Chapter EIGHT ; biography

{ oh sehun }

I had been stuck in elevators plenty, plenty times. Most especially because the elevators in Monggu would be incredibly faulty if all five of us rode on it, something we think Jongin set up because it hardly ever happened with anyone else. 

Needless to say, I know the drill, just as Jongin had so kindly run through once during a 'safety' meeting. Keep calm, press the red button, and wait. It was a simple process, really, unless somebody in the elevator with us had something like claustrophobia, those of which end up cruelly fired the very minute they escape the lift. 

I'd say this wack-o was one of them. 

"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" She exclaims gripping the sleeve of my new Armani blazer for her dear life. I feel her nails dig into my skin as she squeals and shakes, closing her eyes and barely able to keep herself upright. 

"Oh Christ," She starts to hyperventilate. "This is it, this is how I die." 

I try to step away but her grip on my blazer is inhumane. I had never had experience comforting people, period, especially new kids at Monggu who always seemed so twitchy and nervous. I look at her, shoulder length hair stanidng straight, her average stature bent down almost to her knees. I think, is this really the kid who beat Jongin at wits? 

She looks up at me breathing like a woman who was crowning, shallow breaths and bloodshot eyes. The rest of the guys stand petrified, while my arm froze in it's place. "I never even got to go to the United States, or got to taste that new Mcdonalds burger--" 

I send a helpless look to Junmyeon who seemed to be looking the same way as I stared at this wack-o who seemed to be inching closer, cornering me near the button's controls. 

Suddenly, her screwed shut eyelids open in a frantic, heart-stopping second. She breathes deeply and gasps. "--And Yifan!" 

"Goddammit!" I finally exclaim when my throat tightens, her nails now digging deeper in the cloth. Damn, woman, this is Armani! 

"Woah," Junmyeon steps in for a quick save, which I glare at him for taking so long. He sends me an apologetic look, eyebrows lowered and lips frowned. I roll my eyes and gesture to her , slowly shaking my arm, but the wack-o is frozen to her feet, skin turning paler and paler. Junmyeon nods.

"Miss, uh, Nam, calm down--" 

"I'll never be able to tell him I'm sorry. I'll die a liar. I'll die a liar to my boyfriend." 

"Boyfriend!" Chanyeol mutters loudly, immediately pursing his lips afterwards. He nudges Baekhyun, who only whispers back something along the lines of 'true' and 'tabloids'. I resist the urge to scoff. 

Gently, Junmyeon lays his hand on her shoulder, which she doesn't nudge away. "Miss Nam. Please, calm down."

Her eyes don't move. "How am I supposed to calm down when I've lied to the man who did nothing but love me justly and faithfully? How am I supposed to calm down when I die betraying him?" 

"Nae," Kyungsoo suddenly says firmly without looking up from his phone. The wack-o softens. My eyebrows crease in confusion, just what is Kyungsoo trying to do. 

"Nae, calm down." Kyungsoo swipes his finger down the phone. He then looks up with an unsure look and reluctantly puts his hand over the nape of her neck. She looks at him and curls into his arm, face suddenly buried in his chest. Her breathing slows down. Kyungsoo obviously looks uncomfortable. Everyone stares confused. 

What the ? 

Speechless, Kyungsoo faces his phone to the flabberghasted group. There's a text. Everybody squints and leans closer. 

I heard the elevator jammed. I'd imagine the perils Miss Nam is putting you through. Okay, follow quick, no questions. 
> Say the following; "Calm down, Nae. Everything will be fine." 
> Put your hand on her neck. Allow her to hug you. Rub her back.

My eyes widen in disbelief when I look up at the contact name. 

From : Kkamjjong

{ do kyungsoo }

I once had a theory that Jongin made the elevator jam just to with us. 

As of now, I don't think I can tell myself I'm wrong. 

The day was supposed to go extremely normal after I had finished brushing off Jongin's stupid flower petals from my shoulders, we were supposed to get our morning pick up and maybe eat a little breakfast real quick. It's not that getting stuck in an elevator would be excluded from the syntax of a normal day. It's just that, this time, we're stuck with a nutjob who keeps babbling about lies and betrayal. 

In court, fast thinking is a must. I have led many of Jongin's cases, all of which my team has won, and fast thinking is to blame for the company's success.

--But not a lot of things rush through your brain when you have a woman crying in your arms, except 'Oh , I have a woman crying in my arms'. 

And so I stand still, wishing Junmyeon had gotten this job because he's obviously way better at it than I am. 

Speaking of prince charming, I send Junmyeon a look of helplessness, which he so replies with the same look. Baekhyun's behind, stifling laughs that make me want to punch him in the face, and Chanyeol's still preserving that stupid 'eureka' face. Sehun's the only one who takes action then, grabbing my phone into my hands and tapping around. He then puts the phone to his ear. 

"Yah, bastard, get the elevator moving." He says in a tone beyond annoyed. I snarl in accordance, trying not to let the crazed madwoman's mutters shadow the sound of Jongin's reply. 

I hear a muffle that sounds like "Technician's working on it," and mentioning "Nam Jinae", which is the wack-o's name. 

Sehun puts a hand on his waist. "She's fine, she's just a little... how do I say this... crazy? Out of her ing mind?" 

The girl lifts her head from my chest, now a soggy ocean of tears. "Excuse me?" 

"Pipe down, princess." Sehun rolls his eyes.

"Sehun." Junmyeon repremands.  

I feel a hand rest on my stomach and push it away, the neck in my hands slowly parting and moving away from me. Somehow, I'm thankful as I back off behind Baekhyun, disgustedly bearing the moistness of my dress shirt. I watch the girl's body straighten, her back setting creases straight on her clothing as she wears disdain on her red, swollen face. 

"Who are you calling princess?" She says with utmost contempt. Sehun only gives her his usual bored face and raises his finger to her lips. 

"Uh, yeah, Kyungsoo had her. No, not really much of a problem, just a shock. Yeah, paperwork by lunchtime, alright." 

"Shameless." The girl snarls, crossing her arms and looking up at Sehun. He hands me my phone with his arm over her head, eyes still blankly glaring at her. 

"That's me, princess." He gives her a lopsided smirk. She purses her lips and tries to straighten her posture more but before she could open at some powerless retort, the lift nudges an inch and proceeds to move down, leaving the girl to jump into the arms of the closest one to her, which was Chanyeol. 

"Hi." Chanyeol breathes out with a grin smaller than usual. She looks up at the giant, knees shaking.

She exhales a shaky breath and looks down at her feet. "Elevators, am I right?" 

{ narrator }

When the doors opened at ground, it was pretty tiring to explain to the female employees that 'no, the new girl was in fact not crying because of Kim Kai's ruthlessness', which is why the frightened stares went unanswered.

The businessmen travelled in a squad formation, a stoic circle of tall, young individuals who were, not to mention, wealthy to the bone walked with grace and an undeniable style of swagger. The different one, though, was the shorter female in the middle, walking around the circle formation in a fuss, trying to get out. The men, however, kept their ground and continued to walk forward. 

"What are you doing?" Jinae hissed as she continued walking  to avoid bumping into anyone. Their tall statures led her walking blind, much to the girl's annoyance. Baekhyun put his hands in his pocket casually. 

"Protecting Kim Kai's image." He shortly put it. The doors opened for them and the movement pursued, feeling the fresh air of the outside streets. Jinae eventually just moved along with them, deciding that it was better nobody saw her with such a foul group like them anyway. 

The gush of air conditioning is what she feels first. Silently, she wonders how in the world she's blindly navigated herself around the block, before she looks out the glass windows and realizes she's just walked a few inches away from where they left. 

"It's a cafe." Sehun says first, disbanding the circle and moving forward to the line. The rest of them follow, towering over every one else and leaving Jinae at the entrance. Junmyeon seems to be the only one to look behind, giving her a reassuring smile, and then walking back to her. As much as she tries to fight it, Jinae refuses to thank the tiny prince charming-like action, and instead masks the warmness with an unadulterated snarl. Junmyeon chortles. 

"You dislike us, don't you?" He smiles, showcasing his pristine set of charming teeth. Jinae has no idea how teeth could be charming. 

"Dislike? I hate you." She retorts, looking away from him. He laughs again, taking her stubbornness as a mediocre. 

"Hate's quite a strong word, don't you think?" 

"Precisely why I use it." 

Junmyeon laughs again, a sound she was so sure she was getting so sick of. There's a pregnant silence in between them, background noises of business chatter filling the gaps while Jinae watches the business men's back order breakfast and coffee. 

"Kai's not that bad, you know." Junmyeon brings up. Jinae takes a silent look at him, to which he looks back. "Just a little cold. The pressure his dad puts on him is pretty hard to work with, which makes Kai hard to work with as well. You'll get used to him." 

Jinae props an eyebrow up. "Is his relationship with his father.. you know." 

Junmyeon smiles, then looks away. 

"New girl!" Chanyeol barks from the front. "What do you want for yourself?" 

Jinae does a mental double take and looks back at Kai's order. "Uh yeah, just a bla--" 

"Black, venti!" Chanyeol nods back before she could even finish. "Yeah, I know. I asked for what you wanted, not what Ka--" 

"Keep it down, will you?!" Baekhyun hisses, gripping onto the taller one's tie and pulling him down to shut him up. Chanyeol gives a not so apologetic chuckle. Baekhyun looks up at the menu and looks back at the (notable not so steady, over smile-y) barista. 

"She'll have the blueberry muffin and a tall Hazlenut latte. For here, please." 

Each of them end up splitting the pay, except for Jinae, who stood by the door with her arms crosses noting the opportunity to leave then and there. 

She doesn't.

The silence on the table conjoint together outdoors is uncanny. Everyone was eating their little piece of breakfast and drinking their regular energizers, except for the girl, who was too busy staring out into nothing to touch the blue berry muffin. 

"You know," Kyungsoo breaks the sillence, dabbing his lips with tissue. "Kai's coffee's going to get cold if you don't eat now." 

"He'll live with it." She says immediately, not looking up at him. Sehun shakes his head and laughs almost menacingly, carefully laying the cutlery on the empty plate. 

"You've got some gall, girly." He smirks, looking at her. "I won't be surprised if you got laid off in the next ten minutes once he realizes you've been gone too long. I already hate you." 

"Sehun!" 

"The feeling's mutual, white collar." She finally looks up from her feet. 

"White collar? Honey," He tilts his head. "You say that as if we're not the same." 

Her hands go down on the table with a thud. "Because we're not the same!" 

"Easy!" Baekhyun backs away from the table. 

"No, honey, we're not." Jinae sputters in a bitter hiss, almost loud enough to be a shout. "You're just his minion, his puppets. He controls you, darling, you have no choice but to wrap tighter around his finger. I'm here on my own accord! I'm here with respect for myself, i'm here to make a living, not be the gravel underneath his feet like you, honey."

"We are here on our own accord. We're here not to serve Jongin, but to make a living too. You see, baby, we know how to seperate personal life and business, unlike you, who looks at him like such a villain, when really, you don't know Kim Jongin at all." 

"They why do you allow him to control you?" 

"Because unlike you and your petty little boy toy, he knows what he's doing. So shut up and don't act so bitter, darling, no one put a gun to your head when you signed the contract." 

There's a timid silence in the air, which leads the rest to scoot back to their original places. Jinae looks and feels exhausted, defeated, almost to the point of wanting to go home just then. But he was right. No one forced her to work there. Was working with Kris really so bad that she chose to work in a place she swore she wouldn't? How many excuses did she have to make to convince herself that this was the only option? 

"Pathetic." She mutters, and Sehun looks up, smirking, thinking it was for him, but no. It was for her. Nam Jinae had never felt so pathetic. 

She looks at her muffin. She couldn't even think of eating it. 

RING RING RING RING

It takes her a few second to realize the sound coming from her phone, and even then, Kyungsoo had to say something a long the lines of "Who's that? Your boss? for her to pick up. 

At the sight of the caller ID, her heart jumped to . 

"No," Her hand shakes. "It's my boyfriend."