“As expected,”

Kyungsoo turned his head towards a tall, lean man who just entered the air conditioned room. His eyes narrowed upon seeing Kris approaching him. The taller man was holding a stack of paper which meant a lot of works to do for Kyungsoo. He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “What?” he replied and stared at Kris with his naturally wide eyes.

“Boss said that we need a helping hand here,” Kris stopped and put the stack on his table.

Kyungsoo looked at him incredulously. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

The taller man looked down at him and cleared his throat. “You’ve always been alone in this room,” he paused to take a look at Kyungsoo’s computer screen. “Boss just doesn’t want you to suffer, I guess.”

Kyungsoo had to roll his eyes at that. “Tell that rich- I’m fine.” he shot, turning back to his work.

“Well,” Kris shrugged and started walking towards the door. “You can’t do anything about it.”

This made Kyungsoo stopped typing whatever he was typing into his computer. “Wait,” his voice cracked, his eyes twitched. “What do you mean I can’t do anything about it?” he pressed.

Kris stopped in his tracks. “Boss has hired a young boy this morning.” he answered simply and continued walking. Kyungsoo leaned back on his chair, groaning. “But I like working here alone! Why didn’t he ask for my permission? Aish that rich- hyung, always does as he please,”

“Uhm,” he heard Kris humming and looked up. “I think it’s because he already knew that you wouldn’t agree so he didn’t tell you,”

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Who knows? Maybe I wouldn’t argue if he had told me in the first place! And what makes him think he has the right to—.”

A new guy whom Junmyun hired this morning entered the room and it made Kyungsoo’s words stuck in his throat. Holy . Kris turned around and saw a tanned boy casually walking in, greeting him cheerfully, still wasn’t fully aware that Kyungsoo was in the same room as him. “Yo,” Kris greeted back, jaw-dropped. He looked at the new guy and Kyungsoo interchangeably.

“W-What are you doing here?!” Kyungsoo shrieked, searching for something hard and heavy on his table to hurl at the new guy who was now leaning on the wall, equally as surprised.  “K-Kyungsoo?! W-Wait, don’t throw your monitor at me!” The guy said, pressing his back closer to the wall, he could feel his spine almost snap due to the pressures he got from both the hard surface and the tiny, wide-eyed man across the room.

Aish, that old hag, Kyungsoo said to himself.

“H-Hey,” Kris croaked, holding out his hands towards Kyungsoo to stop him from actually hurling the monitor at the new guy. “Calm your ! I know you don’t like it if someone’s getting into your peaceful work area but I never thought you’d be this angry,” he walked towards Kyungsoo and put his palm over the smaller man’s shoulder. He sworn he could see steams coming out of his nostrils like a bull.

“And young boy,” Kris looked up at the new guy. “What’s your name?” he asked. He thought he could hear Kyungsoo mumbling something about ‘don’t mind him’. Kris brushed that off and threw the new guy a small, cool smile.

“Kai,” the new guy answered, his voice barely audible.

“Sorry?” Kris stuttered, scratching the back of his head.

“It’s Kai,” Kyungsoo grumbled. “I told you to leave him alone. He can’t even properly introduce himself!” he whined and pouted. He then stood up and collected his things. “I’m going home.”

“What?” Kris looked at him in disbelief. “But it’s only seven,”

With all his might, Kyungsoo turned around and pointed his index finger towards Kai. “I don’t want to be in one room with this punk.”

“Hey!”

Kyungsoo raised a brow. “Why? You mad? Very well, then.” he smirked.

“What?” Kai tried to stop Kyungsoo from walking out of the room but the older man shoved him away from the doorway. “Hey, Kyungsoo, wait!” he managed to catch Kyungsoo’s wrist and the older man yanked it back from his grip. “Listen, I’m sorry, okay?” Kai said, almost pleading. He didn’t like pleading but he’d been doing that since he was in a relationship with Kyungsoo for three years.

Kyungsoo was one tough man.

Three years of pleading, crying, laughing, and mostly Kyungsoo ordering him around but Kai could care less because he loved the older man so much he could die. Until one night, a pretty guy named Baekhyun brought a deadly drunk Kai home. He was really grateful towards the guy but everything crumbled when Kai leaned down to kiss the pretty guy on the mouth. In front of his ing eyes. Kyungsoo got upset and so furious but he just couldn’t brush the guy’s apologies off as he kept bowing after Kyungsoo slammed the door shut in front of his face.

He brought the sleeping Kai in but he didn’t let him sleep in their shared bedroom. Kai ended up sleeping on the couch and woke up with a massive headache. He was really clueless of what had happened that made Kyungsoo fuming mad and locked him out.

“I need to talk to you.” Kai said, determined.

Kyungsoo almost fell for those eyes again as he shook his head and glared. “No.”

Kai sighed. “Kyungsoo, please,”

“No need to talk about what had happened. It’s in the past after all.” Kyungsoo retorted.

Kai looked at him in disbelief. “But I don’t even know what happened! You didn’t even tell me what happened, you didn’t let me know, and you broke us up just like that! Kyungsoo, tell me the one who’s supposed to be mad right now! It’s me! For god’s sake, it’s not you!”

There was a moment of deafening silence until Kyungsoo couldn’t take it anymore.

“I don’t want to see your face ever again!”

***

Kyungsoo requested to build a brick wall in the middle of his room the next day.

But of course, Junmyun refused the idea immediately.

He thought the idea was plain ridiculous and he couldn’t provide another cash to build a brick wall inside a 4 x 4 meters office room.

“Just let Kai work with you. I heard everything from Kris yesterday. I don’t know what happened between you two but I don’t want you to mix your personal life with your career, Kyungsoo,” Junmyun had said this morning when he walked in to Kyungsoo and Kai bickering—the smaller guy almost hurled the CPU towards Kai.

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes after Junmyun stopped talking. “You done?”

Junmyun sighed and rubbed his temples. Kyungsoo had been so difficult to deal with and he thought he managed to get ahold of his childhood friend when in fact, he couldn’t even reach Kyungsoo who seemed so distant nowadays. Maybe he would try and ask him for a coffee and talk the problem out later.

“Do anything you want to do but not building anything inside this room, get it?”

There was a distinct gasp echoed around the air-conditioned room.

“What if I get injured?” Kai yelped.

“And no violence,” Junmyun wiggled his index finger in front of Kyungsoo’s face and Kai sighed in relief.

The next thing they knew was Junmyun left the room and they were left alone. There was a long, deafening silence and neither of them moved from where they were standing. When Kai wanted to talk, Kyungsoo beat him to it.

“Don’t think I’ll be easy around you,” the smaller guy muttered and walked towards the photocopying machine in the corner of the room. He crouched down and checked the papers container. It was empty. He turned his head quickly towards Kai, almost snapping his neck bones. “Did you use the papers for those ty paper cranes again?” his narrowed eyes made the taller guy uneasy.

“Uh, well…” Kai rubbed his neck and smiled awkwardly.

Kyungsoo glared but softened when he saw Kai still looking uneasy. He stood back up and went back to his table, resuming his work.