Fifth Floor - JooHyuk

»8«

~~~
(All usernames have been added to character descriptions in the first chapter 'Ground Floor' or you can simply comment if you don't understand who is who.
Fair warning, I don't usually text informally with abbreviations to the point I used "lol" for the first time this last year. So the texts in this story are a little unrealistic in that manner, but I will try hard to get better at that.)
~~~

October 26

The rest of the weekend consisted of small conversations about things such as how Minhyuk's brother was a trainee at Yoo Entertainment and that Hyunwoo lived with Kihyun's family when he was seventeen. Minhyuk had also gone home for only a total of two hours, one in the morning and one at night, but brought his boyfriend and food back. After Chunghyeop had dropped food off like a delivery service the first time I felt guilty and asked Minhyuk to make him stay the next and any other time.

By Monday, I still didn't have the energy to do much more than engage in small conversations and cry. As a result, Minhyuk wanted to stay with me and called the CEO himself. A perk of being best friends, I guess.

My neighbor and I sat on my bed as I had just finished changing my clothes when Minhyuk came in with his ringing phone in hand. I didn't know why Minhyuk had it on speaker, but it was too late to ask when the CEO picked up.

"Hello?"

"Kihyun-ah, I don't think I can make it to work today," Minhyuk spoke into the phone.

"Is it because of Lee Jooheon?" the older didn't pay attention to my shocked expression. Minhyuk had spoken to more than only Hyunwoo about me. It was strange to think any of his friends knew who I was, other than the one who's my coworker. Most of all, it surprised me that I had a big enough impact on my neighbor for him to speak to anyone about me.

"Yeah," Minhyuk answered after a short pause.

"No, I need you, Min. Your team's project has to be done by Wednesday. Can he hear me?"

"You're on speaker."

"Lee Jooheon," the CEO's voice sounded through the phone. He was speaking to me for the first time.

"Yes, CEO?" I said in a low voice.

"I know we haven't met yet, Minhyuk made that quite clear last week, which makes me hate having to do this, but I really need Minhyuk at work," he stopped for a moment and continued, "You probably haven't met Changkyun either, but I can have him go stay with you if there's no one else?"

"I don't want to cause you or your husband any trouble, CEO." Last month I had barely seen the CEO before, but now I was sitting next to his best friend, my neighbor, on the phone with him wanting to send his husband over to keep me from being lonely. This was not something I could have thought would happen.

"It's no trouble at all. Hey, Minhyuk?" My neighbor took this as his cue to take his friend off speaker. He did so and brought the phone up to his ear so that I only heard Minhyuk's answers.

"Yeah?... Yeah, I'll do that. I'll let him know too. Oh, tell Changkyun to bring my game with him." I didn't notice I was staring at Minhyuk until he looked over at me. Suddenly feeling guilty as well as embarrassed, I turned my head forward to look away while he continued talking on the phone. "Because...No need to insult me, Kihyun. It's his fault for not giving it back sooner...Okay. Bye."