If We Have Each Other

Chapter Three

Kai presses his palms over his eyes and sniffles in the bathroom stall. He wipes a few stray tears from his face, dabs his eyes with tissue paper, and opens the door.

He splashes water from the sink on his face and takes a look at himself, hoping he looks okay.

He joins the others on the company bus. Yeonjun doesn't bat an eye towards him for the rest of the day.

...............................

They arrive at the first schedule of the day and right off the bat, Kai is immediately alarmed. There are many people surrounding the location of their press conference. By-passers, by-standers, press, journalists, and cops keep the area in order.

A whole chaos. The bus has trouble parking right near the area due to the swarm of people. The driver stops a few meters back and drops the team off.

The speed at which they are mobbed is ridiculous. In mere seconds Kai had to reinforce the distance between the nosy press and the rowdy crowd and Taehyun. His client shrinks into himself and only manages to take small steps forward.

Kai looks back and sees Yeonjun struggling with the same situation as well as the rest of the team.

"Make room!" Yeonjun yells. "Hey! Move, more! Clear the way people, please!"

Kai takes Taehyun's arms under his and he pushes the two of them forward, dragging Taehyun along the suffocating crowd. A mic is shoved in their face; he can't even tell what the news lady is asking. "No cameras, please." Without even bothering to answer her question, he blocks the lens with his palm.

He just shoves it back to her and pushes a man who is getting unreasonably close to them. He looks back and Taehyun looks like he has trouble breathing and he tucks his head down and his chin to his chest. He presses as closely as he can to Kai, hiding his face so much so that his only view is Kai's back and nothing else.

People touch and brush against him; making him cringe and shiver.

"Right this way." someone in governmental uniform guides them towards the entrance and clears an empty path for them to follow. Slowly, the noise and clutter of people gradually decreases and Taehyun exhales in relief and lifts his head above Kai's shoulder to see where they are headed.

"Are you okay?" Kai checks up on his client.

Taehyun nods. "Yes. Although they should have gotten things under control before, we arrived," he says with a judgmental tone. "Certainly not a great first impression out of France so far."

...............................

As it turns out, Taehyun doesn't care for French reporters as well. They sit in a panel in front of the press, a big and long table in front of them and Taehyun's yellow pad sits there where he writes keywords for his answers so that he won't forget them while the rest are talking in their turn.

"We wanted to know," A fairly young reporter with slick-backed hair, a black suit holding a silver mic stands up. "How much were computers involved in your research and specifically which features and types of software did you use the most when working." his voice is suggestive and nasally. Taehyun finds himself annoyed with the question.

Taehyun leans towards his mic. "We work with a simple data software." he provides a simple answer, the black mask on his face does the job of hiding his features but it does take from the clarity of his voice. Thankfully, it's not to the point where it's hard to understand.

"Sure," the reporter says. "But, have you had any use of current technology?"

"We use data entering and calculating engines" Taehyun repeats himself. "Do you want to know which model of computer we use and what phone I have?" he replies with an impatient tone.