Step 1: Ignore his phone calls at least once before picking up.

It was yet another excruciatingly boring office afternoon for Naeun. She sat in front of her desk, eyes boring into the bright computer screen. It might have seemed like she was focused on her work, but no, nope. She was not, not at all. In fact, she was stuck in a mid-day daydream surrounding the handsome lad she called her boyfriend.

Naeun recalled back to the week before, where he came to deliver snacks for her. It came off as a surprise, albeit a pleasant one. She had gained a much-needed tea break. Least to say, the food was lip-smacking delicious. And… she was mildly impressed by him (not enough to make her completely fall for him, she convinced herself.)

Really, who would not be swayed when he behaved like such a gentleman? Please.

Not to mention, he had attached a ridiculous drawing of himself (It didn’t even look like Myungsoo! It took her fifteen minutes to figure out the dude he drew was actually him.) onto the bento box filled with snacks. Naeun couldn’t help but snicker, thinking about the (ugly) drawing. She still kept it though, convincing herself that it was because Myungsoo might feel hurt if she didn’t keep it (truth is, she really appreciated this little effort of his and she was swooning mentally.)

She was staring at the small piece of paper with the drawing that she had tucked away in her wallet when her cell phone buzzed loudly. Her heart took a gigantic leap upon seeing the caller identity; it was none other than the man who made her all giddy.

Stop! Don’t pick up now. The demonic voice in her head sounded. She almost let out a groan as her hand dropped to her side, grimacing at the fact that she needed to play the non-committal lady role and ignore Myungsoo’s calls.

The phone stopped buzzing. Naeun looked at it expectantly. “Please call a second time,” her voice came out as a desperate plea.

She almost died the moment her phone rang once again, unable to contain a foolish grin. Thank God he wasn’t around to see her behave like this.

“Hello?” Thankfully, her excitement wasn’t obvious in her tone. Naeun was actually pretty impressed by how dispassionate she sounded.

“Look up.”

Her head turned up immediately. “What?”

“Look right in front, babe.”

And there he was, standing outside her office in all his perfection, with only a transparent glass panel in between them, holding what seemed like the same bento box from the previous week.

She could hear the dulcet tone of his laugh before the call disconnected. He sauntered in the office, setting the all-too-familiar bento box onto her disorganized desk. Naeun berated herself mentally for not keeping up the habit of having her desk clean (then again, designers didn’t usually have neat work desks anyway.)

It wasn’t until Naeun discovered a second ugly drawing that she realized he’d known about her ignore-phone-call-even-if-eager-to-answer act.

Step 2: Never get jealous of his lady friends, his pet, or worse… his toy.

Feigning an ‘I’m-totally-not-interested-in-your-house’ expression was harder (like much, much harder) than she originally thought it would be. How did those girls on T.V. stay so calm and collected 90% of the time in front of their boyfriends?

… Right. Shows were scripted after all. But still.

She faked a cough (just because she could) and picked up the bamboo pillow lying at a corner of the room. She spun around to face him, a queer yet nonchalant (non-committal lady, remember?) look on her face as she asked, “What’s this?”

“My bamboo pillow!” Myungsoo said with enthusiasm (don’t think she didn’t notice the displeasure laced underneath that stupid charming voice of his), getting up to snatch the object away from her, hugging it a little too protectively.

By now, her brows were raised and a scowl had found its way to her lips. No, no, you don’t care. Naeun reminded herself and the sour look was quickly erased. “You seem to really love this… bamboo pillow, yeah?”

“Why, of course. Do you even need to ask?” Thank God, he hadn’t been able to catch the frown on her face earlier.

She didn’t say anything for a while, a little stunned from his answer. Oh God, seriously? A bamboo pillow was her rival for his affection? And she’d actually— really obviously, lost to that? Cue the exclamation marks and curses on the imaginary voodoo doll for the wretched item.

“Well, then. Does it have a name?” She found herself saying, against her better judgment. Sooner or later, she’d die from jealousy (over the most ridiculous things, just saying.)

“Hey! First, bamboo pillow is a ‘she’, not an ‘it’. Secondly, she doesn’t have a name. I just call her Miss Bamboo Pillow.” He smiled affectionately (idiotically, she’d like to say) at the curse word inducing female bamboo pillow.

Restrain, restrain… Naeun tried her very best (like, really) to stop herself from giving Myungsoo the stink-eye.

“I thought you’d have given it—I mean her, a name since you love her so much.” She inched closer to him, examining the oh-so-precious toy of his.

He let out a loud tsk of disapproval and shook his head vigorously, “Nope.” He purposefully elongated the vowel before continuing his sentence, “Miss Bamboo Pillow is too precious for a name!”

She honestly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Turning away to hide the mortified expression that had inevitably been formed, she uttered inaudibly (or so she thought) under her breath with much pique, “I should have been born as Son Nameless instead, geez. Maybe then I’d be half as precious as that thing.”

Myungsoo merely smiled in amusement.

A/N:

Welp, this was supposed to be a one-shot, but I decided to split it into half because I myself don't like reading chapters which are waaaay too long. So yeah, word count for this first half is actually less than 1000, but meh. And you see the difference between the two drawings? LOL, the one with "Myungsoo" was drawn on my phone so it looked slightly better and the other was drawn with Paint. OTL. yes. sorry that I lack artistic skills and even dragged Myungsoo along with me for the "no-sense-of-art" thing. eheh.

ps. I actually had an angsty ending ready for this whole thing, but then I scrapped the whole idea away because well. Let's stick to fluff this time round.