Jeonghan stays for a while with his back against his apartment door. He runs his hands through his hair and lets out a long sigh, letting his head ever so slightly hit the door.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” he mutters to himself.

As much as he doesn’t want to be reminded of what had just happened; his mind has other ideas. His thoughts were playing back a constant loop of what had just occurred, Jeonghan’s face flushing remembering the fact that he was caught listening through a stranger’s door. No matter how much he tried to get out of it, there was no denying it. And he couldn’t believe the fact that he had finally seen this mysterious neighbour; the mystery that had been plaguing him for a year. But he still couldn’t understand why now? There had been no prior sign of life, plus the boy was not exactly the crazy recluse Jeonghan had been expecting…

“I should probably start unpacking some of those boxes,” the stranger had said. Jeonghan then remembers the moving van he saw outside on his way to work today, his whole body jolting to attention.

“No…” he whispers, reaching for his phone in his pocket.

“Pick up, pick up,” Jeonghan paces his tiny apartment, fixing up items slightly out of place.

“Yeah?” Mingyu answers, his voice sounding deep and groggy with sleep.

“What do you know about someone moving in today?” he asks in a rush of breath.

“What? Jeonghan…it’s late. We’re in the middle of a movie…”

“Hey, Jeonghan!” Jeonghan could hear Wonwoo call out in the background.

“Besides, why do you think I know everything?”

“Maybe because you do know everything about Pledis? Mingyu please.”

Jeonghan hears a loud sigh pass over the phone.

“Well…there was a moving van outside and I think Wonwoo helped him today,” Mingyu’s voice then becomes muffled as he begins talking to Wonwoo.

“Jeonghan?” Mingyu asks when he comes back to the phone.

“Still here.”

“Okay, well Wonwoo said that the guy told him that he was moving into 116. And that it didn’t click that that was the apartment next to yours.”

“Did he ask what happened to the old owner?” Jeonghan asks hopefully, his question followed with muffled conversation once again.

“He says he just carried a few boxes and hardly had the time to interrogate the guy.”

“Ha, very funny. Did he at least get a name or something?”

“But why are you so curious about this guy, huh?” Mingyu asks suggestively. Jeonghan can almost hear the eyebrow raise and sly smirk over the phone.

Jeonghan mentally curses himself, he should have known when to stop asking questions.

“Also, no,” Jeonghan finally hears Wonwoo’s deep voice clear over the speaker, “but he was cute.”

Jeonghan then hears a faint yelp and Wonwoo’s voice more distant now calling out, “but not as cute as you! Not as cute as you okay!?”

“Good,” Mingyu’s voice oozed with satisfaction.

“So now that we’ve heard from my boyfriend that the mystery boy is cute…tell us more! Have you spoke? Or was it just love at first sight? Were you both reaching for the elevator button?” Mingyu laughs and sounds giddy with excitement.

“God, you are so cheesy. And no. I have a neighbour now who isn’t an invisible recluse. I was curious, that’s all.”

“Okay…” Jeonghan can hear the scepticism in Mingyu’s tone but chooses to ignore it.

“I’ll let you get back to your movie.”

“Finally,” Mingyu sighs, but Jeonghan can tell that he’s smiling.

“Bye.”

“Go talk to him,” was Mingyu’s only reply before hanging up. 

Normally Jeonghan wouldn’t trust a guy who on multiple occasions has tried to convince him that as someone who is basically twice the height of some people, it makes total sense for him to order 2 pizzas just for himself; however, he did have a great relationship with Wonwoo.
Besides, Jeonghan knew that he could speak to his new neighbour, he wasn’t overly shy and he could do with a few more friends that he didn’t meet through work.

So the question on Jeonghan’s mind was now, how could he redeem his awful first impression? The only logical answer seemed to be somehow running into him in the Pledis building; but he wouldn’t be surprised if his neighbour ran the other way if he saw Jeonghan coming.

Jeonghan walked into 10:04 the day after the phone call with Mingyu to a wave of excited chaos. Not only was the café really busy but Mingyu had worked since their conversation…

“Love is the air!” Seungkwan scream sings, as Seokmin helps with the backup “Do do do do.”
“Except how could you not tell your best friend first!?” Seungkwan follows up.

“This is so exciting!” Soonyoung gushes, wrapping Jeonghan in a bear hug bouncing up and down.

“Mingyu told us everything,” Seungcheol winks and claps Jeonghan on the back as he walks past.

“You know Mingyu overreacts. I’m not in love, nothing is happening and I am prepared to give Mingyu a piece of my mind next time I see him,” Jeonghan states matter-of-factly as he tries to brush off the comments without giving away the slight pink tint to his cheeks.

But the staff at 10:04 were not the type to just let things go and so he was subjected to teasing throughout the entirety of his shift.

What Jeonghan didn’t tell the staff at 10:04 was that he had a plan. A very fool filled plan. But a plan none the less. Jeonghan was planning on waiting until he heard the elevator, which was pretty old and very loud and he was conveniently also going to need the elevator; hoping that it would be his neighbour going down to retrieve his mail, so Jeonghan could conveniently run into him and strike up a conversation.

And no matter what his friends were saying, this wasn’t an attempt to court him but instead an investigation. The way Jeonghan saw it, this was the only way he could ever find out about who had previously lived in apartment 116. His inside source just happened to also be really attractive.

A couple of days into his endeavour, Jeonghan worked out the fatal flaws in his plan.

One; 15-20 people live on this floor and all of them used the elevator. Jeonghan doesn’t want to mention how many times he’s ran out into the corridor to see someone else on his floor getting on or off the elevator.

Two; maybe his neighbour is active, he could take the stairs or he could just never get mail.

And three; Jeonghan can’t help but notice that this could be classified as stalker behaviour.