S.U.H.O. - for forchencookies
Title: S.U.H.O.
For: forchencookies
Pairing: Suho/Chen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6,865
Summary: Jongdae makes a private document and accidentally sends it out to the entire company. He could only come up with one solution: make a virus to delete the copies.
The cursor blinks on a blank white page almost mockingly. A young man in a dress shirt and black slacks is resting his head on his forearm, staring up at the screen with a blank expression. The cursor continues to blink, and soon the man heaves and clicks on a different tab, away from the document.
The webpage loads to the front page of a company's website--Two Moons Incorporated. The smiling face of a female model stares back at him, the phone in her hand almost juts out of the screen. Behind her is the cityscape of Seoul, practically a foreign land to him even though he's lived here for the past five years.
Someone knocks on his cubicle wall, and the man stumbles to click to a blank page--even though having the company website should totally be safe. Bad habit.
"Hey, someone found this on the floor upstairs. I'll put it right--"
A soft thunk sound is heard and the man looks down. "Uh, thanks."
"Shit, sorry bro." The tall, lanky man says, scratching the back of his neck before leaving.
An ID badge is innocently sitting on the grey carpet, and the man sitting down doesn't bother reacting.
Kim Jongdae - Tech Department.
His expressionless face mirrors the face he has right now, and Jongdae grumbles as he bends down to pick up his ID badge. He taps it before putting it around his neck and looking back at his screen.
The blank document calls back to him, and he clicks back to it, watching the cursor blink a few more times before finally resting his hands above his keyboard.
His fingers float slightly above it, hesitantly, before he finally presses a key, and another key, and another.
Jongdae looks to the document, now marked with black 100 pt print: WHAT I LIKE ABOUT SUHO.
--
A notification sound dings and Jongdae moves his mouse over to check his email.
From: Zhang Yixing
Message: Hey, you missed a meeting. Daydreaming about suho again? (Baekhyun told me.) Anyway, everyone wants to see your work in progress, so send it out.
Jongdae rolls his eyes, thinking it was something else. Like, dealing with another certain document. He heaves and clicks around, compiling together the files Yixing asked for. Then, he quickly attaches the documents into the email and presses send.
Another notification window pops, notifying that he successfully sent everyone four documents. Jongdae knits his eyebrows together at the sight of four.
That's not right. There should only be three things: the PowerPoint, the zip file of the photo and other documents, and the running .exe file that allows for testing. Jongdae scrolls through the email again to see that, somehow, he attached SUHO.doc.
That SUHO.doc. And now over 4,000 people have an encrypted copy of his list.
Jongdae stares at his screen, mouth hanging. He deeply inhales, raising his shoulders and leaning back into his chair like he's about to burst out screaming, but all that comes out of his mouth is--
"Crap."
--
Jongdae walks into the office the next day and rubs his eyes, blinking slowly. He feels a burning sensation whenever he closes them, and when he opens his eyes again, Sehun is standing there with a cocked eyebrow.
"You look like a wreck, what did you do?"
Jongdae is about to answer, but then Sehun's face brightens up a bit, as if he was enlightened with some new information.
"So...that Suho document."
Jongdae rolls his eyes. "I have it under control, Sehun."
Sehun snorts.
"I'm serious! I spent all night writing up a program that'll fix everything." Jongdae motions to kick Sehun when the younger man doesn't respond. "It's nothing shady, I swear."
"Okay, sure, hyung." Sehun says, chuckling halfheartedly and putting his hands up in mock defeat. He turns to walk away and Jongdae sighs because he may have told a white lie.
He may have sort of programmed a virus. It's completely harmless, and small and tiny and no one will ever notice. No one would think twice about CHEN, the virus hidden inside an excel sheet.
"Oh hey, by the way, are you going to be here later too?" Sehun's voice and face surprises him and Jongdae slightly jumps.
"Yeah, why?" Jongdae says after clearing his throat.
"Just be good and stay by your cubicle." is the only thing Sehun says before walking away again.
Jongdae doesn't move, because he's not entirely sure what just happened.
--
A figure sits on top of a white cube, one leg neatly tucked under the other. Around him, the walls and floors are white, but small flickering lights whiz by every once in a while. Strings of numbers and letters reflect on the surface, and the only sound heard is a soft hum of a fan.
The thin figure looks up when a ring pings through the air. His expression is blank, slowly straightening his back while repositioning his legs.
A manila folder emitting light is floating in front of him, in which he then reaches out to it and opens it.
Inside, hundreds of papers and pictures filled the folder, and the man quickly sifts through them, eyes never blinking as he scans through the pages.
His name is Chen. He has one mission: to find and destroy all copies of SUHO.doc within the network.
4,302 copies to go.
--
Jongdae is sitting in his office cubicle when someone taps on his name placard. He almost jolts up, swiveling the chair to face whoever's responsible for it. He's about to stand up or yell when he sees Sehun, but then there's a stranger standing next to him.
Jongdae throws a quick glare at the graphic designer, who pipes up immediately. "Hyung, this is the new hire, Jongin."
Sehun raises a hand to point out the slender man next to him. He seems nice, and civil, but a bit quiet.
"Hi, I'm Jongdae." Jongdae politely smiles, offering a hand. Jongin shakes his hand and smiles back.
"Jongin. Sehun tells me you're in Tech?" Jongdae is slightly surprised that he has a nice, rich voice and can only silently nod, gulping.
"Yeah. Will you be in graphic design with Sehun?" Jongdae runs a hand through his hair.
"I'm up one floor." Part of legal. Which means..."He's an assistant to Joonmyun hyung." Sehun finishes off.
"...Oh, that's nice." Jongdae says, voice hitching up a bit higher because why is Sehun so cruel? And why is he introducing him to Kim Joonmyun's assistant?
"You guys are also the Kim Jong bros, according to Joonmyun hyung." Sehun continues and Jongdae just wants to crumple to the floor because the topic of Joonmyun continuously hovers in his mind, threatening to become more of a reality than a fantasy.
--
Chen slowly looks up at the top of the room and tilts his head down in the space he occupied. Files upon files are stacked on top of each other and after a while it all seems to blend. When his eyes reach the floor he realizes that he's standing on a very shiny wooden floor and he raises his eyebrows curiously. It's not common to have this type of design in rooms, but before Chen can fully appreciate any design, he notices something else enter the room.
A fat poodle waddles its way toward him, head cocked to the side. Chen blinks blankly, unsure of what to do because he's never seen this before.
"Identification, please." The dog says in a robotic voice, and Chen raises an eyebrow. He then brings his palm upward, and a card rises up from it--a card indicating that he was Chen.xml, a Microsoft excel sheet that had Kim Jongdae's revised statistics of a product on it.
The poodle scans it through quickly and waves for him to pass.
Chen slides the card back into his palm, walking forward and staring at the hustle and bustle of the new CPU he's in.
On the other end is a room of dancing zombies, and a man labeled as Michael Jackson seems to be grooving to some beat on his own accord.
Chen turns his head, and moves onto a different room. He sees a large bookshelf with speech bubbles popping out from it, and various heroes from popular series reside here, chatting to one another. Pororo, Krong and other characters from kids' shows are also walking about, and Chen is impressed by how organized everyone's living spaces are, even though there is a wide variety of programs and files here.
As Chen begins to move deeper into the rooms and folders, he begins to find more serious-looking businessmen and inanimate objects. He finds it almost ironic that the user's work documents are hidden so carefully while all the leisure-type files are out and about on the desktop.
He sees a copy of himself--at least, a file looking like Kim Jongdae, so he decides to follow it. His other copy is weaving in and out of various folders, interacting with all kinds of files.
Chen doesn't understand why this file seems to be so different from himself, but he doesn't question it too much, not when he's eyed the target.
He has one job and he plans to see it through.
--
Jongdae yawns, stretching his arms and rolling his neck side to side. He's had a long day, and really just wants to find a nice place to sleep for the next three days. He leans against the elevator rail and momentarily rests his head against his left shoulder before closing his eyes. Even 5 seconds of that will do.
But, of course, when the elevator dings to the next floor, a big crowd of people walk in and Jongdae tries to squeeze himself to the far right corner.
"Sorry about that."
Jongdae almost freezes because he recognizes that voice, and when he looks up, a familiar face is staring right back at him. Jongdae immediately averts eye contact and mumbles a quick "S'ok" before retreating to...the back of the elevator. (Jongdae curses himself for getting into the empty elevator with Kim Joonmyun of all people.)
Soft elevator music is playing in the background as Jongdae stares at his shoes, not wanting to face with the reality that Joonmyun is less than the usual ten feet away.
When more people step into the elevator, Joonmyun also steps to the back of the elevator and Jongdae curses whatever gods there are for putting him in the same elevator as Kim Joonmyun.
Jongdae watches the number of levels the elevator is descending and silently begs for it to hit L. When it finally does, Jongdae feels himself able to breathe when Joonmyun motions to walk out. Jongdae, too, is about to walk out, but then Joonmyun turns around to face the crowd in the elevator and nonchalantly says, "Well, have a good day."
Other staff members follow up on his greeting, but Jongdae panics and freezes because he swears Joonmyun looked at him while saying that.
--
Chen scans over the other figure standing a distance away from him, just to double check. Word document, recently moved. It didn't hurt to ask.
"Suho?" Chen asks, almost tentatively, but the man turns around to face him.
"Yes?"
"This is purely for identification purposes, but what do you reside over?"
"Oh, well, I'm actually kind of new here." Suho laughs nervously. "I'm just a list, so I go around helping people whenever I can."
Chen nods absentmindedly, finding it boring that the job will be this ridiculously easy. He was hoping for at least some sort of a challenge.
As Suho is thinking of what to say, Chen's already given the document its necessary settings to self-destruct. Before Suho can even finish his thought, he disappears, and Chen crosses off Kim Jongin's computer.
1 down.
--
"So, word is out that people are trying to figure out what your Suho document is." One week. It took one week for Chanyeol to approach him, and he supposes that's somewhat of a win.
Jongdae tries not to groan. A lot of people seemed engrossed about the encrypted file, as if there were some hidden answers to the meaning of life, or winning lottery numbers inside. He considers himself lucky that even with Chanyeol and Baekhyun as friends, only a handful of people know what SUHO even represents.
"Don't worry, my friend. Your secret's safe with me." Chanyeol says as if he read his mind, closing his eyes and nodding consolingly. "Even though I want to boast how /I/ came up with the nickname."
"Chanyeol, please." Jongdae says, rolling his eyes. "It was a group effort, anyway."
It's crazy to think that it's already been a year since he told Baekhyun who then told Chanyeol who then told Sehun who then told Kyungsoo who then told nobody because Kyungsoo's actually a good friend unlike the other three.
He supposes it's karma of some sort, for liking a coworker, of all people. They've only worked a couple of times in the past, but Jongdae can't remember a personal conversation lasting longer than a minute. Maybe even professional ones either.
Chanyeol waves him off as they part to turn to different parts of the hall and when Jongdae reaches his desk he almost glares at the flyer innocently taped to his computer screen.
It's a notice reminding the company staff that the annual Halloween party will be in a hotel ballroom across the building in a week.
He rolls his eyes because he thinks the company could spend the money on much more important things than to throw an extravagant Halloween party that almost always is never as extravagant as one wants it to be. Especially with the karaoke machines installed.
"Joonmyun's going to be there." Baekhyun says as he's walking by, tilting his head left and right repeatedly. "Besides, if you don't go, I'm not responsible for your death-by-Luhan."
"I don't even have a costume." Jongdae says as he dumps his bag onto his table.
"Liar, I know you have that Legolas outfit hidden in your closet."
"What? How?" Jongdae chokes out, and Baekhyun pats his back.
"When I went to borrow your suit last time."
Jongdae wants to smash his face against a wall. This is why one never trusts Byun Baekhyun with anything. It's a miracle Joonmyun doesn't even know about his feelings yet.
"Don't be such a baby about it. I'm not gonna tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about." Baekhyun says, shaking his head.
"I honestly don't even care, because either way I'm not going." Jongdae says, putting a palm up. "Besides, this whole..." Jongdae throws his arms up. "fiasco is your fault anyway. I wouldn't be and I probably wouldn't run into or hear about him every five seconds."
"Jongdae." Baekhyun says looking at him with a strange expression and Jongdae's not sure how to take it. "It's not my fault that you sent the list out to everyone. Besides, this is progress."
"What." Jongdae says in the most what-the-fuck voice he can muster without being too offensive. Because of all the things, why does it go back to that?
"You're living in a romantic comedy!" Baekhyun almost squeals in excitement and Jongdae stares at him.
Jongdae never realized that Baekhyun had a really strange sense of how relationships should start. He's never even had a decent conversation with Joonmyun yet, how could Baekhyun already be jumping to these conclusions?
"Baekhyun, get your ass over here before Kyungsoo kills me!" Chanyeol's voice is heard from a distance and Baekhyun shrugs at Jongdae.
"Gotta go. But seriously, I expect to see you there, Legolas."
Jongdae shoos him away.
--
Chen flips through the pages of crossed out names and realizes that he's only got a few hundred left to go through.
It already feels like he's been through hell, with each kill leaving Chen feeling a bit more empty than he already is.
With each Suho he meets, he sees a different aspect of "The List" on every one of them. He wish he knew his creator as well.
--
Jongdae's butt hurts from sitting down too long. And whenever his butt hurts, he goes to the coffee room for his break. The break room is small, but it does its job of serving coffee and keeping food cool in the refrigerator. Besides the obvious technical things, Jongdae likes drinking his cup of coffee while observing the office. And that's exactly what he's doing right now.
Joonmyun is next to him, grabbing coffee from the coffee machine.
Wait.
Jongdae does a double take to confirm that it's him.
It is.
He quickly averts eye contact and wants to scream because doesn't every floor has their own coffee machine? And why is Joonmyun consistently popping up now and then?
"Jongin likes the coffee on this floor." Joonmyun says as explanation and Jongdae silently nods.
He hates himself for always being awkward and silent around Joonmyun, but he can never seem to find the right words to say at the right time.
"Are you going?" Joonmyun asks, and Jongdae looks up to see if he's talking to anyone else, but it's just them still. He looks to Joonmyun who is pointing to the Halloween Party flyer.
"Oh, I don't know." Jongdae shrugs. "Are you?"
"Yeah, I think it'd be fun." Joonmyun says, taking a sniff of his steaming coffee. Jongdae takes a quick sip from his cup as well, wishing he could throw some alcohol into the mix.
"Would you mind if I asked Jongin to grab two cups whenever I'm here?"
"O-oh, um, I mean it's not my coffee personally, so I can't say." Jongdae scratches the back of his neck.
"Ah." Joonmyun nods in understanding.
They take another sip of coffee, standing against the counters to face the main office floor. Jongdae tries to think of something to say, which should be relatively easy, but instead he opts to run.
"Um, well, gotta go. Have some work to do for a product." Jongdae says and Joonmyun looks almost disappointed. It must be his imagination.
"Okay, well. See you around." Joonmyun waves and smiles and Jongdae throws a quick smile before turning to walk back to his cubicle.
Awkward. as. fuck.
--
Jongdae's finding out that he's really bad at self-restraint and Baekhyun is a horrible influence. That, and, well, running into Joonmyun also helped, even if it didn't necessarily seem that way.
When he finds himself standing outside the ballroom entrance, Jongdae stands for a moment before immediately turning around to walk out of the hotel and pretend that he was never here. Except Baekhyun notices him right then, and is already smugly smiling while making his way over.
Baekhyun is pointing his chin up so high Jongdae's almost afraid to get poked by it.
"First things first. I'm not getting drunk." Jongdae says confidently and Baekhyun and Sehun snort almost on cue.
"Live a little!" Sehun says, walking up to them in his Sanji outfit. "You can't tell us that you don't want to get drunk because now we're going to make you have the worst hangover." Baekhyun and Sehun high-five each other and Jongdae rolls his eyes.
"What are you even supposed to be?" Chanyeol asks Jongdae while raising a judging eyebrow and sipping out of his martini glass.
"I'm an elf." Jongdae says proudly, fixing his ears. "The last Hobbit movie's coming out this year."
Luhan joins the group and pouts. "But you should've been a vampire with me. Or, I can give you the bite."
Jongdae laughs, smacking Luhan's arm while the older man smiles evilly.
"I'm already immortal, dumbass."
"Oh, lord Jongdae, my savior, my one and only. Please take me to the Undying Lands with you." Yixing pops out of nowhere, wearing a blue tunic and a toga over his shoulders and a long wig.
Jongdae tries to hold back his laughter. "Are you seriously what I think you are?"
"What? Harvest Moon is fun, okay?" Yixing says defensively and Tao randomly bursts out laughing five seconds late, throwing an arm over his shoulder.
"It's okay ge, I'll vote for you to win the costume contest." Yixing is about to retort, but Tao interrupts him by yelling across the hall. "Joonmyun-ge!"
Tao waves to Joonmyun, who must have just came into the building as well.
Jongdae wants to kill Tao right now because Tao is not being very kind and nothing is really going his way. After his last run-in with Joonmyun, Jongdae was pretty set on not seeing Joonmyun ever again. Like, forever. Or at least, another few months. So the fact that he's been in conversation-range with Joonmyun twice in the past week is throwing him off his guard.
It also doesn't help that Joonmyun's dressed up as a character from Singeki no Kyojin. He's pretty sure Jongin or Kyungsoo put him up to it. Because, wow is he pulling the suspender look.
"Hi everyone." Joonmyun says, walking to stand next to Jongdae.
"Now that we're all here, let's go sing karaoke!" Tao whoops and Joonmyun and Jongdae share a look.
--
The once-filled ballroom was beginning to empty out, and the loud blaring music turns into silence. It's been a couple hours since the party ended, but there's still a ruckus going on at the corner table with Jongdae and company.
"But Joonmyun hyung, I just want a quick kiss!" Jongdae whines.
"Alright, you're done for the night." Joonmyun says, face beet red.
"Come on, let's take them back to our place." Joonmyun looks over to Jongin, who's holding Sehun up with one arm and Tao is holding the other arm.
"Are you sure about this, hyung?" Sehun drunkenly asks and Joonmyun softly chuckles at the sight.
"Yes, I wouldn't trust you guys anywhere else."
Sehun nods repeatedly, making an approving sound.
"Is he alwyas like this when he's drunk?" Jongin asks and Tao just giggles because he's not too sober himself.
"Joooooooonmyun HyuuUNG!" Jongdae yells out at the top of his lungs, cackling. He tightens his grip on Joonmyun's arm and rests his head against Joonmyun's shoulder as they walk.
Joonmyun is struggling to keep his balance and when he looks at Jongin, he doesn't even bother complaining because it could be so much worse.
"Jongin."
"Mm?"
"We're definitely not getting paid enough for this."
"Amen, brother."
--
Chen hops up onto the entrance of another staff member's cpu and wipes off the dust from his knees. Whoever owns this computer really needs to clean the place up, Chen notes, but he doesn't mind too much. The job is almost over, for what it is.
A tall man is waiting for him at the gate, with bird-like eyes and pursed lips. His hair is slightly acorn-shaped, and Chen wonders why anyone would have that unfortunate hairstyle.
When Chen scans him to see what he's dealing against, he almost freezes up because the man staring at him is an antivirus program--K.R.I.S.
"Who are you?" Kris asks at that moment in a bored monotone voice and Chen blinks once before calling up his card, hoping that Kris sucks at checking IDs.
"What are you doing here?" Kris says without looking up.
"I'm here to deliver some data from Kim Jongdae's desk." Chen answers smoothly and Kris looks at the documents a bit longer.
"To whom, specifically?"
"Well, I'm not sure what the file's saved as, but he looks like the owner of the CPU."
Kris raises an eyebrow, giving back Chen's card. "Good luck with that."
--
Jongdae hasn't been so hungover in a long while. And he almost wants to hate Baekhyun or Sehun for it, but it's almost nostalgic. He hasn't opened his eyes, but
He groans and flops onto his stomach. Snuggling further into the blankets, he realizes that he doesn't want to get out of bed. Ever. Not anytime soon, at least. Sehun's blankets smell surprisingly good, and fresh. Like spring--with newly-bloomed flowers and morning dew and all that jazz. He could almost hear Rossini's William Tell Overture now.
But when was the last time Sehun was associated to clean?
He slowly opens one eye, bracing himself for the bright sunlight from the window that always silently kills him after a hangover, except the window isn't where it's supposed to be. Confused, Jongdae takes a look at his surroundings and suddenly sits up, head banging against the bed rest behind him. Totally helped his headache, but there were more important matters at hand.
Like how nothing about this room screamed Sehun, nor did it scream familiarity or recognition. The room was empty for the most part with plain white walls--save for Bruce Lee who was staring back at him from a poster plastered smack dab in the middle of the room.
That's not weird at all.
"Are you awake?" A muffled voice asked from...somewhere.
And at first the voice doesn't sound familiar at all. But then said person knocks on and opens the door to the room, and suddenly Kim Joonmyun is standing there and Jongdae finds himself unable to breathe.
He's in Joonmyun's apartment, for fuck's sake, and he doesn't even remember how he got here.
All he can really hope for is that he didn't do something dumb the night before.
"I am so sorry for all the trouble." Jongdae says immediately as Joonmyun enters.
"Oh, it's fine, really. Jongin and Tao get drunk all the time." Joonmyun says nonchalantly.
"I'm just, oh god, I'm so sorry for this." Jongdae sits up and cringes at the thought of having to put the Halloween costume back on.
"Um, I have some extra clothes if you want to borrow them?" Joonmyun says tentatively, following Jongdae's gaze to the crumpled Legolas outfit.
Jongdae gapes because how could Joonmyun be such a saint? Taking care of drunk co-workers? Letting them borrow clothes? Isn't this escalating a bit too quickly?
"You know, we've had a couple of conversations before." Joonmyun says randomly out of the blue.
"Sorry?" Jongdae says, because he's still trying to cope that he's at Joonmyun's place right now, and that apparently he's been rooming with Tao or something because who else would put Bruce Lee posters in the guest room?
"Um, never mind." Joonmyun awkwardly says and Jongdae feels like he should say something to make it less awkward.
"W-well, I still have to go to work today, but when you're ready to leave just lock the door behind you." Joonmyun says, getting up.
He leaves before Jongdae has the chance to ask for any elaboration and even though things are completely different, Jongdae feels like a jilted woman.
--
He did it.
Suho is standing in front of him, and they've been talking for quite some time now. It's the longest interaction he's ever had with a copy, but only because this one has had so much to say.
"Is it weird, to be among so many other files that look like you?"
"No, I...I really enjoy it." Suho says. "Even though I'm only a word document...I feel completely loved. My creator has shown me a beauty in the world that I didn't think I could ever experience, and it's enhanced even more now that I'm here."
Chen wishes their creator did the same for him, made him feel like he had more purpose to life than destroying copies of...a /person./ If he saw other copies of himself, he'd feel sick.
"Especially since I'm in the creator's subject's CPU." Suho continues.
"I love that he loves Joonmyun's smile and laugh. I love that even though they don't talk everyday, they both think about each other. It's really cute how Joonmyun tries to think of ways to initiate contact with Jongdae, too." Suho laughs to himself. "He always ends up creating a new email and deleting it since they're so awkward. Humans are so amusing to monitor, especially when they have these deep feelings for one another."
A silence starts to linger in the air and Suho apologizes immediately. "I know I can go on a tangent for a while, but, um...Yeah. Could you tell me more about yourself? Maybe even about Jongdae?"
Chen is taken aback because the other copies never went into much detail, and more specifically, never really cared to ask him about his identity either.
He almost doesn't want to go back to Jongdae's computer. He doesn't want to do it, but duty's duty.
Chen quickly places his hand on Suho's back before he could regret it and the latter freezes. "Wha--"
Slowly, Suho begins to deteriorate, decomposing into moving numbers.
Chen tries to forget the warm feeling he may have felt inside as Suho talked. He tries to not mutter a sound or open his mouth at all because he's afraid that he'll react negatively.
The space that Suho was occupying is now empty, and Chen finds that his hand is shaking.
Chen takes out a notebook and shakily crosses off the last entry: Kim Joonmyun's computer.
0 copies to go.
With that, he was officially done.
--
Jongdae stares at the screen blankly. He's pretty sure that he's fucked everything up.
He's starting to remember details from the Halloween party and what kinds of dumb behavior Joonmyun has seen first-hand. They never really talk beyond the quick exchanges and even then Jongdae is practically a mute whenever Joonmyun is within the vicinity.
There's no point, really, in trying to make anything work out because he can't seem to fix that problem of not being able to form words. And what kind of relationship is just about one person talking the entire time while the other person is a sack of potatoes? He's not entirely sure how he came up with that analogy either. But anyway.
If he hasn't crept Joonmyun out by now he doesn't know what to say.
It's hard to change first impressions, and the age-old question of "What if Joonmyun doesn't like me back?" comes to mind. He could deal with now and figure it all out...Or, he can put that aside for another day.
Or month. Or year. or, ever.
--
Chen opens his eyes. Black walls surround him, with strings and letters whizzing by. The fan is silent today, and Chen finds himself closing his eyes again.
There's nothing to be done anyway.
--
Jongdae can spot an intervention from a mile away, especially when these three very specific people are standing here with expressions that mean business. Jongdae doesn't even have time to settle when Chanyeol starts it off with, "So, it's been like what, two weeks?"
"And what if it has been?" Jongdae responds curtly.
"Jongdae, you're being really immature right now. Why are you running away from this?" Baekhyun retorts in an annoyed voice.
"I don't know why you guys are so adamant about this, I was really fine about what I had earlier, and now I'm pretty sure anything that could have been is out the window with my drunken behavior."
"You're still hung up on that?" Baekhyun asks, surprised. "You're only saying that because you've never actually had the chance to explore being in relationships before."
"So what if I'm content with that!" Jongdae is about to reach yelling volume.
A couple of secretaries walk by, almost apologetically, and Jongdae heaves out deeply.
"I just don't want anyone to dictate my feelings."
"He's not trying to do that, Jongdae." Kyungsoo finally speaks up. "It's just...you need to open your eyes and be willing to see the bigger picture here."
Jongdae doesn't say anything, and the others take it as a cue to leave him alone. Jongdae slumps over his laptop. Minseok has been giving him more work to do, and his friends are so up in his face his love life that Jongdae's never felt more alone than ever. Is he making the wrong decision to take things super slow? To have the desire to mentally prepare himself before anything happens?
Or are his friends right about him pushing a great opportunity of, at the least, a friendship?
Jongdae rubs his eyes and rests his head against his arms. He's too tired to think or to work or to do anything and he doesn't know who to turn to.
His phone vibrates, and without thinking or hesitating, he answers it and rests it against his ear.
"Hello?"
A bit of static is heard, but before Jongdae could speak up or check who it is, a voice pipes up.
"Hi, Jongdae."
Kim Joonmyun's voice.
"How'd you even get my number?" Jongdae blurts out, because seriously.
"Oh, um. I asked here and there." Joonmyun says in an almost shy voice and Jongdae can't even find himself to be frustrated by the fact that one of his friends probably sold him out.
He looks over to the clothing he still hasn't returned and sighs. This was probably some sort of evil plan conducted by his friends to get him to be more active in his relationships or whatever, but Jongdae doesn't even bother thinking about it.
"I was just wondering if you could meet me at the park later today." Jongdae looks up from his computer and around the room to see if anyone was looking over at him.
Nothing. This was 100% Kim Joonmyun. He needs to apologize to his friends for being such an asshole.
"Um, sure."
--
With so much spare time, Chen has been exploring through Jongdae's CPU. Perhaps to understand his creator's intent, or to get some more background as to why.
But through his past exploration, Chen has always passed by the "forbidden" room, wondering what's inside. He stands outside of it now, pacing back and forth. It's the last room he needs to explore before going through all of Kim Jongdae's CPU.
Fuck it. Chen walks into the room confidently. The walls are red with yellow stripes, and a lone figure is standing in the middle, posed over a small cubicle. In his hands is a sheet of paper, and Chen finds himself freezing up when he recognizes who it could be.
"Suho." Chen's voice is barely recognizable even to his ears, and it has more emotion than he'd like.
The figure in front of him turns his head to the side, so Chen can only see the file's profile. Chen finds himself unable to move, and doesn't say anything else.
After spending so much time destroying the thousands of copies, he doesn't know what to say, what he should do. What if he's just reacting to what he's been programmed to do?
But then he looks to Suho again, and he knows what he has to do--what he has to say. He may not completely understand his creator's purpose, but Chen knows himself to the best extent possible.
He slowly walks forward, thinking back to the multiple Suho copies he has met. He thinks back to the words that touched him, the sounds of soft laughter, the voice full of hope, curiosity and more.
"Your eyes are beautiful." Chen begins. Suho finally turns to face him, and Chen swears his eyes sparkled.
"I love the way you laugh." Chen says, padding closer to the unmoving Suho.
Suho slightly cocks his head to the side, and when Chen finally stops walking, a smile is formed on Suho's lips.
"You make my day." Suho responds, and Chen feels the corners of his lips curve up too.
Even though he doesn't know how much time they may have together, he feels fulfilled. Having the original Suho standing right here before him makes him feel like he's not a complete monster for destroying so many pure files. Having Suho here means that Kim Jongdae isn't a complete heartless bastard of a human who doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Why Kim Jongdae would ever try to hide these facts from the world beats him, but he's eternally grateful that he never deleted Suho.
--
Jongdae sees the back of Joonmyun and lets out a deep breath. He's been avoiding Joonmyun for so long because while this has all been very interesting and all, Jongdae's simply not ready.
Joonmyun is looking down and Jongdae has prepared an entire monologue of what he can say to him, from confessing to apologizing, and he doesn't know which direction this conversation is going to go.
Until Jongdae sees it, and that's when Joonmyun turns around to face him. Jongdae doesn't even have a chance to say anything before Joonmyun speaks up. "So, I found this on Yifan's computer."
Joonmyun lifts up the piece of paper that is in his hands and Jongdae lets out a defeated laugh. Because he went through so many things to ensure that nobody found it, to ensure that the last person in the world to have found it was Kim Joonmyun.
And here they are. That blasted document.
Jongdae has a million things he wants to say, wants to ask, but instead he blurts out, "I can totally explain."
Except Jongdae forgets that he doesn't really have an explanation for the document's existence. And he totally now realizes that Joonmyun is more likely to want to hear about the content of the words (especially the subheader on top of the document, which is in size 100 pt: "S.U.H.O. = Kim Joonmyun")
"What does it mean, anyway?" Joonmyun asks, not deterred by Jongdae's silence or awkwardness.
Jongdae nervously laughs, thinking back to what started it all. That goddamn horrible guy of a friend Byun Baekhyun who asked him to write the list in the first place.
When he looks up, Joonmyun is still looking at him with the same curious eyes that Jongdae has seen on multiple occasions. Except this time it's directed at him. This time, Jongdae isn't just eying Kim Joonmyun from afar.
"You mean, SUHO?"
Joonmyun nods, taking a step closer to Jongdae, whose feet seemed to be glued to the concrete beneath him.
Jongdae breathes in and out, and closes his eyes. He doesn't even remember who made the nickname first, or how it happened, but suddenly it was the inside joke within the department to call Jongdae's crush the--
"...Super Unequivocally Hot One."
There's a long silence.
Jongdae doesn't dare to open his eyes, in case Joonmyun is gone, or staring at him with a freaked out expression.
But, then a loud burst of laughter erupts into the air and Jongdae's lips curl up into a smile. He opens his eyes and Joonmyun's face is glowing.
"Wow, that's..." Joonmyun says while trying to catch his breath. "That is one awesome nickname to have. Kind of like one of those hip new boy bands or something."
Jongdae lets out a loud laugh, and looks down again because he never imagined he'd be here, standing with Kim Joonmyun, who just compared his nickname to a boy band.
Who even does that?
He doesn't know how Joonmyun is taking this all so well because he feels like he could just combust on the spot. He honestly doesn't know how to form words at the moments and he feels like a baby bird learning how to fly. How he came up with this analogy is still unknown to him, but he doesn't have time to think about it since Joonmyun is continuing the one-sided conversation.
"I...I know we haven't really talked that much, but I do appreciate you a lot. Um, I hope that isn't too weird." Joonmyun quickly adds. "And under normal circumstances I would probably be feeling weird about...everything. All of it. But I don't."
Jongdae still doesn't have the courage to look up, to face the real Kim Joonmyun standing before him.
"In fact...it kind of gives me confidence."
Jongdae raises his head up. Before him, he sees the dazzling smile that Joonmyun places on his face, an aura of reassurance emits from him.
"I was wondering if you're free this Saturday? I'd um...really like to ask you to have breakfast with me."
Jongdae is taken aback because he was so content on the fantasy that he had not even two months ago. He's beginning to realize that a pace has been set. It's been moving along, but Jongdae has been trying to deny its existence.
He's not ready, but no one ever is. Everyone makes plans; they either work out or they fall through. Or they grow into something unexpected, something better.
And as Jongdae stands there, looking at Joonmyun who is looking back at him, he feels at peace, and that surprises him.
"Or, you know, if breakfast is too soon, can I ask you to coffee?"
Jongdae laughs and shakes his head. He realizes that he's been quiet this entire time, unable to formulate any words because Joonmyun is a real entity in his life now; this is actually going to happen.
"No, no, breakfast is good." Jongdae says, feeling dumb that it's all he could say despite his dreams becoming a reality.
Joonmyun looks relieved, and nods repeatedly while moving his hand to tuck some nonexistent hair behind his ear.
And all Jongdae can do is grin, looking stupidly happy, to finally be able reach out and intertwine his fingers with Kim Joonmyun's.
Author's note: Don't be deceived by the wordcount, HAHA. As always, thanks to E for the support, and to those who kicked my butt to write.
For: forchencookies
Pairing: Suho/Chen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6,865
Summary: Jongdae makes a private document and accidentally sends it out to the entire company. He could only come up with one solution: make a virus to delete the copies.
The cursor blinks on a blank white page almost mockingly. A young man in a dress shirt and black slacks is resting his head on his forearm, staring up at the screen with a blank expression. The cursor continues to blink, and soon the man heaves and clicks on a different tab, away from the document.
The webpage loads to the front page of a company's website--Two Moons Incorporated. The smiling face of a female model stares back at him, the phone in her hand almost juts out of the screen. Behind her is the cityscape of Seoul, practically a foreign land to him even though he's lived here for the past five years.
Someone knocks on his cubicle wall, and the man stumbles to click to a blank page--even though having the company website should totally be safe. Bad habit.
"Hey, someone found this on the floor upstairs. I'll put it right--"
A soft thunk sound is heard and the man looks down. "Uh, thanks."
"Shit, sorry bro." The tall, lanky man says, scratching the back of his neck before leaving.
An ID badge is innocently sitting on the grey carpet, and the man sitting down doesn't bother reacting.
Kim Jongdae - Tech Department.
His expressionless face mirrors the face he has right now, and Jongdae grumbles as he bends down to pick up his ID badge. He taps it before putting it around his neck and looking back at his screen.
The blank document calls back to him, and he clicks back to it, watching the cursor blink a few more times before finally resting his hands above his keyboard.
His fingers float slightly above it, hesitantly, before he finally presses a key, and another key, and another.
Jongdae looks to the document, now marked with black 100 pt print: WHAT I LIKE ABOUT SUHO.
--
A notification sound dings and Jongdae moves his mouse over to check his email.
From: Zhang Yixing
Message: Hey, you missed a meeting. Daydreaming about suho again? (Baekhyun told me.) Anyway, everyone wants to see your work in progress, so send it out.
Jongdae rolls his eyes, thinking it was something else. Like, dealing with another certain document. He heaves and clicks around, compiling together the files Yixing asked for. Then, he quickly attaches the documents into the email and presses send.
Another notification window pops, notifying that he successfully sent everyone four documents. Jongdae knits his eyebrows together at the sight of four.
That's not right. There should only be three things: the PowerPoint, the zip file of the photo and other documents, and the running .exe file that allows for testing. Jongdae scrolls through the email again to see that, somehow, he attached SUHO.doc.
That SUHO.doc. And now over 4,000 people have an encrypted copy of his list.
Jongdae stares at his screen, mouth hanging. He deeply inhales, raising his shoulders and leaning back into his chair like he's about to burst out screaming, but all that comes out of his mouth is--
"Crap."
--
Jongdae walks into the office the next day and rubs his eyes, blinking slowly. He feels a burning sensation whenever he closes them, and when he opens his eyes again, Sehun is standing there with a cocked eyebrow.
"You look like a wreck, what did you do?"
Jongdae is about to answer, but then Sehun's face brightens up a bit, as if he was enlightened with some new information.
"So...that Suho document."
Jongdae rolls his eyes. "I have it under control, Sehun."
Sehun snorts.
"I'm serious! I spent all night writing up a program that'll fix everything." Jongdae motions to kick Sehun when the younger man doesn't respond. "It's nothing shady, I swear."
"Okay, sure, hyung." Sehun says, chuckling halfheartedly and putting his hands up in mock defeat. He turns to walk away and Jongdae sighs because he may have told a white lie.
He may have sort of programmed a virus. It's completely harmless, and small and tiny and no one will ever notice. No one would think twice about CHEN, the virus hidden inside an excel sheet.
"Oh hey, by the way, are you going to be here later too?" Sehun's voice and face surprises him and Jongdae slightly jumps.
"Yeah, why?" Jongdae says after clearing his throat.
"Just be good and stay by your cubicle." is the only thing Sehun says before walking away again.
Jongdae doesn't move, because he's not entirely sure what just happened.
--
A figure sits on top of a white cube, one leg neatly tucked under the other. Around him, the walls and floors are white, but small flickering lights whiz by every once in a while. Strings of numbers and letters reflect on the surface, and the only sound heard is a soft hum of a fan.
The thin figure looks up when a ring pings through the air. His expression is blank, slowly straightening his back while repositioning his legs.
A manila folder emitting light is floating in front of him, in which he then reaches out to it and opens it.
Inside, hundreds of papers and pictures filled the folder, and the man quickly sifts through them, eyes never blinking as he scans through the pages.
His name is Chen. He has one mission: to find and destroy all copies of SUHO.doc within the network.
4,302 copies to go.
--
Jongdae is sitting in his office cubicle when someone taps on his name placard. He almost jolts up, swiveling the chair to face whoever's responsible for it. He's about to stand up or yell when he sees Sehun, but then there's a stranger standing next to him.
Jongdae throws a quick glare at the graphic designer, who pipes up immediately. "Hyung, this is the new hire, Jongin."
Sehun raises a hand to point out the slender man next to him. He seems nice, and civil, but a bit quiet.
"Hi, I'm Jongdae." Jongdae politely smiles, offering a hand. Jongin shakes his hand and smiles back.
"Jongin. Sehun tells me you're in Tech?" Jongdae is slightly surprised that he has a nice, rich voice and can only silently nod, gulping.
"Yeah. Will you be in graphic design with Sehun?" Jongdae runs a hand through his hair.
"I'm up one floor." Part of legal. Which means..."He's an assistant to Joonmyun hyung." Sehun finishes off.
"...Oh, that's nice." Jongdae says, voice hitching up a bit higher because why is Sehun so cruel? And why is he introducing him to Kim Joonmyun's assistant?
"You guys are also the Kim Jong bros, according to Joonmyun hyung." Sehun continues and Jongdae just wants to crumple to the floor because the topic of Joonmyun continuously hovers in his mind, threatening to become more of a reality than a fantasy.
--
Chen slowly looks up at the top of the room and tilts his head down in the space he occupied. Files upon files are stacked on top of each other and after a while it all seems to blend. When his eyes reach the floor he realizes that he's standing on a very shiny wooden floor and he raises his eyebrows curiously. It's not common to have this type of design in rooms, but before Chen can fully appreciate any design, he notices something else enter the room.
A fat poodle waddles its way toward him, head cocked to the side. Chen blinks blankly, unsure of what to do because he's never seen this before.
"Identification, please." The dog says in a robotic voice, and Chen raises an eyebrow. He then brings his palm upward, and a card rises up from it--a card indicating that he was Chen.xml, a Microsoft excel sheet that had Kim Jongdae's revised statistics of a product on it.
The poodle scans it through quickly and waves for him to pass.
Chen slides the card back into his palm, walking forward and staring at the hustle and bustle of the new CPU he's in.
On the other end is a room of dancing zombies, and a man labeled as Michael Jackson seems to be grooving to some beat on his own accord.
Chen turns his head, and moves onto a different room. He sees a large bookshelf with speech bubbles popping out from it, and various heroes from popular series reside here, chatting to one another. Pororo, Krong and other characters from kids' shows are also walking about, and Chen is impressed by how organized everyone's living spaces are, even though there is a wide variety of programs and files here.
As Chen begins to move deeper into the rooms and folders, he begins to find more serious-looking businessmen and inanimate objects. He finds it almost ironic that the user's work documents are hidden so carefully while all the leisure-type files are out and about on the desktop.
He sees a copy of himself--at least, a file looking like Kim Jongdae, so he decides to follow it. His other copy is weaving in and out of various folders, interacting with all kinds of files.
Chen doesn't understand why this file seems to be so different from himself, but he doesn't question it too much, not when he's eyed the target.
He has one job and he plans to see it through.
--
Jongdae yawns, stretching his arms and rolling his neck side to side. He's had a long day, and really just wants to find a nice place to sleep for the next three days. He leans against the elevator rail and momentarily rests his head against his left shoulder before closing his eyes. Even 5 seconds of that will do.
But, of course, when the elevator dings to the next floor, a big crowd of people walk in and Jongdae tries to squeeze himself to the far right corner.
"Sorry about that."
Jongdae almost freezes because he recognizes that voice, and when he looks up, a familiar face is staring right back at him. Jongdae immediately averts eye contact and mumbles a quick "S'ok" before retreating to...the back of the elevator. (Jongdae curses himself for getting into the empty elevator with Kim Joonmyun of all people.)
Soft elevator music is playing in the background as Jongdae stares at his shoes, not wanting to face with the reality that Joonmyun is less than the usual ten feet away.
When more people step into the elevator, Joonmyun also steps to the back of the elevator and Jongdae curses whatever gods there are for putting him in the same elevator as Kim Joonmyun.
Jongdae watches the number of levels the elevator is descending and silently begs for it to hit L. When it finally does, Jongdae feels himself able to breathe when Joonmyun motions to walk out. Jongdae, too, is about to walk out, but then Joonmyun turns around to face the crowd in the elevator and nonchalantly says, "Well, have a good day."
Other staff members follow up on his greeting, but Jongdae panics and freezes because he swears Joonmyun looked at him while saying that.
--
Chen scans over the other figure standing a distance away from him, just to double check. Word document, recently moved. It didn't hurt to ask.
"Suho?" Chen asks, almost tentatively, but the man turns around to face him.
"Yes?"
"This is purely for identification purposes, but what do you reside over?"
"Oh, well, I'm actually kind of new here." Suho laughs nervously. "I'm just a list, so I go around helping people whenever I can."
Chen nods absentmindedly, finding it boring that the job will be this ridiculously easy. He was hoping for at least some sort of a challenge.
As Suho is thinking of what to say, Chen's already given the document its necessary settings to self-destruct. Before Suho can even finish his thought, he disappears, and Chen crosses off Kim Jongin's computer.
1 down.
--
"So, word is out that people are trying to figure out what your Suho document is." One week. It took one week for Chanyeol to approach him, and he supposes that's somewhat of a win.
Jongdae tries not to groan. A lot of people seemed engrossed about the encrypted file, as if there were some hidden answers to the meaning of life, or winning lottery numbers inside. He considers himself lucky that even with Chanyeol and Baekhyun as friends, only a handful of people know what SUHO even represents.
"Don't worry, my friend. Your secret's safe with me." Chanyeol says as if he read his mind, closing his eyes and nodding consolingly. "Even though I want to boast how /I/ came up with the nickname."
"Chanyeol, please." Jongdae says, rolling his eyes. "It was a group effort, anyway."
It's crazy to think that it's already been a year since he told Baekhyun who then told Chanyeol who then told Sehun who then told Kyungsoo who then told nobody because Kyungsoo's actually a good friend unlike the other three.
He supposes it's karma of some sort, for liking a coworker, of all people. They've only worked a couple of times in the past, but Jongdae can't remember a personal conversation lasting longer than a minute. Maybe even professional ones either.
Chanyeol waves him off as they part to turn to different parts of the hall and when Jongdae reaches his desk he almost glares at the flyer innocently taped to his computer screen.
It's a notice reminding the company staff that the annual Halloween party will be in a hotel ballroom across the building in a week.
He rolls his eyes because he thinks the company could spend the money on much more important things than to throw an extravagant Halloween party that almost always is never as extravagant as one wants it to be. Especially with the karaoke machines installed.
"Joonmyun's going to be there." Baekhyun says as he's walking by, tilting his head left and right repeatedly. "Besides, if you don't go, I'm not responsible for your death-by-Luhan."
"I don't even have a costume." Jongdae says as he dumps his bag onto his table.
"Liar, I know you have that Legolas outfit hidden in your closet."
"What? How?" Jongdae chokes out, and Baekhyun pats his back.
"When I went to borrow your suit last time."
Jongdae wants to smash his face against a wall. This is why one never trusts Byun Baekhyun with anything. It's a miracle Joonmyun doesn't even know about his feelings yet.
"Don't be such a baby about it. I'm not gonna tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about." Baekhyun says, shaking his head.
"I honestly don't even care, because either way I'm not going." Jongdae says, putting a palm up. "Besides, this whole..." Jongdae throws his arms up. "fiasco is your fault anyway. I wouldn't be and I probably wouldn't run into or hear about him every five seconds."
"Jongdae." Baekhyun says looking at him with a strange expression and Jongdae's not sure how to take it. "It's not my fault that you sent the list out to everyone. Besides, this is progress."
"What." Jongdae says in the most what-the-fuck voice he can muster without being too offensive. Because of all the things, why does it go back to that?
"You're living in a romantic comedy!" Baekhyun almost squeals in excitement and Jongdae stares at him.
Jongdae never realized that Baekhyun had a really strange sense of how relationships should start. He's never even had a decent conversation with Joonmyun yet, how could Baekhyun already be jumping to these conclusions?
"Baekhyun, get your ass over here before Kyungsoo kills me!" Chanyeol's voice is heard from a distance and Baekhyun shrugs at Jongdae.
"Gotta go. But seriously, I expect to see you there, Legolas."
Jongdae shoos him away.
--
Chen flips through the pages of crossed out names and realizes that he's only got a few hundred left to go through.
It already feels like he's been through hell, with each kill leaving Chen feeling a bit more empty than he already is.
With each Suho he meets, he sees a different aspect of "The List" on every one of them. He wish he knew his creator as well.
--
Jongdae's butt hurts from sitting down too long. And whenever his butt hurts, he goes to the coffee room for his break. The break room is small, but it does its job of serving coffee and keeping food cool in the refrigerator. Besides the obvious technical things, Jongdae likes drinking his cup of coffee while observing the office. And that's exactly what he's doing right now.
Joonmyun is next to him, grabbing coffee from the coffee machine.
Wait.
Jongdae does a double take to confirm that it's him.
It is.
He quickly averts eye contact and wants to scream because doesn't every floor has their own coffee machine? And why is Joonmyun consistently popping up now and then?
"Jongin likes the coffee on this floor." Joonmyun says as explanation and Jongdae silently nods.
He hates himself for always being awkward and silent around Joonmyun, but he can never seem to find the right words to say at the right time.
"Are you going?" Joonmyun asks, and Jongdae looks up to see if he's talking to anyone else, but it's just them still. He looks to Joonmyun who is pointing to the Halloween Party flyer.
"Oh, I don't know." Jongdae shrugs. "Are you?"
"Yeah, I think it'd be fun." Joonmyun says, taking a sniff of his steaming coffee. Jongdae takes a quick sip from his cup as well, wishing he could throw some alcohol into the mix.
"Would you mind if I asked Jongin to grab two cups whenever I'm here?"
"O-oh, um, I mean it's not my coffee personally, so I can't say." Jongdae scratches the back of his neck.
"Ah." Joonmyun nods in understanding.
They take another sip of coffee, standing against the counters to face the main office floor. Jongdae tries to think of something to say, which should be relatively easy, but instead he opts to run.
"Um, well, gotta go. Have some work to do for a product." Jongdae says and Joonmyun looks almost disappointed. It must be his imagination.
"Okay, well. See you around." Joonmyun waves and smiles and Jongdae throws a quick smile before turning to walk back to his cubicle.
Awkward. as. fuck.
--
Jongdae's finding out that he's really bad at self-restraint and Baekhyun is a horrible influence. That, and, well, running into Joonmyun also helped, even if it didn't necessarily seem that way.
When he finds himself standing outside the ballroom entrance, Jongdae stands for a moment before immediately turning around to walk out of the hotel and pretend that he was never here. Except Baekhyun notices him right then, and is already smugly smiling while making his way over.
Baekhyun is pointing his chin up so high Jongdae's almost afraid to get poked by it.
"First things first. I'm not getting drunk." Jongdae says confidently and Baekhyun and Sehun snort almost on cue.
"Live a little!" Sehun says, walking up to them in his Sanji outfit. "You can't tell us that you don't want to get drunk because now we're going to make you have the worst hangover." Baekhyun and Sehun high-five each other and Jongdae rolls his eyes.
"What are you even supposed to be?" Chanyeol asks Jongdae while raising a judging eyebrow and sipping out of his martini glass.
"I'm an elf." Jongdae says proudly, fixing his ears. "The last Hobbit movie's coming out this year."
Luhan joins the group and pouts. "But you should've been a vampire with me. Or, I can give you the bite."
Jongdae laughs, smacking Luhan's arm while the older man smiles evilly.
"I'm already immortal, dumbass."
"Oh, lord Jongdae, my savior, my one and only. Please take me to the Undying Lands with you." Yixing pops out of nowhere, wearing a blue tunic and a toga over his shoulders and a long wig.
Jongdae tries to hold back his laughter. "Are you seriously what I think you are?"
"What? Harvest Moon is fun, okay?" Yixing says defensively and Tao randomly bursts out laughing five seconds late, throwing an arm over his shoulder.
"It's okay ge, I'll vote for you to win the costume contest." Yixing is about to retort, but Tao interrupts him by yelling across the hall. "Joonmyun-ge!"
Tao waves to Joonmyun, who must have just came into the building as well.
Jongdae wants to kill Tao right now because Tao is not being very kind and nothing is really going his way. After his last run-in with Joonmyun, Jongdae was pretty set on not seeing Joonmyun ever again. Like, forever. Or at least, another few months. So the fact that he's been in conversation-range with Joonmyun twice in the past week is throwing him off his guard.
It also doesn't help that Joonmyun's dressed up as a character from Singeki no Kyojin. He's pretty sure Jongin or Kyungsoo put him up to it. Because, wow is he pulling the suspender look.
"Hi everyone." Joonmyun says, walking to stand next to Jongdae.
"Now that we're all here, let's go sing karaoke!" Tao whoops and Joonmyun and Jongdae share a look.
--
The once-filled ballroom was beginning to empty out, and the loud blaring music turns into silence. It's been a couple hours since the party ended, but there's still a ruckus going on at the corner table with Jongdae and company.
"But Joonmyun hyung, I just want a quick kiss!" Jongdae whines.
"Alright, you're done for the night." Joonmyun says, face beet red.
"Come on, let's take them back to our place." Joonmyun looks over to Jongin, who's holding Sehun up with one arm and Tao is holding the other arm.
"Are you sure about this, hyung?" Sehun drunkenly asks and Joonmyun softly chuckles at the sight.
"Yes, I wouldn't trust you guys anywhere else."
Sehun nods repeatedly, making an approving sound.
"Is he alwyas like this when he's drunk?" Jongin asks and Tao just giggles because he's not too sober himself.
"Joooooooonmyun HyuuUNG!" Jongdae yells out at the top of his lungs, cackling. He tightens his grip on Joonmyun's arm and rests his head against Joonmyun's shoulder as they walk.
Joonmyun is struggling to keep his balance and when he looks at Jongin, he doesn't even bother complaining because it could be so much worse.
"Jongin."
"Mm?"
"We're definitely not getting paid enough for this."
"Amen, brother."
--
Chen hops up onto the entrance of another staff member's cpu and wipes off the dust from his knees. Whoever owns this computer really needs to clean the place up, Chen notes, but he doesn't mind too much. The job is almost over, for what it is.
A tall man is waiting for him at the gate, with bird-like eyes and pursed lips. His hair is slightly acorn-shaped, and Chen wonders why anyone would have that unfortunate hairstyle.
When Chen scans him to see what he's dealing against, he almost freezes up because the man staring at him is an antivirus program--K.R.I.S.
"Who are you?" Kris asks at that moment in a bored monotone voice and Chen blinks once before calling up his card, hoping that Kris sucks at checking IDs.
"What are you doing here?" Kris says without looking up.
"I'm here to deliver some data from Kim Jongdae's desk." Chen answers smoothly and Kris looks at the documents a bit longer.
"To whom, specifically?"
"Well, I'm not sure what the file's saved as, but he looks like the owner of the CPU."
Kris raises an eyebrow, giving back Chen's card. "Good luck with that."
--
Jongdae hasn't been so hungover in a long while. And he almost wants to hate Baekhyun or Sehun for it, but it's almost nostalgic. He hasn't opened his eyes, but
He groans and flops onto his stomach. Snuggling further into the blankets, he realizes that he doesn't want to get out of bed. Ever. Not anytime soon, at least. Sehun's blankets smell surprisingly good, and fresh. Like spring--with newly-bloomed flowers and morning dew and all that jazz. He could almost hear Rossini's William Tell Overture now.
But when was the last time Sehun was associated to clean?
He slowly opens one eye, bracing himself for the bright sunlight from the window that always silently kills him after a hangover, except the window isn't where it's supposed to be. Confused, Jongdae takes a look at his surroundings and suddenly sits up, head banging against the bed rest behind him. Totally helped his headache, but there were more important matters at hand.
Like how nothing about this room screamed Sehun, nor did it scream familiarity or recognition. The room was empty for the most part with plain white walls--save for Bruce Lee who was staring back at him from a poster plastered smack dab in the middle of the room.
That's not weird at all.
"Are you awake?" A muffled voice asked from...somewhere.
And at first the voice doesn't sound familiar at all. But then said person knocks on and opens the door to the room, and suddenly Kim Joonmyun is standing there and Jongdae finds himself unable to breathe.
He's in Joonmyun's apartment, for fuck's sake, and he doesn't even remember how he got here.
All he can really hope for is that he didn't do something dumb the night before.
"I am so sorry for all the trouble." Jongdae says immediately as Joonmyun enters.
"Oh, it's fine, really. Jongin and Tao get drunk all the time." Joonmyun says nonchalantly.
"I'm just, oh god, I'm so sorry for this." Jongdae sits up and cringes at the thought of having to put the Halloween costume back on.
"Um, I have some extra clothes if you want to borrow them?" Joonmyun says tentatively, following Jongdae's gaze to the crumpled Legolas outfit.
Jongdae gapes because how could Joonmyun be such a saint? Taking care of drunk co-workers? Letting them borrow clothes? Isn't this escalating a bit too quickly?
"You know, we've had a couple of conversations before." Joonmyun says randomly out of the blue.
"Sorry?" Jongdae says, because he's still trying to cope that he's at Joonmyun's place right now, and that apparently he's been rooming with Tao or something because who else would put Bruce Lee posters in the guest room?
"Um, never mind." Joonmyun awkwardly says and Jongdae feels like he should say something to make it less awkward.
"W-well, I still have to go to work today, but when you're ready to leave just lock the door behind you." Joonmyun says, getting up.
He leaves before Jongdae has the chance to ask for any elaboration and even though things are completely different, Jongdae feels like a jilted woman.
--
He did it.
Suho is standing in front of him, and they've been talking for quite some time now. It's the longest interaction he's ever had with a copy, but only because this one has had so much to say.
"Is it weird, to be among so many other files that look like you?"
"No, I...I really enjoy it." Suho says. "Even though I'm only a word document...I feel completely loved. My creator has shown me a beauty in the world that I didn't think I could ever experience, and it's enhanced even more now that I'm here."
Chen wishes their creator did the same for him, made him feel like he had more purpose to life than destroying copies of...a /person./ If he saw other copies of himself, he'd feel sick.
"Especially since I'm in the creator's subject's CPU." Suho continues.
"I love that he loves Joonmyun's smile and laugh. I love that even though they don't talk everyday, they both think about each other. It's really cute how Joonmyun tries to think of ways to initiate contact with Jongdae, too." Suho laughs to himself. "He always ends up creating a new email and deleting it since they're so awkward. Humans are so amusing to monitor, especially when they have these deep feelings for one another."
A silence starts to linger in the air and Suho apologizes immediately. "I know I can go on a tangent for a while, but, um...Yeah. Could you tell me more about yourself? Maybe even about Jongdae?"
Chen is taken aback because the other copies never went into much detail, and more specifically, never really cared to ask him about his identity either.
He almost doesn't want to go back to Jongdae's computer. He doesn't want to do it, but duty's duty.
Chen quickly places his hand on Suho's back before he could regret it and the latter freezes. "Wha--"
Slowly, Suho begins to deteriorate, decomposing into moving numbers.
Chen tries to forget the warm feeling he may have felt inside as Suho talked. He tries to not mutter a sound or open his mouth at all because he's afraid that he'll react negatively.
The space that Suho was occupying is now empty, and Chen finds that his hand is shaking.
Chen takes out a notebook and shakily crosses off the last entry: Kim Joonmyun's computer.
0 copies to go.
With that, he was officially done.
--
Jongdae stares at the screen blankly. He's pretty sure that he's fucked everything up.
He's starting to remember details from the Halloween party and what kinds of dumb behavior Joonmyun has seen first-hand. They never really talk beyond the quick exchanges and even then Jongdae is practically a mute whenever Joonmyun is within the vicinity.
There's no point, really, in trying to make anything work out because he can't seem to fix that problem of not being able to form words. And what kind of relationship is just about one person talking the entire time while the other person is a sack of potatoes? He's not entirely sure how he came up with that analogy either. But anyway.
If he hasn't crept Joonmyun out by now he doesn't know what to say.
It's hard to change first impressions, and the age-old question of "What if Joonmyun doesn't like me back?" comes to mind. He could deal with now and figure it all out...Or, he can put that aside for another day.
Or month. Or year. or, ever.
--
Chen opens his eyes. Black walls surround him, with strings and letters whizzing by. The fan is silent today, and Chen finds himself closing his eyes again.
There's nothing to be done anyway.
--
Jongdae can spot an intervention from a mile away, especially when these three very specific people are standing here with expressions that mean business. Jongdae doesn't even have time to settle when Chanyeol starts it off with, "So, it's been like what, two weeks?"
"And what if it has been?" Jongdae responds curtly.
"Jongdae, you're being really immature right now. Why are you running away from this?" Baekhyun retorts in an annoyed voice.
"I don't know why you guys are so adamant about this, I was really fine about what I had earlier, and now I'm pretty sure anything that could have been is out the window with my drunken behavior."
"You're still hung up on that?" Baekhyun asks, surprised. "You're only saying that because you've never actually had the chance to explore being in relationships before."
"So what if I'm content with that!" Jongdae is about to reach yelling volume.
A couple of secretaries walk by, almost apologetically, and Jongdae heaves out deeply.
"I just don't want anyone to dictate my feelings."
"He's not trying to do that, Jongdae." Kyungsoo finally speaks up. "It's just...you need to open your eyes and be willing to see the bigger picture here."
Jongdae doesn't say anything, and the others take it as a cue to leave him alone. Jongdae slumps over his laptop. Minseok has been giving him more work to do, and his friends are so up in his face his love life that Jongdae's never felt more alone than ever. Is he making the wrong decision to take things super slow? To have the desire to mentally prepare himself before anything happens?
Or are his friends right about him pushing a great opportunity of, at the least, a friendship?
Jongdae rubs his eyes and rests his head against his arms. He's too tired to think or to work or to do anything and he doesn't know who to turn to.
His phone vibrates, and without thinking or hesitating, he answers it and rests it against his ear.
"Hello?"
A bit of static is heard, but before Jongdae could speak up or check who it is, a voice pipes up.
"Hi, Jongdae."
Kim Joonmyun's voice.
"How'd you even get my number?" Jongdae blurts out, because seriously.
"Oh, um. I asked here and there." Joonmyun says in an almost shy voice and Jongdae can't even find himself to be frustrated by the fact that one of his friends probably sold him out.
He looks over to the clothing he still hasn't returned and sighs. This was probably some sort of evil plan conducted by his friends to get him to be more active in his relationships or whatever, but Jongdae doesn't even bother thinking about it.
"I was just wondering if you could meet me at the park later today." Jongdae looks up from his computer and around the room to see if anyone was looking over at him.
Nothing. This was 100% Kim Joonmyun. He needs to apologize to his friends for being such an asshole.
"Um, sure."
--
With so much spare time, Chen has been exploring through Jongdae's CPU. Perhaps to understand his creator's intent, or to get some more background as to why.
But through his past exploration, Chen has always passed by the "forbidden" room, wondering what's inside. He stands outside of it now, pacing back and forth. It's the last room he needs to explore before going through all of Kim Jongdae's CPU.
Fuck it. Chen walks into the room confidently. The walls are red with yellow stripes, and a lone figure is standing in the middle, posed over a small cubicle. In his hands is a sheet of paper, and Chen finds himself freezing up when he recognizes who it could be.
"Suho." Chen's voice is barely recognizable even to his ears, and it has more emotion than he'd like.
The figure in front of him turns his head to the side, so Chen can only see the file's profile. Chen finds himself unable to move, and doesn't say anything else.
After spending so much time destroying the thousands of copies, he doesn't know what to say, what he should do. What if he's just reacting to what he's been programmed to do?
But then he looks to Suho again, and he knows what he has to do--what he has to say. He may not completely understand his creator's purpose, but Chen knows himself to the best extent possible.
He slowly walks forward, thinking back to the multiple Suho copies he has met. He thinks back to the words that touched him, the sounds of soft laughter, the voice full of hope, curiosity and more.
"Your eyes are beautiful." Chen begins. Suho finally turns to face him, and Chen swears his eyes sparkled.
"I love the way you laugh." Chen says, padding closer to the unmoving Suho.
Suho slightly cocks his head to the side, and when Chen finally stops walking, a smile is formed on Suho's lips.
"You make my day." Suho responds, and Chen feels the corners of his lips curve up too.
Even though he doesn't know how much time they may have together, he feels fulfilled. Having the original Suho standing right here before him makes him feel like he's not a complete monster for destroying so many pure files. Having Suho here means that Kim Jongdae isn't a complete heartless bastard of a human who doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Why Kim Jongdae would ever try to hide these facts from the world beats him, but he's eternally grateful that he never deleted Suho.
--
Jongdae sees the back of Joonmyun and lets out a deep breath. He's been avoiding Joonmyun for so long because while this has all been very interesting and all, Jongdae's simply not ready.
Joonmyun is looking down and Jongdae has prepared an entire monologue of what he can say to him, from confessing to apologizing, and he doesn't know which direction this conversation is going to go.
Until Jongdae sees it, and that's when Joonmyun turns around to face him. Jongdae doesn't even have a chance to say anything before Joonmyun speaks up. "So, I found this on Yifan's computer."
Joonmyun lifts up the piece of paper that is in his hands and Jongdae lets out a defeated laugh. Because he went through so many things to ensure that nobody found it, to ensure that the last person in the world to have found it was Kim Joonmyun.
And here they are. That blasted document.
Jongdae has a million things he wants to say, wants to ask, but instead he blurts out, "I can totally explain."
Except Jongdae forgets that he doesn't really have an explanation for the document's existence. And he totally now realizes that Joonmyun is more likely to want to hear about the content of the words (especially the subheader on top of the document, which is in size 100 pt: "S.U.H.O. = Kim Joonmyun")
"What does it mean, anyway?" Joonmyun asks, not deterred by Jongdae's silence or awkwardness.
Jongdae nervously laughs, thinking back to what started it all. That goddamn horrible guy of a friend Byun Baekhyun who asked him to write the list in the first place.
When he looks up, Joonmyun is still looking at him with the same curious eyes that Jongdae has seen on multiple occasions. Except this time it's directed at him. This time, Jongdae isn't just eying Kim Joonmyun from afar.
"You mean, SUHO?"
Joonmyun nods, taking a step closer to Jongdae, whose feet seemed to be glued to the concrete beneath him.
Jongdae breathes in and out, and closes his eyes. He doesn't even remember who made the nickname first, or how it happened, but suddenly it was the inside joke within the department to call Jongdae's crush the--
"...Super Unequivocally Hot One."
There's a long silence.
Jongdae doesn't dare to open his eyes, in case Joonmyun is gone, or staring at him with a freaked out expression.
But, then a loud burst of laughter erupts into the air and Jongdae's lips curl up into a smile. He opens his eyes and Joonmyun's face is glowing.
"Wow, that's..." Joonmyun says while trying to catch his breath. "That is one awesome nickname to have. Kind of like one of those hip new boy bands or something."
Jongdae lets out a loud laugh, and looks down again because he never imagined he'd be here, standing with Kim Joonmyun, who just compared his nickname to a boy band.
Who even does that?
He doesn't know how Joonmyun is taking this all so well because he feels like he could just combust on the spot. He honestly doesn't know how to form words at the moments and he feels like a baby bird learning how to fly. How he came up with this analogy is still unknown to him, but he doesn't have time to think about it since Joonmyun is continuing the one-sided conversation.
"I...I know we haven't really talked that much, but I do appreciate you a lot. Um, I hope that isn't too weird." Joonmyun quickly adds. "And under normal circumstances I would probably be feeling weird about...everything. All of it. But I don't."
Jongdae still doesn't have the courage to look up, to face the real Kim Joonmyun standing before him.
"In fact...it kind of gives me confidence."
Jongdae raises his head up. Before him, he sees the dazzling smile that Joonmyun places on his face, an aura of reassurance emits from him.
"I was wondering if you're free this Saturday? I'd um...really like to ask you to have breakfast with me."
Jongdae is taken aback because he was so content on the fantasy that he had not even two months ago. He's beginning to realize that a pace has been set. It's been moving along, but Jongdae has been trying to deny its existence.
He's not ready, but no one ever is. Everyone makes plans; they either work out or they fall through. Or they grow into something unexpected, something better.
And as Jongdae stands there, looking at Joonmyun who is looking back at him, he feels at peace, and that surprises him.
"Or, you know, if breakfast is too soon, can I ask you to coffee?"
Jongdae laughs and shakes his head. He realizes that he's been quiet this entire time, unable to formulate any words because Joonmyun is a real entity in his life now; this is actually going to happen.
"No, no, breakfast is good." Jongdae says, feeling dumb that it's all he could say despite his dreams becoming a reality.
Joonmyun looks relieved, and nods repeatedly while moving his hand to tuck some nonexistent hair behind his ear.
And all Jongdae can do is grin, looking stupidly happy, to finally be able reach out and intertwine his fingers with Kim Joonmyun's.
Author's note: Don't be deceived by the wordcount, HAHA. As always, thanks to E for the support, and to those who kicked my butt to write.