At half past ten Kris found himself vacuuming a private booth and all the while glaring at Kai who was standing on the other side of the room doing nothing but watching Kris. Kris sighed and stopped.

“Are you actually going to do anything?” Kris asked, turning the hoover off.

“I am doing something, I’m mentoring you.” Kai said smugly. “By the way you missed a patch over there.”

Kris clenched his fists angrily and fought against the voice in his head which told him to beat Kai’s smug little face to a pulp.

“You may have been a mentor last night but I know perfectly well how to clean a room. I suggest you get to work so we can both hurry up and finish. Or maybe you need me to mentor you. You know what a feather duster is right?” Kris said, ing a cobweb covered feather duster into Kai’s face.

They looked each other up and down before heading to different corners of their room, working at the furthest distance they could away from each other.

This process continued until they had finished all of the booths. Kris swapped the last empty bottle of vodka for a new one and then together they lugged their bags of rubbish to the elevator.

“I may really dislike you.” Kai said, sweat dripping from his brow from carrying the heavy bags “But we make a good team. That’s the quickest those rooms have been cleaned in ages.”

When the elevator door opened they saw Lay and a cute gir_ wait. Is that a boy or a girl?

“Oh hey Kris!” Lay called, seeing Kris and Kai coming out of the elevator. “This is Luhan. “ Lay said pointing to who Kris now realised was a boy.  “Have you finished your work now?” Lay asked, putting his mop inside the bucket and leaning it against the wall.

“Almost, I have to take this out.” Kris said, gesturing to the bags in his hands.

“Well careful, it’s slippy.” Lay said before returning to mopping the floor.

Kris and Kai hauled their bags out of the front doors and around the alley by the side of the building where the large trash cans were kept before heading back inside. Kris checked the time and they had half an hour before him and Lay were expected to start their next job.

Lay was just mopping the last bit of floor when Kris entered the building again.

“I need another coffee.” Lay said, taking the mop to a storage cupboard before locking it up again.

“Me too.” Kris said, walking to Lay. “We still have a little time before we need to start working again. I vote that we sit down and have a drink before we start breaking our backs again.”

Lay nodded his agreement, rubbing his back which had been stooped over the mop.

“I’ve got to go to my next job now.” Luhan called out to Lay. “Nice meeting you!” Luhan said to Lay and Kris before getting into the elevator. Kai had long since wandered off, not wanting to remain in Kris’s proximity anymore, and for that Kris was grateful.

Both Lay and Kris sat in the otherwise empty staff room, sipping at coffee and sitting in a content silence. Kris kept glancing at Lay every now and then, studying the man he had met only two days before, and was now spending almost every minute of his time with. His hair was a gentle shade of brown, his skin was naturally pale, and when he smiled the cutest dimples appeared in his cheeks.  When Kris caught himself staring at Lays lips he decided it was definitely time to look somewhere else.

“Weren’t we supposed to look at something in here?” Kris asked, scanning the room.

“Yeah” Lay replied “But I don’t want to look at that just yet, the thought of more work already depresses me.” He joked.

Silence resumed again and they both sipped their coffees.

“If we start our work early maybe we can finish up earlier too.” Kris said, drinking the last of his coffee before putting his polystyrene cup into a waste bin.

Lay slowly stood behind him. “We have to move some crates right?” Lay asked.

“Yeah, they’ll be in storage in the basement.” Kris said. “Any idea how to get there?”  He asked, looking at Lay.

“Well the elevator only goes from the ground floor, the first floor and the second floor without a staff card key.” Lay pondered “Do you suppose we’ll need one to get to the basement?”

“Probably.  I’ll ask Min.” Kris walked from the staff room to the reception. “Excuse me; am I right in believing we need a card key to get to other floors on this building?” Kris asked.

“That’s right.” Min said. “I don’t think yours are ready yet, you can borrow mine.” She said, handing hers over. “But give it back after or else!” She threatened, adding a fake laugh to the end of her sentence and swishing her hair. Uncontrollable flirt, Kris thought.

“Thanks. See you later.” Kris said before calling Lay out of the staff room. “Come on, I got the card key.”

Kris opened the elevator and inserted the card where Lay told him to. A moment later the elevator was moving southwards into the storage room beneath the building. It was bigger down here than Kris imagined. The room straight opposite him was opened and Kris could see crates inside.

“It must be these.” Lay said, walking ahead and looking at them. The brands of the drinks contained inside were printed onto the crates.

“We need to move one of these” Lay gestured to a crate next to him. “And one of those.” He said, pointing at another a short distance away.

They each took hold of a crate and started to pull it, Kris moved his into the lift then looked back to see how Lay was doing.

“You go ahead.” Lay said, still tugging at the crate.” They both won’t fit in the elevator.

“I’ll be back in minute then.” Kris said, heading up to the lobby. Once there he pulled the crate out of the elevator then instantly went back down to help Lay. Lay was panting and holding his waist, beads of sweat rolling down the sides of his face.

“You okay?” Kris asked, startling Lay who hadn’t seen him approaching.

“Yeah, yeah. Just almost pulled a muscle.” He said, pulling at the crate again.

“Let’s get it together.” Kris said.  He helped Lay to pull the crate which was much heavier than the one Kris had had to move. “Next time, we move them together from the start, okay?” Kris said to Lay. Lay just silently nodded in response. Occasionally Kris and Lay would accidentally brush their fingers together pulling the crates, and Kris really hoped that the blush on his face was part of his imagination.  He’s a cool, manly guy. Cool manly men don’t blush.

Once both crates were moved into their places behind the bar and some of the drinks were unloaded into their rightful places the two returned to the staff room. Kris gave Min her card back as he passed and they looked for their next instructions.

“It’s this here.” Lay said, pointing to a rota on the wall. “It says that today we need to…” Lay traced his and Kris’s names with his finger. “We have to order a few things.”

Kris watched Lay trying to decipher the Korean and chuckled, however he let Lay carry on, amused by the look of concentration on Lay’s face. Sweat lined Lay’s hair line and Kris had the urge to move a strand of Lay’s fringe from sticking to his forehead. Luckily Lay started to talk again and Kris realised what he was about to do.

“There’s a few drinks, a snack selection, some cleaning products. Come on, the instructions say we have to order it here.”  Lay said, oblivious to Kris who now just followed Lay to a computer in the corner of the room. They went to the sites directed on the list and ordered the products written on the list. It took them forty five minutes to enter all of the details needed to send the order off.  

Kris saw that it was now past two o’clock in the afternoon. How many more jobs did they have?

“Are there any more jobs on that list?” Kris asked, rather hoping there wasn’t.

“Just one.” Lay said, rereading it before saying to Kris “There’s a delivery between 2pm and 3pm, we need to move the things into a room downstairs.”

“The storage room?” Kris asked, sitting back in his seat.

“No, it says here that it will be an empty room. A room that’s going to be renovated soon.” Lay said, shrugging in confusion at Kris.

“So basically we just have to hang around here until the delivery arrives sometime within the next hour?”

“Basically.” Lay said.

 They decided to sit in the lobby. Min was playing on her phone, probably messaging some boy (or two), Kris decided. The only time she bothered them was when she would look up and send flirty glances in Kris’s direction. Just don’t look at her and she won’t exist  Kris repeated in his head.

 “Want to play a game while we wait?” Lay asked. Typical, his usually chirpy self.

“What kind of game? I don’t have to run around do I?” Kris asked, trying to keep a smile off of his face. He’d been doing an unusual amount of smiling recently, it creeped him out.

“Like a truth game. One of us asks a question and the other has to answer honestly.” Lay said.

Kris hesitated but didn’t see much harm in it.

“Okay sure, but you have to ask a question first so I get the idea.” Kris said.

“Okay! What made you want a job here at the Host Club?” Lay asked, leaning forward slightly, anticipating Kris’s answer.

“Well, I came to Korea expecting to be an idol.” Kris confessed, feeling a little embarrassed. “But actually once I was here I couldn’t get into any companies. I tried to get a job but no one accepted me there either. Be it because I’m foreign or because I didn’t have any references, no one wanted me. In short, I had nowhere else to go.” Lay nodded sympathetically.  “Okay, your turn!”

“Can I ask the same question to you?”

“Nope, they have to be different, or you’re just on copying me!”

“Fine… What was your reason for coming to Korea?”

“I too wanted to become an idol. For a short while I was taken in to company, but when it came to choosing trainees to debut they didn’t pick me. I was bullied by other trainees and even the company itself. They laughed at the fact that I can’t speak Korean well and would often talk about me even while I was in the room, but I couldn’t understand much. After investing a lot of time and money into the company I was kicked out. It left me quite financially unstable. My language barrier held me back until I found out about Host Clubs.  Here I decided it doesn’t overly matter if I can speak well or now, it was basically my only option left.”

Kris nodded, sad that someone could be mean to Lay. Lay who seemed so innocent, Lay;  a man obsessed with healing and would never impose harm on anyone. People bullied him! It infuriated Kris the more he thought about it.

“My turn again!” Lay said cheerfully, which Kris found hard to believe considering what they had just been talking about. “How’s your love life been?” Lay asked, winking at Kris before whispering “Because I think someone is interested.” He nodded his head slightly towards the desk and Kris looked up to Min smiling at him again.

Kris sighed. “I’ve never had a girlfriend before.  I wasn’t interested during school, and for the past few years I’ve been so busy I just haven’t had the time to find anyone.”

“So you like definitely like girls and not boys?” Lay asked curiously.

“hey it’s my turn to ask questions!” Kris said lightly hitting Lay. “My question is why did you ask that?”

“I saw you and some dark haired boy flirting at the bar last night. I wasn’t sure if you were just acting as a host or if something more was going on there.” Lay said, suddenly awfully interested in finger.

Kris stayed silent. He had never considered love. He didn’t have many memories of his mom and dad when they were still together, and he’d been lonely all of his life since. It wasn’t something Kris was experienced with at all. He hadn’t had the time to think about love and now he was being asked what gender he liked.

“I don’t know.” Kris said confused. “I haven’t thought about it at all. I’ve never had room to consider any type of love at all, let alone this.” Lay was just looking up to Kris with a regretful face when someone entered the lobby. They watched the man in a blue uniform talk to Min before leaving again.

“boys the delivery is here!” Min called.

“Back to work then.” Kris said, getting up and not looking at Lay. He didn’t want Lay to see the troubled look in his eyes. But somehow Lay knew it was there, and he was worried about the consequences his question could have had on Kris. Either way, they both had to push this aside as they once again started to haul boxes and crates of supplies towards the elevator. 

So Lay's and Kris's pasts are starting to open up! I'm hoping this story will improve as it goes along, I'm not exactly experienced with writing so I hope it goes well. I've gotten more subscribers, more upvotes and more comments and it makes me so happy that I'm squealing like an idiot and my family don't know why at all. So, even though I already said this; THANK YOU ALL! 

Anyway I decided on a name for you guys, since you're reading my story and my name is 1990stalker, I shall name you stalkers and you will be mine and you shall be my stalkers... AHEM. Apologies for the random finding nemo quote. So how about it? Remember to leave a comment on what you think, subscribe if you haven't already and I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!