Any employee will tell you that one of the best rooms is the break room and Level 1 is probably no different. Sitting opposite the Junior and Senior Undersecretary's and the Minister of Magic's offices, the Break Room is an area for employees to sit, relax and not have to think about work for once. Bright yellow sofas and blue chairs with yellow cushions are spread around one side of the break room, giving off a very positive atmosphere. Maybe that was the intention all along?

A door from the Break Room leads to the Kitchens, which is a place for the employees to heat up and prepare any food they've brought along. A number of appliances can be found here, all of which work from the tap of a wand. Overhead drawers can be found, each with the necessary supplies and a nametags for people to place their food to store for later. After all, you wouldn't want someone else eating your sandwich, would you?

Kick back, relax and use up anything you need in here.

Lawrence whistled as he walked towards the break room but immediately stopped when he realized what he was doing. Whistling. At work. Merlin, what was wrong with him? But the level 1 break room always made him feel gooood with the fluffy yellow cushions and comfy blue chairs and - ugh, yeah Lawrence Lee officially had a mental problem.

It was fairly early in the morning as the ministry advisor entered the break room after dropping his stuff down on his desk. He had brought lunch today as usual and was planning to store it for later. Grilled chicken wrap. Yum. He actually made it himself, which made it extra special and yummy delicious.

The tall man looked into the overhead drawers to find kitchen supplies yada yada yada and ooh name tags. This would stop people from eating his food yeah? Lawrence reached into the drawer and pulled out a nametag, stuck it onto the wrap and tossed it into the fridge. Then he sat down on a bright yellow sofa for a morning coffee break before going back to his lovely pile of documents to work with.


Little did he know that the nametag he fished out in fact read "Delphine Cavanagh".

After dropping his bag at his desk, Daichi yawned and scratched the back of his head causing his hair to stand in different directions. He hadn't exactly had a good night of sleep and his usual fresh and awake look was definitely different today.

He just needed to eat something and he'd be alright. He sniffed loudly as he entered the break room and he mumbled to himself. Was he getting a cold? oh come on, not now. He rubbed his nose when he realised he wasn't the only one in the break room. He quickly lowered his hand and smiled.

"Morning" he just said and went to a cabinet in the kitchen to grab a bag of chicken soup he had left the other day. Pushing aside some of the supplies, he found the bag with his nametag on it and smiled. Next he stooped down to open a cabinet below it to grab a bowl and then went to sit in one of the empty chairs. The twenty three year old ripped open the bag and added the soup to the bowl. Next with the help of some magic he added water and boiled it.

Sniffing again, he sat back in the chair and waited for the soup to cool down.

A loud sniff. That was no good.

Lawrence frowned as somebody broke the silence of his break room. Oh, it was just the new guy. He could understand that people had runny noses when they got a cold, but the fact that the man's hair was sticking in all directions? That was not professional at all.

He simply nodded in acknowledgement as the guy greeted him. Lawrence took a sip of his coffee and thought about his work for the day. He didn't really care about what the other person was doing, until the smell of hot soup reached his nose. Nice solution for the cold. The almost thirty-year-old shifted so that he could see the man directly in the eye.

"Hello, I'm Lawrence. Lawrence Lee," he introduced himself JUST IN CASE he didn't know. He should know considering how famous Lawrence was going to be. "I'm the ministry advisor, I mean, one of the ministry advisors." He corrected himself just in time. Even though he did not interact with Tiffany much, she was still made a pretty good colleague.

Coffee.

She needed coffee and she needed it N-O-W. Now. The brunette wasted no time throwing all her belongings onto her chair before practically marching her way into the break room (which is actually difficult to do in heels, by the way). She NEEDED coffee. Never mind the two cups she already had before leaving her flat this morning. They did NOTHING.

She couldn't even feel the effects. She needed a heavy blast of caffeine.

Now where did they keep the bloody coffee filters here?!?! She needed like five. Stat. And the most heavily caffeinated ones she could get her hands on too, this was serious. Tiffany Price was a mess. And so was this stupid break room because she was most definitely pulling every drawer open and turning the place upside down in attempt to find this stupid coffee machine. If only she checked the counter.

WHERE WAS IT?????

"Stupid idiot keeping me up all night. Doesn't know what he's doing to my head. Need coffee. What a prat. I hate him and his stupid smile and those stupid clothes and his stupid perfect hair and that stupid watch and that stupid-- AH!" So she was a little frustrated?

Sleep deprivation was real.

As easy as it was to pretend otherwise, it was really no coincidence that Ezra had shown up in the break room right behind a certain someone. Even if he hadn't been sitting in his cubicle just waiting for the sound of those heels, it would have been hard to miss the stomping steps as they went by. Luckily for HER he'd been paying very close attention, and had slid out of his own cubicle to follow her without even having to walk quietly on account of the bloody ruckus she was making. There was no use even pretending to be talking to anybody else on the way, because the noise made that quite impossible. Not that there was anybody else worth his time and energy, but she didn't have to know that.

He leaned against the door frame and adjusted the cuffs of freshly-pressed shirt as he watched her...flail about. While he'd somehow managed to keep a straight face up until then, he had to bite his lip to hold back an explosion of laughter once the grumbling began. A prat, eh? That was a new one. Ezra waited until Tiffany had finished cursing all his perfection (it couldn't be in reference to anybody else. Obviously. As if anyone else could be on her mind. Nonsense. Right? Right.) before clearing his throat delicately and smirking. "Looking for something?" Or someone. That worked too.

She was so enraptured in her task of taking the place completely apart that she took no notice of Ezra's presence by the door frame. So she just kept grumbling and throwing open drawers. In a mad rage, probably. Until. Her eyes grew maybe like three fourths their normal size at the sound of HIS voice. And an audible angry, cry of despair may have slipped in he process of realizing exactly who the door-frame stalker was. Sweet. Merlin. Of course.

And so, Tiffany Price attempted to pull herself together, holding a random wooden spoon that was most likely about to be thrown across the room in hand she turned to face Ezra with a forced smile on her face. "If you must know, I'm looking for coffee." Ahem. She was absolutely mortified. "Do you know where it's hidden?" Probably not the counter. He shouldn't check the counter. Far too obvious of a hiding spot.

"And you can go ahead and wipe that bloody smirk off your face," if was far too humiliating to look at. He actually caught her red handed. She really was losing for once. What a turn of events. What an absolute prat. "Because I wasn't talking about you." Wait, what? Someone give the woman an oscar. This was all improv. Actress of the year. HA. How to Succeed in Deception Without Really Trying. Tiffany Price had solved her own problem. HA. Who was losing now? Oh yeah, not her. Because she was clever. HA.

Merlin. What a sound. Ezra's smirk grew more defined (it's possible, okay) as he continued to watch the spectacle that was Tiffany Price. It wasn't as if she wasn't always a spectacle, because she certainly was. It was usually just for...different reasons. Most definitely different.

One of his eyebrows disappeared under an artfully placed lock of hair as moved away from the doorframe. Where it was hidden? His eyes searched the room for approximately 3 seconds before he spotted the appliance in question and strode over to it, passing her with the smallest amount of space between them that was possible without actually making contact. Work environment, or whatever. Plus she had a spoon. "Luckily for you, they do share that sort of information with people with my level of importance." He turned to flash her a huge smile before giving the coffee maker a tap with his wand.
"Don't you worry sweetie, if you wave that spoon at them enough I'm sure they'll teach you how to look properly." Once a mug from one of the cabinets she'd left ajar was filled to the brim, he went to stand juuuust more than an arm's length away from her with the mug held right below his bottom lip.

Leaning a hip against the counter, Ezra set a smirk back in place. "Make me." If Tiffany hadn't been in such a state of hysteria, there was a chance he would've believed her when he said it hadn't been about him. Well, not really because that'd be preposterous in any situation, but there was a chance he'd entertain the idea. Not now, though, oh no. Any idiot could see through that in a second, and Ezra Bellamy was anything but an idiot. He tried to arrange his face into a worried look but the smirk wouldn't budge. "Well that's quite a shame, now isn't it. Tell me more about this--what was it? Perfect prat? It must take quite an individual to keep The Tiffany Price up all night."

She hated that bloody smirk of his. She'd pay money to see it be wiped off that stupid face of his. Who the heck thought it'd be a good idea to let his parents procreate and give Ezra Bellamy the genetics of a god??? It was incredibly infuriating and she couldn't do anything, but return his smirk with a forced smile. A forced smile, but no teeth because currently they were occupied with biting down on the inside of her cheeks. She hated him. Absolutely hated him. Okay, no. That wasn't at all true and it didn't take an idiot to figure it out. But she couldn't let him have the satisfaction of knowing just how crazy he made her. She was supposed to be the one doing that to him. U G H.

She hated everything about him. The way he wore that stupid smirk. The way his hair was so stupidly perfect all the time, even when he looked frazzled. The way he stepped so close to her and made her skin curl even without contact. The way he located that stupid coffee--wait, what? As if the humiliation of her grumbled words weren't enough to bring color to her cheeks, this whole bloody office was out to make her look like an idiot too!! It wasn't her fault that she normally bought fine coffee on her way to work, every day. It wasn't her fault that she had been running late this morning. It was HIS fault. His fault that she couldn't fall asleep. His fault that she missed her proper alarm. His fault that she didn't have time to buy good coffee on her way to work. Also this utter humiliation was definitely his fault. But she couldn't give him the satisfaction of that either.

Her lips shaped themselves into a perfect 'O', though she was very much ready to explode with rage. "Oh." Another smile forced itself his way. "They should really put that thing in a cabinet. I for one don't fancy dust in my morning brew." Eat dust, Bellamy. Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating. What a prick. She also hadn't realized that she was still holding the wooden spoon in the air, until he oh-so-graciously pointed it out. Oh. Again. "Heh," with a fake laugh she quickly placed the spoon in one of the still-open drawers and closed it shut. Right. Merlin. She REALLY needed the coffee now. But first a mug. And OF COURSE he had to place himself right in her way. He was doing this all on purpose. She was sure of it. Not wanting to ask anything of him because that'd mean even more humiliation, she managed to lean forward just enough to grab a mug off the cabinet, accidentally brushing her elbow across his torso as she did so. And yes, she was ignoring the stupid electricity that buzzed down her spine in response. Anyways. Without another word the brunette reached into her pur--Could there have been a worse time to forget it on her chair? Her lips curled. "....You wouldn't mind giving that machine another tap, would you?" she asked in the best sweet voice she could muster at the moment.

Could this get any worse? Oh wait, IT COULD. Because Ezra Bellamy was asking about the man who was ruining her beauty sleep. And Tiffany couldn't just tell him about that bloody 'Perfect Prat' because it was HIM. "Oh well, he's a bit shy... Probably wouldn't want me rambling on about him," but one look at his stupid smirking face and merlin, Tiffany couldn't let herself back down like that. He'd see right through her. Her imagine would be completely tarnished. "If you must know, he works here too." And that's the part where Tiffany began to index every single man she had ever encountered in this stupid building. But there was one problem. Tiffany encountered loads of them, but only one was ever worth paying attention to. "On level six, actually." The Department of.... Um.

Whatever. Like it mattered. That's all he was getting.

He made no effort to keep Tiffany from doing that smile...thing...that he himself tended to reserve for crying children and those horrid plastic sandals that people never seemed to let go of despite the fact that they clashed with everything imaginable. There was no use, really, and Ezra surely wouldn't give up a perfectly good opportunity to stare shamelessly at her lips for an extended period of time. To occupy himself in any other way would simply be an oversight, and a Bellamy did not waste his time with oversights.

Dust. In her morning brew. DUST. Was that really the best she could come up with? Merlin, she really did have her knickers in a twist. But, uh, thoughts of knickers were to be avoided at all cost. Right. Riiiiiight. RIIIIGHT. He put on a lazy grin to cover up his hesitation, but by the time he'd opened his mouth to reply there was an elbow on his torso. Why helloooo there. This was no time for feeling melty Bellamy for the love of Merlin pull it together. Ahem. "Careful now. You wouldn't want your perfect prat to get jealous, would you?" Good thing there wasn't really anybody else because that poor bloke wouldn't stand a chance. Obviously. His grin widened as he set his own mug back on the counter and removed his wand from his back pocket, giving it a twirl between his fingers. "I suppose I could do that...for you." He let his fingers linger on her mug before taking it from her and turning painfully slowly towards the coffee maker. After an exaggeratedly precise tap of his wand, he turned back again at a sluggish pace and stood next to Tiffany with the full mug extended towards her. "But you owe me."

Merlin. Level six. At least she hadn't chosen level four, as there was no doubt Ezra wouldn't be able to hold himself together if that had been the case. Magical Transportation wasn't exactly the height of glamour, but at least it was better than creatures. Anything was better than creatures. He tried to seem interested in her description of the imaginary man, he really did, but by the end of her stalling he was back to staring at her lips again. Oops? Her fault, not his. It was always her fault, remember? That had always been one of the rules. "He sounds like quite a charmer. This, er, prat of yours." He finally met her eyes again with his mouth right back in its trademark smirk. "I hope he doesn't mind a bit of competition, being so fictitious--my apologies--shy. And all that."

Oops?

He was enjoying this wasn't he? She could see it on his face. And it made hers sour even more. There wasn't any way out of this and she knew it. And she hated him for it. Yet here she was. Ezra Bellamy was a complete prick and there was nothing that anyone else could say about it to change her mind. Nothing even Ezra Bellamy could say about it.

Which is why his next words drove her absolutely INSANE. "Why, are you speaking from experience?" Because you know what? Why should he be jealous of her perfect prat. Never mind that her perfect prat was Ezra, but in a world where it wasn't Ezra. He should be fuming. So why wasn't he? You know, maybe this is what she needed. Forget pretending. She'd go and find her own perfect prat to drive Ezra bloody insane and then Tiffany would be the sane one again. It was a master plan. There were only a few problems. Namely that she didn't know any other eligible bachelors in the ministry. And you know, the worst part of this whole thing wasn't how mortified she felt, but it was how completely powerless she was. No wand. No dignity. No real perfect prat to back up her claims. She was so far behind in the game that she might as well be playing a completely different set all together. "Thanks," she said through gritted teeth, clearly not meaning thanks at all.

Tiffany watched him carefully. Every little thing he did irritated her so very much. Y'know what, she was going to make this imaginary man so entirely believable that he'd have to-- did Ezra just say what she thought he said? THE NERVE. She almost spit out the sip of coffee she had just a moment ago. "Oh don't worry, he's actually much more mature than some people." So she may have not spat out her coffee, but she was really spitting out every word with rage. Ahem. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have things to do." And with that she marched away, letting her heels click-clack as she went and leaving Ezra behind along with the mess she made of the breakroom. He could deal with it.

Considering how long he'd spent perfecting that easy smile, it really was a wonder that Tiffany could even look so disgusted in his presence. Her face seemed to suggest anything BUT a coffee break with the only very most eligible bachelor in all of the ministry, and last time Ezra had checked that was exactly what was going on there. That was quite an undeniable talent. It was ALMOST as undeniable as the utter ridiculousness of her next claim, because Ezra Bellamy did not get jealous as a rule. Other people got jealous of him, that was simply the way of the universe. Tiffany of all people should have realized that by now. "Even someone in your state wouldn't believe that, I'm sure." Him jealous. Honestly.

Alright, fine. Maybe he was very much the jealous type and maybe his smile was beginning to fray around the edges because maybe somewhere in the back of his mind the idea of there being someone else was being entertained. Maybe. Of course such ideas were to be restricted purely to the hypothetical on account of the very important situation of his reputation, which Tiffany did appear to hold in her hands at this point. This entire thing was for her, okay? She obviously didn't go for just anybody so his reputation couldn't be that of just anybody's, it was as simple as that. He needed a little bit of that reputation for himself as well, so clearly between the two of them it was a matter of great importance. Well, he needed a lot of it. Most of it. Almost all of it? Same THING.

His coffee cup was still held aloft though he made no move to actually drink from it on account of very important smirking that was not to be interrupted. Ezra hadn't even wanted the drink in the first place, but it was far too much fun to watch her be desperate for him (that had to be the reason for all this, of course. There was no other option) for him to pass up the opportunity. But by the time he'd opened his mouth to respond to her comment, she was gone.

Uh.

Uhhh.

The media liaison didn't move from his position leaning against the counter. She would be back, surely. Tiffany Price was certainly extraordinary but she wouldn't just leave him standing there. She would be back. She had to be. The seconds ticked by as he ran a hand over his hair and adjusted his glasses. He said his untouched coffee next to hers. The seconds kept passing. The sound of his watch ticking had grown painfully loud by the time he cleared his throat and said, "Tiffany?" It'd come out much more high pitched than he'd meant it to be but he wasn't even sure if anybody could hear him. He cleared his throat again, chewing on his bottom lip and fiddling with the starched cuffs of his shirt. "I...er....sorry." Merlin, he should've stayed in that cubicle.