Seunghoon was sitting alone at the lobby, eyes fully alert, when he saw two familiar figures walking casually from the lift area to the restaurant serving breakfast. He secretly snapped a few pictures and quickly forwarded them to Seungyoon. A few seconds later, a call came in.

“Yah! Hoon! Why do you send me pictures of DJ Nam and his manager? Where is Mino?” Seungyoon exclaimed through the phone.

Seunghoon retorted, “How would I know? I think Nam is going for breakfast, but Mino is not here.”

“Then where is Jinwoo?”

“He just woke up a few minutes ago. Since he woke up late, I told him to just eat snacks for breakfast and go straight to 27th floor.”

“Why 27th floor?” Seungyoon asked.

“Mino and DJ Nam are staying there. I was thinking maybe our maknae can snoop around and find out their room number,” Seunghoon answered, still looking around the lobby with ultra-sharp gaze. “By the way, Yoonie-hyung, don’t you think you were a bit harsh with Jinwoo? I had no time to say anything to you because we were rushing for this trip, but I don’t think he deserves to be fired. I mean, he made mistakes here and there, but he always works hard and he’s very talented. You know I wouldn’t have introduced him to our news agency if I didn’t think he had the potential.”

Seungyoon scratched his head. “Yeah, after I thought about it, I feel quite bad. Jinwoo is a nice kid and he wrote some excellent articles for us. Seunghoon-ah, I’m honestly reconsidering against firing him, but promise me you won’t say anything to Jinwoo. I want him to try his very best for this assignment. I know he can do it.”

“OMG you are the best boss ever! MWAH MWAH!” 

“STOP IT! You’re so gross!” Seungyoon shouted. “Anyway, you guys take care in Tokyo and keep sending me updates, alright? I’m have to go for brunch with the the higher-ups of JYP Entertainment.”

“Okay handsome Seungyoon-hyung~~~” Seunghoon ended the call cheerfully and he mumbled to himself, “Now is the time to call my cute dongsaeng Jinwoo~~~”

***

The lift doors opened and Jinwoo stepped onto 27th floor, wearing his favourite grey hoodie. He rubbed his sleepy eyes with one hand and held his melon milk carton with the other. He barely walked a few steps when his phone rang. “Yes, Seunghoon-hyung?”

“Hellooo sleepy Jinu! Where are you?”

“27th floor, hyung. Just starting to walking around.”

“Great. Keep alert. Nam and manager are downstairs so keep a lookout for Mino and note down their room number! We really need to have a surefire way to access them in private.”

“Alright, alright. OH! Wait, I think I see a swag-looking dude coming out from a room. I’ll hang up first, hyungnim!” Jinwoo ended the call without even waiting for his hyung’s reply. 

He was on the mission! The guy’s was walking 15 metres in front of Jinwoo, wearing a beanie, a baggy white T-shirt, long baggy pants and combat boots. Jinwoo was trailing stealthily behind for a while when he saw the bright red bandages on the guy’s left wrist. “Eh, Hanbin, is that you?” He asked tentatively.

The other froze and without turning back, he asked, “Jinwoo?”

“Yes it’s me!” Jinwoo walked faster towards his new friend and said “Good morningggg!”, but the latter half-shouted, “Wait, wait, stop! Don’t come closer!” He took out a black scarf from his pocket and tied it with difficulty around the lower half of his face before turning around. “Hi, Jinwoo.”

Jinwoo stared suspiciously. “Why do you keep hiding your face from me? Are you a secret agent or something?”

The taller guy panicked and said, “No - no - James Bond is cool but I’m - okay, I think my face is not as perfect as yours and my skin isn’t milky white too. It’s embarrassing, so I don’t want you to see it.” Such a lame excuse, but Mino had no choice if he wanted to keep hiding his identity for the time being.

Jinwoo pouted, “I’m not that shallow. And I’m not as good-looking as you describe me. If not, I would have been a celebrity instead of chasing celebrities around hahaha! Anyway are you going down for breakfast?”

“Yeah. What are you doing here? I thought your room is on 25th floor?”

“Ah, my sunbae told me to look out for one of my targets. He said Mino should still be in his room.”

“Ah, the rapper guy?”

“Yeah. I feel bad for being so stalker-ish though, but my sunbae said I have no choice since my job is on the line. I woke up late so I could not even eat breakfast, although I heard this hotel serves really nice pancakes … luckily you bought me lots of food yesterday and this melon milk is super awesome! Wanna try?” Jinwoo shook his milk carton around and smiled.

“What? You haven’t eaten at all?”

“I ate a few cheese crackers before I came up here. My sunbae specifically instructed me to rush so … “

He did not let Jinwoo finish his sentence and just waved at Jinwoo to follow him, “Come here. I just realised I can’t exactly use my left hand to take food from the buffet downstairs. Let’s just order room service and at least you'll get to eat something.”

“But I need to do my job!” Jinwoo hesitated and he looked down, staring at his feet.

“I will help you later. After you eat, I can accompany you stalk whoever you want whenever you want. For now, can you eat with me, please? I need someone to help me cut up my food too.”

Jinwoo did not want to defy his sunbae’s orders, but he felt quite pitiful of the injured guy in front of him, so he said, “Okay, but I will only stay for half an hour. After that I have to get back to work.”

***

Mino led Jinwoo into his room, and while walking in, he tried to cover his and Taehyun’s luggage tags with any extra shirts or jackets that he could find. He also texted Taehyun and  Manager Choi, “Guys, don’t come up! Reporter lurking on 27th floor! Will let you know when he’s no longer around."

Jinwoo stared at the windows, “Wah, your room is slightly bigger than mine! And the view is nicer too. I wish I could see Tokyo Tower from my room too.”

Mino laughed, shoving two files with huge YG logos into the wardrobe and sliding the door to close it quietly. “Three of us are sharing a room, so they gave us a bigger room.” He went to the table and grabbed the room service menu. “What do you wanna eat for breakfast, Jinwoo?”

“Anything is fine. Oh, Hanbin-ah, I will pay you back later? My wallet is in my luggage downstairs.” Jinwoo plastered himself on the windows, taking pictures of the scenery with his phone camera. 

“Yeah, no worries. Eh, by the way you haven’t given me your number yet!”

Jinwoo turned around and smacked his head, “Oh my God! Sorry, sorry, I crashed right after getting back to my room yesterday so I completely forgot.” He called Mino’s number through his phone immediately. “Got it?”

Mino took out his phone and saved the number. “Yup!” Then he asked Jinwoo in a serious tone. “Jinwoo, can I ask something? Why do you wanna be a reporter? I heard it’s a lot of hard work and many famous people might end up hating you.”

The other sat down on a chair and said, “Umm, I found out I like photography, writing, music and movies. And I think the only job that coincides with all my passions is entertainment reporter, so I just decided to try it out and I managed to get a job with WINNER.” Jinwoo stopped to think for a while before continuing, "About famous people hating me, I think it’s not entirely true. I wrote a music review about Akdong Musicians’ album and I interviewed them about it a year ago, and apparently the articles increased their popularity among the public. They called my agency and thanked me personally, you know. I was really really happy.”

“Why did your boss want to fire you then?” The story piqued Mino's curiosity. “You look passionate and talented in your field. It does not make sense to let you go.”

“Ah, I’m quite clumsy and I botched up my latest assignment. My boss told me to cover a celebrity scandal. I didn’t really like it, I prefer doing reviews and personal interviews, but I’m still a junior so I had to do whatever had to be done. But my camera battery died at the critical moment, so I failed. My boss was really disappointed.”

“Famous celebrities??? Who is dating who?” 

Jinwoo smiled, “Sorry, Hanbinnie, but I can’t tell you. I’m bound by a professional code of ethics and I don’t have physical evidence anyway.”

“Ah, it’s okay.” Mino was rather disappointed about not being able to coax out some hot gossips, but he realized something. Jinwoo might be young and he looked like a lost boy most of the time, but he was a man with integrity. Someone who most likely would not twist his words and someone who tried to do his best for the celebrities he met and interviewed. Mino tried to form his next sentence, “Jinwoo, actually, I - “

Someone rang the doorbell. “Room service!"