Jongin turns around faster than his head can keep up with. Through the smoke, all he makes out is a tall frame, blond hair and a pair of eyes that seem to pierce right through him. Jongin is so busy freaking out over the fact that one of his colleagues witnessed him make a fool out of himself like that that he doesn't stop to question how on Earth he failed to notice their presence all along. 

It takes Jongin a minute to notice the cigarette being held up in front of his face. The urge to clear his head hits him all over again, and the next thing he knows, he's scrambling for the lighter in the man's hand.

Jongin holds the smoke in his lungs until he can physically feel them protesting. His tie is crooked and his dress shirt is definitely disheveled, but he can't be bothered to care as he takes another drag. Chanyeol's face, Baekhyun's ring, the thought of leaving Jungah at her grandmother's for yet another night and his eighty dollar parking ticket all melt and disintegrate into nothing as Jongin exhales into the cramped room. Both Jungah and his mother are going to have a hissy fit if he shows up reeking of tobacco, but Jongin squashes the guilt creeping up on him by inhaling so forcefully that his insides burn like they've been set on fire.

"Friendly feud, I take it?"

Jongin tries not to cough in the man's face as he nearly chokes on his cigarette. He isn't sure why he's surprised that he's being talked to, since he figures he owes him a conversation after marching up and helping himself to one of his cigarettes.

Except Jongin wishes that they'd just remained silent, because the next thing he knows, he's desperately trying to hold back a series of ugly sobs while said man takes a drag of his own. Jongin spends the next few minutes convincing himself not to throw a fit in front of one of the most well-put-together human beings he's ever seen in his life. He prays that the tears welling in his eyes won't trickle down his face, all while he wishes the floor would just swallow him up already.

Jongin forces himself to snap out of it by reminding himself that he has no business acting like this in a professional environment (as Jongdae always calls it, at least). "Uh...I'm sorry for--" He cuts himself off. What the hell is he apologizing for?????

The man looks as calm as ever, which does nothing to soothe Jongin's anxiety. "It's all fine, we've all been there before." He extracts his right hand with a smile that Jongin knows every female in Sales would die for. "Sehun."

Sehun's palm is so warm that it sends electric sparks up Jongin's arm, and Jongin would be lying if he said that it didn't make him feel slightly better. "Jongin," he mumbles, voice muffled by the stick between his lips.

Sehun stands up straight, which only accentuates his impressive height. "As opposed to what they said--" He gestures into the empty room. "I think I've seen you around before." A contemplative look appears on his face. "You're in the production department, aren't you? We had a meeting with the ones from Printing and I didn't see you there."

As much as Jongin appreciates somebody acknowledging his existence, he can't even be bothered to fake a smile. "You got that right."

"Well, I'm in Sales," Sehun says and leans forward so he's resting his elbows on the tabletop. "But everybody's run into each other in one way or another, so I'm not surprised." He takes a long drag before putting his cigarette out.

Jongin hopes that he isn't looking too bored as he makes sure to fill himself up with as much of his cigarette as possible. He blames the tobacco for screwing with his memory, but he would be lying if he said that he could reminisce crossing paths with Sehun at some point during his ten years at the office. Mostly because Jongin knows that if he ever came across a face and aura as charming as Sehun's, he definitely would have remembered it.

"I guess so," Jongin hums, trying his best not to make eye contact as he keeps his gaze locked on the gray walls.

Instead of packing up his things and walking out, Sehun simply slides the ashtray aside. "I take it that you know Chanyeol and Baekhyun from Sales?"

Jongin takes a drag before his brain can catch up with Sehun's words. "Not really," he grumbles. He doesn't have the energy to say that he's known who Baekhyun was ever since Jungah took her first breath, he just didn't know his face until a few minutes ago. "I mean, I don't really see them around at all, that's all."

"Makes perfect sense," Sehun says. "You've probably heard, I take it?" he adds with a knowing chuckle.

Tightening his grip on his cigarette, Jongin bites the inside of his cheek. "Everyone's heard." Moron. 

Sehun chuckles again. "I mean, they've been really vocal about it lately, so that's exciting for them." He adjusts his tie with nifty fingers.

"Apparently they've been engaged for quite a while," Jongin blurts out before he can stop himself. As if his urge to shrink into a molecule and disappear wasn't already sky high. 

"Six months, if I'm not mistaken," Sehun says and smirks to himself. "You should consider yourself lucky that you don't work on the same floor as them. Seriously, that marriage is all they ever talk about nowadays." A lock of bleach blond hair falls in his eyes when he shakes his head. "I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it gets on your nerves after the four hundredth time, believe me."

Jongin fights an impulse to cover his ears before Sehun can talk them right off. "I bet." 

"I don't even know why I'm complaining, to be frank," Sehun sing-songs. "The world could use a bit more love that genuine, but that's just my two cents." He greets a female colleague who walks in shortly after.

This time, Jongin doesn't bother responding. All he knows is that he regrets not bolting out the door when he had the chance, and it's not until it shuts again that he fights the urge to curl up into a ball and disappear. Even though Sehun being as extroverted as he appeared on the outside wasn't exactly a shocker, Jongin wishes that Sehun would shut his goddamn mouth already and let him suffer in peace. 

Thankfully, his boss calling his name nearly makes Jongin cry with relief. Despite being seconds away from getting it handed to him for taking a thirty minute smoke break, Jongin nearly sprains his ankle turning on his heel and scrambling out the door.

8:32 P.M

Downing another cup of coffee, Jongin manages to type with his free hand as he approaches the end to his report. It brings him little relief, knowing that he's got at least three more to pull through, but he figures that he's entitled to at least one texting break as he pulls out his phone. His finger trembles when he types in his passcode, which leads him to believe that he's probably had enough caffeine for one day.

He's greeted with his and his mother's recent text conversation, and Jongin is so busy staring at the photo she sent him an hour ago that he fails to notice Luhan saying good-bye from across the hallway.

Jongin's eyes trail across Jungah's bubbly smile, her doe eyes and the large bowl of fried tofu sitting on the table in front of her. The pink Hello Kitty sweater that he bought for her eighth birthday is probably stained with tomato sauce by now, and Jongin makes a mental note to toss it in the laundry basket after he picks her up tonight. His mother must have styled Jungah's hair, since it's neatly divided into two pigtails instead of hanging loose like it did when he dropped her off at school this morning. Jongin can practically hear her begging for dessert as a reward for eating her vegetables, leaving him grinning like a madman in his seat.

Jongin has to focus on his work again when his heart clenches. He wonders if it would be useless of him to suggest that Jungah spend at least Saturday of at home with him, since the idea of spending the entire weekend reviewing faxes is enough to give him nightmares. However, he doesn't get to consider the thought before his phone buzzes in his hand and nearly scares the living soul out of him.

From: Mom

Jungah has been asking for you for the past couple of minutes xx Don't you think you could stop by a little earlier and cheer her up a little? xx

Jongin swallows. He knows that requesting an early leave with a mountain of work still left is out the window, unless he wants to show up at the office at four in the morning tomorrow. Despite the guilt surging through his veins, Jongin ends up declining his mother's offer, but not without promising to pick up Jungah some mochis on his way back. It's times like this that Jongin wants to break his unspoken rule of not giving Jungah her first cell phone until she turns thirteen, because late night video conversations would be optimal whenever he's scheduled to work overtime.

Speaking of which, Sehun hasn't stopped by to bother him ever since their run-in at the smoke room earlier. Come to think of it, Jongin is glad that nobody in Sales typically works overtime, since it always entitles him to a couple of hours peace and quiet at his desk. A part of Jongin still feels a sliver of guilt for running off like he did, but a bigger part of him is relieved to be away from Sehun's love struck, talkative self for one evening.

It's not until Jongin worries that he'll end up falling asleep mid report that he gets up and stretches. His desk is in its default state of looking like a tornado just struck it, but he doesn't bother fixing it as he picks up his mug and heads down the corridor.

Despite the hallways usually being dark when he arrives at eight o'clock every morning, there's something about them being nearly pitch black and void of human life at this hour that sends a shiver down Jongin's spine. He knows that if Jungah were here, she would to death about being a 'scaredy cat afraid of puny little monsters'. While the thought of his nine year old daughter being braver than him should throw him off, Jongin can't help but feel oddly proud as he opens the door to the break room.

To Jongin's dismay, every single coffee machine is empty and unfiltered. Knowing he won't last until eleven o'clock without at least ten blood sugar spikes, Jongin hopes that nobody will notice a little bit of coffee being missing from the upstairs break room while he makes his way towards the stairs. 

Jongin tries his best not to make eye contact with anybody after he reaches the second floor. He quickly spots a few colleagues reviewing charts on their computers while filling in graphs by hand. Luckily, they seem to have more important things to worry about than his existence. 

The next thing Jongin knows, he halts in his tracks after seeing Sehun's name on one of the cubicle walls. Knowing he's simply bored and overly desperate for entertainment, Jongin finds himself tip-toeing towards it before peeking inside.

Just as he expected, Sehun's cubicle is identical to every other cubicle in the building. However, as opposed to himself, Sehun seems to be a top notch neat freak, with every folder and book tucked away in their respective shelves and boxes. To say that it beats Jongin's random piles of most-likely-outdated-and-useless junk by a mile would be a vast understatement. 

Almost instinctively, Jongin's head turns to the left after taking ten steps. As much as he wishes he could do something to stop it, Jongin has always been drawn to the cubicle at the end of the hallway like a magnet. Even though Chanyeol's cubicle looks just as ordinary as everybody else's, Jongin feels a pang of warmth rushing to his head when he catches a whiff of Chanyeol's cologne. He's just glad that Chanyeol has headed home for the day, because Jongin doesn't know how he would explain lingering outside Chanyeol's vacant cubicle like a schoolgirl in love if he were to get caught.

All that fills Jongin's mind is Chanyeol's soothing voice while they went through everything there was to know about the computer system, days after Jongin's first day on the job. Jongin still recalls the feeling of the tip of Chanyeol's tie grazing his cheek as he hovered above him. Jongin also recalls panicking over Chanyeol possibly finding him annoying for constantly failing to understand the material, but he gradually forgot about it when he and Chanyeol went on to become closer day after day.

Even though Chanyeol was most likely putting up with him due to his status as the office rookie, Jongin will always remember the warm embrace that Chanyeol gave him on the day of his one year anniversary as an employee, nearly ten years ago. Little did Jongin know that that day would come to be the very day he realized that he had fallen head over heels for Chanyeol.

Jongin nearly drops his mug when he trips on the threshold to the break room. How ing pathetic. 

Thankfully, the break room is empty save for a few burned out women and somebody drowning their fatigue with energy drinks. Jongin is glad that he's safe from awkward small talk as he flies towards the coffee machine. To his dismay, said machine is also dead empty, so he opts to grab himself a pouch of coffee powder from the cupboard. Last time he had one, it nearly had him bolting to the bathroom, but at this point, he can't bring himself to care. 

As he stirs his double (quadruple, if he could) espresso, Jongin's eyes trail across the room. Despite all of them working under the same roof, he feels exceptionally out of place with everybody from Sales chattering away around him. Jongin reminds himself that Taeyeon from said department constantly uses their break room to chat with her friends, which helps him relax as he leans against the counter. 

Aside from the fresh smell of coffee, the ceiling light is the only thing keeping Jongin on his feet at this point, and he has to remind himself not to look at the black sky outside to avoid falling asleep standing up. It just makes him that much more thankful that Jungah has grown to prefer spending her nights with her grandmother instead of their apartment, even though she has never truly had a fear of the darkness. Jongin knows that he's simply letting his own fears get the best of him, and he's seconds away from touching the doorknob when the door suddenly swings open.

Jongin manages to avoid getting his nose smashed into his skull as he jumps aside in the nick of time. However, his relief is short lived when he realizes that every inch of his paper white dress shirt is drenched beyond belief as a result. All Jongin knows is that he's thankful that he chose not to use any hot water when it starts seeping through the fabric.

Thankfully, everybody in the room either didn't notice or is too burned out to care. Jongin still curses as he looks up, ready to give whoever decided to ruin his evening a piece of his mind. Luhan is always so insufferably impulsive, it has to be Luhan--

"Sorry about that," Sehun chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. His hair is tousled, probably as a result of running a hand through it for hours on end. "Didn't see you there."

Jongin swallows his snide remark about Sehun obviously not being able to see him due to the door being closed in the first place. To add insult to injury, the lukewarm coffee is already seeping into his skin. He's just glad that Chanyeol isn't around to see him make a fool out of himself like this. "It's fine," he mutters.

It's not until Sehun greets one of his colleagues that Jongin scrambles towards the staircase. He's just glad that his boss has headed home for the day, since she definitely would have forced him to drive home and change his clothes on the spot otherwise.

Jongin doesn't bother acknowledging the fact that he happened to empty his entire mug while running into Sehun just now, and he simply places it on his desk before attempting to focus on whatever he was in the middle of doing earlier. Behind him, a few women gossip about the infamous wedding on their way to the elevators, which does nothing to kickstart Jongin's concentration as he mentally curses his entire existence.

9:56 P.M

By some miracle, Jongin manages to pull through two reports in one and a half hours. He's surprised that he made it this far without a single drop of coffee or nicotine, and even though his dress shirt is cold, clammy and sticking to his chest like glue at this point, he's glad that he might actually finish on time for once. His thighs are cramped from the lack of moving around, which only has him craving a smoke to kickstart his circulation.   

Upstairs, all the noise seems to have faded. Jongin commends his concentration skills for making him oblivious to his colleagues coming down the stairs and heading for the exit right behind him, seconds before he gets up and stretches his long legs. If he could, he would rip his dress shirt right off and head outside if it meant escaping the godforsaken wetness, an urge that skyrockets after he touches it and realizes that it hasn't even dried yet.

Jongin's thoughts come to a halt when he ogles the bottom right hand corner of his computer. To his surprise, he ended up finishing a lot earlier than he'd expected. A thought hits him, and even though Jongin knows it's useless, he finds himself reaching for his phone and dialing his mother's number before he can change his mind.

Sure enough, she picks up after the first ring. "Hi, dear," she sing-songs in her usual warm tone.

Jongin clears his throat. "Hey," he mutters, staring at the large window over by Luhan's cubicle. "I hope I didn't wake you."

"It's alright," she chuckles before making another one of her jokes about how she most likely passed on her night owl-ish tendencies to her son. "I hope things aren't all too hectic right now, you know I don't like you working on your own way over there."

Jongin can't help but chuckle at her usual overprotectiveness. He doesn't think she'll ever stop seeing him as a five year old boy. "I got done early today," he responds. "Is Jungah asleep yet?"

"She's getting ready for bed," his mother responds in a knowing tone, seconds before a familiar voice calls out something along the lines of 'Nana, who're you talking to?'. "I'll put her on, just a sec."

Muttering a low 'Thanks', Jongin stares at the floor. He knows that he might as well hang up, since it was already useless to begin with, but he only ends up tightening his grip on his phone when he hears Jungah's voice asking if it's Dad on the line. 

For a second, there's only static until Jungah's voice blares through the speakers. "I thought people weren't allowed to talk on the phone when they worked," she giggles. "You know better than that, Dad!" 

Jongin can't help the wide grin that erupts on his face. "Hi, honey," he says. "How was school today?"

"We just did the usual, fractions and stuff," Jungah responds in a bored tone before she giggles. She beginning to sound more mature with each passing day, which makes Jongin both terrified and oddly proud. "Are you doing boring stuff right now?"

"The boring stuff's all done, thankfully," Jongin quickly says, to which she responds with a hum. "Look, I was-"

"I don't get why you never take me there," Jungah huffs and Jongin can almost see the stubborn pout on her face. "You always talk about your job, so I wanna see it! All of my friends say their parents bring them to their jobs, so that means you have to do it, too!" 

Jongin tries to ignore the uncomfortable coiling in his gut. "Someday, sweetie," he says before clearing his throat. "Since I probably won't need to work tomorrow, I was wondering if you'd like to do something over the weekend, just the two of us." He bites the inside of his cheek. "We could go see that movie you always wanted to watch, if you'd like."

Jungah is silent for a minute. "Nana took me to see it on Wednesday," she lowly says. "You kept saying you were too busy to take me so I asked her, instead," she adds before she chuckles. "I don't think you would have liked it, though, since there was too much girly stuff. "

Jongin attempts a laugh, but it ends up dying in his throat as he bites his lip. "I see," he hums, trying to ignore the heaviness settling in his gut.

They fall into silence before Jungah continues. "Dad, don't be angry, but...would it be okay if I stayed over at Nana's tomorrow, too? And on Sunday?"

Jongin hears a few cars zoom past on the road below. She isn't giving him a reason, but he figures that she doesn't need to. He knows that there's nothing for her at home, even with him, and hasn't been for years. He also knows that she knows it, too. Despite it, he can't help the deflated sigh that leaves his lips when he runs a hand through his hair. 

"Of course," Jongin says, almost immediately. He barely hears Jungah's squeal over the dull pounding in his chest. "Try not to wear Nana out too much, though, okay?"

"I won't!" Jungah chirps. "And Lisa said she might want to play at the park tomorrow, her mother's okay with it so you don't need to call her!"

Jongin tries to smile when Jungah goes on to tell him about all the embarrassing baby photos of him that his mother showed her earlier that evening. All it does is remind him of all the photos he took of Jungah up until she was seven years old and work got more hectic. "I'll pick up some mochis on my way back."

"I'm ten soon, I'm getting too old for presents," Jungah laughs, and there's something alarmingly mature about her tone. "But I'll make sure to save you the gross one for when you come and pick me up!" 

"Sure, Princess," Jongin chuckles, not having the energy to tease Jungah about her irrational dislike for the green tea mochis in particular. "I'll see you Monday, okay? I promise."

Jongin barely registers the line cutting off as he shoves his phone in his pocket. For once, he wishes that the office wasn't dead empty, because his loud sigh seems to bounce off of every wall as it echoes in the room.  

He doesn't even know why he bothers complaining, since he's lost count of all the weekends he's spent alone for the past few years. However, there's something about the fact that he won't be able to distract himself with work this time that makes him want to cry. In fact, Jongin jokingly contemplates spending the night at the office instead of cooped up in the daft loneliness of his apartment, but the thought disappears as soon as it came.

He nearly trips over his own two feet scrambling for his briefcase. 

He needs a drink. And fast.