NOW

MARCH 2017

IT was 4.00 AM in the morning but Jongin hasn’t been able to sleep, not even a wink. He tossed around in his bed hoping to find the right comfortable position to sleep in but it just didn’t work. He didn’t know if it was the new room, or the new bed or the freshly washed sheet but he felt just out of place. He wasn’t like this last night. And this definitely wasn’t because of the call he hasn’t received.

Then, his gaze fell on the doors to his closet – where Sehun has kept Taemin’s letter box.

He sat upright on his bed, legs still covered by his warm comforter. Jongin mused, thinking when was the last time he laid a finger on that box?

Exactly three years ago.

Jongin sighed, picking up his comforter with three fingers only and removed it off him. Jongin walked towards the closet. He pushed the door and it clicked open. He grabbed the round handle and pulled back. There was the box – still and untouched, sitting expectantly under the drawer. He bent down to pick it up.

Jongin dragged his foot towards the study desk, the night lamp and took his seat. His gaze never slipped from the box. He didn’t know what to do next – go back to bed, or try to open just one of the letters. He could feel his heart beating nervously, just like it did three years ago when he first saw the letters.

He decided to go back to bed. It was 5.00 AM, and he remembered something about meeting his professor at his university, but he promised to get back to the box once he returned home.

IT was only weekends two days ago and Naeun couldn’t believe that Monday has finally arrived. Still, she desperately squeezed into her skinny slack – custom made for herself only and put on a white cotton blouse, layering it next with a champagne-colored Armani blazer. Naeun then fixed her hair slightly as she decided to let her hair loose and free before grabbing the tote bag and left the house.

She glanced at her Guess wrist watch and smiled to herself. She was glad Mina didn’t give her the pushy call, hurrying her to dress up quickly like how Mina always did every morning.

“THEY can’t do that. They have no right to do that. They might be the one in charge, but they still need to consider our circumstances,” Jongin exclaimed when he first read the email displayed on the whole monitor of Professor Kibum’s laptop sent by the Blue Diamond Hotel.

“You should be on your knees by now, Jongin,” Kibum pulled back the laptop in his direction. “You should be grateful they even accepted us without any interviews.”

“I won’t go even if they set up the interviews. They already informed us late, and wanted to arrange an interview on top of that? We’re only interns, c’mon now. The most work we would do is photocopying all the documents and making sure people get their right coffees. You don’t need interviews for that.”

“Not unless they decide to hire you,” Kibum fixed his reading glasses before adding, “Permanently.”

“They want us to start today, Jongin,” said Soojung who has been a silent observer the whole time Jongin has been arguing the content of the email.

“Yeah, obviously,” Jongin jeered. “In less than 15 freaking minutes.”

“Shouldn’t we hurry up now? The Blue Diamond Hotel is literally five blocks away from our campus,” Soojung said calmly, already grabbing her backpack with her. “C’mon now. Getting angry won’t get us nowhere.”

“Oh! So that was the name.”

NAEUN paid for her morning coffee she bought in the cafe of the hotel, and thanked the cashier for her work. She took a small sip before attending to her ringing phone.

“Hello?” She answered naturally. “Mina?”

“Naeun, I have a good news and a bad news for you.”

“You sound pretty eager, but I’m literally on my way to office right now. Can you wait?””

“Which news shall I break to you first?” Mina asked as though Naeun hasn’t spoken.

Naeun rolled her eyes, pressing the ‘up’ button to her elevator. “This guy,” Naeun clenched her teeth, feeling unappreciated by Mina’s action.

“Bad news first.”

“Bad new first it is then,” Mina huffed before catching her breath.

“Are you alright?”

“I am,” Mina said weakly. “Maybe. It’s just that, I won’t be able to continue working in the meantime. I need my labour leave starting today. That’s probably bad news for you but I actually see it as my good news.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am. And the good news is that – and don’t worry, this is actually good news for both of us.”

“What?”

“The interns are getting into work starting today. I have emailed them all – only two actually – how they are going to start today, and have apologized for being inconvenient. I told them that if they agreed to do the internship here, all they need to do is come. If not, we’ll consider they have declined our offer. Here’s the interesting part, the two interns are a male student and a female student. I thought it would probably best to let the girl to fill in for my secretarial work, but turns out she’s an accounting major, which is totally the opposite of what I really do. So I had to let the guy fill in for me.”

“That is no good news, girl. What major is he anyway?”

“Hotel management – too obvious, isn’t it?”

Naeun shrugged, and finally stepped inside the elevator. “Kinda. Proceed please.”

“Okay – so, I have arranged that male intern to fill in for my job, cuz you know, you’re the head of department of the hotel management, and he’s majoring in hotel management, so, yeah,” Mina ended awkwardly. “That was the interesting part – I hope.”

“I don’t like working with young guys. They are like the sloppiest creature, clumsy and out of place. I can’t handle that big of a mess. I can’t even handle my bleeding cuts, Mina.”

“Don’t worry. I looked over his resumes and background. I think you’ll be fine. And I can’t really assign the accountant girl – you know we need all the help we could get down at the finance services.”

“Why can’t you just let me be selfish?” Naeun sighed heavily, almost putting on a dramatic show. “I don’t like being the good guy.”

“You’ll be fine, dear. Just assist him well, and I don’t know, try to get along. He might help you a lot more than you need.”

“I don’t need his help. He’s only an intern. He doesn’t know much.”

“Don’t be cocky, and pray for me okay. I think I have to stay in the hospital starting tomorrow. My back is seriously killing me, and I can’t handle my elder kids running around, screaming and shouting at everything.”

Mina laughed shortly as she changed her listening ear. “I will. Have plenty of rest, okay? You’ll need it by the time I get rid of the intern.”

“Don’t kill that poor intern. Oh did I tell you he’s your age?”

“My age?”

“Yeah. He’s your age. Well he’s older by 1 month actually, but yup, you guys are leettle fwendz, a dongsaeng-oppar fwend,”Mina mimicked in her cutesy a.k.a annoying tone that she always used to get her little kids to eat.

“Stop that you weird parasite host,” Naeun said firmly, disgusted and shut dead the conversation.

Naeun finally stepped out when she has reached the right floor. The walkway in front of the elevator was still quiet and calm; probably because she particularly early that morning. The door to the elevator closed behind her and she proceeded into her office room.

Naeun swung the door open and casually threw her bag onto the chair and walked past a mirror to get to the cabinet behind her desk. She stopped for a moment and got to her mirror to restudy her appearance, a routine she seldom did unless it was necessary.

And that morning she sensed something was wrong.

Naeun leaned closer to the mirror, scrutinizing every detail about her. Hey eyeliner, her red lipstick, her loose hair and her shirt. Naeun leaned in, and narrowed her eyes. Her gaze redirected to her red lips.

Wait! Why is my upper lip liner strangely thick compared to the bottom one?

This was the thing Naeun hated to fix but she simply couldn’t let go. Naeun turned to her bag and rummaged through her bag. She fished out the blood red lip liner in one of her many compartments after some moment. She bent down, one hand supporting her body while the other was getting ready to fix the deadly mishap as she slowly leaned forward, close to her own reflection.

You better not mess with me, sir. Not today. Not ever.

Naeun puckered up her lips – duckfaced - and started to draw thinly on her bottom lip in order to even out the thickness. She pursed her lips afterwards and remained in that sensual position to restudy her liner. Maybe she should layer it again. It was still uneven, she thought.

Okay now, please work.

This time, Naeun leaned a lot closer to the door – only a breadth close to kissing the door - because she was practically short-sighted when it came about studying little things. It never occurred to Naeun that that was probably the worst timing ever to fix her lip liner – until the door to her office swung upon without any warning.

THE 5-star Blue Diamond hotel was very grand and classy in Jongin’s eyes. He knew too well that he and Soojug were getting late to their first day of work but basically, it was not their fault.

They waited in front of the elevator, and took that opportunity to carefully enjoy the wonderful interior design of the hotel. The high chandelier sparkled as it caught the sun ray that in refracted from a tall glass just above the entrance door. The receptionist behind the counter was busy fixing their make-up. It is said that the eye of the hotel laid in the beauty of the smiles of its staff.

“Which floor are you heading?” Soojung asked right away after they both have stepped inside the elevator.

“8,” Jongin answered casually, inserting his hands into his pockets. “You?”

“6.”

“You look nervous, Soojung. Relax. Are you scared because we are late 3 minutes?”

“No,” Soojung lied quickly and turned away.

“You’ll be fine. Wanna grab some lunch later?”

“Yeah,” she smiled but still shook inside. “Call me okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded and held the elevator when it reach 6^th floor. “Jung Soojung, good luck on your first day!”

“You too Kim Jongin,” Soojung shouted back before waving Jongin goodbye.

The door closed Jongin stood back. To be honest, despite looking cool and composed outwardly, Jongin could actually relate to how Soojung was feeling. He might be late and have a fairly good excuse for that, but he still hated to think that he was actually stepping into an adult’s world. He was about to begin his first job, ever.

Jongin felt like forever for the elevator to go up another two floor to reach the 8^th floor. The bell inside the elevator finally rang and the door slid open, revealing a wide working are filled with cubicles.

Jongin was certain he was quite late for that day but weird enough the cubicles around the wide office weren’t filled up completely. They probably have a close relationship to the big boss to come this late to work

Or the big boss was actually bad at time punctuality to have their workers come late.

 Jongin felt lost wandering around the quarter filled cubicles. He looked at them, one by one and realized they all one thing in common – none of them looked like some zombies from the Walking Dead series so Jongin thought the work time here was not severe.

“Hey you,” a man from behind called him in a rude manner and Jongin turned around to find out who was the caller.

“Yes?”

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I’m an intern. I just start today.”

“Doing what?”

Jongin held back his anger and decided it was not worth it to bicker with this stressed out male worker. This dude probably just got told off by his wife, and for all Jongin know he might have to work under his wings later.

“I was told to replace Mrs. Lee Mina who’s on a labor leave.”

“Oh! You’re under Miss Son then.”

Jongin forced out a smile. “Can you, kindly, show me where Miss Son is?”

“I don’t know if she’s arrived yet but try to find her in her office.”

“I see,” Jongin nodded. “And where exactly is her office?”

“The room that has her name written on the door, you slowpoke. Jeez, do I need to spell out everything to you?” The male worker then went away, mumbling something incoherent under his breath.

Jongin flared his nostrils out at him in a protesting manner. “Jerk.”

Jongin rushed out of the maze-iike cubicles and decided to walk along the lines of rooms in case his boss’s room would be one of them. He sauntered carefreely, already passing three doors when the sign on the fourth door finally read SON NAEUN.

Jongin, being an ignorent bonehead he was, absentmindedly swung the door open as though he was not accustomed to knock-first-before-you-come-in rule.

“What the- ” Jongin jumped backward, eyes staring wide judgingly at the strange woman who was leaning too close to the mirror, with her sticking out.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL ,” Naeun shouted, embarrassed but mostly furious by this stranger rude intrusion. “Who are you and why didn’t you knock first?”

“I’m sorry,” he quickly forced out. “I didn’t know you were here. Some grumpy guy told me you were not yet here.”

“Which grumpy guy?”

“I don’t know his name.”

Naeun narrowed her eyes and scanned the tall, handsome guy carefully from head to toe. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

“No,” Jongin denied in a clipped clear voice. Wow I didn’t stutter.

Naeun lifted her chin and frowned at him in astonishment. “Are you the new janitor?”

“No.” Jongin almost let out a scoff.

“Cleaner?”

“Do I even dress like a cleaner?”

“Technician?”

“Nice try, but no,” Jongin snapped.

“Then I see no reason why you should even barge into my office. Are you trying to extract some precious information from my hotel – wait, who are you working for and what hotel are you from?!”

Jongin dropped his mouth – his ears just refused to believe what nonsensical trash just came out from his boss’s mouth - and was very close to smack his forehead hard. She definitely deserved a big ‘facepalm’ from each worker here who have been obediently slaving under her command.

“I am the new intern, Miss Son. I just got an e-mail literally this morning from this hotel and asked me and my classmate to start our internship today.”

Naeun rushed a laugh, but it sounded fake and made-up. She got around her table and sat at the edge the table on her cheek, gaze holding intensely at him. She crossed her leg and grabbed a file on her table.

“You got a name?” She asked mockingly, flipping through the thin resume.

Jongin gave a deep frown to her rude tone but Naeun never tore his gaze from his document to see that.

 “Kim Jongin.”

“Do you know my name?”

“Yes.” The gulp he took down was very bitter. Let's just endure everything first.

“What is it?”

“Son Naeun,” Jongin gritted his teeth, and forced himself to calm down. Why was this woman testing his patience early in the morning?

"Atta boy,” Naeun dropped the file and headed to her table. “So, you, Mr. Kim, will be my assistant for the whole three months. or less, and I’ve got some simple rules for you if you wish to have good evaluation from me. Rule number one – don’t ever do what you just did, again. Rule number two – don’t make me mad. Rule number three – don’t break the first two rules.”

Jongin nodded, and kept his mouth shut. He was not terrified of her to be exact; he just didn’t want to utter another word because this woman was not worth his time – or his saliva.

“And rule number four – don’t lie to me.”

“Is that rule breakable?”

Naeun shrugged, smirking curiously at him. “It depends on how you answer my next question.”

“What is it, Miss Son?”

“You’re that jerk, aren’t you? The one who shut the door in my face.”

***

Oh my God you guize T^T thanks alot for the wishes 

And thank you for understanding~

See  you in two weeks ;__;

p/s : I still feel bad but I really need some time off /wipes nose/