You:

She tried to dash into the office secretly, but all eyes were still on her. Bending her head down to avoid those scary gazes, she quickly got to her cubical and spun around in relief on her chair. She thought she wasn’t caught. Yet.

   “Minki? You’re still there?” Sticking her head into the cubical on her right, she raised her voice hoping to receive an answer from her colleague, but he was nowhere to be found. She stood up and scanned the room with a confused look plastered on her face. That hottie blonde dressed in pink, where could he be?

   “Good day to you, ~~~~~~.” A voice startled her; and as she turned around, her papers and decoratives were mercilessly pushed from her desk down to the floor, causing some chain noises to make the scene even more dramatic. People stopped chatting and she felt gazes pinning on her back. As soon as she recognized the person calling her name, she bowed down just seriously enough to be counted polite and said:

   “Thank you, Dongho… I mean… Kang-nim. What brought you here?”

   “Ah, just finding my little cupcake.” He smirked arrogantly; and she didn’t know whether to laugh at his face for his cheesy mood or to appreciate him for not putting her into any s. Kang Dongho is the young, successful editor-in-chief of the newspaper. As a top journalist, he knows well enough about everything that can happen in the company, and many people could have been sacked because of it. Though, he seems to be completely hands-off from this; mostly because all he cares about is Choi Minki, Choi Minki and Choi Minki. Now feeling thankful for being a friend of the latter’s, she looked up again and heard a clear, happy giggle sounding somewhere near her. It felt so bright and peaceful like hearing the church bells ringing in a sleepy Sunday morning. Minki threw his arms around her and pecked her cheeks.

   “Babe, I miss you! What took you so long?” He cheered, and she couldn’t help but grin like a dork and ignore the jealousy from Dongho’s bullet-like glares.

   “Some things took longer times than we thought. We even went out for lunch, so…” She managed to free herself from Minki’s hug and said. “Sorry.”

   “And you didn’t bring anything back for me? You are so bad!” He pouted cutely and pinched her cheeks. She was somehow glad that her other colleagues got bored when Dongho didn’t kick her and got back to their work; or else that would turn into a big mess. Just then she realized that she forgot the scarf at the pizzeria and apologized to Minki. He happily accepted it, and they acted some more lovey-dovey scenes before Dongho’s face was red with envy. Minki laughed playfully and let go of her to cling onto his lover’s arm. Dongho almost lifted his feet off the ground and put the feminine boy down with no difficulty. Then he left in silence, leaving Minki there dumbfounded.

Oops.

   “Ms. Kwon ~~~~~~, someone wants to see you.” A security stepped into the room and announced. She stood up cautiously before heading our, but Minki grabbed her wrist and dragged her back in a weak effort. His eyes were getting teary already, and the way he looked at her made her think of a helpless puppy.

   “Alright, come with me.” She said and dragged him across the office. After thanking the security, she sticked her head out of the door questioningly and saw Junhyung holding Minki’s scarf on his hands. Of course, with Hyunseung next to him.

   “You forgot this.” The younger said quickly, not forgetting to eye Minki suspiciously as he sniffed softly and tangled his fingers around her. She took the blue scarf away from Junhyung’s hands and smiled at her two best friends.

   “Thanks, but you know you don’t need to bring it here this instance, right?”

   “I just want to make sure that you don’t catch a cold on the way home. A clumsy dork like you…” Junhyung mumbled uncomfortably as Hyunseung let out a small laughter. She hugged both of them with one arm – the other one was still with Minki. Junhyung glared at him again and she kicked his shin gently with a warning look.

   “Go home.” She mouthed. “I’ll see you two later.”

Hyunseung quickly understood the situation and pulled the confused Junhyung out of the building. She nodded at them before turning back to Minki, wrapping the thick scarf around his pale, slender neck. It felt like taking care of another Hyunseung – they were both so fragile, yet strong.

Minki called her name weakly, and she patted his shoulder in silence as an answer. He was still sniffling and his eyes were red, but no tears came out at all.

   “He was mad at me!” He cried out hopelessly. “He didn’t say anything! And he always says something when it comes to me fooling around like that! It’s my fault, I should’ve never like…”

And then it happened – what her colleagues would normally call ‘Ren’s silent storm’. When Minki cried, ther was no sobbing, no talking or whining, nothing. Tears just fell down his cheeks as he stared at his feet. It felt like watching a waterfall, since there were lots of tears, not to mention the speed. She wrapped her hands around his comfortingly.

   “It’ll be fine, he won’t be mad at you. Just say sorry.”

   “I’m scared…”

   “I’ll help you, don’t worry.”

   “No one needs helping, you know.” Dongho appeared out of nowhere just like his usual style and snatched Minki’s hand away from her. The latter wiped his tears and reluctantly let himself to be pulled away, leaving her there alone with silence in the hall. She smirked at the ground. Well, at least I solved something today.

♠

Hyunseung:

   “Hyunseung, you really need to eat more.” Mom complained as she shoved another bunch of food into my plate. “You’re getting skinnier these days. I knew it that we shouldn’t let you stay alone after you recovered. It would be very inconvenient, you know…”

   “Mom…” I faked a smile and pushed the plate away from me a bit. To tell the truth, just looking at all the food made me feel kind of sick. “You are exaggerating it. I’m fine; but I’m going to explode anytime soon if you continue to feed me like this!”

   “He’s got a point, honey.” Finally, Dad decided to stand on my side. “This should be enough for today. You know he said he wouldn’t leave for some times, so he won’t be able to deny it if you want to spend some times with him later. Let him enjoy his freedom at least.”

I smiled at Dad thankfully and took another sip from my glass. No matter what they say, being home brought me one of the best feelings in the world.

♠

Junhyung:

   “I told you not to do it. I told you that you might just hurt yourself if you do such thing, Junhyung.” Doojoon murmured angrily as I walked out of the room with a casted arm. I looked around one more time, thinking how sarcastic it was for the hospital to become one of our favorite meeting places. “But you didn’t listen. I know it looks awesome to jump down from the first floor like that, but don’t you think about the consequences? What can you do on stage with that arm? I can’t believe that you are such a…”

   “Yo, Doojoon?” I interrupted him, feeling fed up with him and his lengthy preaching.

   “What?”

   “Shut up.”

   “You should just be glad that he didn’t break his neck, oppa.” ~~~~~~ finally got back from the reception desk, holding a thick envelope. She was looking down at her phone, probably texting someone else; but anyhow I felt glad that she was there to change the subject before Kikwang came to pick us up. If the latter found out about how I broke my arm, his nagging might just become a little more than bearable; not to mention that I’d had kind of enough with Doojoon’s. “It is just Junhyung being Junhyung; you only have to be concerned when he’s not doing these stuffs.” She added and looked up at Doojoon with a persuasive, yet pleading glare. The older sighed, mumbling something about how naïve she was when it comes to me, and how my bad influence was starting to rub off on her. She smirked and poked my sides with her elbow when the other hand of hers shoved the envelope into her bag. I, the bad influence, hit Doojoon’s back with my casted arm and told him to stop preaching, causing him to fumble down the steps and ended up almost falling facedown into the hard sidewalk. He took me by the collar and began shouting – which was very unusual of the calm, caring leader – but got stopped by Kikwang as he and Dongwoon reached the hospital to pick us up. After we got ourselves stuffed into the backseats, Doojoon took the wheel with ~~~~~~ sitting next to him at the front, while Kikwang and Dongwoon were still fighting for the seat next to the window. I retreated to the back, unwilling to sit with those childish guys in the middle of their twenties. I wanted to talk to ~~~~~~, but she was still going through the papers in the envelope with a blank expression on her face. Hit by curiosity, I told myself to ask her what she was reading later and sank back into my seat trying to call Hyunseung. He didn’t answer though and I decided to text him, telling how bored I was, standing all of the guys’ nagging without him to defend me, since he was off to see his parents in Busan.

♠

   Our shift was over long after midnight came. Since Doojoon and ~~~~~~ lived in nearby blocks, they decided to walk each other home hoping that the cool breeze of winter would somehow wake their sleepy brains up. Dongwoon nodded off right inside of the waiting room, he was too tired; and Kikwang quickly made up his mind that the maknae needed to be taken care of. Since there was no place else to park his car after the bar closed, he let me use it; and so I was driving Yoseob home. He was sleeping like a newborn baby; his cheek pressed against the cold window and his steady breathing was covering it with misty spots. Though it was really cold outside, he had only a shirt and a ridiculously thin sweatshirt on – I barely had the chance to ignore it when his body shivered despite the working heater.

   Driving with one hand was funny, but somehow I got used to it. The car stopped in front of his house minutes later. It was a little detached house with a nice garden in front, and I could tell that he lived there alone – there were no signs of porch lights being lighted up waiting for him, and everything in the house was drenched in silence.

   “Yah, Seobie-ah, we’re here.” I poked him gently and he stirred awake, looking a bit irritated as if being woken up from a beautiful dream.

   “Ah, thank you, hyung.” He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes slowly and opened the door wanting to walk out. The wind blew in so mercilessly and violently; for one second I thought that Yoseob was going to be blown away. Instead, he just clutched onto his shirt and jumped down from the car. At the same moment, I opened the door on my side and told him that I was going to get him in. He raised his eyebrows at me for one second, but then agreed. We slowly walked through the street, heading towards the house with the young boy wrapped in my jacket – I insisted him to take it on since I was scared of the prospect that Kikwang and Doojoon were going to tear me apart if I let him catch a cold.

   “Yeah, I guess we’re here.” He stratched the back of his neck shyly as we got to the front steps. “Thanks again, hyung.”

   “No big deal.” I shrugged and smiled. In a spare milisecond I thought Yoseob blushed. He quickly shoved the jacket back to me and bid his goodbye.

   “Yeah, see you tomorrow.” I replied. “Sweet dr…”

   Before I could even finish my sentence, he slammed the door at my face without saying a single word. I heard footsteps coming upstairs – he didn’t bother to turn on the lights; and soon the sounds faded away, leaving me there in extreme awkwardness.

   Well, that was unexpected.