Growing up as the only child in the house, you mostly spent your time by yourself or with cousins who you only saw during school breaks and holidays. Out of everyone, you were only close to Jongin, since he was the only one who didn’t have a huge and he didn’t talk much even though he liked to follow you around. The both of you were the youngest out of everyone, frequently become the of the jokes, so that’s why you stuck to each other.

Both of you were attached to the hip since the early days. Although the two of you didn’t go to the same school for your elementary and middle school days, you both still liked to study together. It was fun, you thought. It made you feel like you had a little brother—even though you were only born four months earlier than he was—and also think of an idea. The idea was to enroll in the same high school with Jongin.  

Your parents were reluctant with you going to the same school as Jongin, for it was a bit too far from home, but you managed to convince them that it was fine. That you were growing up and it was time for you to learn commuting to school by yourself. So, they let them be, and it became the greatest decision your parents had ever made for you—since because of that decision you became closer with Jongin and brought you to Park Chanyeol.

It was on the first day of the second semester of your sophomore year when you saw Park Chanyeol for the first time.

You were waiting for Jongin by the school entrance, with his notebook that he left at your place last weekend when you saw Jongin walking with Park Chanyeol. The two earned a lot of looks from other students, you noticed. Two guys with exceptional height and handsome looks were not something that people found easy to ignore. If there was wind blowing against them as they walked, it could easily be an episode out of some cheesy day-drama.

But your real life wasn’t an episode out of some cheesy day-drama and the wind wasn’t blowing nicely, it blew fiercely and Park Chanyeol had to squint his eyes and rub his eye repeatedly probably because he got something in his eye. The whole thing was pretty amusing to watch and in the end, you ended up having a weird smile across your face because you were holding back a laugh as Jongin introduced you to Chanyeol who was still rubbing on his eye.

You both didn’t shake hands. Your hands were still gripping tightly on Jongin’s notebook and they were sweating so you could give him a small, nervous wave. It was fine, though, since Park Chanyeol only nodded at you and flashed you a very charming smile that you liked to remember whenever you were feeling down.

As the time went on, you realized that Park Chanyeol was your first ever crush, and crushes were only supposed to last for months or until they or you graduated. You didn’t expect that your crush would last when you went to the same university with him and worked in the same company with him too. The whole thing couldn’t be called as a mere crush again, you thought, but there wasn’t a proper term to define it too, because you knew it was more than some infatuation, but it wasn’t enough to be considered as love either.

“Whatever you’re thinking of, please stop.” Blinking your eyes rapidly to pull yourself back from the trance, Jongdae stared at you from the doorway with an unimpressed look across his face. He clicked his tongue and shook his head dramatically at you as if he just caught you doing something weird. “You’re thinking so hard I can practically hear it.”

“How long have you been standing there? I didn’t even hear you.” You sat up straighter on your seat and propped your arms on the conference table, slightly leaning forward as you watched Jongdae pulling out the chair across the table and sat on it.

“Long enough,” he stated shortly. “Where are the others? Why are we the only one here? I thought it’s gonna start on time.”

“They should be here soon enough, I think,” you commented as you glanced at your wristwatch, realizing that you had waited by yourself in the conference room for fifteen minutes.

“I know, right? Besides, it’s Friday night! I don’t think anyone wants to stay in the office any longer, especially you.” Furrowing your eyebrows in confusion, you stared at Jongdae who kept a smile on his face.

“Me? I’m fine,” you retorted casually, feeling a bit uneasy because of the look on your friend’s face. The majority part of your heart warned you that he was being suspicious and you decided to trust it.

“A little bird told me you have a date later.” Bingo. You rolled your eyes in annoyance at his statement.

“Who told you that?” You breathed out tiredly, bringing up your hand to rub a forming headache. You had seriously had enough of today.

“A little bird,” he insisted as he wiggled his eyebrows annoyingly and it took everything in you to not take off your shoe and throw it at him. Why couldn’t people just mind their own business for once? First, it was Junmyeon and this time it was Jongdae.

Not wanting to waste your energy and breath, you just let out a loud sigh and shook your head at Jongdae. It seemed like he was still waiting for your response and already brewing another thing inside his brain to bother you for his entertainment, but before he could do any of that, the door opened and Chanyeol entered. Thank God, you thought.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Park,” you greeted and stood up from your chair, bowing slightly at him which he responded with a nod and a small smile across his face. Turning his eyes away from yours, his gaze darted around the almost empty conference room.

“Where’s everyone?” He asked, pure confusion laced in his tone and shown on his face. The way he pursed his lips out of annoyance was quite endearing and you held the urge to coo at it.

“Uh… Not here yet, apparently.” He let out an audible sigh at Jongdae’s words, pulling out the chair at the end of the table which was also right beside you. Placing down his iPad on the table, he took a seat next to you and you subconsciously sat up straighter which earned wiggling eyebrows from Jongdae. 

“Hey.” You jolted in a surprise, not expecting Chanyeol would call you. Humming an answer, you your chair to face him. “Is it okay if I make you the team’s secretary? I know you’ve done a lot of this before in college and I think, um, it’s nice to make you my right-hand kind of thing? You can help me decide things too, though, since you know Junmyeon hyung’s preference too and well, I don’t really have many experiences in this kind of thing. So, is it okay?”

Chanyeol had an expectant look across his face—his big eyes were staring straight at you as if he had pinned you down and the way he blinked his eyes slowly as he waited for your answer was adorable. How could a 29-year-old like him look heartbreakingly handsome and adorable at the same time? Did he even age?

Knowing Chanyeol’s position back in the campus’ student government, you knew he was never the one in charge over everything. He was always the one behind the camera, taking pictures of everything and everyone, or the one under the PR division, talking to people and charming them with his unlimited charms that never failed to sway people’s decision to his favor. It was always Junmyeon as the one in charge, with you as his right-hand person, helping him with the decision-making and reminding him of deadlines and other things.

Come to think of it, there was another reason why Junmyeon pushed you to join the team—other than to make your living hell by constantly teasing you about Chanyeol. It was because Chanyeol actually needed your help—because you were experienced—and other than you, there wasn’t anybody else that knew them well enough and they trusted enough for the job.

As you shifted through your thoughts and proceed his words at least twice, you blinked at him in which he blinked back at you as if the two of you were some cats meeting for the first time and greeting each other by blinking its eyes. “Uh, okay, sure.”

“Great. Thank you.” Your heart rate spiked up at the sight of his blinding smile that reached all the way to his eyes. Unable to find proper words to express how you felt, you just smiled back at him and turned your gaze away, just in time for the other people to walk in and fill the room.

Throughout the meeting, you stayed silent except when Chanyeol introduced you as his ‘right-hand’ which made you have to tell the others your name and your position and even that earned you some side looks from the four other girls in the room. From those four girls, you only knew one of them—Sunhee from the PR division—but both of you didn’t know each other enough to be considered as friends. She had no right to be staring at you like that, though.

You decided to ignore it, even though you felt like it burned the sides of your face from how intense it was. Focusing on Chanyeol’s deep voice that filled the room proved to be a much nicer, welcomed distraction for you, though. He tried to explain what was expected from the company workshop and how he wished everyone in this team could work together harmoniously to create a successful event. As he talked, you jotted down a few things in your phone—just a few stuff to remember that would help in the decision-making in the future—and really tried your best to focus on the words coming out of Chanyeol’s mouth.

Only when the meeting was finished and you were the last person to leave, you could finally be able to breathe a little easier. After tidying things up a little bit in the conference room, you walked out only to see Chanyeol standing by the door. He was playing with his phone but jolted in surprise when you walked out of the conference room.

“You ready to leave?” He asked, shoving his phone into his pocket. His question caught you off guard. It was as if he waited for you to be done so he could leave as well.

“Uh, no,” you answered his question after a beat of silence.

“You’re not leaving?” Chanyeol asked again when you didn’t walk towa