3:08am, Friday (Jaehyun)

Jaehyun stumbled into the flat, barely capable of putting one feet in front of the other. He was way over his alcohol limit and he knew it. Even when he was chugging down his second bottle, he could already foresee how intoxicated he’d be. And he had done all of that for what? Twenty-one years old with an esteemed job, and he was beating himself up for a man he had met less than a week ago. Maybe Taeyong was right, he was incredibly childish.

Truth be told, Jaehyun had never actually behaved this way before. Even when he was in the States, he had never been one to make out with strangers and at the very least, he would have a vague recollection of who on earth he had kissed by the time the night was over. But this time, it was different. Perhaps it was because Jaehyun had done all that out of spite for Taeyong or self-affirmation that he still had his A-game on, that he hadn’t the slightest idea what the names of the girls were or how many of them he had met. Ten and his college friends had crowned him their hero, because apparently college girls were hard to please, yet Jaehyun had the best track record of the night. He cringed at the thought. He had turned into the kind of guy he despised with a passion, the ones that tossed women aside once the moment was over, and it was all Taeyong’s fault.

-

8:30am, Friday (Jaehyun)

The alarm rang, shrill and clear and Jaehyun clutched his head as the sound reverberated in his skull. Hungover and heartbroken with a job to attend to in… exactly half an hour. What a splendid Friday.

‘Wow, did you jump out of ‘The Walking Dead’ or something?,’ Ten teased in his sing-song voice, ‘Morning Jae!’

‘What- How-?’ How was Ten so… alive and cheery?

‘Coffee,’ Ten pointed at the stash of cups that sat in the pantry bin, tossing the twelfth cup in, ‘Score!’

If there was one thing the trainees had learnt, it was that caffeine was the solution to all their problems. All but Jaehyun’s current heartache, he thought.

It was almost as if the heavens were scheming on how to make Jaehyun more miserable that on the only day when Jaehyun wished to be loaded with work, he wasn’t. In all his months of training, there had never been a day when he was so free with absolutely nothing urgent at hand. Apart from several research jobs, skimming through catalogues, he was pretty much idle for the rest of the day. Jaehyun needed something tedious, something cumbersome to get his mind off Taeyong and off the guilt that had begun creeping into his overly clean conscience. He wasn’t sure if he was guilty for making out with literally anyone and everyone, or if it had something to do with Taeyong, but all the same, he needed a distraction. Jaehyun had taken the liberty of crashing Ten’s cubicle, offering a helping hand but Ten had told him that it was part of an ongoing case that he had been following since Tuesday. ‘No sorry, can’t do. Just enjoy yourself while you can,’ Ten had muttered in envy.

-

7:00pm, Friday (Jaehyun)

People at the office started evacuating the minute the clock struck 7 and soon enough, it was just the three trainees left. Doyoung and Ten were still furiously attacking their keyboards while Jaehyun spun in circles on his swivel chair, elbow perched on the armrest.

‘Oh for ’s sake Jaehyun, just stop spinning will you?’ Doyoung was getting testy. He hadn’t worked overtime much and during the nights when he did, he never failed to display his unenthusiasm.

‘Sorry,’ Ja