Sunjung had never quite understood what a ‘loud silence’ meant. As she stood in the elevator, she was beginning to realise what it really meant. It was getting difficult to breath in the small metal box they momentarily couldn’t escape.
Sunjung stood in one corner of the elevator while Lu Han stood on the other.
The two hadn’t exchanged many words that morning.  For the first time, Lu Han had been reluctant.
He had greeted her with a ‘good morning’ and nothing after that.
She had returned the greeting and nothing further.

Sunjung had contemplated apologising many times but the words hadn’t left .
It was so simple, saying ‘I’m sorry’.
It was just so easy to say those words to a stranger that she accidentally bumped into on the streets; it was easy to say those words to a cashier who she forced to wait for too long.
Then how was it so difficult to say it to someone she knew well enough and to someone that really deserved it?
She had never been good with apologising.

There were only a few instances in Sunjung’s twenty-two years of life where she had been truly and sincerely apologetic. Once when she had broken a comb that was a gift from her late grandfather to her grandmother, the other when she had caused her brother to trip down the stairs and he had broken his arm (she had cried more than Junyoung had that day). There were more that Sunjung didn’t (and didn’t want to) remember.
Sunjung sometimes wondered if it was her stubbornness that led to her not being able to make many friends. She was not sure if she liked that part of her or not.

Taking a deep breath in, she rehearsed the apology in her mind.
I shouldn’t have teased you about something like that. I’m sorry, Lu Han.
It sounded so stupid in her mind. And she wondered if she had always been so full of pride that she couldn’t even apologise to someone who actually deserved it.
But she had decided she would do it because she had been rude enough to Lu Han before.

In an effort to break the suffocating silence, she softly said his name.
He looked at her abruptly, his eyes wide and his lips about to turn into a grin.

But her almost over-rehearsed apology never came.
The elevator stopped on the fourth floor and a middle-aged man stepped in and greeted them both with a small nod of acknowledgement.
He stood right between Lu Han and Sunjung; they could only take a short glance at each other and then turn away.
At that moment both of them couldn’t help but think that they should have stood next to each other. It was better that way.

When they finally exited the elevator and the man walked ahead, Sunjung turned to Lu Han who surprisingly was still beside her.
“Lu Han, I’m—”

He didn’t let her complete her sentence.
“It’s okay. I’ll see you at six.”
He smiled at her and hurried off.

Sunjung could only stare after him. He hadn’t even let her complete her apology. She didn’t even know if she was disappointed or just angry at that moment.
All she knew was she hadn’t started her apology to have him not hear it and that she still owed him an apology because she had never apologised for her behaviour.
It was then she realised that Lu Han had never complained about it and instead befriended her.

She owed Lu Han more than a simple ‘I’m sorry’.

***

Lu Han was on the verge of banging his head on the table, he was that frustrated.
Their team was supposed to pitch an ad for some hot chocolate brand.
Winter was fast approaching and everyone apparently was in a mood for warm drinks by the fireplace.
They had a week till the deadline but the team weren’t procrastinators. They liked to have a key idea ready and two to three more backup ideas on the very first day, no matter how much time it took.

“What if we put in cats in the ad?” Baekhyun suggested, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“Why?” Lu Han asked in reluctance.

“Well,” Baekhyun straightened himself and cleared his throat, “there is a reason cat videos are so popular.”

“Why is that?” Sunmi, a copywriter, asked.

“You out of all people should know,” Baekhyun said in a low voice, as if he didn’t mean for her to hear it but the smirk that he sported told otherwise.

“Mind you own business, Byun Baekhyun,” the bespectacled woman glared.
Sunmi never quite understood what Baekhyun’s problem with her relationship status was.
Baekhyun let out a cackle that was undeniably evil.

“Can we go back to the problem here?” Lu Han rolled his eyes, becoming more frustrated by the moment.
Why did he have to get stuck with these idiots? He could have been the Creative Manager of any team but he had become in charge of them.

“Cats are a great idea. Single women who don’t have lovers in the winter are usually complaining about it and are inevitably lonely. Cats are a single woman’s best friend.”
Baekhyun s