Every time Chanyeol walks out of their cubicle to have lunch in the cafeteria, he would always tap Irene and invite her to join him but she would always kindly reject his offer. This day isn't any different.

"Come on, my Mom cooked her specialty for me today." Chanyeol said showing Irene his lunch box.

"Wow, I would love to Chanyeol, but I need to finish something urgent." Irene looked up at the tall man and explained.

"You've been working with urgent projects..." Chanyeol sighed. "What time will you be eating then?" He smiled like he thought of a great idea.

"Don't even think of waiting for me. Go have your lunch, Chanyeol." Irene smiled kindly and Chanyeol can see how tired Irene is.

"It must be great to be a genius, being able to finish tasks ahead of time and being able to eat lunch on time." Chanyeol recognized Jongin's murmurs from the other end of the cube. Jongin looked at Chanyeol and Chanyeol looked at him at the same time and he can tell that Jongin is not pleased with Chanyeol having lunch ahead of them.

"My goodness, Jongin, just spare Chanyeol will you?" Baekhyun said facing his laptop but Chanyeol could tell he looked annoyed.

"I was just saying that he's - " Jongin shifted his seat to face the person beside him and answered him back but Kyungsoo interrupted.

"Stop that." Kyungsoo stood up. "Chanyeol, let's go have lunch." He took his wallet from his bag and walked ahead of Chanyeol. Everyone was surprised with what just happened - Kyungsoo saved someone from Jongin's antics and he's Chanyeol.

---

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were quiet while eating. They've been there for 15 minutes munching their food but it was only Chanyeol who was making brief glances at the smaller guy. When he noticed that Kyungsoo is almost done and was just drinking his water, Chanyeol hurriedly ate the last spoon of his food. Just when he was drinking his water, Kyungsoo stood up and was ready to leave when Chanyeol stopped him.

He spoke still with some food in his mouth, "Wait for me, Kyungsoo!"

Kyungsoo stopped and looked back, "You still had food in your mouth but you drank water and you talked just now. Disgusting." Kyungsoo was indeed disgusted and he wanted to leave and ignore him but he waited anyway. He watched Chanyeol taking his time to chew his food and gulp down his drink but the other didn't notice. When Chanyeol was already wiping his mouth with tissue, he looked at Kyungsoo and he was startled that the other man was staring at him.

"Am I still disgusting?" Chanyeol asked confused, slowly rising from his seat.

"No. Let's go." Kyungsoo looked away when he realized Chanyeol caught him staring.

---

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were walking down the hallway but they were not heading to their office. They went inside the elevator and went down.

"Where are we going?" Chanyeol asked. Even when he got longer legs, he tried not to make bigger steps than Kyungsoo was making so the smaller guy would lead him. "Shouldn't we head back to the office, our break time's almost over."

They entered an alley that lead them to a smoking area. It was surrounded with green plants and there were bins for cigarette butts. Chanyeol saw two people were already there smoking.

"Why are we here?" But just when he asked, Kyungsoo took out a lighter from his pocket and lit one cigarette. Chanyeol didn't know Kyungsoo smokes so he was surprised by what he saw.

"Do you want one?" Kyungsoo offered Chanyeol his small box of cigarettes.

"No, I don't smoke." Chanyeol kindly rejected him and coughed a bit as he involuntarily inhaled cigarette smoke. 

"Oh... I thought you might want to try but I guess you do not like it." Kyungsoo was referring to Chanyeol's coughing and Chanyeol thought he offended his teammate. "You can go now if you want."

"No, I'll stay." Chanyeol immediately answered. He wasn't sure but he thinks he saw Kyungsoo smile a bit. He shrugged his assumptions and just stood beside him.

"How is it going?" Kyungsoo asked.

"What?" Chanyeol stopped spacing out and gave Kyungsoo a confused look.

"Luhan's case." 

"Oh..." Chanyeol was thinking whether he should tell Kyungsoo about Suho already or keep it to himself for now. After a few seconds of thinking, he heard Kyungsoo said, "No progress, huh?"

"Oh.. it's not like that. I did make a few progress." Chanyeol faced him, waved his two hands emphasizing his "No".

"Then tell me." Kyungsoo exhaled the smoke.

"I'll keep it to myself for now."

"You already have a suspect but he's one of TD7 so you opt not to tell me so I won't mess up my team's relationship with each other?" Kyungsoo predicted what Chanyeol had to say. The taller guy just bowed his head as he stood by his decision. "Alright then, if that's what you want." Kyungsoo continued.

"Why do you want to catch the culprit so badly?" Chanyeol asked. Kyungsoo stopped smoking and Chanyeol noticed how he gulped.

"I already told you why." He answered.

"Because you think he's going to do same thing again to another employee?" 

"Yeah." Kyungsoo was about to put back the cigarette between his lips but Chanyeol said something that made him stop.

"So you do care for other people." There was silence. "Why don't you just loosen up? You seem like a very nice friendly person."

"Psshh.." Kyungsoo briefly laughed. "You said the same thing Luhan told me. But the difference was he told me that a week after I got into the team. It took you more than a month."

"Does it matter?

"That's how he genuinely wanted to make friends with everyone."

"I wanted to be friends with you, too, but you guys are just so...." Chanyeol found it hard to say the word to describe TD7.

"Nah.. Don't mind what I said."

"So you WERE close with Luhan." Chanyeol emhpasized and looked away. Seems like he can't look at Kyungsoo when he felt a little jealousy all of a sudden.

"He's my boyfriend." Kyungsoo calmly exhaled the smoke and smirked but Chanyeol almost broke his neck for abruptly facing Kyungsoo. He's surprised, Kyungsoo thought. "You look startled. Do you hate people like us?"

"No! No! No!" This time, Chanyeol waved his hands more and said no louder before Kyungsoo gets the wrong idea. The other men smoking in the area looked at them.

"Nobody knows in the office that we're going out." Kyungsoo continued with his trivia. "Or... They knew but just didn't confront us about it."

"So it was a pretty short relationship then?"

"Was?" Kyungsoo

"Uhhh..." Chanyeol wasn't sure if he was ready to hear from Kyungsoo something he just realized.

"We're still together." Silence. "Are you judging me right now?" Kyungsoo threw the cigarette into the bin. "One, I smoke. Two, I like men. Deal with it." Kyungsoo taps Chanyeol's arm and walked ahead first. "It's time to go back to work, Mister!" Kyungsoo called out to him. And Chanyeol snapped back to reality and walked behind Kyungsoo in silence.