The autumn days had just gone by so fast, the two lovebirds paid no attention to it when they were busy drowning with each other's work. Yixing started to spend more time in Jisoo's apartment, which she didn't mind at all because the intensity of their meeting was almost impossible at the end of the week near the end of the year. Yixing was so preoccupied with the launch project of ten new gas outlets in all of Korea that he had to travel around the country every week to get involved directly in the progress.

If Yixing or Jisoo was in town on the weekend, they would take the time to have a day out just to have a cup of coffee. Yixing had a new hobby wandering around the bookstore to find books to read, and Jisoo accompanied him to provide some recommendations. They would occasionally make a challenge of who was able to finish reading books of the same title, which of course, Jisoo would always be the winner. But it never stopped Yixing to restart the challenge over and over again with more new books. Most of the time, Yixing would go to her apartment after work because it was closer to his office than to his own. Her couch was now his favorite new dwelling because there he would usually spend his time while staying the night. It's as he was strongly glued there, he wouldn't move an inch until the morning once got himself on it. Even sometimes when Jisoo woke up in the middle of the night, often she found Yixing still awake. The TV was turned on with the most minimal noise, feet resting on the coffee table, and his eyes focused on the laptop screen while his fingers danced on the keyboard.

It reached the end of November, and the weather was much colder since the first snow rain of the winter today in the afternoon. Yixing deliberately let the curtain ajar just enough so he could see out, and Jisoo saw the snow fell heavily outside. She checked on the heater and raised the temperature to make the room warmer.

"What are you working on?" Jisoo asked as she put a new cup of coffee for him on the table then slumped herself next to him with her own hot cocoa in hands. It was two early in the morning, and Yixing was still busy with work.

"It's, uh," Yixing pinched his nose bridge, "The Planning and Development monthly report for the latest project they're currently running."

"You even do this too? Isn't this supposed to be their director's job or something?" Jisoo questioned for the surprise that Yixing even did his subordinate's job, no wonder he didn't get much sleep in this case.

"Well, it is. I'm just checking on it."

"In my humble opinion, Yixing." Jisoo took time to sip the dark liquid from her cup and put it on the table to free her hands from it. "You need to have a little more faith to your employees that they can do their job just fine."

"I can't agree more with you about that." Yixing put the laptop away from his lap and reached the coffee cup to sip on it, and Jisoo turned her head sideways to raise her brow. Then what's exactly his problem? "But you know what? My father has huge faith in me too to not mess it up. The last time I gave them some slack, I almost had our company a million dollars loss in 24 hours."

"No way, what happened?" she probed.

Yixing told her what had happened, about something related to the newsletter campaign in the marketing and miscommunication department that was happening between the marketing director and their vendor. It resulted in a sale delay because they were supposedly waiting for each other news to go ahead with an expanded new-mover campaign. And if not for Yixing's initiative to change their vendors because of their slow communication, a million dollars would have gone in vain.

"A simple miscommunication, you see, almost got me beheaded. Now you see why I do all this, don't you?" 

Jisoo took a deep breath and raised her brow, "Your father sounds scary." she commented.

She didn't have so much memory about Yixing's father, because she only met him once in Chuseok dinner. And Jisoo didn't pay much attention to him either. But what she remembered, Yixing's father didn't say much. She could see where Yixing inherited his calm and gentleness seeing this but compared to his wife and son, Yixing's father didn't smile much either, he looked serious most of the time. And meanwhile, the words that related to him were either 'castrate' or 'behead', this gave a pretty heavy impression on her mind.

"My father is not scary, he's just very strict to me personally. But compared to my grandfather, he's much tolerable. My grandfather is just the worst. You know there's one time when my father was younger, he did a mistake. It wasn't even on purpose, but it caused so much loss for the company. They got ten million dollars debt, and my grandfather asked my father to pay it from his pay. Can you imagine that? My father was penniless for five years. I was only three years old at the time and my grandfather let us starve without some help at all." Yixing sighed. He clicked his tongue and shook his head as if he himself still had it hard to believe it really happened.

"You might think that I was born with a golden spoon in my mouth and I always had it easy, but that's not the case. My parents even had to send me to my maternal grandparents' house in Changsa so I'd had a better life for myself while they squeezed themselves dry to fix this. Until right to this second, I never stop working hard and keep learning from everything they put on my desk. The responsibility is too high, and I can't do mistakes."

While listening to his short story, Jisoo kept her eyes to his all the time. She was listening wholeheartedly, but she couldn't help to feel a bit pity for him. She knew that there was always a reason behind someone's trait, she always thought that Yixing kept overworked himself because it was just him being workaholic. She never thought that he had a history with that.

"Oh, my hardworking baby," she wrapped her arms around his waist and cooed him. She couldn't do anything to help, so she was trying to support him because it's the only thing she could give. "You're squeezing your body dry yourself, you're so skinny. Were you always this skinny in the past?" she rested her cheek on his arm and leaned to him.

Yixing scoffed and shook his head. "In the past I was chubby. My friends even called me a pig." 

"Huh?" Jisoo hummed in disbelief tone,

"Really. I was 163cm, but 75kg weight. Now I'm 176, and only 69kg. It's pretty normal, don't you think? And I'm not skinny, you know. I have muscles. Here, try to pinch me." he stretched out his arm to her and took her hand to pinch it. Jisoo did what he made her do lazily, and scoffed lightly after that.

"No, you're still skinny in my eyes. You need to eat more. You said you don't really have a big breakfast, but don't you ever heard that breakfast is actually the most important meal of the day? It jumpstarts your metabolism and helps you burn more calories throughout the day. I've read that researchers these days found that those who make breakfast the largest meal of the day is more likely to be healthier and fitter than those who eat a large lunch or dinner. It's because the body uses a lot of energy stores for growth and repair through the night, and eating a balanced breakfast helps to up your energy, as well as protein and calcium used throughout the night. Say, it improves blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity and lowers blood pressure, and whatnot. And that's just not all..."

Yixing stared at her with a smile on his face, with the same gesture that she had while listening to him, he also did the same to her. But instead of taking it seriously, he chuckled inaudibly.

"What?" Jisoo asked in confusion.

"You and your research foundings, seems like I have to get myself used to it, don't I?"

Jisoo smacked his arm playfully with a click of her tongue, she was trying to lead him into the healthy life and here he was, teasing her for preaching him into it. "All I'm trying to say is you need to eat more, Yixing. I don't mind if you're a bit chubbier."

"Fine, Baobei, I'll eat more if it makes you happy."

She held her thumb up and smiled widely, that sweet mouth of his. He always knew what to say just to make her happy, didn't he? 

Jisoo took the TV remote from the table. Her small chat with Yixing had wiped her drowsiness out. Thinking that she wouldn't get to sleep anymore for the rest of the night, she tried to change the channels lazily. Yixing was back into working mode with his laptop back on his lap, and Jisoo leaned sideways to Yixing's arm and rested her head on his shoulder while looking for something fun to watch.

"Not sleepy?" Yixing asked as she started to explore the foreign channels.

"Not really. I wonder what movie we can watch at two in the morning," she said that to herself while kept changing the channel. She settled on the HBOmovies airing an old movie of Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas that she had never watched before.

"Angelina is so pretty, don't you think?"  she commented as she started to immerse herself in the movie, she looked up to him just to see his reaction, only to have him shrugged.

"You're prettier," he said casually with only a glance to the TV screen. Jisoo raised her brow.

"I'm serious, Yixing."

"I'm serious, too. She's not my type, so I don't think she's pretty, period."

"So, what is your type?" she asked again, "Apart from that y brainy thing."

"You are my type." 

Jisoo rolled her eyes and threw her hands up, giving up. She leaned back again to rest on the couch while Yixing was laughing inaudibly, amused by her reaction. Going back to the movie, Jisoo thought that it was that romantic drama genre with the touch feely gestures and cringworthy dialogues. But as the scenes got more intimate with kissing scenes, Jisoo started to get uncomfortable. She was thinking of brushing it off since they were both adult and kissing or bed scenes were actually nothing taboo, but when she thought the scene was something that was cut short and fading to black before things heating up like the usual movies, she was really dumbfounded when what happened here was nothing like that. It was too explicit and too steamy that Jisoo started to fidget in her seat.

She took a glance to Yixing, seeing him had his eyes moving from the TV and laptop screen alternately. He scratched his jaw uncomfortably, and Jisoo couldn't help it anymore. She leaned forward to reach the TV remote and intended to change the channel, only to have Yixing also did the same thing. She took her hand back in an instant when their fingers touched, rested it on her neck instead.

"It's awkward," Yixing said while turning down the volume. "You want to watch another channel?" 

Yixing turned to her to hand her the remote. She cleared , trying to act all normal. Their shoulders met, and Jisoo just realized right this second how close they were. She looked up to meet his eyes, and he was staring at her. She looked at his plump lips, and even in the dim lit the tiny mole under his lips was clearly visible to her eyes. And the time was just so right, Jisoo was thinking of kissing him, and he was probably doing the same.

And before everything got more intimate, Jisoo leaned backwards, getting away from him.

"I think I," she took a deep breath and looked away, "I think I should get back to sleep. I have a schedule this morning."

Yixing cleared his throat and leaned back to the couch himself, "Yeah, maybe you should."

"Goodnight, Yixing." she chirped in, a bit exaggerating, but before he said anything she sprinted to her room. It was the most awkward situation she had ever put herself into. And after that night, she always closed the door of her room everytime Yixing stayed to crash on her couch and tried not to get out until the morning came.

It's not about Yixing, really. She knew exactly how he had been holding himself the whole time after he promised to give her the space that she wanted. He tried his best not to touch her unless she was okay with that, he even hesitated when he wanted to wipe her tears, and she was really extremely appreciative of that. But it was actually herself that she worried the most. Yixing was alluring, he was hot and she was weak. But Jisoo had to hold herself, even though she wasn't fully a pure soul, she was personally conservative deep down inside. And given to the situation, she just knew that if she was being reckless, they would end up more than doing just kissing tonight.

With Yixing, she wanted to do it at the right time, in the right pace. She wanted to be mature enough to do this and not to regret it the day after. She wanted to do it right this time.

December went by just like that. It was near the semester-end and Jisoo was occupied with the students' thesis exam schedules, especially for them who wished to graduate in February. She provided an extra time for consultation and even rehearsed with some of them that she had no time to see Yixing on weekend since it's the only time to reply all the mails that came to her three accounts. And one of them was only accessible in the IRO office, which meant, she had to stay in the university on Saturday, and sometimes even on Sunday.

She could only relax a bit as the winter vacation began on the 23rd, she could take some time for her own book project while doing some IRO stuffs and joining the lecturers' meeting, which she almost never attended to. The main reason she always made excuses to ditch the meeting was because Baekhyun was there. And because the other senior lecturers knew that they were close, they never stopped teasing them both even though they knew he was married. Maybe because she was the only one who was still single, and because Baekhyun was the youngest male lecturer they had in the office, they were kind of the perfect toys for the seniors to play with. And no one knew about Yixing, as for now, so she didn't say anything even when they started to offer her their acquaintances for blind dates. And even if it's hard, she was fortunately able to turn down all the offers with her busy schedule reasoning.

On the 31st she flew to Osaka. Her junior high school friends back in Indonesia called her last March to initiate a small reunion for their 'gang'. Jisoo only said yes to the invitation because they were the only friends of the same age she ever had and still maintaining good communication by chatting time to time on Whatsapp group, even though she mostly was the silent reader for the lack of time in checking her phone. She even made some good hangout time with one of them every weekend during her senior year of masters program since she was a German and started at the university that year when she was about to graduate. After a month of discussion and matched each others' schedule since everyone was now spread all over the world, they decided to meet up for a year-end party, so they planned to stay for two days there in Osaka and then took the train to Tokyo on January the 2nd where she had split up from the group since she had to check in for the conference she was invited in.

After the US, Jisoo was kind of used to met her old friends now. She originally was a very quiet person, but after some time when she got used to the familiarity, she could be a very approachable person. She expected the short getaway would be fun, since they were the people who used to be her peers and she remembered how close they were before she joined the accelerated class. And it was actually fun, they were five of them and they lived in this Airbnb apartment which one one them booked since few months ago. And they were having great time, or least Jisoo tried too. They were doing some girls stuff together, they went to the Universal Studio, went shopping, having some culinary trips, and went shopping again, and so on.

Really, it's actually fun to be with them, but Jisoo couldn't help to feel this slight inconvenience when they started to have the girls' talk. Maybe it's because she never really had female friends, and when she was surrounded by women, it was always about work and formality. So when they were discussing, like, some celebrities' gossips, or the hottie at the corner of the cafe, or the obsce