Esther found herself slow dancing with her co-worker, Taeyong, at her friend's birthday party. She didn't know that the two knew one another, but should have figured that out when the two ran in the same social circle unlike her. Still though luckily for Esther was that her friend, Skyler, was having a themed party and everyone wore masks to conceal their identities. At first Esther wasn't up to the whole dancing bit, but Skyler had put her on the spot and so Esther chose the closes male to her. That person turned out to be Taeyong and now here she was slow dancing with him even though he had no idea who she was underneath the mask.

Anyways, Esther was trying to keep this whole thing as neutral as possible, but she was having a really hard time looking at Taeyong when his stares basically went right through her. Every time Esther tried to look at Taeyong his gaze was too intense and so she would avert her eyes to behind him majority of the time. Taeyong quirked a brow with an amused expression as he noticed Esther would shift eye-contact with him when they would locked eyes every now and then. His amusement became concern wondering if she disliked him or something.

"Are you disappointed that you chose me as your dance partner?" Taeyong asked when Esther's eyes avoided him once again.

Esther cast him a puzzled look, but didn't look away this time around when she made eye-contact with Taeyong.

"What do you mean?"

"It seems your attention lies somewhere behind me and not at me."

"Oh, that, well," Esther wasn't sure to be honest or not, but decided to be honest, "It's because of your eyes."

"My eyes?" Taeyong questioned with a laugh. "What about them?"

"Well, honestly, it's because you're looking at me like I stole something from you and you want it back."

A slow smile then ghosted over her face.

"Or you're about to murder me if I don't owe you back your money."

"Ah."

Taeyong realized what she meant by her words as he had a tendency to look at people with a dark stare without meaning to. He tried to soften his expression, but to the female it seemed like he was making weird facial expressions instead. Esther let out a soft chuckle before commenting on it.

"You should stop that. Your face looks weird with whatever you were trying to do just now."

Taeyong immediately stopped what he was doing and felt shy and embarrassed by what he may have appeared like to Esther not that long ago. HIs face again went back to his usual brooding-like appearance. Esther suppressed a laugh from escaping, but the corners of her lips were twitching for it to be released. So instead she asked the male if he was alright.

"Um, are you okay?"

Now it was Taeyong who was puzzled by her words.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Do I not look okay?"

"Well, honestly, you look like you're mad at the world."

"Oh, um, sorry." He apologized as he wasn't sure how to set his facial expression.

"Don't be." She dismissed as she gazed at Taeyong curiously. "It's just..."

Esther's left hand left Taeyong's shoulder briefly so that she could skim her forefinger across his eyebrows. She placed her left had back to its previous position when she felt his brows relaxed under her touch.

"Your eyebrows are pretty expressive and so hopefully that toned it down a bit."

Esther cast him a soft smile while Taeyong felt a bit awkward upon having her smoothed out his brows for him.

"Um, thanks." He thanked her with a shy demeanor.

"You're welcome."

Silence fell between them, but Ester remembered Taeyong's question from earlier and replied back to it.

"Oh. I'm not disappointed that your my dance partner by the way. You lead very well."

At first Taeyong was confused, but then remembered the question he had asked her.

"Oh, um, thank you. You're not so bad yourself."

"I try, but these heels are totally killing me."

Esther let out a groaned before slightly ranting about her friend, the birthday girl.

"This is the last time I let Skyler talked me into wearing these."

"Speaking of Skyler, how do you know her?" Taeyong asked as he knew everyone that Skyler had invited except for the five females that Skyler partially introduced.

"Oh, that. Skyler, me, and the other four girls that I came with, we were roommates back in college for all four years." Esther explained. "We stayed in contact after graduation and this is the first time me and the others girls have attended Skyler's themed party."

"Oh, why is that?"

"Oh, well, we never knew of her background until our last year of school. We usually just stayed home and celebrated her birthday with just the six of us."

She then re-directed the conversation away from her.

"Anyways, how do you know Skyler?"

"Our parents are long time friends which means we were natural to be friends."

Esther was curious about this information and wanted to about it.

"Ah, does that mean the both of you are gonna marry each other?"

Taeyong burst into laughter upon hearing those words.

"Oh, god no. She's like a sister to me. Besides, she already likes someone, but is too stubborn to admit it."

"I knew it. I knew she liked somebody, but wouldn't tell us."

Before Taeyong could comment on it, the song came to an end and Skyler's voice grabbed their attention.

"Alright. Everyone thank their dance partners!"

The pair looked at one another and bowed while thanking the other for the dance and conversation.

"Thank you for choosing me as your dance partner." Taeyong thanked Esther as she chuckled while doing the same. "Thanks for putting up with me, Taeyong."

Taeyong frowned.

"Wait. You know who I am?"

Esther slightly panicked as she forgot that they wore masks and haven't properly introduced themselves to one another. Plus, Esther looked nothing like how she looked like at work unlike Taeyong who looked the same outside of work. Before she could answer him, Skyler's voice sounded again.

"After thanking your partner, please return to your seats! We're now gonna move on to singing the birthday song and eating my birthday cake!"

"Okay, bye!" Esther bid Taeyong a quick goodbye before rushing of leaving him behind.

Taeyong was about to give chase, but remembered that he was at a friend's party and didn't want to cause a scene. He would let it go, for now. Unfortunately he never got the chance as he drank that night and got wasted. He should've knew his limit, but he was having fun. He totally forgot about finding out if Esther knew him or not.

Esther was hanging out with her friends along with those that Skyler had invited without their knowledge at the karaoke bar. It was supposed to be a girls' night out, but it turned out to be some sort of group date of sorts with Skyler's male friends they met at her birthday party. Anyways, Esther witnessed her friend, Genevy, running off after one round of singing when Skyler announced the scores of girls versus boys. Something about needing to finish up some last minute work things. Esther knew that was a lie since they lived together, but she amusingly couldn't help but think it was to escape from her co-worker, Yuta, that Genevy's been ranting about since finding out he and Skyler were friends.

Esther also watched Yuta run after Genevy a moment later and wondered how things were gonna turned out like now. She knew that Genevy would tell her later about it and so didn't worry too much. Anyways, this prompted Esther to head on home and leave as well. She wasn't in the mood to sing further and she also wanted to make an escape since Taeyong was unexpectedly invited as well. She kept her cool, but that didn't mean it wasn't awkward in a sense. So Esther knew how Genevy may have felt upon seeing Yuta here tonight, too. She stood up and gave Skyler an apologetic look.

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna head on out, too."

"Really?" Skyler cast her friend a look. "Why so soon?"

"Unlike, Genevy, I still have some work things left to do."

"Okay, fine, but hey let Taeyong take you home." Skyler suggested. "He lives in that direction, too."

Before Esther could dismiss the suggestion, Taeyong didn't mind.

"Oh, yeah sure. I'll accompany you home." Taeyong offered as he also stood up.

"Please take real good care of her okay, Taeyong!"

"Yeah, she hates being alone!"

"So don't take your eyes off of her!"

Esther's other three friends, Jasmine, Katherine, and Everly inputted making Esther shoot them a dark look. The trio just laughed it off while Skyler insisted on it.

"Oh, yeah, good idea. Text me when you get home." Skyler said with a smile.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Esther dismissed although she knew her friends were just looking out for her even though it was a little more out of amusement.

Taeyong also bid farewell to his friends and the other ladies before he and Esther headed out.

Unlike Genevy, Esther had made a left towards the metro station when she existed the building which confused Taeyong as he followed after her.

"Um, isn't home this way?" He asked with a confused tone.

"It is, but I wanna check out something first before going home as I just remembered something."

"Oh, okay. Then I'll go with you, too."

"It's fine, Taeyong. You don't have to come with me. I'll j-"

"Oh, it's all good. I don't mind at all, Esther."

Taeyong shot her a friendly smile as he matched his pace with hers. Esther wasn't sure how to feel about this whole thing, but deep within her was relieved to know that she wouldn't be walking the streets alone at night. The two continued talking with polite chit-chat between them, but Esther noticed that she was walking a few steps ahead of Taeyong and so would slow her pace for him to catch up with her. Although Taeyong did most of the talking, she didn't mind as she had nothing really to say and didn't mind being a listener. It just was that she couldn't help to notice that he would lag behind every now and then that she had to mention it.

"Um, Taeyong, could you either like stay walking beside me or ahead of me, please? I dislike it when people walk behind me."

"Oh, sorry." He apologized as he matched her pace once again. "I'm just used to walking behind the others to make sure everyone is there."

Esther scoffed with a laugh.

"Why do you sound like your either a leader of a boy group or a mother herding her children."

Taeyong laughed upon hearing her words.

"Well, honestly, you're not wrong. There's a lot of us whenever we hang out and so I just like to make sure everyone is safe and sound."

"Is that why you're always the last one to leave the building, but also the first one to arrive to work?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Esther tsked.

"You're doing too much, Taeyong. You should really take care of yourself more because I know you be pulling in a lot of over time hours when you