Being back to work was a glorious, glorious feeling.

...if one ignored the fact the he actually had to work again, that was.

Woo Bin eyed the stack of folders on his desk with some distaste. He'd learned early on that files on his desk meant he had to review them - or at least, read them - as a prerequisite to their arrival in his father's office. That was just how their tiny bureaucracy worked, unfortunately. And since some of them were dated from last week until yesterday, and were still within his territory-

Noticing his grimace, his assistant hurriedly said, while nervously pushing up his glasses, "I apologize, Master Song. I tried working out with the Chairman's office if they can accept these files without your recommendation, but-"

He clapped him on the shoulder and said, "The fact that you tried meant you did your job. Besides, we both know how strict my father's office can be. I'll be more surprised if they agreed." Woo Bin then went behind his desk to pick up one of the folders. He eyed the phone by the side and asked, "Any important calls while I was gone?"

"None," his assistant said. Then he paused, cleared his throat, and added, "But I have been intercepting some rather strange phone calls from a certain Park Yo Na and I was wondering-"

"Block them," Woo Bin quickly said. He didn't even want to hear about Park Jung's daughter's antics - the less he knew, the better. Briefly, he wondered how he could make her forget he ever existed. An impossible feat, of course, but still. "And remember - I don't know any woman with that name. If someone going by that name comes by, tell her I'm on indefinite leave. Or that I died. Inform all the staff."

His assistant wrote that down while nodding to himself.

The fact that he was not, in any way or form, asking questions about why he had so many orders concerning Park's daughter pleased Woo Bin immensely. He really should give the man a raise. "Anything else?"

"Oh! Miss Ga Eul," his assistant said, looking up from his notes. "Miss Chu, I mean. She-"

"-dropped by recently?" Woo Bin picked up a second file, pretended to browse through that, too, just so he wouldn't appear too invested in what his assistant was saying.

"I let her inside when she was looking for you. I thought-"

Woo Bin smiled. "You did the right thing. Tell security to let her in anytime she wants to. I also wish to be informed immediately should she come visit. Understood?"

"Of course." His assistant wrote that down as well.

He laid the second folder down, picked up a third file. "What else? No other phone calls?"

"None. But I e-mailed you your schedule for this week this morning. You have some left-over meetings from the week before and-"

Woo Bin absently listened. He glanced at the phone, fighting down the odd sense of... disappointment? dismay? at having heard that no one else had called him while he was gone. What, was he actually expecting someone worthwhile would?

Not that any of his other friends - particularly that boy over at Sweden - ever called him through the office trunk line, but still.

It won't matter how many bodyguards you have; I will kill you with my bare hands.

Woo Bin gritted his teeth. Their last conversation had been less than stellar, so for him to think that Yi Jung would oh so suddenly make the first move to talk with him-

-not that he wanted him to or anything.

Still, though-

He grimaced and dismissed his assistant with, "I'll check my e-mail and confirm my schedule, thank you. You may go."

The door clicked shut a few moments after, leaving him alone with his work. Woo Bin sighed. Well. Best be an adult and get this mountain pile over with, then. He reached for one file and began reading.

Five minutes hadn't yet passed when his phone beeped discreetly.

Have you eaten yet? Ga Eul's text was simple and straightforward, Woo Bin soon found out.

He took his time in texting back: Are you going to cook for me if I say I haven't yet?

Not today :) was her immediate reply.

Soon came another: But you shouldn't let yourself starve. You might get sick again.

Woo Bin smiled, despite himself. So this is what it feels like to have Ga Eul-yang worry about me. It feels wonderful. Perhaps I should get sick more often, then.

Do that and I really won't cook for you.

"Vindictive girl," Woo Bin said to himself. He leaned back on his chair, wondering what to say next before settling on: I'll be eating soon, Teacher Chu. Thank you for thinking of me.

It's your fault. You're making it difficult for me not to.

He stared at his phone, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Did Ga Eul just-?

His phone beeped again. I mean that in the worst way possible :)

"Aish, this girl," Woo Bin said, laughing quietly now. What was he to do with her?

He placed his phone at the side and began working again, feeling energized all of a sudden.

Twenty minutes later found him dialing the Shinhwa heir's number rather quickly.

Jun Pyo answered after the fifth ring with a rather curt, "What do you want?"

"Anyone ever told you your phone etiquette needs some work?" Woo Bin asked him, swinging his chair so that it was facing the window. The view from here was spectacular; he wondered if Ga Eul ever saw it, when she was here. He made a mental note to ask her.

"Anyone ever told you I don't care?" Jun Pyo shot back. "Get to the point. I'm busy."

Woo Bin chuckled. "Yo, my man. What if it's the lovely and incomparable Jan Di who had called you? Will you still be as callous to her as you are with me?"

"Obviously, you're not her, so I don't have to answer that." Jun Pyo then spoke away from the phone - most likely issuing some mundane command at the poor soul attending to him - before coming back with, "Why are you calling?"

"Because I miss talking with the person I hold dearest to my heart?"

"Ya! You want to die?" Jun Pyo barked. "Why are you saying weird things like that?"

Woo Bin rolled his eyes. "Chill, bro. I'm calling partly because I want to annoy you - but mostly because of business. Aren't you just glad we're working together?" He opened the folder with the Shinhwa logo embossed on it and said, "I read your latest letter. Why are you suddenly proposing to add two floors to the building?"

"I sent that last week and you're only calling me about it now?"

Woo Bin coughed into his hand. "Sorry. I was a bit... indisposed."

"Out whoring, you mean."

"You say 'out whoring' like you know what it means." Woo Bin grinned, choosing not to take offense at Jun Pyo's barb. He'd be more saner that way.

"Of course I know what it means! Do you think I'm an idiot?"

Woo Bin chose not to directly answer that as well. He coughed again before saying, "Bro. You do realize that making the building bigger means having to dig deeper and wider into the ground, don't you?"

He could almost imagine Jun Pyo rolling his eyes as he said, "Then do it. I don't see how that's a problem."

"And that's why I'm the contractor, not you." He'd been keeping tabs on the Shinhwa building even if he was not in the office, being that it was his pet project and all. Suffice to say, this sudden change would surely throw a wrench in their five-month schedule. Woo Bin checked the latest progress report before adding, rather curtly, "The foundation's already being poured as we speak. We need to make certain adjustments if we're to accommodate this addition. And given that this is not something we initially agreed as part of our scope of work-"

"Don't bore me with those things," Jun Pyo groused. "What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying this change isn't something we can just take into effect without redoing some of our earlier work." Woo Bin went back to the progress report he had and grimaced. Man, what a waste. "Like I said, we need to dig deeper and wider into the ground. This will entail additional effort on our part and, of course-"

"Money?"

Woo Bin blinked. He really shouldn't be surprised at how smart Jun Pyo could be in some things, but it still caught him off-guard at times. "Well, now that you mentioned it-"

"Charge it to the school, then," Jun Pyo said, sounding tired. "They're the ones who decided on changing things at the last minute. And before you say it, yes, I'm aware that this means the contract will have to be amended and extended beyond the five-month period we initially agreed on."

"Have I mentioned how glad I am that you and I are speaking the same language?" Woo Bin smiled. He opened his e-mail, thinking of how he would phrase this development to his staff. "I'll have my people draw up the estimates, then I'll give you a call so we can amend the contract accordingly."

"Do what you want," Jun Pyo said, sounding pragmatic. "Just do it well."

"Don't I always?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"No." Woo Bin cleared his throat. "Anyway. I know the great and mighty Shinhwa heir is busy and all so-"

"Ya, listen. Before you hang up-" Jun Pyo spoke the next words rather quietly: "-have you heard what had happened to Yi Jung in Sweden?"

Woo Bin straightened his spine before asking, rather carefully, "What happened to him?"

"Don't you know? He got robbed there." Jun Pyo swore. "Can you believe it?"

Woo Bin released the breath he was holding and asked, "You talked to him?"

"A bit, yeah. He mentioned it in passing but didn't elaborate on it. Said things like, it didn't matter, don't worry about him-"

"What an idiot," Woo Bin scoffed. "Like it's possible for the rest of us not to worry. I don't even want to know why he's bent on keeping things about that incident a secret."

"You knew?" Jun Pyo asked.

"He told me a little bit about it," Woo Bin said, trying to sound nonchalant about the topic. "I asked but it seemed like he didn't want to say much."

"What did you do?"

"What did I do?" he asked. "Why kind of question is that?"

"Ya. You have people dealing with this sort of thing, don't you?" Jun Pyo said loudly.

"Our family doesn't control the police!"

"You idiot, I meant-"

"I know what you mean," Woo Bin said, feeling faintly insulted somehow. He didn't like where this conversation was going. "For your information, I offered to send Yi Jung help but for some stupid reason he didn't want me to get involved. He told me so himself, so I let him be."

"Just like that?" The disbelief in Jun Pyo's tone was palpable.

"What else was I supposed to do? He didn't want my help, bro." Woo Bin sighed. "He's a grown man. He can take care of himself."

"Aish. It's so unlike you to be quiet when one of us is in danger," Jun Pyo said. "Especially since this is So Yi Jung we're talking about."

Woo Bin gritted his teeth, counted silently to five, before saying, "Ya. What exactly are you insinuating?"

"I'm just saying-"

Someone knocked on his door, disrupting him. Seeing that it was his assistant who'd opened it - and that he himself had little interest in listening to Jun Pyo's unspoken accusation - Woo Bin said tersely, "I have to go," before ending the call.

So much for speaking the same language, then.

"Tell them I need an estimate on what adjustments we're going to do for the construction by tomorrow morning," Woo Bin dictated to his assistant a few minutes later. "And that I'll meet with them two hours after they send me the document. Prepare lunch for all the attendees; I can tell it's going to be a long meeting."

His assistant scribbled furiously before practically running off to do as he'd been instructed.

Woo Bin then focused his attention on his computer. He needed to prepare an update for his father, and it would be as easy as shooting him an informal e-mail telling him about Shinhwa's latest proposal-

-but for some reason the words wouldn't come.

It's so unlike you to be quiet when one of us is in danger.

He closed his laptop shut with an audible click. God, how he hated it when Jun Pyo was being perceptive. But he hated it more when the Shinhwa heir was right.

And yet there was an unspoken reason why Woo Bin didn't even want to think about Yi Jung's situation, much less focus on his well-being. He wondered if Yi Jung had told Jun Pyo about it.

But if he had, surely the Shinhwa heir would have brought that up earlier...?

He rubbed his neck to release the stiffness there, hating all the complications that his very own actions brought upon him.

It's so unlike you to be quiet when one of us is in danger. Especially since this is So Yi Jung we're talking about.

Woo Bin knew exactly what Jun Pyo meant, when he said that. He just didn't want to hear it.

Still-

You've always been overprotective of your friends; that much I know about you.

Was being angry with Yi Jung enough reason to leave him alone and vulnerable in a strange, foreign country?

More so when the only effort he'd be exerting to ensure Yi Jung's protection was to actually contact someone?

He stared at the office phone pensively.

Just let it be, Woo Bin. Let me handle things here.

Screw that, bro. Better late than never.

He reached for the phone and dialed a number known only to him and his father. A gruff voice answered, after the third ring, "Yes?"

"I need a favor," was what Woo Bin said.