I don’t think… I'm not in love with you 

“Attention please. This is the final boarding call for passengers attending the 103A flight to Shanghai, Please proceed to gateway 4 immediately. I repeat: this is the final boarding call for passengers on 103A flight to Shanghai, please proceed to gateway 4. Thank you.”

The girl, no older than fifteen, trembles obviously in front of Lee Hyukjae, eyes wide in fear.

“What should I do about my flight? I—My luggage is somewhere but I need to board now.”

Hyukjae glances around, before seeing Minho doing his patrol, and quickly gestures for the younger male to look after the stressed girl for him whilst he sees what he can do to find the missing baggage. He turns to the girl and leans down to her height, saying in a calm tone, “Don’t worry, you continue ahead with your check-in and I’ll solve the problem. Just stick next to my co-worker, Minho, for now okay? He’ll sort out the procedures for you.” He finished with a gummy smile to the young lady, and he walked away only after she nodded reluctantly.

As soon as he straightens his back, his legs moves steadily across the marble cream tiles of Incheon airport, the reflection beneath his feet smiling up at him as he ambles his way to the front till. Making sure the girl was absolutely fine without a doubt, he turns around one more time and sees her seated on one of the airport benches, Minho looming over her and speaking to her softly, Hyukjae paces onwards.

“Kyungsoo, could you please help me track down a missing luggage? The code is ZF209744; last reported to be in Taiwan.”

The male works on it instantly, and hues and blue and white paint the desktop screen, words blatantly throwing themselves at the customer service agent Lee Hyukjae and the reservation agent Do Kyungsoo. Less than a minute later, one row of strings of letters and codes is highlighted, reporting that the missing baggage is currently on its way to be transported to Canada. Hyukjae rings up the people in the baggage department and sorts out the problem.

He smiles, imagining what Donghae would say and how the latter would act.

***

“Please captain?” Jieun begged.

The said girl is a new intern at the airport Hyukjae's working in, and for the past ten minutes she has been following Hyukjae like a stalker. Hyukjae only helped her at the till and maybe around the airport a few times, yet she seems to be infatuated with him and wants to treat him to dinner as a way of saying thank you.

“So, my child cannot consume dairy products or anything made from or with dairy, and…” Before the passenger’s father could add more details about his daughter whom would be travelling on the plane by herself for the first time, an old man pushed through the crowd whom complained immediately. When the old man turned around, several people gasped and whispered amongst each other when they recognised the famous star, whilst those whom didn’t recognise the man continued to groan about him skipping queue.

Jieun, a new intern working at the airport for the next few months, was recording down the lists of things the girl cannot eat when the father of the girl stopped speaking. She looked up to see the father asking for an autograph from an elderly man in his late fifties wearing shades standing in front of her. Obviously, he’d cut through the long queue of passengers waiting to check in.

“Yeah yeah,” The superstar dismissed the father’s plead easily, “You can have an autograph or a picture — whatever. Just let me check in first.”

Jieun, scoffed mentally at the arrogance behind those words. Who did he think he was? Just because his wealth and status may be higher than anybody else’s in the airport, that doesn’t mean he has a right to push in front as the number one rule in airports is that everyone is equal. So, she stood up and with an apologetic smile on her face, she spoke calmly.

“I’m very sorry sir, but you cannot push through the queue.”

The males grey eyebrows rose above his sunglasses in disbelief, and he released a cold chuckle and said. “Do you not recognise me?” He then took off the shades, folding the black legs and clipping it to the centre of his shirt. He shoved his head closer to the girl, wanting her to take a better look. However, the girl only looked more confused than ever.

“How could you not recognise me? Do you not watch TV? I’m Lee Mongsuk. The famous actor.”

“Still, you must not cut through the line. Please go to the back of the queue.”

“Aish, this little brat, don’t you know I could get you fired from one call?!”

Hyukjae, whom was observing the situation; watched it expand messily, decided to interfere and walked over to the outburst. The superstar, on seeing another worker approaching him, smirked and thought he would recognise him so he pulled Hyukjae over those last few steps.

“You must recognise me, right?”

“Sorry sir, but our policies here states that—”

Enraged, the old man shouted, “I don’t ing care what your policies are! I’m about to miss a flight here and all you guys do is tell me to go back? No way in hell.”

“Sir, seeing that you don’t have any baggages you may check in at the self-service till instead. That would be faster and more efficient.” Hyukjae reasoned.

“Huh. I’ll make sure to have you two fired by the next day.” He huffed and stomped away, muttering loud curses of destroying Jieun and Hyukjae's career. Despite the outcome, Hyukjae still managed to squeeze in a: “We’re very sorry, sir.”

“Are you okay?” Hyukjae asked, worried. It was Jieun’s first day here and already there was so much trouble. The girl peeked up from her straight black bangs and nodded, a small smile forming appreciating Hyukjae's help. The male smiled back in encouragement before he went away.

Turning around to greet the young intern, Hyukjae smiles politely, “Thank you, but really there is no need. It is my duty, and any other workers’ duty to help and guide young interns like you. So you don’t need to feel obliged to invite me to dinner.”

Jieun becomes mute, and Hyukjae is mentally scolding himself for sounding too harsh when she suddenly says, “Then you must come to the gathering tonight.” Hyukjae has a troubled expression and is about to reject yet again when she quickly replies cleverly, “You’ve already rejected me once, please don’t do it a second time.”

Finally, Hyukjae has nothing to say to that so he nods.

***

They are in a lousy restaurant, but the atmosphere couldn’t be brighter. All of the operators and agents are crowded in a tight space, most laughing and drinking whilst some are chatting lively. Hyukjae is wedged between Kyungsoo and a sleeping Minho, and occasionally the said male raises his glass and takes sips of his cold beer. Feeling his shoulder ache (because Minho is really heavy and he has been leaning on Hyukjae for the past twenty minutes), Hyukjae smirks evilly and shrugs off the dead man, chuckling under his breath when the drunkard mutters an ow when his back collides with the floor, yet, he merely snuggles against his seat cushion before turning his head and returning to dreamland.

“Hey, Jieun, I’ll tell you something more shocking.” Hyukjae hears one of his co-worker, Kibum, say. He observes Jieun, the new intern, turn around and leas closer to Kibum’s mouth, and he watches the comprehension blossom in her pale white cheeks as her muddy brown orbs widen in surprise. She is honestly very cute.

“Really? But I thought he was — oh my god. He tried to hit you?!” 

Kibum nods, and dramatically acts the scene with another person before bursting into loud, boisterous laughter.

“But I thought he's sophisticated and well known for his books!” Jieun cries out.

“Clearly, the educated people aren't always the most well mannered or polite!” Someone chimes in and everybody agrees to the statement, cheering and clinking cups together.

“Aish, you guys stop scaring Jieun on her first day of work.” Hyukjae complains, but the girl looks at him before replying,

“But I’m not scared, Hyukjae oppa.” Hyukjae couldn’t help but shake his head and chuckle in amusement.

That bet with Donghae? He's totally ahead and winning.

***

“Don’t think I've forgotten about our dinner.” Jieun grins boyishly as she sticks her head out of the cab, telling the driver to wait for a minute as she speaks to Hyukjae.

“Huh?” Hyukjae shifts from one foot to the other when Minho rolls his head on his shoulder. Supporting a drunk and heavy giant isn’t the easiest job.

“The dinner you promised me; you and me only. Well I guess it’ll have to wait because today doesn’t count.” Jieun continues.

“…Okay.” Hyukjae waves at Jieun’s cab, and he sees the faint reflection of a similar but smaller and more feminine hand copying his action and he smiles.

Just then, Minho gags and pukes out the contents of his stomach onto Hyukjae's shoes. The foul smell hits the sober male hard and Hyukjae is so tempted to throw the sleeping man onto the road and hope for the best.

“.”

***

“Hello mum?” Donghae speaks into his phone, and sighs quietly when the clock indicates nearly half ten at night. Here he is, an attractive male forced to work up until the late hours of each day (he’s only exaggerating, normally it is about maximum four times a week). Why is life so unfair? Oh well, he’s not complaining much when he receives his paycheck. He’s pretty annoyed by the fact that he has lost his stamp of registration for approving clothing labels, because his company suddenly decided to upgrade those but you must swap it with your old stamps (which Donghae has lost but he will never admit that).

“Are you still in the company?”

“Yes, mum.” Donghae places the device between the his shoulder and ear, tilting his head to make sure the phone doesn’t slip and fall but at the same time he has two hands free to continue searching for the stamp he misplaced, not lost.

“Don’t forget to bring your stamp home, I've received another letter today from your headquarters.”

“Aish mother!” He whines into the phone, “You could have told me that when I get home instead of calling me.”

“Well I might fall asleep then so I'm telling you now, brat.” The voice on the other side of the phone argues innocently.

“Alright, alright.” Donghae hangs up.

The male puts his phone on his messy desk, before turning one hundred and eighty degrees to his cupboard full of junk and bravely opens it up. Whilst rummaging, he has found several items he thought he had lost (or someone stole them); his marker with a pink pompom on top, his favourite DVD and a bag of opened processed cookies. Finding nothing from the now emptied cupboard, Donghae switches his focus to underneath his desk.

“Do you need my help?” A voice cuts through the silence, and Donghae raises his head only to bang it really hard on the underside of his desk. He whimpers and rubs the sore spot as he sits down on his swivel chair, seeing white spots in his vision.

On looking up, Donghae is surprised to see Sehun standing at the door, because he thought the younger has gone home hours ago since he wasn’t sitting at his desk.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Why are you still here.” Donghae asks, but it sounds more like an accusation.

“How can I leave work when you, my boss, is still working?” His eyes are shining with mirth. He walks over to Donghae and only then does the elder see the cup of coffee in his hands. Sehun places the mug on his tidy desk and strides over.

“What are you looking for?”