"Hi, uh, so." Wooyoung desperately tries to shake off the blankness that washed over him as soon as the pretty receptionist looked up from his laptop and smiled at him. "Do you have a phone?"
A moment passes. Wooyoung wants to facepalm.
~~~
Growing...
The chapter title pretty much a dead giveaway - meet Yunho! :)
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As much as he tries to, San just can't focus on his work tasks. His thoughts keep on jumping from one place to the next: the starry night sky with Mingi – Mingi lost in his thoughts, Mingi laughing, Mingi's warm hugs. Getting up extra early in the morning to brew coffee while wondering what spending time with Wooyoung would be like. The beach – Wooyoung leaning in close and waiting with bated breath, kissing Wooyoung. The stars in Mingi's eyes when he talks about Yunho, or about writing songs, and sometimes, recently, also when he talks to San.
Did Yunho arrive on the island already?
It's nerve-wracking. The afternoon seems to last longer than usual. San spaces out every second time he talks to a guest for longer than a minute. Needless to say that none of the hotel guests, who are expecting excellent service for the extraordinary amounts of money they paid for their stay at the hotel, are thrilled about his lack of attention.
By the end of the day, San is done. Done with the day, done with his job, done with any kind of living being in the hotel.
It doesn't help, then, that the first person he crosses ways with as soon as he closes up the reception and steps outside to get some fresh air, is Jeong Yunho of all people.
San hasn't met Yunho personally up until now. He heard Mingi talk about him, but that's it – he has no idea what Yunho even looks like. He feels a sense of foreboding, though, when on his urgent way outside and far away from the hotel, he bumps into a guy around his age he's never seen around before.
"Sorry," San excuses himself, bowing out of instinct.
"Oh, it's alright," the stranger dismisses, "I wasn't looking where I was going. I'm just waiting here, I'm sorry."
San pauses. That kind of behaviour doesn't fit their usual clientele. And now that he's taking a good look at the guy, it's pretty obvious that his clothes, too, are very different from the high-quality stuff that most of their guests wear, inconspicuous designer labels stitched to the top left of plaited shirts. The guy standing in front of him, with an unnecessary friendly smile that does almost nothing to appease San's mood, is wearing sweatpants and has a grey hood lying on top of his jacket - sweatpants and a grey hoodie, apparently.
San wants to scowl at the stranger for just standing there and being so nice – but four weeks of training to smile at the most exhausting, annoying customers, make the corners of his mouth pull upwards on their own accord.
"Don't worry," San hears himself say. With a little dread coiling in his stomach, he lets his smile widen a little: "I'm Choi San. I haven't seen you around the hotel before."
The stranger sheepishly grins back. "Oh, you wouldn't have. I'm just here for the day, I'm visiting a friend."
