20 Meters and 60 Seconds

Look at Me
Please log in to read the full chapter

Notes: [warning] not-commonly-potrayed of Kai's character and full of unnecessary points but I have no idea why I included in this story. Enjoy your reading and hopefully I will write more Kai's story in the future (because I can't resist him). 


In the world full of pretty humans, it was not strange to know that she hadn't realize about him even though they were at the same point almost every day at the same time. But, Jongin couldn't help from being completely frustrated and pondered why she never turned to look, at least to her right where he was always standing. He chose to stand there, 80 centimeters away from her, trying not being too obvious when he tried to sneak glances at her.

But, she never noticed. 

 

Jongin was completely a normal man, blessed with an above average face, which was envied by his own brother for not having a sharp jaw line like he had. But, he couldn't be more proud as he was surrounded by many good looking men, from his seniors to his juniors, so from strangers' perspective, his presence wasn't outstanding. 

He always wore those office attires. If it was summer, he didn't wear with black blazer and if it was approaching cold season, he would have his blazer on. Just like other people around him. Being a white collar worker, it was a normal attire. But, sadly, his presence never stood out since he was in high school.

He never been left out by his group of peers in school, which consisted of several famous school atheletes and band members. Even though he was considered as one of the members, for other students, he was just Kim Jongin, the boy who just happened to join that group. 

He wasn't Oh Sehun, who was famous with his droppy eyes and blank expression which was admired by most of the girls in their school. Or Byun Baekhyun, who was known because of his angelic voice. Or Kim Junmyeon, who was being their perfect school student president. He's just Kim Jongin.

Knowing he couldn't have all the things that his friends had, he knew that he could change everything if he studied hard. So, that was what actually he did. Studied so hard even though he didn't like it. Studied a lot even though the result turned out that he could only score himself in top 50 students. Studied until sometimes he wanted to die out of tiredness which only managed him to enter his second choice of university.

But, the good thing he had was he never complained.

He tried to be alright when he knew that after all the hardship he had, he only managed to graduate as in second class honor. He tried to understand when he found out nobody could remember him apart from his group during their reunion. He tried to tell himself 'it's okay' when he realized the other friends got better jobs than him.

He tried not to complain, as he knew by complaining, nothing would change.

That's Kim Jongin.

A normal boy who tried so hard in his life.

Even after he finally landed a job, he tried to strive hard so that his boss would recognize his hardwork. He tried to be fine even after he knew other people took advantange on him for being dedicated. He tried not to break in front of others when people started to point at him when there was any mistake happened eventhough it wasn't his own fault.

But, he couldn't stand when he realized the girl he liked didn't notice him.

Starting then, he started to questioning his life. His full of bad luck life.

 

 

He never ran as fast like he just did. He didn't know who to blame for the first bad luck he had on that day, so he blamed himself for being there at the wrong time. And also for not being able to say no to his senior.

The same minute he arrived at his company, Cho Kyuhyun, his a-year-above senior approached with an obvious fake panicked face plastered on. Seeing his senior standing beside his cubicle, Jongin already could smell trouble. But, as usual, he didn't know how to escape. His senior's request was a very simple, but also crucial. He needed to run to another company's branch to fetch for an important document which important to use for the presentation in the meeting on that day.

It wasn't a bad task to do, he thought, until he found out that he only had an hour to go and back there before the meeting. He wasn't even the participant of that meeting, but he still needed to do that just because his kind senior asked.

"You can do it, right?" His senior said those words, with a meaningful smirk and patted his shoulder.

Jongin couldn't even say anything else to reply because Kyuhyun just went away, didn't give any chance to him to decline the job. 

It only took 20 minutes by running and train to the said place and another 15 minutes train back to his company. Knowing that he only had 25 minutes left, he started to run again from the station to the company which took more than 10 minutes by walking. Trying to reduce time taken as much as he could, he sprinted fast, ignoring all looks thrown by the strangers. 

And finally, he arrived right in front of his company's building, standing across the road and waiting for the street light to turn green. He panted heavily, bending his knees in order to catch up some breathes and loosened his tie. He kept blaming himself from being 5 minutes early to the company on that day, because if only he arrived at the usual time he always did, the task might not be given to him. 

It was a very busy road, with four lanes, leading to center of Seoul. So, it wasn't difficult to realize how much long time to take just for the streetlight to turn green. And it wasn't strange to find people looked anxious while waiting at the side road, wanting to cross badly. 

Jongin glanced at his wrist watch, showing it was almost 10 o'lock in the morning. On that time, he could see many types of people were waiting like him, and mostly they were workers like him. And also several young people who were fidgeting, guessing they were late for lecturers. He chuckled softly as they reminded him during university life. He couldn't count how many times he was being late to lecturers, but hey, it's normal, right?

There was a university nearby, not to mention, a top notch university which was well known across the country. Honestly, he had been wanted to attend that university, but he couldn't score as high as the requirement, so he failed to do so. But, deep inside, he felt glad not to attend there, because if not, he couldn't be able to work at his company now which was his dream company. 

Jongin faced forward, trying to know how much time he needed to wait more based on the sign bar displayed. The less the bar, the less time he needed to wait. As he found out that he needed to wait more, he let a heavy sigh and started to look around.

His eyes caught a girl, who wore a black velvety beret, standing at his right side and looking down at her smart phone. Rather than being restless like other students, he found that she was quite composed and slightly bounced while listening to the music. Jongin thought it was quite amusing and continued to glance at the girl.

It was three bars left, signing it was 30 seconds left before they could cross the road. Jongin looked downward, at the file on his hand. In second, his lips curved upward, formed a satisfaction smile for being able to finish the crucial task which he was pretty sure that his senior didn't expect he managed to do that.

After a few seconds of waiting, he heard a familiar sound, annoucing that they finally could cross the road. Without taking more time, he began to walk on the cross road. But, without any further notice, he had been pulled from behind, resulting his body to be imbalanced before he fell on the road. He let a groan and turned behind to find the culprit who pulled his shirt.

It was that black beret girl. 

"Why did you pull me?"

The girl was also on the tar, blinked her eyes several time, showing a completely shocked face. "Ahjusshi, I'm sorry." 

And without saying anything more, the girl quickly grabbed her bag and sprint away. Jongin stunned and started to gap.

"Ahjusshi? Me?"

It was their first episode.

 

Jongin was a little bit early on that morning and it wasn't his intention to be early. He didn't plan to wake up so much early like he always did, but he was being stupid for setting his alarm clock wrongly on the night before. Praying hard that his senior wouldn't give him any task on that morning, he walked as slow as he could until he finally realized that he was already standing in front of his company's building, across the road.

He glanced at his wrist watch and found out it was almost 8 o'clock in the morning. As the street light was in red, he tapped his feet in rhythm while patiently waiting for it to turn green. Well, he wasn't in rush and he would be more than glad if he needed to wait there for more few minutes. 

It was a quite windy day, so he could easily spot people hugging their outer tightly, slightly shivering unconsiously. He wore his thick blazer, as the weather became colder and honestly, he prefered cold one rather than hot summer. 

Jongin kept looking around to find anything or anyone who could entertain him until his eyes caught someone who seemed so familiar to him. She was walking towards him, keeping a straight face while listening to the music.

He clucked his tongue after knowing who was she after squinting his eyes to take a look at her better.

It was the same girl who pulled him down on the street three days ago.

A smile crept onto his face, signing that he finally had someone who could entertain him while waiting at the side road. The girl didn't wear her black beret like during the previous meeting day, but she wore a brown beanie instead. Anyone would agree with Jongin, thinking that it was way too early to wear a beanie since winter would be two months away and that season wasn't that cold.

But, she seemed didn't care at all, and Jongie guessed that she was the type that would never give any damn to anything just because she didn't care at all. The type of girl which always made him wondered how they were usually thinking.

Many of his friend always thought that he was so complicated because he usually thought in detailed and complex, meaning he wouldn't ignore any single thing slip at all. Because of his personality was like that, he was easily attracted to someone who had competely opposite personality.

And, that girl seemed to be like that.

She was standing on his right, and after awhile, she took out her phone, scrolling and tapped on the screen. Probably searching for her choice of song because right after that, she tucked her phone back into her pocket. Jongin glanced at her with gleeful.

This man would never knew the exact reason why he chose to look at her. Plus, he chose not to talk or even got angry with her after what she had done to him three days ago. All he did was watching her with amused and tried hard not to chuckle because he knew he looked like a fool if he did.

After a while, the street light turned green and they began to walk. The crossing wasn't that long and it only took only 60 seconds at the longest just to arrive at the opposite road. 

Jongin was still eyeing the girl and purposely walked a little bit slowly so that she wouldn't freak out if she knew that an older man was watching her with interest. He wasn't looking at her with negative way, he just tried to distract himself from thought of his senior who might give burdening tasks later. 

Once they arrived at the opposite side, he realized that she was heading to the left, towards the nearby university while he was about to walk to the right. Looking at her walking away from him had confirmed his theory that she was a university student, indeed. 

Which also made him feeling that he had slowly turned to a creepy salaryman. Jongin quickly shook his head with his thought and swore not to do that anymore. No more watching at that girl or anything. He should stayed focus and be matured.

"Why you shake your head?" 

Jongin blinked his eyes with confusion once he saw his friend since university time, Kyungsoo raised a brow while shooting a questioning look at him.

"Ah! Nothing. Nothing much."

"You've been pretty early today."

Jongin grinned. "Yeah. You should know that I'm aiming for 'Employee of the Month'."

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes with annoyance. "Oh yeah. Considering you're taking Kyu-dumb's works, you should win that award."

Jongin pouted. Everyone knew how much Kyuhyun loved to give him works, which was originally his senior's works, which always made Kyungsoo feeling irk whenever he knew it. Kyungsoo worked at different department, but the news which saying Jongin was being Kyuhyun's prey spread to all department. Unfortunately not towards the higher people.

"Seriously, you should say no occasionally. They're not even your works in the first place."

"I know, but I don't know why I can't say no to him."

"Stupid. You're so stupid."

 

'She wears a black beret again.'

Jongin tried hard not to smile as he was biting a paper bag which full with snacks from the cafe nearby. He couldn't hold the bag as his hands were full already with coffee cup holders.

The demand from his nice senior - Kyuhyun made him running to the nearby cafe which was opposite to his company's building. He had been offered to make a coffee at the office's pantry but seemed like his hand made coffee wasn't Kyuhyun's taste. So, he had been requested to get the coffee from that cafe.

He was busy, extremely busy with reports which he needed to finish before the day ended but he couldn't say no to Kyuhyun's surprise order. His mood on that day was

Please log in to read the full chapter
Like this story? Give it an Upvote!
Thank you!
-natsukim
Finally I got a poster! Credit poster goes to Circe :)

Comments

You must be logged in to comment
chonanay
#1
Chapter 1: Why did you make my Kyukyu a super mean person here... :3
Lol
Just kidding

Any epilogue?
Chillguys #2
Good story