"It feels great to know that someone is willing to wait for you; even if the waiting takes an hour or so and he knows that your walk together will only last for 10 minutes or less."

The lunch break of the interns is different from one another depending on the department where we are assigned. Some take their lunch as early as 11 in the morning while the others take it as late as 2 in the afternoon. The department where I was assigned usually has the earliest lunch break just because my supervisors like to (LOL). But since our department is still open even lunch break, that means at least someone must stay to guard the office and also to assist any associate (employee) coming in. Most of the time, I’m the one who is left since I’m like the ‘senior’ among all the other interns I’m with in that department. That means, I take my lunch later than the others.

Usually I’ll arrive at the cafeteria and see that my co-interns are about to finish their lunch. Even if they wanted to stay to accompany me even for a while, they can’t because of the limited time given for our breaks, except for one person.

Park Chanyeol started to accompany me during lunch three weeks after our internship started. I can’t remember how we became close. But I can clearly remember the day we first met. It was awkward and I thought he was a quiet guy because he didn’t speak much that time. I was the one who introduced myself first, who extended my hand for a handshake, and who bowed in respect. My first impression of him shattered when we started to get closer. And it was something I was relieved about.

So as I was saying, everytime we’ll see each other in the cafeteria, he will always stay even if he’s already being late. We will talk for minutes. There was never a time that we didn’t laugh each time we talk to each other. His laugh is contagious, which is a good thing. But it’s not very good when while laughing some of his saliva will fly to my skin or worse to the food I’m eating! He’s already covering his mouth that way and yet those droplets still find a way to escape his huge hands! He usually notices it and apologizes. But I’m not that dense to be easily pissed off by it. Besides, I rarely finish my food anyway whenever I’m with him because my stomach is easily being filled with air with all the laughs.

It’s also part of my ‘after lunch routine’ to go to the washroom. Not because I’ll poop in there (just so you know, I don’t easily get comfortable pooping anywhere that isn’t in a house. My is choosey when it comes to toilets for pooping). What I do in the toilet is just pee and brush my teeth. The first time Chanyeol accompanied me to lunch, I told him about that routine of mine.

“You go ahead. I might take minutes. Plus you’re already late,” I told him.

“Are you sure?” He asked. And I nodded and smiled before answering him a, “yes”.

I went to the washroom after telling him that. I did my thing as always. And after 5 minutes, I went out and was surprised to see that Chanyeol is still there. He was leaning on a wall, his left foot also placed on the wall. His hands were in his pocket while his head is bowed low.

“Hey!” I called him. He looked up immediately. That was the first time I met his eyes in that way. They were really big and black. We stared at each other for a few seconds and for a moment I thought I was lost in his eyes.

“Are you done,” he finally asked, beaming to me like an idiot. “Yeah,” I replied. I couldn’t bring myself to ask him why he was still there and waited even if I already asked him to leave. I decided to just shove the thought off and just go with the flow. From that day on, him waiting for me has become part of my ‘after lunch routine’.

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Every last Saturday of the month, the hotel has this Locker Fumigation thing scheduled. Oh wait, I haven’t told you where we did our internship right? Oh my, that’s stupid of me. I’m sorry *bows 90 degrees*. I’ll do a little introduction first, if that’s ok. Well you have no choice anyway unless you skip this part. But please don’t skip this part (hahaha).

Me, Song Gayeon, and him, Park Chanyeol are both Hotel Management students. We came from two different universities (both of which are located in Seoul) and have only met through the internship. I came from  Sejong University while he came from Kyunghee University. Our universities require different hours of internship also. I only need 500 hours while he needs 600 hours. So that means I’ll be finishing first compared to him (Yehet!). It took us about 2-3 months in order to finish everything.

I chose to do my internship in Ritz Carlton Seoul simply because it’s one of the best hotels in the country. Enough said. Chanyeol on the other hand didn’t want to be there at first. He wanted to be placed somewhere that’s outside Seoul. He actually wanted to do an internship abroad. But due to financial difficulties (his family didn’t have enough money to support his international internship that time), he was placed on a local one. It’s not him who chose Ritz Carlton Seoul but rather it was his professor who sent his resume there. He originally wanted to ditch the interview but something was pulling him to attend it. Obviously, he went and passed the screening. That was the first time I met him. We were together in the same interview.

I believe that that introduction is enough and so let’s proceed to my story once again. As I was saying, every last Saturday of the month is Locker Fumigation time. The interns are expected to help the ABC Department in conducting it. But not all interns must join. Only those who are in the ABC Department and those others who have no duty on a Saturday are expected to come. Chanyeol is one of the interns who have no Saturday duties while I am part of the ABC Department that time.

The interns were grouped into two, one for the female locker room while the other is for the male locker room. All of us were allowed to enter the room of the opposite during the fumigation only. Me and Chanyeol , plus 2 other interns, were grouped together for the female locker room. Chanyeol was so amazed with how our locker room looked so clean and fresh, unlike theirs. The fumigation lasted for about 4-5 hours before everyone was asked to finally go home and rest.

“You ride the subway going home right?” He asked me while everyone was busy getting ready to leave.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because I think you’re walking too far every single day when in fact you can only walk a few meters to reach a bus station.”

“But I don’t think the bus travelling here passes the same route going to my place.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think,” doubting my own answer because of the way he looked at me with seriousness.

“Well, you’re wrong,” he said with utmost confidence.

Honestly, I’m not much of a navigator or something. I usually stick to the first thing I have tried because I’m a bit afraid of getting lost. Subways, for me, are the best mode of transportation because I’m already used to riding it ever since. It’s not that I hate riding buses, I’m just very unfamiliar with them. There are buses driving near my place. Bus stations are actually closer to my house but I just don’t bother knowing where they are heading to since I have my trusted subways (meters away from my home).

After explaining this to Chanyeol, he still insisted on showing me to the nearby bus station. We walked for only about 10 minutes from the hotel to the bus station. Man, it was definitely a shorter walk as compared to my 20-25 minutes going to the subway station! My mind and body suddenly felt like giving in to the temptation of taking the shorter walk, only if there is a bus going to my place. And coincidentally (or maybe not really), there is! The first bus that stopped at the station will take me to the closest bus station near our house. And that bus station is way closer as compared to the subway station I usually take. It was obvious to me already after that, all those times it would have been more convenient for me to take the bus rather than the subway.

“I told you,” he said while flashing me his pearly whites in the midst of a sunny Saturday afternoon. His teeth were sparkling like pearls and I jokingly covered my eyes to avoid its blinding light (that was a half joke and a half reality to be honest). He rubbed my hair in a funny manner as he realized what I was doing.

“I’ll get in now. Thanks for showing me this new route.” I hopped inside the bus, took a seat by the window on the 4^th row. I didn’t try checking outside whether he was still there waiting for the bus to leave or not. I just didn’t want to know at that time, afraid that I might feel disappointed when I see him walking away without even glancing back at the bus I rode in.

But later on, I found out from him that he stayed at the station until the bus was out of his sight.

The following week after that Saturday moment, I decided to take the route he showed me. I was dismissed earlier than the usual because our Department will be having a meeting and the office will be closed earlier. While I was waiting for a bus at the station, I received a text message from an unknown number. I opened it and the unknown texter has been revealed, it was Park Chanyeol. He asked me something about a notebook that he left once at our office. I didn’t know where or to whom he got my number because he never asked me about it. Despite my curiosity, I still never bothered to ask him that. Why? I don’t really know. But I’ll tell you, the smile on my face when I received his first text was brighter than all the street lights combined at that area. I felt my cheeks strain from the grin.

From then on, we started contacting each other through text. And from Tuesday of that week onwards, me and Chanyeol walked together on the same route. Because little did I know before, that is the route he is taking to go to the shuttle that he rides on his way home. Even if he had changed his department already and there is a one hour difference on our schedule (His out is earlier by an hour). He would still stay at my department and wait for me until all our work for the day has been done and I’m finally allowed to leave. He does that five times every week, waiting for an hour or more, despite knowing that we will only walk together for 10 minutes or less on the same route.