A man clad in a heavy brown overcoat trudged up the rickety steps, sidestepping a drunken man lying facedown on the top of the stairs, and making his way down the poorly lit hallway. The early morning sun filtered through the blinds in narrow strips of light, the only source of illumination in the hallway. The man went up to the door marked 106, knocked a series of patterns gently against the wooden surface, and waited patiently as the door unlocked and swung open with a swoosh.

“You’re late, Minwoo!”

The man, Minwoo was his name, only smiled, traipsing inside with a flutter of his coat and sending a wink to the man who had graciously opened the door for him. He seated himself on the couch near the center of the room, taking off his coat as he said, “Got caught up with something, and besides, the boss isn’t here yet, right? Cut me some slack, Dongwan.”

Dongwan rolled his eyes in amusement, settling right beside Minwoo on the couch, and retorted cheekily, “What kind of second-in-command are you? Arriving later than any of your subordinates.” He wagged his finger at Minwoo, as if scolding a child, “Tsk, tsk, tardiness isn’t tolerated!”

Minwoo sent a weak punch at his arm, more amused than offended, to which Dongwan recoiled in an over-exaggerated manner, landing on his side on the remaining space of the sofa as if Minwoo had just shoved him with all his might. All the while Dongwan continued to smile, finding good humor in teasing his friend/superior—lips stretched across bright pearly whites and face crinkling with prominent smile lines. It was a normal greeting for the both of them, something that they said to each other without fail every morning but never quite got tired off. It didn’t matter if it was overused, as long as they were having fun, they couldn’t care less.

The duo started to chatter amongst themselves, their voices and laughter echoing throughout the silent apartment room. The apartment block in itself was quite small in size, with a living room that immediately connected to the kitchen dining room and three doors on one side of the room that led to two small bedrooms and one bathroom squeezed in between. The interior of the room was much cleaner than the grimy exterior of the outer building and hallway as neither of them could stand working in a dirty environment. Their boss splurged quite a bit in renovating their apartment room, and was even able to make the owner let the room be refurbished even though it was against their contract—of course, with a bit of bribes and threats on their side of the argument. It was close to the perfect working environment for all of them, the only thing it lacked were soundproof walls, which was an important aspect because they were a rowdy bunch.

“That reminds me, where’re the others?” Minwoo asked, finally taking notice of the lack of occupants in the room. It was odd, he thought, he was usually one of the latecomers, so the room would usually already be filled with chatter and laughs when he arrived (Resorting in him having to practically pound the door off its hinges just to get someone to open the door). But instead, that morning he found the room to be as silent as a graveyard save for his conversation with Dongwan.

Dongwan shrugged, not feeling at all perturbed by the lack of chaos in the normally noisy room, “Junjin and Hyesung are out grocery shopping and our maknae has holed himself up in his office since this morning, wouldn’t come out even when we coaxed him with food.”

“You have food?” Minwoo snapped to attention. He hadn’t had the chance to eat something that morning because he really did have something to do. And the sheer thought of food sent his stomach growling and his mouth watering.

“Yeah, there’s some kimbap on the table, you can have them if you want.” Dongwan hadn’t even finished the sentence when Minwoo immediately stood up and went to their office’s kitchen. Dongwan shook his head in amusement, his lips twitching upwards and eyes shining with a mischievous sort of gleam as he watched his friend disappeared inside the kitchen. Any minute now…

“Dongwan-ah?”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t say that Hyesung made these.”

“I didn’t say that they were store-bought either,” Dongwan snickered.

Minwoo reappeared with a sour face and a half-eaten roll of kimbap in his hand, still chewing the part that he had bitten off. He swallowed and pointed the roll at Dongwan, giving him a glare reminiscent of a teacher towards a misbehaving student, “You’re lucky I’m hungry or I would’ve cut off some of your pay.”

“Like you have the power to,” Dongwan scoffed, meeting Minwoo’s gaze with a challenging stare, “The only person who can cut off my pay is Eric, and he rarely remembers to give us our paychecks on time, anyways.”

MInwoo sneered, apparently defeated, and flopped onto the couch with a dramatic sigh. He took a look at the half-eaten kimbap in his hand, and against his better judgment, took another bite from it. His expression was straight as he chewed, the lines of his face taut as he appraised the taste as a food critique would a meal from a five star restaurant, “I always feel like I’m drinking a cup of sesame oil sprinkled with a tablespoon of sesame seeds when I eat his cooking. He’s not a bad cook, he just needs to let off the sesame obsession a little.”

Dongwan laughed at how Minwoo’s expression twitched uncomfortably, his attempt at a smile more of a grimace when trying to justify their ally’s cooking. Though all six of them often made a face at their Hyesung’s rather strange and extreme tastes in cooking, they never outright told him of this fact purely because Hyesung rarely cooked, much less for them. If he cooked it either meant he was in a generous mood and decided to share the joy (sorrow), or that something good happened recently and he decided to splurge some of his time and effort for his comrades, usually in the form of cooking for them. They couldn’t exactly reject his niceties.

Minwoo swallowed, the kimbap slowly making its way down his esophagus, and he bit his lip in distaste—he wouldn’t be able to get the taste of sesame out of his mouth for the whole day at least.

“If you used this to lure Andy out,” he wagged the remains of the roll, “I’m not surprised he didn’t want to go out.”

“For your information, we also used a bunch of snacks and crackers to try and lure him out.”

“You have snacks?” Minwoo perked up.

“Had snacks. Andy took the snacks we offered at his door and slammed it on our faces right after.”

Minwoo deflated, “Oh.”

“But,” Dongwan continued, “We do still have crackers. They’re in the first cupboard right next to the fridge.”

Minwoo brightened immediately, but realization dawned upon him and he bristled, “Wait, you had crackers and you didn’t tell me. I ate Hyesung’s cooking even though there’s crackers.”

Dongwan snickered, “Thought I’d have some fun.”

Minwoo shook his head and sighed, he should be used to this. They all had a knack for pranking each other, and Minwoo was no different. The only one who was slightly wary with all the tricks and pranks was Hyesung, but only because they had once poured ketchup all over him when he was showering. The guy was a bit on the prissy side when it came to his looks.

“If you’ll excuse me then,” Minwoo said, standing up, “I have some real food to eat, and to somehow find a way to make this,” he gestured to the leftover roll, “disappear.”

“Throw it out the window!” Dongwan suggested, “That’s what I did with mine.”

“The one on the plate too?”

“Leave that one for Eric. If we’re lucky, Eric will come after Hyesung gets back and then he’ll be forced to eat that thing.”

Minwoo smiled in approval, “And that, my dear friend, is why you are brilliant.”

“Oh really, you flatter me too much,” Dongwan said as Minwoo made his way back to the kitchen.

Minwoo walked into the kitchen, opened the small window, and threw the kimbap as hard as he could. It landed cleanly on the other side of the road, hopefully too far away for Hyesung to take notice. Smiling in accomplishment, Minwoo turned to get his prize, the bag of rice crackers sitting peacefully inside the cupboard. Real food.

Minwoo returned to the living room, munching on a rice cracker, when the lock to the front door clicked open and Dongwan was greeting the newcomers cheerily, “Welcome back!”

Hyesung strode in—all prim and proper—with Junjin trailing behind him obediently carrying most of the grocery bags. Junjin made a beeline towards the kitchen to deposit the heavy grocery, while Hyesung lingered in the living room after closing the door.

“You’re late,” Hyesung stated blandly.

“Got caught up with something. By the way, the kimbap was absolutely deelish,” Minwoo grinned, “I’d eat all of them, but I left one for Eric since our leader must be dying to have some.”

Minwoo’s flattery worked well, because Hyesung was trying his best to hold back a proud smile. Hyesung turned around with a huff, the edges of his lips twitching with the need to smile and left to help Junjin with the bags of groceries. Minwoo shot Dongwan a sly wink, causing Dongwan’s hand to fly up to his mouth to repress the snort that threatened to slip out of his mouth.

“Where is that lazy bastard, anyways?” Hyesung called out from the kitchen.

Assuming that Hyesung meant Eric (of course he meant Eric, who else did Hyesung like to insult?), Minwoo shouted back, “I don’t know, he didn’t say anything about being this late!”

“Shouldn’t you call him, or something?” Dongwan asked Minwoo.

MInwoo was about to answer, but the door to Andy’s makeshift office slammed open, revealing a haggard-looking, sleep-deprived Andy. Dongwan was about to make a comment about Andy finally coming out from his hermit’s abode, but Andy cut him off with an important announcement.

“We have a client!”

The whole apartment erupted in boisterous shouts. Most asking where in the ever living hell was Eric—since the man was the one who dealt with clients—and some shouting at MInwoo to call Eric faster because they can’t afford to lose this client. Their agency may be famous with its services, but customers (who were brave enough to get their services) were few and they still need to pay for their expenses. Andy’s computers did not come cheap.

“Hurry up, hurry up, pick up already,” Minwoo chanted into the receiver, waiting impatiently as the others all gathered about.

In their commotion, they didn’t notice when Eric unlocked the door and slipped through. It wasn’t until Eric gave a confused, “What’s up?” did they finally pay attention.

“Eric!” Dongwan shouted, “There’s a client! Hurry up and go see him!”

Eric balked, “What? But I just got here!”

“We don’t care,” Hyesung said blandly, somehow having snuck up behind Eric. He kicked Eric square on his back and let Minwoo and Junjin carry him off to Andy’s office. “Now get in there so we can finally get paid.”

Eric mumbled something about Hyesung being cruel, but straightened up nonetheless. He fixed up his clothes—luckily he had thought to wear something more formal that day, and pushed back his hair. With a smirk gracing his lips, he turned the doorknob and stepped into the office.

“It’s show time, boys.”