Chapter Text
The break room is busy like always when Zhangjing walks inside. The corners of his lips curl into a smile as he watches the interns gather like flies around the coffee machine to gossip. .
“I’m telling you, their purpose is to make my life a living hell,” Linkai leans back against the counter, the lukewarm coffee in his mug left neglected as he continues to rant about his superiors.A disinterested hum sounded from Chengcheng’s throat as he adjusted the final stick on the top of his and Linong’s pretzel pyramid.
The latter offers Linkai a sympathetic smile while reaching over to give him a pat on the shoulder, “They probably don’t mean anything by it. I heard Mr. Zhang is going to be giving out some promotions soon too. Maybe you’ll get someone else in charge of you?” Linong shrugs his shoulders and steps out of the way as Zhangjing drags a chair back to seat himself. It was an unspoken rule around the office that the interns weren’t allowed to use the tables during their breaks. There wouldn’t be any official punishment per say if they broke said rule , but if caught, they would be given twice their usual workload by the employee in charge of them
“You know when I first started working here,” Linkai ignores Linong’s kind words and turns away from the man, determined not to let anything stop him from complaining, “I thought that Feifei was nice. I think Nana pressured him into bullying me with her. They’re awful, I swear to god. I have to hide in the bathroom in order to get a break around here.” Linkai scoffs and finally takes a break from talking to take a sip from his now cold coffee. Grimacing, the man decides to set the mug down on the table. Oh well, he didn’t really come here for coffee anyway.
“Isn’t Nana an intern too?” Zhangjing questions, opening his lunch box and setting the lid neatly to the side.
“She was,” Chengcheng corrects him with an eye roll, “but Mr. Zhang realized her performance was better than like half of his employees so she got promoted. Totally unfair.”
“I don’t know,” Linong looks up from the counter to grab an orange sitting by the sink, “Kunkun and I get along pretty well.” The men beside him widen their eyes. Linkai guffaws, almost knocking his mug down in the process. Chengcheng’s eyes fill with mirth while he makes a sorry attempt at holding back his laughter.
“Did you really just call Cai Xukun ‘Kunkun’?” the man asks, raising a judgmental eyebrow. Meanwhile, Zhangjing chews his carrots quietly, trying not to seem like he’s incredibly invested in this conversation.
“The only reason you two get along is because you have a big fat crush on him. Xukun could legit order you to clean his whole apartment and go buy his groceries and you’d do it for free no questions asked,” Linkai rolls his eyes, but a smirk creeps on his lips when he sees Linong blushing.
“No! It’s not that! I just really think he’s a hard worker and he’s nice and buys me lunch sometimes and he makes sure he doesn’t leave too much work for me to-“
Linong is cut off by Linkai, who flicks Chengcheng’s head for hogging the pretzels, “Relax ‘Nongnong’. I was just joking. The fact that you’re getting so defensive makes me think that there’s some truth to what I said.”
Linong waves his hands around, destroying Linkai and Chengcheng’s creation in his flustered attempt at denying everything “No! I swear I don’t have a crush on him! I just think-“
Zhangjing drowns them out whenYanjun stalks into the room,Ziyi and Chaoze at his side. Zhangjing, happy to be around people his own age, waves them over with a bright smile on his lips. Yanjun and Chaoze sit down; however, Ziyi walks over to watch something on Linkai’s cell phone.
Chaoze leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, placing his hands behind his head. “Someone needs to turn down the temperature. I’m all hot and sweaty,“ he speaks absentmindedly, tugging at the collar of his shirt and kicking his feet up on the table. Zhangjing scrunches up his nose, of course, because they all eat there. Yanjun, however, has a different reaction.
“I know what else can make you hot and sweaty,“ he responds, a shit-eating grin forming on his face. Both Chaoze and Zhangjing gag, the former looking ready to punch Yanjun in the face. Of course, they expected Yanjun to flirt at this point, but that didn’t make it any less disgusting.
“Yanjun, you don’t really expect your flirting to work on anyone, do you? No one would fall for that,” Zhangjing teases before popping a grape into his mouth. Before Yanjun has time for a retort, Mr. Zhang walks in, sighing when he sees everyone.
“Is this why it’s so quiet out there? Why does everyone take their breaks at once? All you guys want to do is socialize. I swear I should make a limit to how many people can be in here at once...” The boss shakes his head and mumbles to himself something about “back in my day” before leaving.
Feeling a bit guilty, Zhangjing decides to quickly finish up his lunch. Mr. Zhang could get a bit scary when he was grumpy or disappointed in his employees. Too focused on his food, Zhangjing doesn’t notice the thoughtful look Yanjun directs at him while resting his chin on his hand . A smirk tugs at the corner of the younger man’s mouth as he stands up and stretches. “Zhangjing, walk back to my desk with me, I have some documents I want to go over with you,” Yanjun pulls Zhangjing’s chair back, forcing him away from the table.
“But I haven’t finished eating yet,” Zhangjing protests, a pout forming on his lips.
“I’ll take you out after work or something,” Yanjun offers, whichZhangjing finds reasonable enough. As the two walk out to their neighboring cubicles, Yanjun places a hand on the small of Zhangjing’s back. Of course, this behavior isn’t too unusual for Yanjun, but Zhangjing has a feeling something is up…