For StarlightSpirit

Prompt: HALO “Fever” song prompt thingy story

Prime Two

Like any other day, it starts with a cup of coffee; full of cream, milk, sugar and a drizzle of caramel. Taking chocolate shavings that yes, he does take the time to grate from a chocolate bar, and sprinkling on top of his thermos which he caps and the last chocolate deco really is unnecessary but get out of my face.

A fresh polo and some khakis. Maybe he’s hiding stripy socks on his feet but he likes to have that bit of color, yeah? Making sure his watch is secured on his left wrist, he sighs at the time. Ten minutes till departure and still he’s mumbling over if he should change his blue polo to the one with poka-dots although he doesn’t want to try too hard.

Taking his bag he swings it over his shoulder, slips on his shoes to stagger out the door while trying to slip it over his heel with a single finger crammed in the back which squeezes the poor fingertip red and numb for a few. Shoves the key into the port and twists it to lock, continuing his little morning down the hall and into the stairs. One step, two step, down he goes out of the apartment complex.

Once he’s out, he has this breath of morning air fill his lungs and a smile. Then he goes, “It’s a good day to be kick Nam Woohyun.”

*

Another day, another morning. He starts it with trudging through his hallway while brushing his shoulder along the wall to guide him in this harsh cold morning terrain to his bathroom. He turns slowly into the bathroom to take a quick pee and brush his teeth. He splashes water onto his face with some soap, which he fondles the bottle a little bit to weigh out the contents before slapping the product onto his face. He does maybe one or two scrubs over his face before throwing water at his face again to get the stuff off as quickly as possible.

It’s cold on his shoulders as he pulls the shirt over his head and flings back his hair like some sort of commercial he likes to pretend he’s doing when he’s changing. In which he embarrasses himself and quickly pulls on his daily work clothes. A simple tee and you know what else, uh, pants? Yeah those. God I don’t need to go into full detail on what he’s wearing, do I? Nope.

To the kitchen he goes and pulls together some bottle of water from the pack on the floor and opens the fridge in hopes of food but all he sees are eggs. Somehow eggs are always in the fridge. Looking to his watch it’s too late to cook some up. So he slaps the fridge close and turns to the door. Slipping his bag over one shoulder and sighing, scuffling the shoes on the floor in hopes the worn out sneakers would slip on without him needing to bend over and dig his finger into it. He doesn’t want a numb finger.

Down the stairs he goes, two steps, one step, a stumble and door. The morning air chills his arms and he realizes he forgot his jacket. Ugh stairs, so he goes on to the bus stop.

He kicks his step maybe once or twice to start his mood better before work and looks to the cloudless sky, going, “Persevere, Sunggyu. It’s a day in life, again.”

*

It’s a Monday and there’s so much to do; gotta kick up soon as it’s already noon. The office is teeming with life and drowsiness but Woohyun realizes there’s something special about this rush. Something special how he notices life hasn’t ended, he had time to renew and improve. Don’t know why but this and that is just life, and he’s just gotta do what he has to do.

It’s the ups and downs that carries us all, and he’s ready to reach real high to the low hanging clouds; even as hard as it is on the ground. Get it together, it’ll happen again. Woohyun, well he says “It doesn’t matter, it’ll happen again” with a wave of a hand and a tweaked smile.

Turning a corner with a stack of papers, he nearly runs over another male who’s half on the wall and stepping slowly. “Whoa!” he reflexes to say, blinking while stepping back a few. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Yeah,” the other says, looking up to him. He looks tired because, you know, obvious deductive reasoning.  Slouching, eye bags, that ‘ugh’ face. “No problem,” he automatically says, that’s how to be polite. No one was really at fault.

“Ah,” Woohyun says, strangely out of place now as there was no further reason to talk to each other. “Well, have a nice day, hm?”

“You too,” the other says, going about his own way and Woohyun to his.

*

Having a thermos full of coffee is probably something Sunggyu should really be getting. His yawns are so frequent he’s tearing up enough to drop two or three tears, causing people to think he’s crying as the droplets stream down his face and he continues to type on his mechanical keyboard (so much pride in having it and his mouse).

“You okay, Sunggyu?”

“Huh?”

Sunggyu, so distracted with the pleasing sound of his mechanical keyboard clicking away as he typed in a semi-fast speed in his awesome skill was distracting so his great reply was, “What?”

“You’re crying,” his co-worker, Dongwoo, says as he takes a tissue to dab at Sunggyu’s face.

The older bats him away, taking the blue tissue(? Dongwoo has weird things) away and quickly wiping his face, “Thanks. Just yawning.”

“Coffee?” Dongwoo offers, pointing his thumb out towards the stairs. That means he’ll take a trip down to floor three, where the refreshments and food refrigerators are. That area of fun fun fun.

“No thanks,” Sunggyu didn’t want to bother the male. He’s already been taken advantage of for being so nice (Dongwoo pls stop) and that certain accountant, cough Howon, who keeps asking when Dongwoo will take his breaks or lunches.

“No really, I can go get some,” Dongwoo presses and Sunggyu turns to give an uninterested look. The passive aggressive glare that he pulls when someone isn’t listening to him.

“Hm,” he grunts, scrunching his nose once.

Dongwoo shrugs, opting to give Sunggyu a quick slap on the shoulder, “Alrighty. Gunna go back to my area. Call me when you’re up for lunch, I’ll treat today.”

Free lunch, oh yes. “Sure sure,” he nods, still type typing.

It was only about ten minutes later, when Sunggyu’s eyes refused to open and he was nodding off on his desk, head bent so his chin dug into his chest and his arms were out in front of him like a cat. He awoke five minutes later, neck sore, and as he sat up his back cracked like dominos. So, he got up and started walking around trying to shake it off. It was hard, so he used the wall as support as he leaned and slide against it.

Turning the corner, he almost bumped into another person; holding up some amount of paper and folders. “Oh,” he breaths, taking a step back and yes, his eyes are open again. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s my fault,” the other grins and Sunggyu finds it a little conceited for a second. Trying to kiss up to a veteran employee? “It’s fine, are you alright?”

“I’m good,” Sunggyu sighs, not wanting to look at the raven male anymore. Whoever smiles in work is either Dongwoo or Howon who got Dongwoo to go to lunch with him (until Sunggyu has the satisfaction to show his face along with Dongwoo and he gets the pleasure of seeing Howon’s face drop). So this fool was pretty much, no.

“Okay, sorry again!” the employee with the navy blue cardigan with white cuffs bypasses him quickly, calling behind his shoulder.

“Mm,” Sunggyu goes on with his wall walk.

*

Woohyun is at his desk when he zones out, in the middle of his document. It takes another person, Daehyun, to continually snap his fingers in front of him until Woohyun finally responds with a brilliant “Huh?” and “Oh!” following up closely with a quick, “Yes?”

“Spacing out, dude,” Daehyun, his co-worker in the same branch snorts. “Got somethin’ up here?”

He dabs his finger into Woohyun’s combed and slicked hair so the Raven mocks a short screech and flaps his hand to get Daehyun away, “I took my bathroom break to fix it!”

“Still looks like a cow you,” the other snorts.

“What cha guys doing?”

The two, at their close desks, turn to see Onew holding up two bags of food, “Ready for lunch?”

“Please!” Daehyun is first to shoot up out of his chair, going straight to asking what Onew bought. The three sit down to tumble over food choices and if chicken or pork was better. Woohyun ended up with the one with the most bean sprouts and Onew the one with the most chicken. Who knows what Daehyun is eating, Thai?

Key comes around to take some of Woohyun’s lunch, skipping down to the third floor to retrieve his lunch along with Youngjae, who asks Daehyun for some. Jonghyun also makes his way around Onew to take a part of the biscuit and then the others steadily disappear after small talk.

“You,” Daehyun sighs, putting aside his plastic container to point his greasy chopsticks at Woohyun, “What were you thinking about?”

“Oh,” Woohyun swallows down the last mouthful of beansprouts (there was so much) and leans over to sip his cold thermos of coffee. “There’s some dude that I keep bumping into at the corner every day so I was trying to think of a different route to take so I don’t get in his way.”

“Who who?” Onew was ready for dirt, but Woohyun wasn’t in that type. Sure he’d have a good teasing and witty joke line ready (maybe not all the time that witty), but he thought it wasn’t nice to talk about a stranger.

“Dunno,” he simply shrugs.

“Boring,” Daehyun frowns with an overreaction.

*

The day is up, sun is out and Sunggyu is all but sleepy. It’s like a boat without a sailor, just going along the wind and a lonesome homelessness wave over his body. The hills and deserts extending far and wide, finding a home again seemed so far off. Feels like forever, not really knowing what he’s looking for but hopefully he’ll know when he finds it.

Can you empathize? It’s as if he just doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. He really ought to buy a thermos because without that sugar load of cream filled coffee, Sunggyu is going all over the place. Sure tea makes him calm, but too sleepy.

It’s not that he’s ‘lost’, more of he’s tired.

“Oh sorry—“ the male stops and smiles again, “Ah, hello again!”

The overly cheerful voice makes Sunggyu a little jealous. How can he be happy and Sunggyu just so, well, tired? “Hello. Sorry about bumping into you,” He pauses and the air becomes that pre-destination of awkward so he coughs and quickly puts in, “again” to the end of his sentence.

Time is pregnant as he realizes he just cut off whatever the other was going to say and now he was waiting for Sunggyu to finish. He chooses to look down instead so the other can continue speaking, “That’s alright,” he adds with a laugh. Oh that’s nice, Sunggyu decides he doesn’t dislike him anymore (when did you dislike him?) because he has a nice sound. “I’m starting to think these aren’t just coincidental meetings.”

Scratch all that revelation about maybe tolerating this fool, Sunggyu’s back to being somewhat annoyed and maybe, without him knowing, disappointed. “Yeah, maybe?”

He laughs again, this black and styled haired male, and smiles, “See you tomorrow then!”

And off he goes. Once he turns the corner, Sunggyu realizes he hadn’t responded.

The next day, he hops onto the bus without trouble. He goes to his desk without qualms and agrees to Dongwoo when he offers to go down to floor three. Actually he goes with him. A cup of coffee, warm in his belly, and a few little snicker doodles; Sunggyu finds himself getting up off his desk at around 2pm. Walking around the same corner and a little past it.

Something was off. He his head and retraces his steps. Not many people take this little hall so he walks backwards. One, three, two. Then he walks forward again, slowing down at the corner and brushing his shoulder on the wall.

Nothing.

“Am I forgetting something?” Sunggyu pushes his lips out, retracing his steps one, three and two again. Walking around the corner, even dragging his heels on the ground, before turning the corner.

“I’m missing a piece,” he decides, but doesn’t brood any longer as he just goes ahead with his day. Forgetting about this later.

*

A while later, Woohyun gets a new area. He’s worked enough overtime and sure, he’s pretty cool too. The Boss, Sungyeol, nods his head with that shadow of his (labeled Myungsoo, the overseer with his stares beneath his sunglasses but Woohyun knows he’s just sleeping on that chair. They were pretty good buddies) and gives Woohyun a place near the window. He moves about three boxes to the desk beside, oh yay, next to Taeil.

“Hello,” the older greets with a nice smile and holds his hand out for a shake. “Gunna be my new desk buddy? The name’s Taeil.”

“Guess so,” Woohyun grins back, letting out a casual chuckle as he takes the shake. “I’m Woohyun.”

“Hopefully you’re more lively than my last partner, Woohyun,” Taeil rolls his eyes; “He was something alright.”

“Bad?” the raven shows a cringe to get his point but the rounded glasses wielder just busts a laugh.

“No no, he was nice. Polite,” Taeil wags his finger. “Just, maybe, a little too tired. He left work at the same time as everyone else and I’m pretty sure Dongwoo is making sure he eats good things. Lettuce and stuff like that. But, he always got up to take a little walk in the noontime to shake off sleepiness.” He lets out a small chuckle, a fond chuckle, “But it never works.”

“Was he a friend?” Woohyun asks, just to make small talk as he sets up his stuff.

“Nah,” Taeil smiles, kicking out his legs and, wow clever, this was his break away from work. To greet the new desk buddy. “Just an acquaintance.”

Their small talk goes on for a while, with lots of pauses and slow responses. Of short answers and nods and “Oh”s. Woohyun manages to boot up his computer and connect his keyboard, just a regular one with a little hill in the middle, and his mouse with a big ol red sphere in the middle as the scroll. He pushes his chair over when he notices something on the floor.

It’s small, so that’s why. Maybe he stepped on it, hopefully not as he reaches to pick it up. A little earring, silver and a round ring. Small, maybe a woman’s? Oh gosh, it’s been on the floor for a while now and Woohyun can’t stop thinking how it was in someone’s ear and now the floor. What if they don’t disinfect it and the like? Oh gosh, they’d get an infection!

And with such extreme worries, he doesn’t notice the male behind him, just about to tap his shoulder until Woohyun takes a step forward, examining the earring in the light. He tries to tap Woohyun again, politely on the shoulder, but the raven steps forward in the best uncanny timing.

“Ey, Taeil look what I found,” he holds out his palm, showing his new desk buddy however Taeil responds with a slow:

“Uh…”

“It’s an earring. Found it on the floor.” Another step forward.

“I know that Woohyun, young pal, but—“

“Yeah, you know who it is?” Step.

“About that—“

Tap, finally. “Mine.”

Woohyun, who’s been childishly stepping forward, turns around and there he is. The guy who he always bumps into! “O-oh, have you been there for a long time?”

“I,” the other blinks, organizing his thoughts to speak, “No. But that’s my earring.”

“Ah!” Woohyun hands it over, “Here you are. Found the little nugget on the floor. Make sure to clean it well before you put it on again.”

“Thanks,” the other nods, then looks at Taeil, “New buddy?”

“Your replacement,” Taeil hops up to bring Woohyun into a side hug, “My young friend here is already the life of this corner!”

“If you say so,” the male sighs, and Woohyun catches the little dried streaks on his face. There’s a faint voice in the back, probably from the stairs shouting, ‘Hyung hyung!’ and the old desk buddy shrugs. “Gotta jet.”

“See ya around,” Taeil puts up a fist and the male taps it with his knuckles.

“See you,” he says and waves goodbye to Woohyun, “Thanks for finding my earring.”

“No problem,” Woohyun gathers himself, grinning again. Politely, “Bye.”

*

Instead of a thermos of creamy coffee, which he always remembers he should buy when he actually wants to use one, he shoves in some lot of coins into the vending machine and clucks out a tall iced tea bottle from the racks. It’s oolong, not his favorite. He wasn’t paying attention to press A3 instead of A4. A3 was a Mr.Pepper soda.

Sunggyu sighs, “Well, oolong isn’t detrimental to my health…”

“You said it,” a younger co-worker, snorts while sipping his own coffee made on the side here. Because here we are, the infamous Floor Three, where the refreshments and sustenance are.

“Hey Sungjong,” Sunggyu greets his new desk partner. The young freshie was a new face, and pretty good at his job. Of course, he needed tweaks here and there but Sunggyu was sure to say Sungjong knew how to pick things up fast. “Your daily coffee?”

“I wanted to go to the café down the block but my break isn’t long enough, Sunggyu,” ah, yes this one also needs