Mei Qi would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she looked forward to walking through the park everyday on the way to work.

It’s been a little over a week since her bicycle chain incident, but everyday since then, she has always ran into the same girl at the same pond – and every single time, Juyeon always offers to walk her to work.

Mei Qi doesn't try to think much of it; perhaps Juyeon really is just being nice to her. Mei Qi has never thought of herself as the cynical type anyways. No matter Juyeon's intentions, Mei Qi certainly doesn't mind the company of a pretty girl every morning. At least she's got something to look forward to when she wakes up.  

They find something new to talk about everyday; Mei Qi has never been much of a conversationalist, but Juyeon knows how to keep the conversation going with fresh questions and witty quips that has Mei Qi stifling chuckles so much that her face turns a bashful red. 

And Mei Qi would still be lying to herself if she says she doesn’t dread seeing the café appear into view everyday, knowing that their talk together would have to end and continue the next day (she hopes).

She’s too shy to invite Juyeon into the café, maybe sit down and have a cup of coffee, introduce her to her co-workers who keep wondering why Mei Qi isn’t as punctual as usual.

In the back of her head, she hopes Juyeon would just ask to come inside with her, but maybe she’s the one waiting for Mei Qi to have the courage to change the routine.

Mei Qi thinks about it everyday, but the invite never makes its way out of her mind and into the conversation, materializing into actual words. Today isn’t any different.

Today, they talked about amusement parks and Mei Qi learns that Juyeon has a thrill for rollercoasters. They near the café without even realizing it and the conversation abruptly ends before Mei Qi could even ask her about her favourite ride at Everland. 

She finds Juyeon waving at her enthusiastically when she turns her head over her shoulder.

01100101

“You’re late again.”

“Uh, it’s only been…twenty minutes,” Juyeon says sheepishly after checking her watch.

Cheng Xiao sighs as she pushes the bowl of rice towards her friend. “This isn’t even weekly breakfast anymore, it’s weekly lunch.”

Meeting up every Friday morning was a long-time routine between the two friends, tracing back to their high school years when they walked to school together to eat early in the cafeteria. Somehow, it’s a habit that has continued into their young adulthood, but recently, Juyeon’s been neglecting the obligation.

“What have you been doing anyways? It’s not like you have a…”

“A life? Gee, thanks,” Juyeon continues for her with a roll of her eyes.

Cheng Xiao huffs. “Busy schedule was what I was going to say,” she says defensively. “I’m jealous you have such a flexible job.”

“Yeah, ‘cuz working tech support is everyone’s dream job,” Juyeon drawls as she begins to dig in on her breakfast, words coated in sarcasm.

“Well, you could be an intern at Seong if you just didn’t ignore all the training invitations…” 

“Hey, as much as I appreciate it, I never asked you to recommend me to your parents,” Juyeon tells her. “Besides, I’ll practically be handing all of my information to them on a silver platter. You want them to find out about all the ‘illegal activity’ that I do? Considering I just snuck my way through their security systems, I’m pretty sure it’s best to stay invisible to Seong.”

She scarfs down a bowl of rice in just a few bites before hastily moving on to the noodles, causing Xiao to narrow her eyes.

“Have you eaten?”

“Nope,” Juyeon promptly replies. “Been busy playing Hyperreal. That reminds me, I haven’t tried eating inside the game yet. Think I’ll feel full once I log out? Does it work like that?”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing all morning…” Xiao grumbles. “I should’ve figured.”

“It’s amazing!” Juyeon exclaims. “Have you played it? Wait, of course you have. God, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it seriously feels like real life.”

“Well, that’s what they brag… You’re not becoming addicted, are you?”

“I’ve only been playing for a few days!” Juyeon replies defensively. “Apparently it rained overnight the other day and I swear, my hands felt a little damp once I logged out! But like, is it possible to transfer senses like that? Hm, I don’t think so…”

Xiao scoffs to interrupt Juyeon’s senseless rambling. “Are you sure it wasn’t just sweat?”

“No!” Juyeon says, her nose scrunching. “Okay, maybe…could’ve been gripping the recliner’s armrests too tight…," she smiles sheepishly, "but anyways, get this, bicycles back then seem way easier to ride around. It’s a bit of a balancing act – obviously they can’t just stabilize themselves like how they do now – but somehow it stays up and…”

Juyeon drowns out the noise of Friday morning rush hour beyond the walls of the café with animated chatter about her Hyperreal escapades, talks of a distant realm that’s closer than imagined but seems so far from their world, like a whole other planet in the solar system.

Xiao gives her a listening ear, albeit reluctantly, as Juyeon recounts details of everything she could remember, from the petrichor exuding from the soil to the singing of the birds. She tells her about the picturesque horizon behind the silhouette of the trees at sunset when she would log in at early evenings, detailed enough for Xiao to imagine it just as she saw it.

Juyeon chronicles her experiences as if she was reading a storybook, with comparisons to reality thrown in haphazardly, like the feeling of sitting on a wooden bench as opposed to sleek white seats (“it’s a bit uncomfortable, actually…”).

But amidst this verbal illustration, Juyeon leaves out something that she finds makes her adventure all the more interesting, just as an artist would leave complex details for last before completing the picture.

Juyeon doesn’t tell her about Mei Qi – not yet. She prefers to keep unsolved puzzles to herself until she figures them out.

01100101

“You’re late…again.”

“Am not!” Mei Qi glances at the clock. She’s still got five minutes to her shift.

“You are if we’re talking in MQT,” Dayoung says. “Mei Qi Time.”

This warrants an eye roll from the redhead.

“Who’s the pretty girl?” Dawon pops up from behind, handing Mei Qi her apron.

Her coworkers glance at her with prying interest and Mei Qi feels timid against their smirks, a wave of insecurity washing over her from the sudden direction of attention.

“Who?” she asks innocently enough. 

Dayoung snorts in her typical childish nature. She shoots a raised eyebrow at Dawon, who could only return the look. Their thoughts were undeniable; Mei Qi could tell exactly what they were thinking just from their facial expressions. 

“You know who were talking about.”

Mei Qi shifts her focus to the floor in an effort to at least hide the embarrassing warmth growing on her cheeks as she ties her apron. Might as well get to the point.

“Her name is Juyeon. I met her at the park.”

She prays that her attempted nonchalance would be enough to satiate their gossip-infused curiosities, but judging from the cheeky grins forming on their lips like a pair of cheshire cats, Mei Qi couldn’t have been any more wrong.

If anything, she added kindling to the fire.

“Why does she walk you to work?”

Mei Qi shrugs. “Because she wants to.” She winces at her own poor reply; she has yet to figure out the answer to that question.

Mei Qi feels an arm around her shoulder and a face come to view from her peripheral. Dayoung stares at her with narrowed eyes.

“And you let her?”

“Uh, am I supposed to tell her to leave me alone?” Mei Qi scoffs. Putting a hand on Dayoung’s cheek, she pushes the younger girl away until she was out of her personal space.

“You haven’t, which means you like her!” Dayoung teases as her smirk returns. “Mei Qi has a crush~”

Dayoung points fingers at her, reaching over until her manicured fingernail teasingly pokes Mei Qi on the cheek.

Mei Qi smacks her in the back of the head, prompting Dayoung to stop her juvenile dance and rub her head to remedy the pain.

“I met her like two weeks ago,” Mei Qi retorts. “Why do you always jump to conclusions?”

“It’s called having a sixth sense.” Dayoung taps the tip of her nose as she winks at her two coworkers. “I have great instincts and intuition, trust me.”

Dawon chuckles and speaks up before Mei Qi could smack Dayoung to her senses again.

“Okay, usually I don’t trust Dayoung’s gut feelings, but she could be spot-on with this one…”

A groan falls from Mei Qi’s lips as they meet into a pout. “Not you too! I swear, Juyeon is just a nice friend…”

The bell chimes with a new customer’s entrance, momentarily putting the three girls’ animated conversation on hold. Dawon waves at the familiar face; a short-haired Chinese regular whose order they know by heart – always a slice of strawberry tiramisu for herself and a mint mocha frappe during the warmer months, an americano during the winter. She greets them with a bright grin from ear to ear and a little wave.

“Invite her in sometime, I’d love to meet your new friend,” Dawon tells Mei Qi before reaching for a plate of strawberry tiramisu and whisking away towards the customer.

Dayoung gets the frappe machine ready and waits for Dawon’s confirmation of the regular order, but instead sees the older girl signalling her two fingers.

A smirk molds on her lips and Dayoung reaches for two tall glasses. She turns her head so Mei Qi could see her raised eyebrows.

“Looks like our regular Wu has got a date today. Hey, Dawon’s right, you should bring Juyeon here. Serve her your favourite dessert, show off your latte art and remarkable artistry as a barista, talk to her about the plants or whatever. Don’t you know cafés are where people fall in looove?”

The frappe machine whirs to life with a low buzz. Mei Qi suspects Dayoung slipped in some sly sarcasm in her words (is it about my latte art? …But I’m so good at it!).

She brushes off their advice and, noticing that Dayoung’s too busy preparing two mint mocha frappes to any more, occupies herself with re-arranging the baked goods that have already been arranged earlier.

Anything to keep her mind from wandering towards Juyeon.

01100101

Jinsook lets out a long whine, lips pursed in a petulant pout and basset-hound eyes following the bowl of jajangmyeon as if she was a baby whose candy just got taken away from her.

The receiving end of her childish antics currently branded as enemy #1 for confiscating her beloved bowl of jajangmyeon is Kim Jiyeon, who is completely unfazed when Jinsook tells her she’s at the top of ‘Jinsook’s Most Wanted’.

“The thrill of a life of crime,” Jiyeon jokes before feeding herself some noodles from the bowl. “Who knew being a wanted criminal tasted this good?”

She slurps it deliciously to the sound of Jinsook’s mournful cries. The latter groans at her jajangmyeon being consumed by someone else.

“Jiyeon, I'm starting to doubt that the reality of a life of crime is as thrilling as a stolen bowl of jajangmyeon,” Sojung chirps from behind. She slides a folder across the table. “Managed to snag a department head’s list of important contacts if you’re interested. A few external locations, probably manufacturers or testing sites.”

“Any luck on Hyunjung?”

Sojung shakes her head disappointingly. “She’s hesitant, but can you blame her?”

“She’ll come around one day,” Jiyeon reassures. She glances at the contents of the folder. “I heard Seong’s developing a new cybernetic reading device.”

“Yup. They’re putting a lot of focus and attention into it so most of those contacts might be useless to us. The team in charge of Hyperreal have an executive office so our chances of finding anything new about them are slim. But Jinsook could still try narrowing it down.”

Jiyeon lets Sojung have a mouthful of jajangmyeon.

“Hey! I’ll only do it if I can have my noodles back!”

Jiyeon rolls her eyes and points an accusing finger at the younger blonde. “I told you, no eating in front of your computers.” She hands the folder to Jinsook, who receives it with a pout and a cold stare.

Somehow, Sojung feels a pang of pity for the girl and walks over to give her a pat on the back. “I’ll take you out for jajangmyeon after work. Now I gotta run, my lunch break is almost over.”

She smiles a goodbye to Jiyeon and rushes out of the room to the sound of Jinsook’s cheerful wee-hoo! at the computers.

“Sojung’s much cooler than you…”

“Hey, I take you out for jajangmyeon all the time!” Jiyeon huffs in defence, but only receives a cheeky tongue stuck out at her.

A few minutes after Sojung’s departure, Soobin is the one who interrupts the quietude of Jinsook’s typing on the computer and Jiyeon’s absentminded humming.

“Afternoon,” she greets when she enters the room. “How was your date?”

At this, Jinsook halts her typing and whips her head around the room. “Who? What date? Where and when?”

Jiyeon sighs. “Why do people like sticking their noses in other people’s dating lives? Do you girls thrive on gossip or something?”

“Jiyeon finally met up with her girlfriend after ghosting her for a while.” Soobin snickers at the sudden defensive grumble from the raven-haired girl.

“I told you guys I was busy! And she knew that too! My dad was hosting a charity ball and I can’t exactly dip out of family obligations any time I want, no matter how much I want to…”

“Aw,” Soobin coos with pressed hands against her own cheek in admiration. “Then your little reunion must’ve been all the more sweeter. I can only imagine how happy she must’ve been to see you!”

Jiyeon smiles at this, but Soobin’s next words wipes it off her face with a scoff.

“You know what Baudrillard once said?” a cough to clear , “’There is no aphrodisiac like innocence.’ He’s pretty spot on.” Soobin winks.

Jiyeon shakes her head at the name-drop (a pretentious habit of Soobin's) as a smile playing on her lips. “Oh please, you don’t know anything.”

“Oh?” Soobin raises a mischievous eyebrow. “With the way you describe her, she sounds pretty darn innocent to me. You’re into that?”

“I can only say so much before I reveal too much information.”

If her smirk has any meaning, there’s a lining of cheekiness in Jiyeon’s words that Soobin immediately catches drift of.

“Is Kim Jiyeon too modest to admit that she’s done a whole lot more things in the game than we’d like to believe? Private matters…a discussion for adults…behind closed doors…you're not the well-behaved daughter that everyone knows...”

At the computers, Jinsook, who has unfortunately chosen the wrong day to forget her headphones at home, must bear unintentionally eavesdropping into every conversation occurring around her. As she tries to work, she fears the slow descent of Soobin and Jiyeon’s exchange into touchy rated-R waters that she’d rather not be listening to.

Jinsook covers her ears and loudly chants, “La-la-la I’m not listening!”

“Jinsook, just because you’re younger than the rest of us, doesn’t mean you’re still a child. You’re grown now! Grown! And with the amount of time you spend on the internet, surely you’ve visited certain websites out of curiosity, if you know what I mean.”

Jinsook glares at Soobin’s suggestive words through narrowed eyes. “I am not having this conversation with you.”

“Sorry Jinsook, we’re just joking,” Jiyeon cuts in before Soobin could corrupt Jinsook any further. “Anyways, the date was fun.”

“Better have been or else the game fails on its objectives of ‘making your wildest dreams come true!’” Soobin mimics the countless advertisements she sees daily.

She regrets her joking words immediately though when she sees Jiyeon frowning at her. Jinsook turns her chair away slowly to face the monitors, as if that would be enough to escape the discomfort threatening to settle in the air. 

Jiyeon hates it when she’s reminded of the reality of the situation. They all know that. 

Soobin suddenly looks down sheepishly. “Sorry. A game – for all intents and purposes, I meant to say. But it is important that you keep that in mind…she’s an NPC, Jiyeon.” Just as Jiyeon is about to retort, Soobin fixes her own words, “an NPC, for all intents and purposes.”

“She’s just convinced, just like all the others... I know everyone in this room believes that or else you wouldn't even be here.“ Jiyeon leans on the edge of the table and looks at Soobin with a of her head. “Hey, you know what Baudrillard once said?” she asks, mimicking Soobin’s earlier words.

Soobin sighs because she knows that Jiyeon’s about to give her a taste of her own medicine by reciting a quote like she does when she wants to make a point. Soobin reminds herself to keep her comparative literature textbooks out of Jiyeon’s hands. Two can play this game, but Soobin would lose to her any day. Besides, she’s got her own pride to protect.

“’Hell of simulation, which is no longer one of torture, but of subtle, maleficent, elusive twisting of meaning,’” Jiyeon says with a smile that’s anything but happy. “He’s pretty spot-on, huh?”

It's a checkmate move and Soobin accepts her inevitable defeat with admirable conviction.

“He is,” she replies with a smile of her own – a genuine one to curve Jiyeon’s sentiments. “On the bright side, I'm very glad to hear you had a lovely date.”

Jiyeon gives her a sincere grin this time. “We ate the strawberry tiramisu she always talked about. It was delicious. I swear, my taste buds are still tingling!”

a/n: lemme shoot u some basics if my vagueness has u feeling clueless:

• this fic is on comment bonus status (lmfao)
• hyperreal is a pretty slick video game tbh
• juyeon and meiqi are gettin to know each other ;)
• xiao's the daughter of ppl who work for seong industries but she doesn't seem that interested
• honestly i mean can u even trust big corps 
• luda's obsessed with video games (realistic)
• dawon's pretty normal but also kinda sketch (peep her ch.3 exchange with luda) & dayoung's like a nosy lil sis
• jinsook knows a bit about computers (and enjoys her jajangmyeon)
• yeonjung's stingy, soobin fangirls over some old french guy? 
• jiyeon is rich and mysterious(?)
• hyunjung and sojung work for seong but clearly sojung's not the most faithful to her employer uh oh (hyunjung knows this)
• luda/jinsook/jiyeon/soobin/sojung/maybe others are up to something. probably
• meiqi/dawon/dayoung scenes are happening in hyperreal. all other scenes are not
• xuanyi likes strawberry tiramisu and is an "npc" ("~for all intents & purposes~")
• boxuan's a thing!!! yes
• got all that?
• last words: i appreciate my hyperreal readers the most out of all my fics :) TRUST