“Chicken?” The slender guy asks the moment you stood beside him, lifting up the spare umbrella, offering it in exchange with Chicken again.

You land a gaze on him, and admire his features for a second, before refusing his offer. You’re done with your deadline and you don’t have important files with you for now so it’s okay to go home late or get wet from the rain.

The not-so-stranger lifts the edge of his lips before taking his eyes away from you. “Good luck waiting for the rain to stop then,” he declares before leaving you with an open umbrella in his right hand and the spare one on the other.

“Tch,” you roll your eyes. Maybe he’ll come again after 10 minutes.

But even after 15 minutes have passed, no sign of the said guy can be found. Unconsciously pouting, you take your phone and earphones from your bag, taking every piece on each ear to listen to your favorite band.

“How can I stop the rain?” You sing softly with the music as your watch the raindrops have contact with the ground. Right, he went back yesterday because he bought a spare umbrella from the convenience store. But he brought that umbrella today, so I guess there’s no reason for him to go back? You let out a sigh. And why would he come back anyway? It’s not like I’m his responsibility or something. “Tsk,” you rest your elbows on your lap as your hands cup your face. You shut your eyes as you slowly regret not taking the offer before.

“Chicken?” Your heart jumps by hearing that voice. You look up and straighten up, trying not to show any sign of relief, and see him holding a paper bag with the logo of the Chicken Place you went to yesterday. You take a gulp hoping that your cheeks are not turning red as he walks and sits beside you.

You try to ignore him as if he doesn’t exist but he moves closer causing your elbows to touch. You swallow the lump that formed in your throat to calm yourself.

“Chicken,” he offers again—more like a demand.

“No, thanks,” you decline and he chuckles.

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking that this costs something again?” He confirms and you glance at him with an eyebrow raised as if telling him ‘Doesn’t it?’ “Come one, just eat,” he chortles once more “If you won’t, I’ll leave you here without an umbrella,” he glances the sky for a moment “it seems like it won’t stop anytime soon.”

Rolling your eyes, you take a piece and stuff it in your mouth. He sniggers and you feel your ears getting hot as you chew. Something tingles in your chest from hearing his suppress laughs every single time and you refuse to look at him when he does. Why do you have to be such an attractive jerk? You look down for a bit and bite your lower lip. Nevermind. Looks are just looks. Character is still what’s important. You tilt your head for a bit. Why am I even thinking about these things?

“What?” he voices “You seem like having an internal battle with yourself. Trying not to see me as an attractive guy, huh?”

You scoff. “You wish!”

He beams wider before taking a bite of chicken, too. You just want to spread a hand on his face and try to erase that smug of his.

“Seems like you were thinking of me last night, though”

With mouth a gape and wide eyes, you look at him with disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“Here,” he gives you the chicken take-out and the spare umbrella “you should go home now and take some rest. See you again,” he winks.

You can’t help but think about what he said. You keep rolling on your bed from one side to the other. “It’s not like I was really thinking about him last night. I just made a character with him as a reference,” you pause and stare at the ceiling, “or was I? No. No, no, no, no. I wasn’t. Okay? I wasn’t thinking about him”

“You’re doing something?” Dowoon peeks behind your computer unit the next morning

“Nothing in particular,” you take a glance at him before putting your gaze back to the monitor. “Just doing some research and maybe watch a movie or play a video game for inspiration later. Be on Rec Room, maybe? Something’s up?”

“Mark took a sick leave today and I remember you enjoy making 3D models, wanna help?”

You got your work done for now and because of the work pipeline, you’re not as busy as the others. You’re just doing some research for character modifications or maybe new concepts that can be used in the near future; and you’re planning to play Overwatch or Team Fortress 2 with the other people from the Concept Team.

The game that the JYPSoft is currently developing is now on the production phase. The pre-production was due last week—the game concept, the storyline, storyboard, animatic. The first part of the production phase—the characters and environment concepts—was due yesterday. Now the 3D Team is doing its part—sculpting the characters into 3D from the 2D concepts and also modeling non-organic assets for the environment, weapons and other things. These will undergo Retopology, wherein they try to make the high resolution models into low resolution ones or lessen their poly counts before they will undergo to the process of projecting 2D images to 3D models’ surfaces, called UV Mapping, for texture mapping.

“I’m not good with Zbrush, Woonie.” You squint your eyes a bit “How about I do UV Mapping instead?”

“You make terrible UV Maps,” he retorts “and besides I wasn’t asking you to sculpt the characters. Only a crazy person would ask you to do that. What I meant was to make non-organic assets.” He exhales sharply “You know, even if Mark is not around today, the team can carry out the task but I asked just in case. Also, because Wonpil told me so. He said you keep sighing since this morning, so he asked if maybe I can get you pre-occupied with other things you enjoy.”

You beam and pat his head, “If it’s Autodesk Maya or 3D Studio Max then I can handle it. No worries. Just give me the 2D designs that I need to work on.”

“About that…” he bites his lip for a bit “can you just work on Mark’s unit? I’m afraid we’ll get busted if I send the designs to your unit.”

You spend the next hours doing some 3D assets. Even if you’re in the Concept Team, you’re confident with your 3D (non-organic) Modeling skills.

“Mark, let’s grab some—oh,” the fox-eyed guy who just came to Mark’s unit halts, “Where’s Mark?”

“He took a sick leave, Younghyun” you politely respond.

“Oh, then how about you?” You look up to him again, confused. “Wanna grab some coffee downstairs?”

You accept the offer since you feel like you need a breather. You can sense a few pair of eyes glaring at you and you know exactly what the reason is. Younghyun is quite popular not just in the Audio Team but in the whole company. He’s a natural sweet guy, attractive and talented. Every time there is a party in the company, he’s one of those people who always have a part; he usually renders a song as he plays the guitar.

“Aren’t you with the Concept Team?” he asks as he puts the coffee on the table and sits across you.

“Yeah, but we’re not in the alert week (what the employees usually call it when their Team is the busiest and has the most role to play for the week),” you show a small smile “we just got out of it. So why not do something productive?”

“Being in the Rec Room is being productive, too, you know?” He smiles widely before taking a sip from his coffee.

Your company has an arcade, gaming consoles and other kind of games (located in the Recreational Room), a gym, a café, a sports area, library and theater. These are not just for fun but also a necessity to every employee. They need creativity and not all the time creative juices can be squeezed out from the brain. Each needs to rest their minds and take some ideas and inspiration from their surroundings. And since your company is a game company, you also take insights from other games and even animation movies. So yes, being in the Rec Room is also being productive.

“I hope it will stop raining soon,” Wonpil pouts as he takes a seat between you and Younghyun. “My umbrella broke this morning and if it won’t stop raining later, I’d probably just let myself get wet. Man, I really hate it when it rains”

You look down to your coffee and caress the cup, thinking if whether you’re hoping for the rain to stop, too, or for it to just continue. Why would I even want it to continue?

“We still have two hours for work. It might stop later,” Younghyun hopes.

But even 30 minutes have passed after working hours, it’s still raining hard. And as if a light bulb just appeared on the top of your head, you take out the umbrella from your bag (which you secured first thing in the morning when you got to work).

“Pil,” you get the attention of your whining friend, “I can let you borrow my umbrella.”

He eyes the umbrella on your hand before taking a look back at you, “How about you? You forgot it yesterday, and now you’re leaving without it again?”

“I’m fine. Just…” you tighten your grip, “just…”

“Just…?” He tilts his head closer to you

“Just walk me to the park near the company building.”

He’s hesitant at first but you assure him that you’re fine. Although you haven’t given him a proper answer as to why you want to be walked to the park and not the anywhere else, he still does it anyway.

What am I even doing?

 Few minutes after Wonpil left, a voice called your name.

“Younghyun?”

“Why are you here? You want me to walk you home?”

“Uh, no. Thanks though”

“I can let you borrow my umbrella instead,” sensing that you’ll refuse, he utters again, “or perhaps, you’re waiting for someone?”

You open your mouth to respond but the voice that answers his question doesn’t belong to you.

“Yes, she’s with me.”

A bit startled, you flip your head and see the umbrella guy who used to have a silver hair, now ice blue, standing outside the shed under his umbrella.

“You... You look familiar,” Younghyun squints his eyes. “You’re… Aren’t you—”

“Hush,” he demands with a low but authoritative voice.

You shift your gaze to Younghyun, whose forehead is furrowed, and back to the umbrella guy.

“I’ll get going, then,” Younghun looks at you and smile, “You take care. I’ll see you tomorrow”

The umbrella guy’s eyes follow Younghyun and when he’s far enough, he lands is his gaze back on you. “You’re not going to see him tomorrow though”

“We don’t know about that,” you tell him the phrase he told you two days ago, “we work in the same company.”

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see each other. You’re not in the same department.”

“How do you even know—“

“Here,” he cuts you off, “let’s go”

You crease your forehead before taking the spare umbrella. “Where?”

“Chicken?” his face softens as he simpers.

You raise a brow before smiling a little and shake your head a bit.

“You smiled,” he grins.

You clear your throat as you open the umbrella and start walking ahead of him. You can hear his laugh from behind as he teases you about being shy.

The Concept Team is called to the CEO’s office the next day to discuss the upcoming modifications.

“Besides from items exclusive for certain character levels, are there any other ideas on what other upgrades to make?” the concept manager asks.

“What if,” all eyes fix on you “something from appearance changes when the character reaches a certain level? Hair color, perhaps? Like when the character reaches level 25 or 50, the hair color will change…” you trail off as someone’s face invades your thoughts again “to ice blue?”

Mr. Park coughs as he tries to suppress a laugh or even just a grin, “Ice blue, huh?” He smirks “You sure stick to your character reference, huh?”

Your heartbeat doubles as he raises a brow. You want to ask what he actually meant but another concept artist says her opinion.

“But I think that’s not really necessary since you can unlock hair styles, clothes and accessories when the character levels up. And say, if we change the character’s hair color on a certain level, the player might not want the color for their character”

“Good point,” the other comments “But I also like the idea of there will be a change in hair color or hair style. What if there will be options and that style will only be available until the next upgrade? Like when I reach level 50, there will be options and I can only have that appearance from level 50 to level 100; and not for the rest of the game. Unlike the other things that can be unlocked to which players can use them from the level needed ‘til the end.”

The meeting goes for another hour. You go to Wonpil to ask him to get lunch together when Mark calls you out.

“Oh, Mark!” You beam “Feeling better now?”

“Yeah,” he smiles back, “Anyway, I saw the assets you’ve worked on yesterday. A big help! And they’re nicely modeled. Very much appreciated.” You just chuckle and before you continue walking with Wonpil, he utters again, “And, I’ve heard you’ve had coffee with Younghyun, too? Have you seen him today?”

“You’re not going to see him tomorrow though”, a voice echoes in your mind which causes you to smile more.

“Uh, no. Haven’t yet so far”

“What’s with that smile?” Wonpil queries with a knowingly look when you’re already a few feet away from Mark “Do you like Younghyun?”

You crease your brows, “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, that doesn’t make sense because you like Mr. Park”

You flip your head to look at him right away, “I told you, I don’t like him that way. I just admire him as a person. Not that kind of like”

As if on cue, the CEO walks his way towards you before calling your name.

“Speaking of the devil,” Wonpil grins, suppressing a giggle.

 “Don’t beat yourself too much,” he smiles a little “I heard you worked with the 3D team yesterday after doing some research for concepts?”

You can feel Wonpil’s grip on your arm tightens. You clench your fist, too.

“Don’t worry. I’m not mad,” he chuckles “Just… Just don’t overdo it, okay? You can rest, too. Make use of the Rec Room, or the theater.” He shifts his gaze to Wonpil “You can bring Wonpil with you since I think it’s not yet alert week for the animators?” Wonpil flinches from hearing the alert week, Mr. Park even knows that? “3D Team is still working on the assets and the riggers will have it next before the animators. So you can loosen up, guys” he smiles for the last time before excusing himself to have lunch.

Wonpil exhales the breath he’s been holding and grips your arm tighter because his knees went weak. He straightens up and the two of you just stand frozen on the floor. What was that? Your heartbeat raises as your chest tightens.

“Did… he just smile? And chuckled? And told us to loosen up?” Wonpil confirms, still facing forward.

“I… I told you he’s being weird,” you finally move and face your friend.

“Maybe I’m really right. Maybe he really likes you? Aw!” you hit his head “I mean, has he been always this approachable? I mean, I know he is sometimes. And I know he also tells his employees to rest and chill but… he seems softer?” He raises a brow “Before when he tells us those things, he says it with a poker face even though we know he’s sincere. But you know—“

“I know what you’re talking about,” you continue to walk as you drag your friend along. He keeps talking about it during lunch and keeps on going about how Mr. Park might like you.

“Oh, it’s sunny today!” He exclaims, finally moving to another subject.

You bite your lip as your right thumb scratches your index finger, looking outside.

“Why do you seem down? Aren’t you happy that it’s not raining today? Hassle-free!”

You just shake your head and smile but your face is downcast after work. You slowly take each step, pouting, dragging your feet as if it’s heavy to lift. I should be happy ‘cause it’s not raining, right?

As you let out a sigh, a voice speaks in front of you. “Hey,” a guy wearing sneakers, tattered jeans, and a loose plain beige shirt, a smug painted on his face is standing a few feet away from you; both hands in the back pocket of his jeans.

“Chicken?”

You nod, “Chicken.”

-

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