetting his birthday.

     "You were going to take me out?" Himchan exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "That's so sweet of you, Seulki! I can't believe you had something like that-" before he could finish, Himchan was suddenly overcome by coughing.

     "You're sick, aren't you?" Seulki scolded, reaching over and gently patting Himchan's back as he attempted to hack out a lung. "Why did you come into work today if you were sick?" Pursing her lips, she reached over and brushed aside Himchan's bangs so she could feel his forehead. He was burning up. Sighing heavily, Seulki waited for Himchan to finish coughing before she stepped out of his office. Briskly striding down the hall, she ignored him trying to call her back and made a bee line for the floor's vending machine. Fortunately, she hadn't quite settled in for the day and still had her purse with her.

     Rummaging through her purse, Seulki procured the required amount of change to buy a water bottle and started feeding the vending machine. By now, though, Himchan had followed her out into the hall and was attempting to reason with her. "I'm fine, really. You don't have to worry about me like this." She wasn't listening, though. Completely ignoring Himchan, she punched in the code and waited for the ancient piece of machinery to slowly release a water bottle from its deathly grip. "Ms. Lee, you really don't have to-"

     "You should take the rest of the day off, Himchan," she ordered him, crouching down to retrieve the water bottle from the vending machine. "I can handle whatever work you have."

     Himchan was surprised by the way she was addressing him. It had been Seulki who insisted they remain professional when in the company of other's, and yet here she was referring to him by his first name in the middle of the hallway. Unable to help himself, Himchan glanced behind them to make sure none of the other employees had heard her. It was nice to hear her drop the formalities and publicly acknowledge- even unwittingly- their friendship, but Himchan knew that if anyone overheard her that she would blame him for it, and he didn't imagine that being chewed out by Seulki would help his headache any.

     "I can't skip work every time- thank you- I get the sniffles, Seulki." Begrudgingly accepting the water bottle, he hesitated to refer to her by first name but quickly realized that her mind was on other things. "Thank you for your concern, but I'm in charge of the entire department. I have to stay; it's my job."

     "Of course today is the day you pick to be responsible," Seulki sighed, resting her hands on her hips and frowning at Himchan. On any other day he would have cornered her the minute she entered the building and started to whine about how sick he was, trying to get her to take over for him. Yet, now that she was offering, he was suddenly Mr. Responsible and wouldn't take her up on it. And when Himchan had put his mind to something, it was difficult to change it. "Fine, you can stay."

     Wrestling down a smile, Himchan wondered when Seulki realized she had so much power over him. He was a grown adult, after all, so she had no say in whether he remained at work or not; especially since he was her boss. And yet here she was, graciously allowing him to remain despite her misgivings about his health. "Thank you," seemed the best response to Seulki's generosity, so it was what Himchan went with. He couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice, though, and immediately Seulki picked up on it and started pouting. Fighting back a laugh, Himchan patted her on the shoulder and turned to head back into his office.

     "You will tell me if you need to go home, though!" She practically threatened, watching his retreating back disappeared behind his office door. Sighing again, she bit down on her bottom lip and tried not to worry too much. Himchan didn't get sick often, but he had been hit once or twice during the time she had known him and it had never been pretty. It was almost as though all the diseases he should have caught would gather together over several months so they could strike him all at once. So, though he may be feeling well enough to function in society now, Seulki knew he wouldn't be feeling nearly as well later on.

     Which meant that it was her job to get him home and in bed now, so he could rest up and try to fight off the worst of the sickness before it really got to him.

     "How are you feeling?" Seulki asked, poking her head into Himchan's office for the tenth time. Sighing patiently, he closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten. "I can get you another water, if you'd like. Or is there something else you-"

     "Ms. Lee!" He exclaimed, leaning back in his seat and smiling tightly at her. Himchan tried his best to never lose his temper with Seulki, but after being pestered by her for the entire morning, he had been hoping for a quiet lunch break. And yet here she was, once again looking in on him with obvious concern etched onto her face. Sighing again, Himchan admitted defeat. Seulki was concerned for his health, and though she was making a slight nuisance of herself because of it, he still appreciated what she was doing for him. Besides, it wasn't every day Seulki doted on him like this; he should be taking advantage of it.

     "I will be taking the rest of the day off. Would you mind covering for me?" Seulki only allowed herself a brief moment of triumph before immediately going into a semblance of professionalism.

     "I'd be happy to help you, Mr. Kim."

     Except, when she realized just how much work was involved in being helpful, Seulki started to question just how happy she was about it. Himchan had left immediately after explaining what absolutely had to be completed before the end of the day, and Seulki had taken the documents into her office and started working on them.

      "Some of these things should have already been near completion by now! What has he been doing with himself these past few weeks?" Seulki complained, leaning back in her seat and glaring at the papers in front of her. "Mr. Responsibility my ! He was probably just sticking around to get free water from me!" It was a ridiculous-sounding accusation, even to Seulki, but as no one else was around to hear her she didn't really care. "Honestly, Kim Himchan, if I wasn't around you would have been fired a long time ago!" Also, not true, but as she faced down a task that was meant to have taken weeks to complete, Seulki felt justified in it.

     "He had better be sleeping this thing off."

     "I'll see you tomorrow!" Seulki smiled at Ms. Baek as the woman passed her open office door and waved goodbye. "Oh, have you heard from Mr. Kim? Is he feeling any better?" It hadn't taken long for the entire floor to realize that their Senior Editor was missing, and Seulki hadn't been able to divert their questions for long. She had, at the very least, been able to discourage a group visit to his home, however.

     "I was just about to call him. I'll tell you how he's feeling tomorrow." The last thing she wanted was to have Ms. Baek staring at her while she called Himchan. The insufferable moron wouldn't know that she was being watched, after all, and it would take more will power than Seulki had at the moment to rebut whatever he had to say in a professional manner.

     "Alright! Tell him I hope he gets better soon!" Waving again, Ms. Baek straightened her jacket and hurried to catch the elevator. When she was sure the office gossip was gone, Seulki closed her office door and punched in his number. Though there weren't that many people in her life, Seulki had made a good effort and finding enough to fill in the available space for speed-dialing so she would have an excuse to not include Himchan. That had been when they first met and she was certain he was mildly insane, though. Now, it seemed... childish to keep pretending that the three fake numbers were actually very close friends who would remain nameless for no good reason.

     After pressing the call button, Seulki started packing up for the day while she waited for Himchan to pick up. It wasn't a very long wait, though; he answered on the second ring.

     "So, how did it feel to be Senior Editor for the day?" He sounded even worse than he had that morning. Frowning, Seulki finished putting everything away and swung her purse over her shoulder.

     "You sound awful," she pointed out, heading for the elevator. The rest of the floor had emptied out by now, leaving her to be the only one standing awkwardly by the elevator doors  to wait for them. "You should probably take tomorrow off as well. Being Senior Editor wasn't so hard that I can do it another day."

     Himchan did his best to laugh, but his voice was so hoarse that it was more heavy breathing than laughter. Shaking her head, Seulki stepped into the elevator and started heading for the ground floor. "Seriously, take the day off. I'm not going to take over your position permanently if you die!"

     "I'll call Jung Su and ask him to fill in for me tomorrow. You're taking the day off, too."

     "I'm not coming over to take care of you, Himchan. You're a big boy, do it yourself."

     Another hoarse laugh from Himchan's side of the line.

     "You do realize I'm probably contagious, right? You were around me quite a lot today, so it would be best for you to look after yourself and make sure you don't catch this. I'd hate to see my favorite assistant editor suffer."

     "I'm perfectly fine, Himchan. Worry about yourself and get to sleep early. I'll call you again tomorrow and you can tell me what needs to get done." The elevator reached the ground floor and Seulki stepped off into a nearly empty lobby. As far as she knew, nobody hated working at the Nalgae, but nobody was so devoted to it that they spent extra time there. Besides, with so many bars in the area, it was more convenient to spend after-hours out on the town instead of in the offices. Alcohol had always been a staple of any Nalgae employee's social life, after all.

     "Come on, Seulki. Take the day off! It's better to prevent anything from happening in the first place, after all!"

     "I feel fine, Himchan."

     "So did I, and yet I still ended up going home early."

     "Good night, Himchan." Hanging up on him, Seulki frowned disapprovingly down at her phone as she marched out into the chilly night air. "Honestly, this man. He's dying of some mysterious illness and still puts me first." Shaking her head, Seulki was about to stuff her phone into her purse when it began to buzz. Himchan was texting her.

    Rolling her eyes, Seulki hazarded a curious glance at what he had to say. Most likely, he was still trying to get her to take a "sickness-prevention" day tomorrow, but if she wanted to delete the message she would have to acknowledge its presence.

     Thanks for everything today, Seulki. It's nice knowing you care ;)

     Pursing her lips, Seulki ignored the growing heat in her cheeks and immediately began texting him back.

     Go to bed, Kim Himchan, or I'll come over there and force you to get some rest!

      I'll take you up on that offer!

     Good NIGHT, Himchan!
 

Author's Note:

So, a couple of things:

1) DDTTD has reached 40 subscribers! Thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed/upvoted/commented/read/etc this story! I wouldn't be able to do it without all of your support! <3

2) Eternally Exotic Review Shop has reviewed the story! If you'd like to check out what they had to say, the link can be found in the foreword. Also, I would highly recommend them to anyone else looking for feedback on their writing. They do an amazing job with being both critical and supportive!

3) This is a slightly shorter chapter because about halfway through writing, I decided to scrap the entire thing. Initially, this chapter was supposed to be about something entirely different, but I wasn't happy with any of it. So sorry about not writing as much! I was already slightly burned out when I started this thing, hehe