Things have been quite awkward after Minho had abruptly hugged Taemin twice in one day. It could not be considered a bad kind of awkward, because there is no animosity or hatred behind the tense silences they end up sharing. It was just... awkward. And maybe this awkwardness is present because they have been made aware of their own underlying feelings after they had felt the other in their own arms.

That is the main reason why Minho had decided to take a day off today, but Taemin couldn't have figured that that out. He couldn't have figured out that he had been driving his boss crazy the past days and that his boss needed time alone to get himself together before facing him again. Taemin only assumed that his boss was just too lazy to go to work today, so he had stormed into the lobby to knock some sense into him. But Ho Dong had stopped him and told him that Mr. Choi was feeling under the weather today and that he had requested not to be disturbed. This worried Taemin, very much.

So he called him.

And called him.

And called him.

36 rings all together and there was still no voice on the other line.

Amber was the only one available and willing to be on the receiving end of his ranting about idiots not knowing how to answer their phones or idiots not knowing how to take care of themselves properly. The woman did not really understand what Taemin was raving about, so in a desperate attempt to calm him down, she grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him to the bar she frequented, telling him that he needed a drink.   

Taemin gulps down his fifth glass of soju as Amber watches him amusedly, laughing at her co-worker's close-to-drunk state.

"Who was I kidding?" The younger props his chin on the table, beginning to get a headache from the alcohol and the feelings and the handsome, charming, jerk of a boss he is obligated to, "The man's homophobic, for god's sake..."

Amber pours him another shot, pondering how someone of Taemin's appearance can handle his alcohol so well, "What are you going on about, Taemin?”

The boy unconsciously pouts his lips as he questions the woman carefully, "Would you laugh if I told you?"

She takes a swig of her drink and smirks to , "I'll try not to."

"Good enough." He nods his head and grips his shot glass. He stares down at the clear liquid for a long moment until he finally admits it to himself in a quiet whisper, "I like Minho."

"What?" The woman, inches her ear closer to signify that the words Taemin had uttered had not reached her.

He stares at her, and then looks down to his lap, blushing,"I l-like Minho."

"I didn't catch that."

"I. like. Minho." He makes his voice a tad louder, blush gone, only frustration present.

The woman bangs her hand lightly on the table as if egging the boy on, "You've gotta speak up, Taemin!"

"I LIKE CHOI MINHO, DAMMIT!"

Taemin belatedly realizes that he had practically shouted out and declared his feelings for his boss to the whole bar, but is relieved to see that the other occupants are too drunk to even pay attention to things other than their alcohol induced fantasies, so the redness in his cheeks easily dies down. 

The woman smirks at him and ruffles his disheveled hair, "Heh, I was just kidding. I heard you the first time." The boy glares at her, and she can only laugh because the glare Taemin is giving him isn't scary at all. It can actually be considered adorable. Taemin huffs, but looks worriedly to his friend, "Aren't you creeped out? I'm a man, admitting his feelings for another man. Don't you find it gross?"

"What's so gross about that? You like him, so what? Everyone is bound to like someone in their life, you just so happen to like someone on your side of the team." She gulps down another shot, not batting an eyelash. 

"Uh..." Taemin opens and closes his mouth much like a goldfish, trying to come up with a proper response to his friend's bordering on philosophical reasoning, but in the end he only comes up with, "Wow, I didn't really expect that..."

The woman smirks, "Why? What did you expect?"

"Something bad, really." Someone from the other side of the bar drunkenly hollers something about taking his shirt off and pole dancing for free as people booed him.

Taemin would have laughed out loud if only what he is about to say can be considered laughable, "The last time I'd told a friend that I was gay and had feelings for another man, she was so grossed out it wasn't even funny. She even turned all my other friends against me. Long story short, we completely stopped talking after that."

Amber is staring at the inebriated man who was stumbling as he stubbornly tried to take his shirt off for his more than disgusted audience, but Taemin knows that she had been listening. She is still looking at the man when she replies to the boy, "People can be real s." She laughs and then turns to him as she continues, "You've practically had a front row seat to that for the past months."

"Yeah, well, he isn't that bad when you get to know him." But then he remembers how the man had not answered his phone for the several times that Taemin had called him, so he shrugs to add, "Still an , though."

The woman nods in agreement, "He can be pretty tolerant when he has to be. I mean, he doesn't hate me for the whole Krystal thing."

He arches a brow, directing a questioning look to Amber, "Krystal thing? As in Ms. Jung?"

Another nod in affirmation.

"What about her?"

Amber eyes him suspiciously, completely forgetting about the unfit topless man twirling around the silver pole in the corner of the bar, as if debating with herself on whether or not she should expound on what had slipped from . But she decides to, anyway, seeing as Taemin can be trusted, and that he should at least know his boss's real relationship status.

She raises a brow back at him, both a knowing and questioning tone in her voice, "You do know that he and Krystal aren't really an item, right?"

"W-What?" If he were to base things on the interactions between the 'golden couple' (not that he'd been watching), Taemin would have concluded that they were truly, madly, deeply in love with each other, not able to keep their paws off the other for a minute. With all the teasing banter that Taemin always heard between the two, the smirks, the glances, the touches, the body language -- how could they not be an item?

The woman sighs, amused, propping her chin on her hand tiredly. Taemin does not know what to think of this, assuming that she does not want to talk about the matter. But then she speaks up, downing a few shots here and there. By the end of her monologue, Taemin had learned about the arranged plans between Minho's and Krystal's father and the actual feelings that the two hold for each other.

Taemin gapes at the woman, simultaneously asking himself why he is happy inside knowing the fact that Minho is not in a committed relationship with quite possibly the most beautiful woman in Seoul and that he practically hates her with every fiber of his being. He had thought that the reason why Minho had tensed up in the meeting room that day when his 'girlfriend' was brought up was because he did not appreciate his father butting into his and his lover's businesses. But it seems that he was completely off the mark. He simply did not want to talk about her, period.

He blinks repeatedly until his brain and his vision are cleared from the revelations Amber had thrown at him, and then realizes that there is still one tiny detail that confuses him, "But why would he hate you for that?"

"Krystal, well..." Amber rubs the back of her neck in embarrassment, and this puzzles Taemin, because the confident and strong-willed Amber is never embarrassed. Ever. "She has her eye on someone else."

The boy can only his head, as he is still very much confused as he muses, "I don't get the connection."

"That someone is me."

He almost spits out the soju that he had been daintily sipping on when he exclaims with widened eyes and a rounded mouth, "... MWOH?"

She laughs. "I know right? Minho was kind of surprised when Krystal told him, and I expected him to hate me for stealing his... shall I say, woman? I have to say, he was a bit peeved at first. You know how he is with homouals."

It is Taemin's turn to energetically nod in knowing agreement.

"But actually, he's gotten to be glad to have me around. Her moods are more tolerable when she knows that I'm close by." She laughs again, but the man in her company is too far off to laugh along.

Krystal-sshi is also... gay?

Taemin finds it increasingly difficult to stomach this piece of information because someone like her, someone like the beautiful, gorgeous, intelligent, perfect Krystal Jung cannot possibly be gay. Several men dream of getting with her or maybe even just hope of catching a glimpse of her, so it is just hard for Taemin to process the fact the she is one of them, one of the proclaimed mistakes and taboos of society.

But then again, amidst his current state of drunkenness, amidst his doubts on his friend's claims that someone as perfect as Krystal Jung is gay, and amidst all of his insecurities and fears, this new piece of information gives him hope that it is possible for someone famous and perfect and flawless and handsome in a frog-looking way and sweet and secretly caring to have feelings for someone like him.

He absently day dreams about a handsome, frog-looking man before he slowly blacks out, knowing very well that a hell-hath-no-fury hangover is eagerly waiting to greet him come morning.

This chapter is kinda short. :/ Sorry if the dialogue was a bit too much! :o Next chapter, Minho finally, finally, finally, makes an official move, haha.