“What the hell were you thinking?” Jinwoo asked, eyes scanning Taehyun up and down. The other had finally thought to tell Jinwoo about what had happened a few days later, asking for advice as well.

“I don’t know it was so sudden and well…”

“So you don’t have a reason for this at all.” He sighed, plopping himself down in his office chair. “Taehyun, you were just freaking out to me about how much you liked this guy and all of the cute dates you went on, but now you want to just bail out? Especially right at the moment he’s confessing to you?”

“I was just thinking too much,” he reasoned to Jinwoo. “What if something goes wrong? We’re like natural enemies in the entertainment world.”

“So what?” Jinwoo questioned, raising his eyebrows. “Screw our job if it’s going to get in the way of something like that. You’re not thinking of staying forever, right?”

Taehyun looked around the room before bowing his head down slightly. “No, I’ve never thought about it,” he admitted. In all honesty, he had always hoped to escape this building rather than stay a few more years inside of it.

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say. You have the potential for other things, Taehyun, and running around and chasing stars is not a great accomplishment to brag about. Heck, I want to get a different job as soon as I can, too,” Jinwoo admitted frankly.

“It is stressful in this office,” Taehyun acknowledged, somewhat managing a smile

“Very,” his friend agreed. “Anyways, boss wanted me to hand you your next field assignment,” Jinwoo said, turning back towards his desk. He returned with a blank sheet of white paper that had an address hastily scrawled in blue pen. “Besides, I think it would good for you to get out and do something outside of the office. When’s the last time you had a stakeout?” he asked out of curiosity.

“Since it was with you at the hotel,” Taehyun replied blandly. He told no one this, but he had been refusing all of his boss’ offers to go out and gather more pictures of celebrities, telling him that he had a broken camera that wouldn’t get replaced until next week. His boss had no other option than to go along with the excuse, seeing that Taehyun was his literal star photographer and that he seemed to need a break.

“Well that was like over a month ago!” Jinwoo exclaimed incredulously. “How could you avoid something for so long?” Taehyun just shrugged, and Jinwoo took it as a signal that he didn’t want to pursue any further conversation.

Instead, Jinwoo stood up to pat his shoulder and led the other out of his office. “It’s Kim Woobin this time, if that makes you happy. Don’t you remember those times you’ve gushed over him?” he said, trying to cheer Taehyun up.

A smile tugged at Taehyun’s lips but refused to extend past a flat line. “I’ll have fun then,” he replied to Jinwoo. The elder man then took a few minutes to give him details about the location – how it was a five-star hotel nearby, how Woobin was spotted checking in this morning, and how Taehyun’s goal would be to catch going in or out of the hotel. If he was going out, the mission would be to follow him to the destination. If he was going in, the mission would also be to follow him to the room and find anything interesting. Taehyun blankly nodded as he took in the information, feeling somewhat resentful for all the prying he had to do.

Nonetheless, anything topped writing an article about Nicki Minaj’s visit to South Korea.

~~~

After several days of silence from his Taehyun, Seungyoon found himself returning to the recording studio with Minsung eager to meet him. The silence had been suffocating to him; however, he was left with nothing to do except wait for Taehyun to initiate something. To be fair, Seungyoon was overly passionate in being too forward, but he felt that he did not deserve to be ignored, judging by all the calls that Taehyun refused to answer.

Here he was sitting in the studio, sighing and sighing and sighing until Minsung snapped him out of his daze. “Hey, Seungyoon. I’m kind of waiting on you to start the track. Are you ready?” he asked, eyeing the idle man with suspicion.

Seungyoon peered down at the lyrics of the infamous track five, a song that he had failed to provide enough so-called “emotion” the last time he tried to sing it. But even standing here and sulking over Taehyun didn’t make the somber mood fitting to the song, so he just blankly stared at it with confusion.

“Do you mind if I change the lyrics around?” he finally suggested after a minute, noticing that Minsung was about to lose his mind just sitting and watching nothing happen.

“No I don’t mind,” the other replied apprehensively. “It’s just that you’ve never touched the lyrics of a song before. You told me that it was job of the lyricist and they did it better