Midnight

Dense

it was 7 sharp in the morning when jeno was waken up by the sound of alarm going off. to his surprise, it was not from his phone. it was the person's sleeping next to him.

he immediately turned off the alarm before it woke her up.
it took him quite a moment to realise they were in her room, on her bed.

good thing, clothes were on.

it was a fool of him to have weird thoughts inside his head when he knew for sure nothing happened last night except that she passed out on the way back and he brought her here, too tired to move back to his room. that explained how dangerously close she's breathing near him.

peaceful sleep, indeed.

also beautiful-

*ring*

jeno almost cursed, but his reflect immediately picked up the call, so the sound won't disturb her.
"finally! one of you decided to pick up!" voice from the other line groaned in frustration.
jeno frowned at the caller ID and voice that seemed not to match.

"isn't this supposed to be hyuck's number? what are you doing with his phone, hyung?"

mark let out a deep sigh. "that's another thing for another time. i want you to rush back to the studio and get aeri's personal written draft pieces out of the hard drive. i don't care where you put it, make sure it is safely saved, and deleted from the studio's file. you have less than an hour. my team is on the way as well." his voice was calm, but the meaning behind was definitely not.

"hold up. what's all that about?" even if he's clueless, jeno still did as told, picked up his not-completely-dried jacket from last night, and keys as he silently left the dorm with her phone. his phone was dead. "and why are you whispering?"

"remembered you suspected that the urgent meeting had something to do with Midnight?"

jeno went blank, as his blood started to boil at the thoughts that he was right after all, especially when it had something to do with aeri, again.

"i guess you might be right. my agent force me out of the collaboration with aeri out of sudden, without mere reason. and we're heading to your company to claim the credit with all the works we jointly did. in those files, there are some of her personal works in which i haven't contributed yet. i'm afraid my manager takes chance to plagiarise her works."

"i'm almost there." jeno was speeding. he did not care less. "is there anything else about the meeting, hyung?"

there was a moment of silent before the older male spoke again. "it might be a bit complicated for us to get in contact again."

-

aeri woke up to the complete silent in the dorm. although she's in her room, she could still smell his cologne in the space right next to her.

"jen?" she walked out to the corridor after not finding her phone, but his. it's clear to her that he's not here. thus, she charged his phone, and multiple notifications, missed-calls appears. surprisingly, most of them were from mark and donghyuck.

she did not want to be rude, but she couldn't help to check the messages from mark, especially when her name was mentioned in the latest notification bar.

her face went paler as she read through the details.

she finished at the right time as the front door was opened. it was none other than him.

by the look in her eyes, he knew she found out.
"hey-" he paused at the sight that she's holding his phone.

no wonder.