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She kept calling him.
It seemed like every time Seven looked down at his phone there was a missed call. Granted, hours generally pass between glances when he was engrossed in his work but it was unsettling all the same. She never left any messages, and neither did anyone else, so it clearly wasn’t anything urgent. Surely she would private message him if something was wrong.
He thought about asking Yoosung how often they called each other.
It remained a thought burning in the back of his mind; he didn’t want to cause problems between her and Yoosung. The obvious question of why she was calling him so much was something he didn’t have an answer to either. The easiest solution would be to simply call her back, but that would involve having to make her laugh, to be the 707 she could hear grinning through the call, and Seven wasn’t sure he could keep his façade for that long.
Their affection littered the chatroom. Heart filled stickers, doting comments, and awkwardly personal discussions between the two of them made Seven’s stomach lurch. He couldn’t blame her; Yoosung had such a responsive and happy personality that was easy to get sucked into. It was part of the reason teasing him was so much fun, especially when she joined in the antics. Her personality was too infectious to stop himself smiling. He was jealous, he knew that, but he didn’t expect it to affect him this strongly.
Seven did call her on occasion after he’s seen her in the chatroom and she was always happy to answer, no matter the time. His self-indulgent three am phone call asking about if the two really were all chocolate and roses with each other is what sent him into this funk in the first place. Hearing her gush about Yoosung felt getting stabbed in the chest, but he managed stay cheerful till the call ended. He couldn’t get angry because no one knew of his intentions, so ignoring her calls and sulking was the chosen alternative. The risk of playing the slow game was always getting the person swept out from under you; Seven had simply been hoping it wouldn’t have happened in less than a week.
His phone vibrating on the desk disrupted his thoughts.
Unsurprisingly, a grainy camera feed screenshot filled his screen. The picture was from one of the first days where he informed her about the camera in the apartment, which she immediately found and proceeded to make faces at. He had called in response to tease her about how ridiculous she looked and both had a good laugh. Seven lingered in the memory long enough that his phone had stopped vibrating and the missed call now displayed on the screen.
He glanced towards his computer filled with the lines of code he had been analyzing; he was ahead of schedule since he had been ignoring the chat rooms. It was the least he could do to check and make sure the apartment was fine. With a few clicks he brought up the CCTV camera feed on screen; she was sitting on the couch, knees to her chest and phone on the cushion beside her. Seven frowned at the sight, watching her fiddle with her hair in the dim lamp light. It wasn’t until he saw her phone light up that he realized he had redialed her number.
“Ah! Glad you picked up. Sorry I missed your call, I left my phone here when I went to get some more Buddha chips for my snack break. How can agent Seven Zero Seven be of service to you?” The lie slid off his tongue easily enough. Now it just had to stick.
“Am I really that similar to Rika?” The question was soft and shaky, as if the answer had the potential to break her. The façade Seven had managed to put together dropped immediately as he leaned back in his chair. No point in wasting energy pretending if she wasn’t going to put for the effort to banter back.
“Yoosung still going on about that then.” Seven made a thoughtful noise, pushing his glasses back into place as he put together his answer. “Listen, you are not Rika. She was terrific at talking to people, especially convincing them to come to the parties, and was friendly with everyone in the chatroom. But she had a much, ah, colder personality I guess is the best way to put it. Her strong points were the determination and ambition that she put towards her work, but in the same light Rika was super straightforward and didn’t joke around much. You both being able to get work done doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yoosung always talks about how she was the only one who would encourage him and take his side in things. Is that true?”
“You’re forgetting that Yoosung wasn’t always the carefree blond spending his days and nights playing LOLOL; he was a lot more serious about things. I would tease him, Rika would pretty much shut it down if she was there. The two were already pretty friendly since they were family, so the encouragement isn’t surprising. Not to mention her death hit him pretty hard,” Seven paused for a moment, leaning forward again to glance towards the CCTV feed. “He’s projecting the things he liked best about Rika onto you because he hasn’t really moved on.”
“How can I help him see me then?” She was looking at the camera, at him, for an answer. An answer that he didn’t want to give. He could lie and tell her that it might not happen, that she should back out before she gets hurt even more, but that would crush both of them. Betraying two people he cared for a shot at something that might not even happen anyway- what kind of friend would that make him?
“That’s an easy one. Just keep being you,” He managed to force himself to smile before continuing. “Because that’s who we all like the most anyway. I know my days would be so much less fun without getting to chat and joke around with.”
“What if that doesn’t work?” Seven bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything rash. More than anything he wanted to end this call and go back to his mindless work that wouldn’t make his heart hurt. Instead he took a deep breath to calm himself. He couldn’t be selfish right now.
“It will. I—everyone will be there for you the whole time okay? I’ll even pinky promise on my part.”
“Okay.” Her answer was still too soft to be convincing. This was his out. He could simply say he was busy and hang up without raising any questions, but he couldn’t find it in himself to end the call.
“Now, it’s time to stop sounding like that. You’ve got nothing to worry about remember? Tell me about your recent emails for the party." The questions spilled out with a surprising amount of energy. "Did Long Cat get back to you? Did they write the entire email in meows? Did you write an email in meows?”
Seven caught himself smiling as he listened to her talk about all the ridiculous party emails she had to send that day. Long cat did in fact type an entire email full of meows and responded in the same manner (Seven made her promise to forward the email chain to him so he could see it for himself), the oil prince had asked her which of his two sons she would marry, and the Tetris champion was coming to challenge him for his previous shenanigans. She laughed as he complained about not having enough time to practice and wanting a homemade trophy when he was victorious. There was no doubt in his mind the party would be a success with her at the helm.
The smile left his face as he glanced over at the time, reality settling back down on his shoulders.
“Ah, I should probably get back to work now. You go get some sleep. Can’t make any progress if you’re too tired to sign into the chatrooms!” He warned lightly hovering his cursor over the camera feed. She agreed, stretching before finally standing up. He said his goodbyes and quickly disconnected before anything could change his mind. Seven rubbed his face with his hands with an exasperated noise. He was pathetic. A ten minute phone call was all it took for his heart to start hoping for a chance that didn’t exist again. That’s the only thing being nice got him.
Seven stared bitterly at the screen for a few moments before closing out the CCTV feed. His anger festered without anything to focus on, so he went down the list. He wasn’t angry at her, not like people can control who they like. He wasn’t angry at Yoosung because it was Seven’s own fault for not talking to him before they got so close. Everyone else at the R.F.A. was checked off this list quickly since they weren’t really relevant to the problem.
His anger was snuffed as he realized the only one left on the list was himself. There really was no one else to blame for the situation he was in. Sure, he couldn’t control how he felt but he definitely could do a better job of keeping it in check. Seven grabbed one of the half eaten bags of chips and promptly poured the rest into his mouth. He felt a familiar heavy gloom surround him as he munched, searching for a non-empty can of soda.
He hated that he was like this.
Searching for comfort in the arms of junk food and sugary drinks helped dull the ache in his chest for a while. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when his eyes finally said enough; analyzing algorithms with bleary eyes was next to impossible without making mistakes he couldn’t afford. The next course of action was to find his way to bed for a few hours. The routine would start anew.
If everyone was happy, he would try to be too.