chacun voit midi à sa porte [⚜] writing storage

[Arielle]

[align=center]❝ chacun voit midi à sa porte — everyone sees noon at his doorstep. ❞

A place for me to store my writings and such. I will also be posting an entire work of mine here, in this thread — it was just a little something I wrote over the course of the first semester, which my partner-in-crime/roommate so kindly beta'd for me over winter break. Speaking of her, she also deserves some credit for it though — she entertains a lot of my ideas, and helps me to expand on them, and pulls me back when my ideas are getting too wild or out of hand. (She's also a wonderful writer herself. It's really a shame she's gotten too busy to write much these days.) But anyway:

Writings:
[⚜] — Thing one.
[⚜] — Thing two.
[⚜] — Thing three.

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Surprise fic: Untitled (I'm still thinking about it)
This fic is — as I already mentioned — something I wrote last semester. The whole thing is...just a little over 45,000 words. I'll post one chapter a week...probably. It'll depend on if my dongsaengs (you know who you are) do their homework like they're supposed to. I refuse to let you guys procrastinate like you did last semester, even if your classes are 'easier'. None of you are failing on my watch. You're all getting A's, and I'm going to make sure of it. Now, a very quick summary of the fic:

[div style="width:400px;text-align:justify;font-size:11px;font-family:georgia;margin-top:10px;color:#000;line-height:120%"]We are the Department of Litigation and Dispute Resolution — fancy name for what is actually no more than a department of buffoons, who like to rip people apart in a law court for a living. We have two secretaries, three partners and make one-sixth of the firm's total yearly income. Our lawyers can take any case, from private client disputes to big corporation settlements, with a top notch delivery rate and a spotless reputation. My name is Byun Baekhyun. I am an associate in this division of gross misfits, and I am about to screw up my department's most significant case of the decade because of one insensitive idiot.

I'm a law student. So naturally, I wrote a legal drama (with some romance, some angst, some nice friendships...and it's a slow burn, because I happen to love those). There is also some...science involved. I made sure to have my roommate look over those bits. She's the medical student who majored in biochem, not me.

[⚜] — Chapter One: League of Unis [posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Two [will be posted Wednesday, January 24th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Three [will be posted Wednesday, January 31st, 2018]

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Surprise fic: Interning (Creative, I know)
Apparently people are requesting to see this, so...I'll post updates and what I have of it so far here, too. This one features EXO (of course), with TVXQ's Changmin and Yunho as their managers, and there's mentions of SHINee and Super Junior, because I love SM Entertainment's artists (just not the company itself). This fic also features many conversations that took place amongst myself and those in my social circles, so... it was incredibly fun to write. It's not finished... but I'm writing when I can. I think it'll turn out to be fairly long when I'm done. We'll see what happens. A very, very, quick summary of the fic:

Twelve boys. Two job openings. One internship.

That's all there is to know — I hate spoiling too much. For background information on the characters, you can go to this post. Maybe I'll transfer all of it over here sometime within the next few days, when I'm feeling a little less sluggish and lazy.

[⚜] — Prologue (of sorts): Work Mail [posted Wednesday, January 17th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter One: League of Unis [posted Wednesday, January 17th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Two: The Fault in Our Coffees [posted Wednesday, January 17th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Three: Age of Vandals [posted Thursday, January 18th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Four: Fifty First Texts [posted Thursday, January 18th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Five: Paddle, Paddle, Paddle that Dragon Boat [posted Thursday, January 18th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Six: Modern Alliance [posted Thursday, January 18th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Seven: Love, Actually [posted Thursday, January 18th, 2018]
[⚜] — Chapter Eight: Shakespeare in Love [posted Thursday, January 25th, 2018]

[Arielle]

[div style="width:500px;text-align:justify;font-size:12px;margin-top:10px;color:#000;line-height:120%"][align=center]❝ Chapter One of Untitled ❞

They are the Department of Litigation and Dispute Resolution – fancy name for what is actually no more than a department of buffoons, who like to rip people apart in a law court for a living. They have two secretaries, three partners and make one-sixth of the firm's total yearly income. Their lawyers can take any case, from private client disputes to big corporation settlements, with a top notch delivery rate and an enviable track-record of successful cases.


His name is Byun Baekhyun and he is a senior associate in this division, jam-packed by gross misfits.

⚜

"Get the car! I mean, the cab! The next cab...!"

"I would like to but those fuckers aren't stopping-"

"Start running as you wave!" the voice on the phone starts screaming– Minseok's never been good at keeping calm when things get urgent: "We need those documents in court a.s.a.p.! Jongin's struggling!"

"You think I'm not trying?" Baekhyun obeys and grudgingly breaks into a sprint: "Jesus Christ...!"



Senior Associate sounds kind of elegant when one says it like that, but the actual job isn't all that glamorous when you work in litigation. It is an ordinary day at work when you have to run to court at six in the morning for a missing document or a piece of evidence. It is also an ordinary day at work when you loiter around the office with nothing to do and end up emptying the department's coffee supply out of sheer ennui... Every day in the division is a simple succession of ups and downs that quakes you like level nine seismic waves. Whether you are a trainee or not doesn't make a difference: You could be a senior partner in the company for the last ten years and you would still break into a sweat because of a phone call, asking you to be at the office at three in the morning. 'When your client needs you, nothing else in the world fucking matters'. That's the firm's one positive and universal truth.



"I've got it!" he shouts and tumbles into the tribunal's entrance hall, waving the documents above his head.

Minseok notices him from his spot by the stone gargoyle and charges at him with an ecstatic cry of joy.

"Baek, finally...!"

"Sorry," he pants, "Jongdae was the one who had the file and I had to run all the way to the freaking bridge before any cab would stop to take -"



Minseok runs him down in his haste to flip through the documents and skips all clarifications. As he eventually finds the right letter, another frantic cry escapes him out of relief, his knees almost giving in to the weight of emotion. Sometimes Baekhyun wonders how on Earth Minseok even survives with this amount of daily stress.



"It's the right one," the elder man slaps him on the shoulder and then heads straight for the nearest courtroom. "Good, we need to give it to Jongin straightaway..."

"How's he faring?" Baekhyun asks in-between two breaths.

"Faring well, until the guys on the other side started to question him nonstop about the evidence. We need a letter showing that the client's subsidiary has been involved in the financing of the project from the get-go. And this," Minseok grins at him, "is going to destroy them."



They enter the courtroom and fly hunchbacked towards the seats at the back, before Minseok deviates to get to the plaintiff's box where Jongin is. While he is busy, Baekhyun sits down on the benches at the far end first, to recover from his earlier chicken run. His lungs are still on fire and it's only been a few hundred meters... He is gradually getting too old for these extreme sports.



Minseok soon sits next to Baekhyun as the defendants' barrister talks on and on.



"Thanks for the help," the elder man then grins, at last, gently hitting him on the thigh.

"That's alright," Baekhyun smiles back. "‘When the client needs you-"

"-nothing else in the world fucking matters."

The younger associate glances up at him.

"Right."

Minseok just beams with his plump round cheeks and keeps his hand on the man's leg, using his other hand to point at the opposite side of the room.

"Look who's over there, on the defendants' side."

Baekhyun looks, lingering on the familiar faces, neat suits, and serious expressions...That is their competitor firm, Smith&Harolds' Dispute Resolution team, with, in the central row, Associate Park Chanyeol whispering quietly to a colleague of his about God knows what. Baekhyun turns around and Minseok grins evocatively at him like an imp.

"Your archenemy," he says.

"For the umpteenth time-"



He giggles and Baekhyun doesn't finish, because the conversation is pointless anyway and it's not like Minseok even cares; he has already turned his attention back to the case itself.



Baekhyun sits there, with his shirt's top buttons undone, his skin still dank, his gaze trailing from the opposite side's client representative to the tall figure of Park Chanyeol in his dark grey suit, sticking out from the lot of scrawny solicitors like a sore thumb. He is always so tall, always so lean and sinewy, and so damn conspicuous wherever he goes. As Baekhyun's stare lingers, Chanyeol looks up and meets his eyes. They don't say anything. There is nothing to say.



Baekhyun is the first one to glance away.



"Baek," Minseok nudges him with his elbow, "Baek, Baek, Baek."

"Yes, I am listening."

A silence.

He frowns.

"What?"

Minseok bites his lips, eyes completely focused on the barristers further away.



"I think we're winning the case," he says.

⚜

⚜

⚜

"We won?"

"We won."

"Not officially," Jongin interjects as the three of them make their way into the brightly lit department of Litigation and Dispute Resolution, like a battalion coming from war. Jongdae has a cup of tea in his hand, holding the huge glass door open for them and looking strangely disappointed by Jongin's answer:

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The trial judge hasn't taken a decision as such," Baekhyun explains, "but the outcome's pretty much clear. Jongin kicked their ass."

"We can't be certain until they deliver an official decision though-"

"Coffee?" Luhan, the secretary, bursts in from the corner with a giant grin, holding two stripy mugs in each hand.

Baekhyun readily shakes his head. Jongin waves weakly at Luhan and follows him with his eyes as he disappears behind the coffee machine.



"That's good enough," Jongdae soon continues, as if nothing happened. He takes a sip of tea and they proceed towards the main working space of the department together. "What did the client say?"

"Nothing. They weren't there, we only saw their in-house lawyers."

"And they didn't say anything?"

"As long as they didn't have things to complain about, it's fine. You did well, Jonginnie."

The younger man scratches his head like an embarrassed high school kid. "I could still do better," he bites his lip.



Of course he couldn't, Baekhyun thinks. He is already a fire-cracking lawyer as it is. But that's just how Jongin lives his life – as a perfectionist through and through. He works as a barrister on his own account most of the time, but regularly collaborates with their firm's litigation practice on more complex cases that they cannot solve by themselves. Sculpted like a God, tanned like a bloc of melted caramel, he is cold on the outside but secretly warm like a fuzzy ball of fur, and it is horribly hard for anyone in the department not to dote on him whenever he comes around.



A man like that could fetch himself a whole armada of cases to solve anywhere he wanted to. But for some reason, Jongin always drifts back to their little department here, in Lighthouse Pinson. After all, they treat him as family here. But that's not the only cause.



There is another distinct reason why Jongin comes back so often to their department. A Chinese reason with oversized sweaters and salmon pink hair.



"Are you guys sure you don't want coffee?" Luhan returns from the machine with his thousand watts smile and four filled mugs, lining them up into a nice neat row on his working desk before taking his seat again, "I don't understand. Coffee puts me in such a good mood."

"That's why you're hyper most of the time," Jongdae remarks.

"It just makes me happy!" The Chinese takes a sip of his first cup and glances up at each of them in turn, pausing at Jongin who looks the most compliant. "Right?" he smiles, waiting for some sign of support.



Jongin nods so hard his neck could snap. Satisfied with the response, Luhan starts humming and restarts his computer, scratching his nose with his empty hand. On top of his eye-catching hair colour and dubious choice of clothes, Luhan knows nothing about business etiquette. The office is like a dormitory for him, one where you have fun with your colleagues, chat when you have a coffee break, and have sleepovers when you need to do overtime. With innocent gullibility, radiating joy and an apparent, complete inability to feel pessimistic emotions, he has gotten everyone in the firm wrapped around his little finger without knowing it, and they all gladly overlook the mistakes he makes in the work he hands back, correcting them for him with cooing sounds and forgiving all his typos.



He is a klutz and hopelessly incapable of grasping the mood most of the time, which makes him immune to any sort of sexual advance. But for some masochistic reason, Jongin has developed a sort of self-destructive infatuation for the oblivious boy...And that drives him up the wall most of the time.



"Talking about coffee," the barrister starts strenuously and approaches Luhan's desk with what he mistakenly thinks to be a casual pose. "I heard there's a new shop in town which is really good and uh, they import their grains straight from Jamaica."



Luhan looks up with bright interested eyes.



"Really?"

"Uhuh." Jongin swallows. "So, I thought...you know, why not try it this Saturday? With me...I mean, if you're free..."

"Of course! That's an excellent idea!" Luhan cries out, making Jongin choke. "Let's have an office outing at the coffee shop."



Baekhyun laughs into his palm and Jongin falters.



"What?"

"Saturday! Who's in?" Luhan calls.

"Wait," Jongin flails, "Wait, I..."

"I'm in." Sehun, their other secretary, raises his hand and Jongdae can't help but cackle at Jongin's discomfited face. Minseok's busy swatting a fly that got into the office. Luhan smiles at the only man left.

"Baekhyun?"

"No thanks," he looks at Jongin who gives him a thankful expression. "Got plans already."

"But I am definitely coming," Sehun adds flatly like a cracking whip, and Luhan jots his name down on a post-it: "Sehun, Jongin, me..."

"I could do with a day out as well," Minseok innocently admits and sighs, half with longing and half with fatigue, "a day out that doesn't involve going to court."

"Oh, that's right! How did it go?" Luhan abruptly exclaims.



They are gradually making so much noise that partner Suho ends up coming out of his office, with a stack of binders in his hands, looking thoroughly confused at all of them.

"What's going on?" Suho blinks. "What's the gathering for?"

‘Suho' is only labeled Suho because he has the face of a Mother Theresa. He is one of the Litigation and Dispute Resolution department's three partners and the youngest partner of the entire firm. His real name is Kim Joonmyun. But no one calls him that.

"Nothing, Mum," Baekhyun smiles at him. "We were just having a brief little chat before going back to work."

Suho frowns with worry.

"How did the case go?"

"Ninety-nine percent chance of winning," Minseok chimes. "Verdict on the way."

"That's a relief. Congratulations!"

"Baekhyun came to help today and we had a special apparition from associate Park Chanyeol. Talk about a coincidence..."

Suho blinks and turns to look at Baekhyun:

"Did you two talk?"



It is a recurring topic of the department, this whole Park Chanyeol thing...and Baekhyun vaguely wishes that it wasn't. He also wonders when it had started to become an actual issue, because to be honest, he doesn't remember ever jumping onto this wagon, at any point in time.

Chanyeol himself would probably laugh if he knew the way his colleagues talked about him.



Baekhyun soon shakes his head and offers Suho his most innocent smile. It's not much compared to Minseok or Luhan's natural expressions, but it usually does the work.

"No, I only went to watch," he explains. "I sat on the benches."

"Oh. I see."

Suho pauses, then tilts his head.

"Actually..."

"Hmm?"



But the elder man stops and just looks at him for a second. Baekhyun stares back, perplexed. All of a sudden, the elder man's hand comes closing around his shoulder and gently pulls him to one side of the room, and Baekhyun quickly glances back for help but the others are now finishing the planning of their Saturday outing. When he gazes back at his superior for explanations, Suho simply puts the folders he holds into the younger man's hands and opens up the first one.



Baekhyun stares at them with the start of a frown.



"What is this?"

"This...is the file I've just been entrusted with by the other partners," Suho explains with a smile and rubs his temple. "I don't know if you remember that case four years ago, with the massive Chinese shipping company that lost seven ships in one go?"

"The one that got sued for billions under gross negligence," Baekhyun puckers his lips and rubs his neck. "The ships crashed and sank, and five hundred people died in total... Plus, the plaintiff's cargos were all lost."

"Yes, that one."

"I thought the case was suspended."

"Not anymore."



He blinks with a frown.

"Another cargo ship from that same company sank just a few days ago, near the Chinese coast, Shanghai," Suho elaborates. "Basically, now the case is turning into a mass tort action with three massive, transnational companies all preparing to sue the same shipping company for compensation... And they're not asking for a settlement," Suho insists, "they're suing. This thing will go to trial. The defendant we're talking about is a gigantic Chinese shipping company, but the amount of money involved is phenomenal. And that Chinese company is our client now."

"How much is the whole thing for?"

"The case is up for 7.2 billion RMB." Suho glances at him. "It's the biggest case of the decade for our firm."

Baekhyun gulps. Something's wrong with the tone that Suho is using to say this and he is not sure that he is liking it.



"So, uh, why are you telling me all this?"

Suho taps the binders and smiles a little.

"I want to put you in charge of handling the bulk of this case."

"Me?!"

"I'm sure you'll be doing the best job possible," the elder man nods. "Besides, trial cases are something you're experienced with and I have complete faith in you..."



He is genuinely flabbergasted.



"But... I... associate..." he waffles.

"You're possibly our best trial lawyer. I am sure you will be in a good position to take care of this." Suho assures. "I will help you with directions, of course, but my hands are already taken by another important corporate deal, so I'd like you to use your own judgment as well... You're free to ask the others for help. I leave you the discretion of organising your own team. Plus, the law firm defending one of the plaintiffs is Smith&Harolds." he smiles. "I thought they'd be suitable opponents for you – something to look forward to, you know..."



Of course Baekhyun doesn't know. Suho is completely wrong; he is not looking forward to any of this at all.



His state of mind wavers between flattery and dawning horror.



"But what about the other partners? Yunho?"

"Oh, he is very busy at the moment, I think he has three arbitration cases going on at the same time, and also a private client dispute. He is going to be taken for the next few months at the very least. But don't worry. You will be just as good as a partner!"



Suho shakes him by the shoulder like the father of a schoolboy who's just gotten straight A's on his exams. He grins:

"How many cases do you have open, at the moment?"

Baekhyun grimaces.

"Two...?"

"Well, then." Suho claps the binders close. "Another one won't be too much for you. Congratulations, the HaiLong shipping company case is now officially yours."

⚜

⚜

⚜

"That sucks."



On the park bench next to him, Kris opens his can of iced coffee and takes a long draft before looking back at him.

"What sucks?" Baekhyun asks with a cocked eyebrow. "The fact that I have a 7.2billion case on my hands to take care of, or the fact that my firm's going to go against yours when the trial comes up?"

Kris takes another gulp and leans forward so that his arms rest on his legs.

"Both," he smiles coolly with a wriggle of his Canadian eyebrows.



The younger man snorts and gives him an unconvincing kick, too tired to do anything else. He hasn't seen him in more than a month, and doesn't have the heart to be very mean.



"At least you're not directly involved in the case. It would suck to go against you in court when you used to work in Lighthouse Pinson before."

"I've had to work against Lighthouse Pinson quite a few times already since I left."

"Yeah, well." Baekhyun looks down at his lap. "You know what I mean."



Kris smiles and fiddles with the opening of his can. "I know," he says. "And you're right. I've been working in Smith&Harolds for three years already, but it would still feel a bit weird to be arguing against you, or any of the other guys, in a tribunal."



Baekhyun opens his own can with a scowl. He lowers his arms.

"Why did you leave the firm, Kris?" he takes a peek at his friend's profile, tall and bent like a weary tree, and moistens his lips. "You didn't have to. It's not like you were even close to getting fired."

"There were things, here and there. It was getting a little too much to handle."

"Is it because of...Yixing?"

Kris just smiles bitterly. He isn't going to give any answers, but he isn't about to let go, either. Baekhyun rubs his neck.



"Alright let's talk about something else," he grunts eventually. "Since you used to be in Lighthouse Pinson before, spy on the Smith&Harolds team for me and tell me everything they're up to in the HaiLong shipping case."

Kris finally laughs and shakes a finger at the younger's nose: "Doesn't work that way, I'm afraid."

"Why not? I like you, you like me. We're friends. Friends help each other out."

"Yeah, friends who meet for a coffee in the park once a month."

"That's better than nothing. Besides, it's your fault for cutting your ties with everyone in our team...Minseok always asks how you are and all."

"You didn't contact me for almost two months."

"Suho hurled that huge case at me without a warning. I had to prepare." Baekhyun puts on his cute expression. "Come on, how can you say no to a cute piece of sugar like me? You have to be heartless."

"Maybe next time."

"What a cold bastard," he weeps overemotionally.



But Kris only chuckles into his drink before facing forward again, gazing into the distance. Baekhyun muses for a while then turns back towards his friend with a serious expression:



"Park Chanyeol isn't part of the Smith&Harolds team for this one, is he?"

"Park Chanyeol?" Kris blinks. "No. Why?"

"Long story." he then rectifies, "I mean, no story. It's just the other guys who are going to make a fuss if we're up against each other in court again."

"Why? That's funny." Kris smiles vaguely. "I didn't remember you and Park Chanyeol being a thing – I didn't remember you knowing each other personally to start with."

"We don't know each other personally. And it's not important. Anyways, if he isn't in the team for the HaiLong case, it's all fine."

"He isn't," the elder man confirms, but then halts and looks pensive.



Baekhyun sits back. He looks uncertain.

"Something wrong?"

"Well, not really; it's just," Kris looks back at him with a shrug, "Park Chanyeol doesn't work in the division at Smith&Harolds at all anymore. He was fired last month."

---

Well, that's it for this week — for this fic, anyway. To those of you I addressed in the first post: I'll be checking up on you, so do your work! If you need help, I'm open to tutoring you — for free, even. ;^)

[Arielle]

[div style="width:500px;text-align:justify;font-size:12px;margin-top:10px;color:#000;line-height:120%"][align=center]❝ WORK MAIL ❞

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[size=8pt]"Dear all,

A warm welcome to Tyler & Tuning McKay Consulting, and congratulations for getting yourself a place on this highly competitive internship. We are delighted to welcome all 156 of you on board as our Summer Analysts this year. You are all talented, smart and accomplished young people. We hope to recruit 10 of you as our full-time analysts starting October.

You will rapidly notice that things are a little more quirky, a little more fun here than in your average consultancy firm. We pride ourselves on our creativity, our diversity, and our ability to think out of the box. Perhaps, you will find that the tasks we give you are a lot more challenging as well. To succeed, you will have to do more than what is expected of you. You have show us that you can embrace the firm's spirit and be a real team player.

For the next two months, you will be divided into supervised teams. Your teammates will be the ones you will be working with whenever you are not assisting one of our senior consultants in your respective departments. Each group project given to your team will be bringing you points to be recorded on the notice board of the 7th floor. At the end of the summer, only the 5 highest scoring teams shall be considered for our 10 full-time positions, and 2 people per team will be recruited.

Make the most of your time here at TTM. Be innovative, be daring. And most importantly, show true teamwork and team spirit.

Enjoy the opportunity. Best of luck,"

[size=8pt][font=courier]- The Graduate Recruitment Team

[align=center][div style="width:500px;text-align:justify;font-size:12px;margin-top:10px;color:#000;line-height:120%"]

---

[Arielle]

[div style="width:500px;text-align:justify;font-size:12px;margin-top:10px;color:#000;line-height:120%"][align=center]❝ Chapter One of Interning: League of Unis ❞

As a steadfast consumer of Starbucks coffee, Kyungsoo witnessed the deformation of his name on a daily basis.

He had been re-baptised as "Kongsuit". "Kong sew". "Q-sue". Or even "Cute Sue"...Switching to his last name had then transported him through an abysmal phase of "Doe", "Dough", "Though"; with one attempt at spelling it out for the Starbucks employee landing him an angry "DEE OH" scrawled onto his plastic cup. On such days, Kyungsoo usually spied on the poor guy next to him with a "Bingo" or "Wank" on his frappuccino. It would make him feel a bit better about his self-esteem...

This morning Starbucks had settled for a big, round "DOPE" on his caramel macchiato, which he placed down on his office desk, in the centre of the shared space of the Business Tech department.

"Third day at work," Yunho, his supervisor, smiled at him as he handed him the mail of the day, "Today's the first time you'll meet your team members."

"Could be," Kyungsoo droned quietly, reaching for the letter opener before raising his head, "Actually, yes, you're right; schedule did say "Meeting" at lunchtime...sorry."

"Excited? I am. I am so happy for you," Yunho beamed sweetly like Kyungsoo had just had his first baby. "You guys are going to have so many awesome projects together, it will be great."

"I am thrilled," Kyungsoo assured with stability.

"You don't look very thrilled."

"That is my natural face. Internally, I am thrilled."

"Try smiling, then?"

Kyungsoo made a valiant attempt, but Yunho's eyes flashed with a brief light of worry before letting out an uncertain laugh:

"Erm, we'll pretend that didn't happen. Can you review this company's performance report for me once you're done with mail? You can finish it after your team meeting if it takes too long."

"I'll definitely finish it before," Kyungsoo guaranteed calmly, "thanks."

"All thanks to you," Yunho winked, "you're the one doing the dirty work."

As he talked, the sound of someone tripping on the wheel of an office chair reached his ears and he saw a tall intern with gigantic glasses, elfish ears and an empty Redbull can crash down in the cubicle across of him. The intern sheepishly apologized to his neighbour before heading for the rubbish bin, and Kyungsoo looked back at Yunho.

"Try to make the most of your meeting," the consultant smiled gently, "that's my advice as your supervisor and as your team coach."

"You're my team coach?"

"And Shim Changmin, from the Risk dep; but anyways, that is not the point. The point is, as your supervisors, we want you guys to make the most of your time here as an intern; and who is going to be the ones to make that happen...?" he grinned with expectant eyes.

Kyungsoo blankly stared at him.

"Your team! Ha ha," the elder man cleared his throat embarrassedly, "You are going to have an amazing time doing those team projects, I promise you. It's the best part of the job."

"I believe you." Kyungsoo tried to sound like he meant it.

"The most fun you could have here at TTM, will be there with your team."

"Right," the intern said.

"I know it doesn't sound like much right now," Yunho nodded, softening. "But trust me. You guys are going to have a blast."

⚜

The truth, though, was that the whole teamworking deal made Kyungsoo want to walk back out onto the parking lot, slip into his car and drive home before anybody could try to stop him.

Kyungsoo was what his classmates had diligently called an eagle of excellence. But lo and behold, eagles were not - apparently - very well known for their merits as a social animal. Hence, Kyungsoo's socializing abilities "lacked substance" ; words taken verbatim from his primary school grade report. He did find himself a good friend in Kim Joonmyun, who had been his senior back in college; and the fact that Joonmyun was on this internship with him, albeit in a different department, provided him with a great sense of comfort. But a team of twelve people he had never met before, and with whom he now had to work in harmony to complete a series of dubious projects?

That. That was slightly more problematic.

"Ground floor, please," he told the lady who was in the elevator with him, and the lift slowly progressed towards the firm canteen.

Kyungsoo wasn't at his best when he dealt with other humans for an extended period of time. If he was going to do this well, he was going to need quite a bit of luck.

The cafeteria greeted him with the sight of a jamboree of consultants with trays in their hands, eating in breezy groups — or in complicit pairs — and filling the room with blurry chatter. Sitting at a long table near the window was an abnormally tall intern with awkwardly big hands, who talked to his spaced-out colleague impatiently:

"For the umpteenth time, Yixing, you need to connect your computer to the printer in the department. They're numbered for a reason."

"But they all look the same," the other man exhaled dramatically.

There was a "Group 12 Meeting" scribbled onto a piece of paper next to them, stuck to the table edge with scotch tape. Nine or so people were already installed around it, some chatting amongst themselves, others sipping from their respective drinks. Kyungsoo quickly shuffled towards the incongruous group, and sat down at the table's end.

"Sorry I'm late," he said as he slid next to a guy wearing a snapback over tufts of fiery red hair. Said boy did not bother looking up from his phone.

"That's alright," an intern with a pesky grin and a tie covered with pelicans answered instead. Kyungsoo recognized him as a boy named Baekhyun if he remembered well - he had seen him in the department before.

"We're still waiting for two other guys anyway, so it's not like you missed anything," Baekhyun explained to him with a shrug. "You're completely alright."

"Okay," Kyungsoo said bluntly. "Thanks."

"What's your name?" the boy named Yixing smiled tranquilly.

"Do Kyungsoo."

"'Do' being the last name, yeah?" Sehun - who had bothered to wear his nametag, praise the Lord - perked up. Everyone at the table glanced at him but he simply opened up his hands with a frown: "I just wanted to make sure-"

"Yes," Kyungsoo stated flatly, "Yes, it is the last name. Please don't call me 'Do'."

"I didn't know we were in the same team," Baekhyun turned back towards him, "If I'd known, we could have come down together."

A fourth young man peered at them from behind his double espresso shot: "You're working in the same department, then."

"Yeah...We're in Business Tech."

"I'm in Business Tech too," a fifth guy raised his head at once, and then Kyungsoo finally recognized him as the elf-eared intern from his department, who'd almost broken his face this morning. A pencil behind his ear, and his cheeks oddly red as he stared at Baekhyun, the poor soul stuttered. "I'm Chanyeol. W-we met during induction, Baekhyun, I don't know if you remember me."

The concerned intern stared at him in perplexity, visibly not remembering a single thing. Chanyeol rectified:

"We were sitting together when they gave us the introductory talk..."

Baekhyun snapped his fingers:

"You're the guy who sneezed next to me while drinking!"

"Charming," the intern with the snapback finally spoke, and Chanyeol's face blazed up like pancakes.

Straining his neck just a little allowed Kyungsoo to catch a glimpse of the three guys taking up the seats nearest to the window – one short, stout intern with an oversized turquoise sweater and puffy cheeks, the wiry one called Sehun, and a tanned young man completely in black, thick-lipped, who looked so bored by everything that Kyungsoo couldn't help but stare at him in wordless wonder. When their gaze met he was forced to repress an undignified sound of surprise, almost knocking over Baekhyun's glass of water by the same occasion.

He apologized under his breath while Yixing began drumming against the table with his fingers:

"Well, then. Maybe we should introduce ourselves, just to break the ice," he commented with a dreamy smile. "My name is Yixing, I come from McGill, and I work in the Marketing & Sales dep. with Tao," he designated the intern with a double expresso and monstrous eyebags, "brother Lu," a nod at the snapback-wearing lad who was captivated by his phone once again, "and this big dad right here."

"Stop calling me big dad," the young man with awkwardly big hands snapped, "My name’s Wu Yifan... You can call me Kris if that makes it any easier; that's how people called me in London."

Yixing shrugged in passing: "I think Yifan is quite alright."

"I've seen you guys at the dorms," Sehun squinted, and sniffled through a nasal voice, "you guys rented the rooms that the firm negotiated with UCLA, right?"

"I did, yeah," Kris conceded, and both Baekhyun and Yixing nodded in agreement.

"I didn't," the so-called brother Lu said, scrunching his nose with visible aversion, "Too expensive. But the flat I'm renting at the moment is literally a shit hole. Like, literally, there are rats everywhere and they poop in the living like it's a freaking public toilet."

"Oh, rats have no notion of privacy," Yixing kindly advocated. "You can’t blame them for not knowing where to poop."

"Sorry, what’s your name again?" Kyungsoo glanced at his neighbour, who finally looked up from his phone.

"Me?" he blinked, looking slightly surprised, "Oh, I’m just-"

"His name is LU HAN LU," Kris snorted.

"...Actually, it’s just Lu Han, thank you very much."

The intern in turquoise nodded at him with a curious blink: "It says ‘Lu Han Lu’ on your nametag, though."

"Yeah it does, but it’s just Lu Han."

"What the hell?" Sehun frowned.

"It also says ‘Lu Han Lu’ on every other part of the system, but sincerely, it’s just Lu Han," he forced a smile. "Systems fuck up."

"Okay. So...where did you come from, Lu Han?" Chanyeol leaned forward while scratching his nose.

"Sydney... Media and Communications..." Lu Han whirred while scrolling monotonously through his instagram. "Took a gap year after graduation, worked another, and now, I’m here."

"That explains the accent," Baekhyun leered.

"What’s wrong with it?"

"It just sounds Australian," the other man remarked without ill feelings, "I have nothing against it, though, I mean it’s not as if you were Scottish and we literally had to decode anything that you had to say-"

"Hey guys, sorry we’re late," rolled in the thickest Scottish accent Kyungsoo had ever heard, and they all turned to see a short square-jawed intern stop in front of their table with a huge grin on his face and a handbag under his arm.

Baekhyun looked side-ways with an embarrassed smile: "I didn’t say anything, ha ha."

A neatly groomed Joonmyun tottered behind the Scottish intern, looking both frazzled and horrified at his own lateness. Kyungsoo’s mouth twitched by reflex, curling upwards, but the intern with the thick lips instantly produced a deep grunt of irritation from somewhere near the window:

He turned to see the said younger man run a hand through his fluffy – damn, yes, so fluffy – hair:

"Great. Just great."

"What is?" Chanyeol looked confused.

"Twelve Asians in one bloody team?" the young man scoffed coldly. "‘Pride on diversity’, my ass. We are all literally just a walking stereotype...All of us."

"Why so much hostility, young friend?" Yixing inquired.

"Don’t call me ‘young friend’," he bit back instantly. "My name’s Jongin. I’m a law student from UCL – the British one."

"And Jongin, do they often shove a broom up your ass, in UCL?" Lu Han threw in viciously.

"There, there," Kris lifted his huge hands in a move that wanted to be appeasing, "we should let the new guys present themselves first. You are?"

"My name is Joonmyun Kim, from the Operations & Organizations department," Joonmyun shifted on his feet uneasily. "I’m sorry for being late...I promise that my tardiness won’t happen again."

"My name’s Jongdae," the Scottish intern continued, perfectly unaffected by Jongin’s cold welcome as he shrugged: "and I wish I could make the same promise as Joonmyun but I’m pretty sure my tardiness will happen again."

Kyungsoo cocked an eyebrow.

"Well. That’s surprisingly honest," Baekhyun simply scratched his chin with a snort.

"Oh, just giving myself a wild opt-out card," Jongdae grinned impishly, and Joonmyun gave him a shove of the elbow. They took the last remaining seats and gathered around the table while Kris leaned on one arm:

"So, you studied in Scotland?"

"Glasgow, yeah." Jongdae nodded happily while installing himself next to Tao. "Currently doing a masters too."

"Really, where at?" Baekhyun blinked interestedly.

"Ehhh, just this uni called WESTUprising."

The rest of the team blinked in bemusement.

"Where?"

Jongdae took a sip from Tao’s coffee under the younger intern’s dumbfounded face.

"W-E-S-T-Uprising," he articulated.

"No, I heard but...where the heck is that?"

"Oh, it’s online," the Scottish student derided gently, "I’m surprised you guys never heard of it. It’s great."

"Maybe we’ll have to check it out," Yixing smiled good-willingly, in spite of the dubious look Kris was throwing him.

"But you did study at Glasgow university, didn’t you?" Kyungsoo frowned uncertainly.

"Eh. Well, again no, not Glasgow per se, but-"

"Glasgow Strathclyde," Chanyeol threw in helpfully.

"No..."

"Glasgow Caledonian?" the intern in the turquoise sweater tilted his head.

"No, actually, eh, Glasgow Mouthfield Business School."

A blank.

"What," Lu Han whispered.

"So exotic!" Yixing exclaimed and Kris shot him another look.

"It’s probably one of those obscure universities which are actually quite good once you go there," Chanyeol provided benevolently, his oversized glasses sliding off his nose. "I know a few of my friends did that."

"That doesn’t explain anything," Baekhyun interjected, "this firm only takes world-class educated kids. The first question they ask in their application form is where you did your studies, how the hell did you even enter the assessment centre stage?"

"Because I’m actually smart," Jongdae knocked on his own head with a playful smirk. "I use my brain when it matters and where it matters. Also, I am an adventurer; I have the heart of an entrepreneur."

"What did you study, when you were in... um..."

"Glasgow Mouthfield Business School." Jongdae completed for him and took another sip from Tao’s coffee, insensitive to the younger man’s distraught face. "Well, as it turns out, I studied Business."

"Even his degree is vague as fuck," Lu Han dropped.

"Guys, I don’t see the problem," Yixing abruptly opened up his palms to the sky, "we all come from diverse backgrounds; that’s what the human resources manager said. It’s normal to have different types of education and specialisms within the team. I, for one, think it is very cool that Jongdae’s doing his masters online in EASTUprising, and I love his Scottish accent."

"WESTUprising. But thanks for the comment, mate" Jongdae winked.

"And you?" Kris looked at Joonmyun. But the Scottish intern replied instead:

"Oh, he comes from boring Harvard."

"I’m a Harvard graduate too." Kyungsoo said.

"So you two are university mates?" Yixing smiled softly at the two of them, "oohhh, that's so nice."

"I was Kyungsoo’s senior back in college actually," Joonmyun elaborated, encouraged by the younger man’s friendly demeanour. "We both have an Engineering background."

Chanyeol immediately tipped his head to one side, looking confused:

"You are an engineer?" he asked, "Then why didn’t they put you in Business Tech with us?"

There was a high-pitched laugh which sounded suspiciously like a discouraged whimper.

"That's nothing yet," the intern wearing a turquoise sweater then sighed, before pointing at his neighbour, who was nodding despondently, "Sehun here got put into Risk with me."

Baekhyun cocked an eyebrow in confusion. "So?"

"So, I studied Finance and Accounting, I should be in Risk," the turquoise sweater said. "But Sehun..."

"I’m an Oxford student," Sehun explained.

"And...?"

"– in English Literature and Psychology."

Baekhyun’s eyebrows crumpled in condolence: "Oh."

Lu Han rubbed a hand over his face:

"What is even the use of that?" he muttered.

And Sehun immediately countered with a haughty sniffle: "Uh, excuse you. English Literature is very, very useful."

"Oh, really. In what kind of circumstances, if I may ask?"

"Well, for one, without English literature, you wouldn’t have amazing things such as Charles Dickens’-"

"Guys, stop," the other Risk intern sighed, "the point’s not there. The point is that English Literature might be great usually, but right now it’s not helping you understand any of TTM clients’ account books, Sehun."

The younger intern settled down obediently for picking at his napkin.

"Why on earth did they put him in Risk?" Kyungsoo ended up asking out of consternation.

"No one knows why," the turquoise sweater rubbed a hand over his cheek, "including himself."

"Also, my supervisor is so scary," Sehun mumbled, "I feel like he wants to dice my ass into cubes and cook them into a bloody mince pie each time I mess up something..."

"-which is approximately every hour of the day, I assume," Lu Han cocked an eyebrow and Sehun glared at him. His cheeks however, were tainted by embarrassment, so there must have been truth in the statement.

Chanyeol soon glanced at the puffy cheeked intern.

"And you are, um...?"

"Me? Uh, I’m Minseok." the boy in the oversized sweater began quietly, and the entire congregation immediately focused on him. "Why are you all staring at me like that?"

"Because you’re speaking."

He grimaced: "Don’t do that..."

"I wanted to ask you, actually: how on earth did they allow you to come in to work like that?" Baekhyun poked his turquoise sweater with genuine awe, making the young man frown anxiously.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing. It’s just so... casual and cute."

"Let’s just say that it makes you look very young," Lu Han declaimed as he rotated to face a mildly rattled Minseok, "how old are you?"

"Um, twenty-four this year..." the elder man replied.

"Wait, seriously?" everyone lurched forward and he recoiled.

"Yeah, why?"

"You don’t look twenty-four," Joonmyun looked betrayed, "my twelve years old cousin looks older than you."

"Where did you graduate from?" Baekhyun blinked.

"Um...Princeton?"

Whistles around the room made the intern’s cheeks flush deep red.

"Don’t do that."

"Why not?" Baekhyun smiled. "Buddy, Princeton is ranked number one university in the states, you know."

"I know," Minseok cringed, "but..."

"They’re really famous for their lacrosse team," Joonmyun added.

"I know. I was part of the men’s team back in college."

Another wave of whistles welcomed that statement, and Minseok shut his eyes pleadingly:

"Can you please not do that?"

"We’re just showing you our appreciation. No need to blush," Lu Han granted him a smile, and for once, the move seemed to be tainted by endearment rather than sarcasm.

Jongin suddenly exhaled loudly in his seat:

"If we’re done introducing ourselves, maybe we should go back to our respective departments?"

The others craned their necks to look at him.

"Why so hasty?" Lu Han sneered, "do we bother you or something?"

The younger intern outstretched both hands and faced him defiantly, "I never said that."

"If we bore you so much that you want to leave, be my guest."

"You're making it very tempting," Jongin snorted. "I still have work to do, after all. And this is turning into a waste of time."

"Oh, I see," Lu Han leaned forward disparagingly, "so mister from UCL is busier than the rest of us, is he?"

"Uh. Slow down," Kris interrupted. "Let’s at least try to fake some teamwork on our first day, yeah? Keep the murderous tension for later in the summer."

"Well, the whole teamwork thing is a complete lie anyways," Kyungsoo cracked instantly.

And all the other interns took a peek at him, making him stall in hesitation:

"It’s true..." he ended up continuing, "They say we have to be a team for the whole summer, and yet, only two of us are going to get the jobs, at best. It’s basically an invitation for everyone to backstab each other on the long run."

"I kind of agree," Tao admitted reluctantly, looking disillusioned and sad, "we can teamwork all we want. But at the end of the day, we’re just competing against each other. It’s really stupid."

"That’s not so different from what happens in the professional world anyways," Jongin shrugged challengingly, staring straight back at Kyungsoo: "there’s always one promotion only, one managerial position open, one pay raise, one client secondment opportunity; and even though you work in teams, you’re competing with your workmates all the time. I think that the system is just preparing us for the harsh reality of the working environment we’re aiming for."

"Still," Lu Han raised an eyebrow, "they expect us to work in peace when we have a douchebag like you in the batch? I find that kind of demotivating."

"Guys, honestly, let’s not fight on our first meeting," Chanyeol beseeched with conciliatory hands, but only managed to knock over his emptied can.

Jongin had already stood up.

"I’m grabbing a sandwich for lunch and going back," he stated, unaffected by the glare that Lu Han was throwing him, "see you guys at the next meeting. Bye."

As soon as the law student left, Lu Han bit down on his lower lip and stuck out his tongue:

"What a douche," he breathed out shortly after.

Yixing simply deployed both arms with a serene smile:

"Let’s take a deep breath, everyone, do not let this tiny intercalation affect your mood in any way; we are all going to get along just fine..."

"Have you not seen his fucking attitude?"

"Breathe, brother Lu... Two in, one out. Two in, one out..."

Kris sighed: "Actually, it's one in, two out, but...you know."

"My mother says that first impressions are very important, but that sometimes they don’t stand for everything," Joonmyun said in a pacifying tone.

"Well, then I hope your mother’s damn right on that one," Lu Han scoffed, "because that guy looks like an absolute bastard to me, right now."

"'Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding' – Albert Einstein."

"Yixing, I'm not sure you’re helping."

"You do know we have to do a Dragon boat race together next week," Tao said sombrely. "It’s a team-building exercise and counts for points. My supervisor said so."

The rest of the table peered at him, then glanced at each other with equal, dawning dread.

"Well, fuck," Lu Han groaned and pulled his snapback deeper over his eyes. From across the table, Sehun glanced at him briefly before awkwardly focusing on his napkin once again. Kyungsoo threw a diffident look at each other them, but found nothing to say.

"Well, so far, things are going great, aren’t they?" Jongdae exclaimed after a long minute of silence.

Kyungsoo let out a despondent sigh.

---

Thank god that I saved this on google drive. :'^) I may as well put up chapter two of this tonight, as well. I have...more time than I initially thought. Cheers to that.

[member=3448]zuka[/member] - since someone told me you wanted to see this?

[Arielle]

[div style="width:500px;text-align:justify;font-size:12px;margin-top:10px;color:#000;line-height:120%"][align=center]❝ Chapter Two of Interning: The Fault in Our Coffees ❞

Freshly showered in the cuddling warmth of his residence room, Baekhyun reached over the night desk to switch his lights off before throwing himself over the feathery comfort of his spongy mattress.

The deal TTM had concluded with the university had given them the choice of renting a single-bedded room in one of UCLA's accommodations for the duration of the internship, instead of flat-hunting on their own. Baekhyun had been one of the first to put his name down on the list back then, when the applications had opened in February. The option was certainly pricier than going for most of the private flats in the rougher neighbourhoods of town, and interns had to share a kitchen with other students who were there for the summer... but at least the rooms were clean, of decent sizes, and all truths be told, Baekhyun simply couldn't have bothered to look for a rented place of his own back then.

He just couldn't. Not in that state of mind, anyways.

The intern had barely started to drool for an hour or two when the smoke detector above his head blasted into drilling honks that depleted all his brain cells in one go. It left him bleary-eyed over the sheets, sitting up with a haggard glance at the clock.

It was exactly half-past two in the morning.

"What the living fuck..." he pulled himself out with a groan and grabbed the leather jacket on his chair.

Outside, students had already gathered in the courtyard in front of the building, some wrapped in their bathrobes, others in snuggly sweaters and warm slippers. Sehun and Kris were standing below the light of a street lamp; the eldest of the two wearing bright yellow SpongeBob socks, buried in a pair of fluffy rabbit-shaped slippers.

"Nice footwear," Baekhyun commented as he arrived, and the slumberous Economics graduate mumbled something unintelligible in return. He looked like his soul had been sucked away by the smoke detector.

Sehun was texting someone on his smartphone, gel smacked over his hair in a hurry, making him look like a dysfunctional peacock. Through the bloated yawn which consumed his throat, Baekhyun realised that it was the first time the few of them had gathered together like this, outside of work.

"I know I'm not a saint," Kris said after a while, "but I feel that I don't deserve this."

"I'm not a saint either, so I'm going to kill whoever thought it was funny to set off that thing," Baekhyun simply snorted into his palm while Sehun directed groggy eyes at him.

"What, so you don't think it's a real fire?"

"Wow, buddy. How do you go through your college years?" he chuckled without heat. At the same time, Sehun perceived something behind his back and gave it a wave.

"Hey, Tao."

Baekhyun looked over his shoulder and met with the most atrocious set of eye bags he had ever seen in his life.

"Oh my God," he dropped with an involuntary jerk.

"Thanks," Tao replied grudgingly. "I know."

"You look awful," Sehun stated. "Didn't get much sleep?"

"Does it look like I got much sleep?" Tao muttered resentfully. "I literally sleep less than three hours a day and this is taking a further twenty minutes away from those three hours. Twenty minutes and counting. Yes, because I am counting."

"I didn't know you were staying in this wing too," Baekhyun yawned into his palm, glancing at the courtyard.

Their walking corpse of a colleague simply shrugged:

"I usually stay in the south wing, but I got moved for the internship; makes it easier for the university and stuff..."

Being a Politics and Chinese student in the University of California gave Tao a year-long roof within the accommodations; but he also had the bad luck of living with a Music major who felt that it was an imperative need to practice his opera skills at three in the morning, every single day. Now that summer had arrived and that Tao had been moved to a new dormitory, the Chinese intern discovered that his luck had not improved one bit.

"I live next to a girl who stays with her boyfriend now," the young man said with a murderous edge in his voice, "and they just. won't. shut up during sex."

"What a flourishingly healthy relationship," Kris remarked with a sigh, eliciting a cocked eyebrow from both Baekhyun and Sehun.

"As if that wasn't enough," Tao continued, "there has to be construction work going on in the flat above me and it sounds like they're about to drill a hole through the ceiling every fucking morning. Do you know how little sleep I get because of that?"

"Man, you really have it bad, don't you," Baekhyun cackled lazily as he swung over his feet, and the younger man simply glared:

"One day I'm going to go up there and drill a hole through their ass."

"Yeah? I hope I won't be there to see that, then," the Columbia graduate yawned once more and looked up, noticing Yixing's tranquil figure making his way towards them, hands in his pockets, wearing an ugly pair of vomit green crocs. The Chinese had a guitar strapped over his back and a Hawaiian shirt with flamboyant flowers blooming all over his chest and stomach, looking altogether sprightly like it was three in the afternoon and not bloody half past any hour that could be considered a reasonable sleeping time.

"Nice jacket," the Chinese intern remarked as he arrived, pinching the leather on Baekhyun's back.

"Thanks, you uh, look lively."

"I shine with the moon," Yixing smiled serenely, stretching his neck before sitting down on the nearest fence. "This is prime time for meditation."

"Oh, really."

"I wish my flatmate could meditate instead of screaming like a cat on heat," Tao mumbled for himself.

"What?" the other intern blinked.

"Don't listen to him," Kris shook a dismissive hand, before crossing his arms and shuddering in his thin t-shirt.

Yixing eventually nodded and threw one leg over the other, holding his ankle with one hand as he stared at the growing crowd of students in the courtyard.

"Lovely evening," he stated after a while.

They nodded in silence and let the summer wind do the rest of the talking, cradled away by the sound of the fire alarm blaring through the building.

⚜

Kyungsoo had discovered on the very first day of work that there was a Starbucks right next to the company and he had been sneaking out during lunch time ever since then, to grab a quick coffee fix after his daily sandwich. In the morning, after stopping the rented car in the nearest parking lot, he would leave Joonmyun on the sidewalk first and head to the Starbucks alone, ordering his daily intake of iced caramel macchiato or chai latte, and smile in satisfaction as the taste of sugar and milk washed down his throat, leaving him ready to tackle the day.

But today, there was somebody else who was standing in the queue with him. Somebody familiar.

"Oh no," he mouthed.

And from in front of him, Jongin looked back before giving him a passing nod.

"Hi," Kyungsoo spat aggressively.

The reticent law student produced a vague sound of acknowledgment before facing the front of the queue once again. Wondering whether to continue talking or not, Kyungsoo ruminated grimly for a while, then cleared his throat violently. Jongin was his teammate. For the sake of teamwork, they needed to be on speaking terms, at least. He braced himself and spoke up with his most amiable voice:

"I didn't know you were a Starbucks person too."

Jongin did not reply.

Somewhat insulted, the elder intern narrowed his eyes and tapped the other man on the back.

"Hey. I'm talking to you."

Jongin turned around, revealing earphones dangling from his ears that made Kyungsoo's eyes widen in horror.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean-"

"What?" the younger man frowned openly now, tugging the earphones out at last.

"No, n-nothing. Fuck."

"You just tapped me on the shoulder."

"Yeah, I thought..." Kyungsoo struggled, "never mind, I'm sorry."

"The bloody hell...?" Jongin squinted and shook his head, but before Kyungsoo could retort anything, the Starbucks employee leaned over the counter to grin at them:

"Any drinks for you, sir?" she beamed at Jongin, whose voice relaxed and took a much more courteous tone:

"I'll have an Americano, please. With a skinny lemon muffin on the side, thanks."

"Take-away or eat-in, sir?"

"Take-away," Jongin offered a smile, and Kyungsoo cocked an eyebrow. How civilised the law student sounded, when he talked to perfect strangers.

He snorted when the barista grinned at him:

"Anything for you, sir?" she beamed, and he replied more briskly than he had originally expected:

"Iced caramel macchiato. Grande."

She simply nodded and disappeared behind the coffee machine, while the other intern spared him a confused glance.

"What was that for?"

"What was what?" Kyungsoo darted edgy eyes up at the dark pupils in front of him, gulping unconsciously as he saw delectably tanned skin and full lips puckered into an uncertain pout of hesitation.

"Hnn. Nothing," Jongin eventually concluded as they arrived towards the cashier, drawing his wallet out.

They fell into silence at once; an excruciating kind of silence – in which Kyungsoo looked at his watch three times, stole a glance at the younger man, and then eventually sank into deeper ponderings than those he was already floundering in. There was a brooding quality about Jongin, which irked him and reminded him of squalling storm clouds before the first roar of thunder, or the foggy hours before dawn when the light is still faint, barely piercing through the watery smog. Jongin's aura spelt out anticipation, if that made any sense. Or maybe he was simply going insane.

It wasn't until they were both waiting for their drinks at the end of the counter that Kyungsoo mustered enough will to speak up again, feeling much crankier and less nervous this time:

"We're having a get-to-know-each-other party this week-end," he declared rather flatly.

The law student cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Who?"

"The damn team, who do you think?" Kyungsoo retorted. "Chanyeol suggested that we should gather at his place this Saturday. Get to know each other, have a few drinks...just mingle, basically."

"Oh, really."

"Are you coming?"

"Nah, I think I'll pass," Jongin smirked, and the elder intern felt his heart do a strange, unintentional flip at the sight. "I wasn't invited anyways, so it's probably better that I don't show up."

"That's because no one has your number," Kyungsoo nipped.

Jongin's eyes shot up at the sharpness of the tone, before dismissing the remark and slowly shifting to a small snow globe that had been ornamenting the edge of the counter. A ballerina was doing an arabesque inside, spinning under synthetic snowflakes with her little figure curved like a bow. Jongin's fingers tapped the plastic sphere absent-mindedly for a while, lips pursed in silence as the tiny figurine spun round and round under their eyes. Then a small smile graced his features:

"Cute," he commented for no one in particular.

Kyungsoo's eyebrows jumped up in genuine destabilization.

"What?" he said uncertainly.

But Jongin simply straightened his back and got distracted by the Americano which had been pushed onto the ledge. He seized it and was about to walk off when Kyungsoo snapped back into focus. With a funny feeling of expectation and urgency, he pinched the back of the younger man's shirt and dragged him forcefully back to the counter.

Jongin opened dumbfounded eyes at him:

"Wha-"

"Pass me your number before you leave," he ordered in one breath.

"Huh?" the law student instantly blinked at him. "Wh-?"

"I'll tell you next time we decide to do anything on Whatsapp," Kyungsoo explained curtly, too embarrassed to face the other man's gaze directly, "look, you're part of the team too, so I don't want you to think that you can just skip all our group meetings just because you can't stand Lu Han's attitude."

"I think he's the one who can't stand me, not the opposite."

"Same damn thing," the Harvard graduate gritted his teeth, "pass me your number. I'll text you next time there's anything."

A silence lingered between them, during which Kyungsoo shifted uncomfortably on his feet:

"Of course, if you could just join our Whatsapp group, it'd make everything much easier."

"No," Jongin replied briskly, but he was already pulling his phone out of his bag before letting a small smile flicker up, "I think I quite like the idea of you personally texting me all the updates, actually."

Kyungsoo needed all his willpower not to sound like a dying cockroach.

"You just want me to do all the work, don't you."

"Maybe...?" Jongin laughed softly, and damn, it was an adorable sound. "So my number is..."

"Hold on, let me get my phone out."

They exchanged numbers and the younger man smiled once more as he entered Kyungsoo's details into his contact list.

"Well, then," he straightened his back at last and tilted his head, "when is our next meeting, again?"

"Um, tomorrow. It's the first assessment, for finding our team names..."

"Oh yeah. That's right," the younger snickered softly, "Good luck with your work until then. I'll see you around," Jongin sounded sincere for once.

"Yeah," Kyungsoo ended up replying without realising that his tone had softened with every passing minute, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Hnn. Bye bee," Jongin beamed, giving him a little wave.

Bye bee, that's hella cute, Kyungsoo found himself musing dimly.

He did not know that two people were sitting at the table right behind them, sharing knowing glances behind lifted mugs as they watched the scene unravel under their ingenious eyes:

"Bye bee, that's hella cute," Jongdae cooed for Joonmyun's benefit, and the elder man simply frowned before kicking him lightly in the shin.

⚜

"Okay, we have thirty minutes to find ourselves a team name and enter it into the system," Jongdae announced the next day, as he sat behind the only laptop in the room. "Go."

"Let the ideas rain, guys," Yixing encouraged with grabby hand gestures, "feel that rain on your skin like it's the monsoon under the eastern milky way-"

"I've got paper where we can brainstorm," Chanyeol exclaimed as he pulled out his notepad from his bag, talking too fast and too loudly, "Just scream anything. We can beat all the other teams and come up with something in five minutes."

"You're shouting," Baekhyun blared even louder. "Please stop shouting."

"Maybe we should try to find a structure first," Joonmyun spluttered hastily, circling around the table with a concerned look, "my mother always says to organise your ideas by themes and if it doesn't work, to classify them by alphabetical order. We need to draw up a table and put all our ideas in and then we could submit the sum of those ideas to a democratic vote..."

"Guys," Lu Han dropped, sitting on the back of a chair with his feet on the seat, "you do realize this is a team name we're talking about and not some sort of Neo-Nazi drill, right?"

"Where's Tao, anyways?" Sehun lifted his head.

"Coming," Kris raised his phone and waved it lightly, "says his flatmate was trying new positions yesterday, causing him to oversleep..."

"That's information we don't need to know," Minseok pursed his lips in distaste before making himself an instant coffee.

"Oops," Jongdae glanced at the screen, which had just refreshed with a bleeping sound, "looks like the first team name came out..."

"Seriously?!"

Everyone gathered behind the screen, gaping at it in distrustful silence.

"Team number five." Jongdae pointed. "Named themselves the "Sniper's Diapers"."

"That is a horrible name," Joonmyun professed, "see? This is exactly why we should brainstorm and classify our ideas by alphabetical order."

"Guys, guys, I have an epiphany," Yixing raised his head with a dreamy glaze on his face, "how about we call ourselves...the Baby Wolves?"

"I veto it," Jongin's hand shot up from his seat near the table edge. "I veto the fuck out of it."

"Yeah, I refuse too," Kris sighed while a second bleeping sound reached his ears, under Yixing's disappointed gaze. "Sorry, Yixing."

"Why not, though? It's like, ‘baby' because we're all cute and nice, but then on the inside, we're actually wolves..."

"Team number eleven named themselves ‘SHINee', whatever that means."

"Maybe they just don't know how to spell," Kyungsoo spat in distaste.

"I'm okay with anything," Lu Han remarked casually while pushing his beanie back, "as long as it doesn't make us sound like a bunch of clowns."

"Hey guys," Tao barged through the door with a cup of tea in his hand, "Sorry I'm late."

"That's okay," Baekhyun pointed at his cup, "but there's bird shit in your tea, I don't know if you noticed."

"Oh my fucking-!"

"Guys, team number one found their name too."

"Jesus Christ, they're going too fast," Chanyeol spewed out in a frenzy, almost knocking his redbull over, "do you want me to hack into the system to slow them down or-?"

"Wait," Minseok stared at him in disbelief, "you can do that?"

"Um," Chanyeol stalled, eyes looking to the side nervously, "No?"

"You just asked if we wanted you to hack into the system to slow them down."

"Uh, yes, well but..."

"You're a hacker?" Baekhyun blinked incredulously.

"Hackers aren't always bad?" the tall intern tried desperately, before smiling: "Also, I'm a retired hacker, so it doesn't really count."

"Guys, I have an idea for our team name," Sehun interrupted unaffectedly from behind crossed arms, "I think it's really cool."

"What is it?" Tao sat on the table, after gladly taking the instant coffee that Minseok passed him.

"XOXO."

The others settled down in a brief moment of rumination, in which Lu Han lowered his iPhone and closed his eyes in pure consternation:

"Now you've done it. You've made me leave my Twitter."

"What?" Sehun turned towards him, "why?"

"XOXO. Are you serious?"

"Well, yeah. It's cool," the Oxford student frowned. "It's hella cool."

"I actually like it," Tao smiled into his coffee, "it's kind of cute."

"XOXO?" Lu Han burst out, a hand over his beanie, "are you kidding? That's almost as dumb as Snipers' Diapers, if not worse because at least the other one rhymes."

"If you have a better idea, go ahead, say it!" Sehun narrowed his eyes at the Australian graduate.

"Should I write XOXO down for now, though?" Chanyeol threw a hesitant look around the room, and Baekhyun gave him a discreet nod. The giant instantly scribbled it onto his notepad while Lu Han shook his head vehemently:

"No, no, no," he shouted, "I'll kiss that asshole over there on the lips before I accept this as our team name," he pointed at Jongin, who jerked back in revolt: "What the hell?"

"What's so bad about this, though?" Sehun retorted with a frown. "Would you rather that we call ourselves the Baby Wolves?"

"Which I still think is a brilliant name, by the way," Yixing promoted.

A diffident bleep rang across their heated chatter. Jongdae scrolled down the list of teams on the system.

"Group six named themselves "Super Junior"," he remarked with a light hum, "do you think that's an euphemism for Giant Dick?"

"I refuse to call myself XOXO." Luhan raised both hands in the air, "that's fucking lame. I'd rather call myself "My Little Ponies"."

"Now that's a good idea-"

"No it's not," Kris cut him off, and Yixing shot him a weary look.

"Or," Chanyeol suggested, "we could cross out one XO," he drew a line over the tentative team name, "and that would leave us with Team XO. Which is a spirit name, like work hard, play hard"."

"No." Kyungsoo and Jongin said at once.

"My mother would kill me if I named my team after alcohol," Joonmyun shook his head disapprovingly. "Also, it's ‘work hard, pay hard', you've been learning it wrong."

"How about this," Tao muttered, "we forget about XOXO or XO altogether, and we name ourselves, the Sea Waves."

"Or better," Kris wriggled one eyebrow, "the Galaxies."

"Team T," Jongdae smirked, "for Trolls."

"Let's be hipsters and call ourselves a number," Yixing's eyes narrowed: "420."

"That's my birthday," Lu Han commented, and Yixing gave him a look full for attentiveness:

"Is it now? Interesting."

"Guys, I don't know if you realise, but we only have five minutes left for this assignment," Minseok sighed.

A wave of panic travelled across the table.

"Cross out XOXO completely," Lu Han hurriedly said, designating the sheet angrily, "we are definitely NOT using that."

"Why not?" Sehun snapped.

Baehyun rubbed his chin:

"Maybe we could keep the idea of using individual letters...I mean, it's cool if we can make a word out of it."

"AXO?" Chanyeol looked up tentatively.

"What the fuck does that even mean?"

"ZYX," Yixing whispered, only to be hit on the back of the head by Kris.

"That's just your initials."

"Okay, then XYZ."

"Guys, can we just pick something, anything?" Minseok passed two hands over his face, "I'm begging you."

"Crap," Jongdae noted at the same time from in front of the laptop screen, "Uh. One minute before the assignment's due."

"Fuck, fuck, just write something down, fuck it."

"Like that?" Chanyeol drew a fat E in front of the unbarred XO, and Jongdae looked over his shoulder.

"Sure, I'm inputting that into the system."

"Wait, what?" Lu Han frowned.

"E...X...O, done!" Jongdae exclaimed.

The others immediately gathered behind him, staring at the laptop screen, where a new entry had made its apparition below all the previous team numbers and team names. There, at the bottom of the list, was a small: "Group Number 12. Team name: EXO."

They stared at each other.

"I still preferred "the Sea Waves"," Tao shrugged.

Lu Han let out a groan and turned around on his chair.

⚜

That night, Baekhyun shut the dorm lights at approximately one in the morning, slipped into bed, and set up his alarm for quarter past seven before closing his eyes and burying his face into his pillow. Morpheus carried him away for an hour or two, then the fire alarm crashed through his Odyssey like a fire truck.

"Fucking hell..." he moaned amidst the blaring horn and the honking, before reaching blindly for his jacket.

Outside, Kris, Sehun and Tao were already waiting beneath the street lamp, looking just as haggard as him.

"I think I want to cry," Tao simply said as their gaze met. Baekhyun patted him on the back in silent sympathy.

Yixing arrived five minutes later, carrying a thermos filled with tea and a feathered hat on his head.

"Jasmine green tea?" he smiled at the rest of the congregation.

They shook their heads and he sat down on the fence with a contented sigh:

"Lovely evening."

In silence, the little group waited below the street lamp, huddled against one another as the fire alarm blared away in the distance.

---

Uni is....chaotic — for both undergraduate and graduate students. The fire alarm went off way too many times last semester. People had to come out in bathrobes and slippers and it was snowing outside. We were all pissed, to say the least. The same happened to people from other colleges and universities in the surrounding area. No one knows what the hell happened that night.

The part where EXO had to come up with a team name...well, since most of my friends in uni/college knew I was writing this, they gave a bunch of suggestions as to how they could come up with "EXO", and so I kind of...put them all in...actually, only most of them. I thought of also making a joke out of Kim Minseok's initials being "KMS", but... I then thought it'd be in bad taste, so that didn't make it in there.

[Seliane]

[align=center][div style="width:450px;text-align:justify;margin-top:10px;color:#000;font-family:georgia;font-size:10px;line-height:110%"]can't i just...sell you my soul for the next chapter ?? please ?? bbh as a lawyer i'm sobbign what a concept....exo as interns ?? another stellar concept.........pls can i just bring you starbucks for the next chapter hhngh i want it so b a d

also.....@kyungsoo... starbucks has ruined my name too rip i don't think they can handle chinese/japanese/korean names very well... how many times have they written "gino(?)" on my cup.... g o d.....

AND THE FIRE ALARM SITUATION !!! when i moved back into my dorm...they started testing the fire alarms without warning us...the one here kept going off every ten minutes and i thought i was going to go into cardiac arrest ffs.....

anyway these r the best things i've ever read in my entire life pls keep continuing to kill me lmao i'm showing this to ruoyan too.

[Natsuki]

gOD I LOVE EXO but if i had to deal with them in uni..like that...my scalp is going to come off bc i'd be tearing at my hair holy shit

also pls....i mean ofc people have butchered my japanese name, but my russian name...(the western one? tf do i even call it lol) gets destroyed too. what kind of people are they hiring at starbucks these days.

tracking because i need to see how this progresses. also lay is an angel i would die for him. that is all.

[Seliane]

[align=center][div style="width:450px;text-align:justify;margin-top:10px;color:#000;font-family:georgia;font-size:10px;line-height:110%"]aDHKSSH WAIT IM REREADING DID YOU REALLY JUST HAVE JONGIN BE THE ONE TO VETO YIXING'S "BABY WOLVES" IDEA BC OF HOW MUCH HE HATED THE "WOLF ERA" IM..

JUST HOW MANY INSIDE JOKES FROM THE EXO FANDOM DID YOU INCLUDE..

[basorexia]

smol track

[Arielle]

[align=center][div style="width:500px;text-align:justify;font-size:12px;margin-top:10px;color:#000;line-height:120%"]@Seliane: Unfortunately for you, I absolutely won't let you do that. :^) Flattery only gets you so far, and btw I already have someone else to bring me coffee when I need it, haha. And...I think we've all witnessed the deformation of our names at the hands of Starbucks employees at least once. You have to just spell it out for them, loud and clear. I thought it'd be fitting to stick in there, since I knew you guys could relate.

I despise fire alarms with the burning passion of ten thousand suns. Surely, I don't need to elaborate on as to why; I already did that at the bottom of the second chapter of Interning.

And will do! Even if you didn't ask, I'd keep writing because I want to, and it helps relieve stress...most of the time. That, and it ensures that my English doesn't deteriorate too much, since I rarely speak English with my roommate in our flat (like you and Ruoyan).

Feel free to count just how many inside jokes I included; I won't tell you, because even I didn't count. I just tried to include as many as possible where it seemed fitting. :'^)

@Natsuki: Understandable. I'd also likely have kicked one of them out and/or refused to speak or interact with them entirely.

That's...rough. Maybe it's your accent? But your accent isn't even heavy, so I really...don't have an answer for you. May both of your names rest in pieces peace.

Also very true. I'd only rescue him (and Minseok), and then ditch the rest.

[member=130]ūlarmati[/member]: Hello!