Work Text:
The gentle murmur of a thousand voices filled the air as you mutely sat in your seat in the darkened auditorium . You could barely understand the languages of any of the passing conversations around you of various diplomats and corporate representatives around you. Everyone seemed very unfriendly, unapproachable, and older. did you mention older? Pant suits and ties and stiff business attire as far as the eye could see.
You , in your nicest hoodie you could find, attempted to slunk lower into your seat.
This wasn't your crowd by choice, of course. You had working at the company for only a few weeks now. You had been one of the last ones in the office, working away touching up this report and posting the minutes to that meeting. Not that any of this stuff has been YOUR job to complete but rather the jobs of some of your more unscrupulous coworkers had pushed on to you so they could leave early.
You could say you a bit more than a bit bitter.
As you finished up the last of the paperwork, getting up to leave, a disheveled man and run into the room, looking wilding around before spotting you and making a mad dash to your desk. Startled you dropped several of the reports ( great) and had backed away slightly from the man.
"uh"
"YOU! You there! What are you doing this weekend?!"
"uuuhhhhhh. . . "
So, that's how you ended up going to Copenhagen for the weekend. Some bright spark from middle management had fudged up the RSVP for the conference and you now were representing the company for the climate conference.
You had tried to protest going but the only other people available to go were in labor at the hospital, on another conference and the man who had ran up to you that night, confessed to be an a no fly list and had not told the employer about it before hand.
As it was,you had quite literally been the last person in the building even remotely qualified to go. Even thought you were SURE one of the cleaning staff had a MBA but had suspiciously pretended not to understand your pleas for help.
You would remember that for later.
With less than 3 hours to leave before the flight you had threw together a luggage last minute and boarded the plane with very little time to spare. At least first class had been cool as hell. The leg room was more that your desk that was for sure. And you had many drinks on the company dime.
What was less cool was when you had touched down in Denmark and then immediately got lost to the hotel. Once you had found your way to the hotel, you had barley the time to lie-down when you gotten a very unpleasant call from your boss that had involved the phrases" don't fuck up" and " don't make us look bad" and " might keep your job"
Great.
The background noise of the crowd was slowly broken up as people went to their seats. As everyone got settled, you vaguely hoped you could see past the person who would end up sitting in front of you.
" Sorry ! Sorry sorry sorry!"
A soft voice from somewhere around your left was the only warning you got before someone jostled your elbow as they sat, you turned to say something indignantly to them but stopped when you saw their face.
The voice, as it was, had come from the cute round face of a cute round lady who was seating herself next to you.
She patted your arm apologetically.
"Oh! I'm sorry I bumped into you!"
" It's no problem" you blurted out before you could stop yourself. You couldn't help but staring at her face, there was something about her big brown eyes you were transfixed on.
Beaming at you, she got settled , glancing at the stage and adjusting her glasses accordingly. they were similar those big thick glasses those pretentious guys from accounting wore, but suddenly they didn't seem so pretentious at all.
" I don't think we've met" she said excitedly , leaning over to you, reducing your insides to sudden squiggles. " I'm Mei!" and she offered her hand
"o-oh!" you stammered "I'm Y/N!" and you shook her hand, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically.
Mei giggled.
" It's great to see another young face around here" She joked "These conferences can seem so intimidating sometimes when your alone!"
"uh yeah totally!"
The lights suddenly dimmed and the auditorium got a lot quieter as the lights focused on the stage.
Mei suddenly patting your arm again made you jump once more, she beckoned you closer and you could feel the hairs on your neck stand as she whispered in your ear.
" I hate to bother you again but I'm sorry if I talk during the conference, I'm such a chatterbox!"
"Oh no no!" you whispered back " its fine! really! I don't mind if you talk to me at all"
She stifled another giggle as she gave you an appreciative grin.
It was then you knew that you were so doomed, there was no way you were going to remember anything about this panel if you had this cutie whispering in your ear the whole time.
It started well enough, a man had gone on stage and had started talking about climate models ,gesturing to this and that panel. Sweeping your eyes across the room, you survey several people nodding in agreement and several frowning.
You have no idea what was going on.
"Ugh!" Mei said under her breath "Can you believe he's referencing that model? It's so outdated"
Looking back to the screen, you saw some sort of equation next to several graphs. Several of them even looked vaguely familiar.
" Oh I know" you said seriously, not knowing at all. " It doesn't even include Chaitin's constant."
"I know!" Mei replied, seemingly agitated" It completely misses- Wait. . . "
She looked over at you confused, before punching you in the arm playfully
" Your teasing me!" She whispered furiously
" I am not."
" You are!"
The panel was much more interesting after that. At one point you were sure the two of you would be tossed out for being too rowdy when the chairman of a company whose name you couldn't remember had come up on stage, and his very very fake hair had misaligned with his head and had been perched precariously on his head, looking to be in danger of falling off at any moment. His omnic assistant standing at his shoulder had looked very confused on how to deal with the situation, and it seemed everyone in the crowd had been doing their best to ignore it and respect this elderly individual as he spoke.
You and Mei had been reduced to covering your mouths in an attempt to stop giggling. Failing that, the two of you excused yourselves from the room and immediately went for the farthest room from the panel the two of you could find before bursting out into fits of laughter.
" This is the best conference I've ever been to!" Mei had examined when she was able to breathe normally again hiccupping between giggles.
"ohhh goooood" was the only thing you had managed to say, your head spinning from laughing too much.
The rest of the evening was just as great. You and mei had gone out for dinner together to a cute little local place, where Mei introduced you to a few of her colleagues. It was weird they seemed so much older than her but you brushed it off. Having managed to snag a few business cards to name drop to your boss so you could prove you had actually done something, you spent the rest of the night with Mei going bar to bar. Mei was so personable and friendly she seemed to make friends at every placed she went. You hardly had to do any talking at all, opting to soak it all in and bask in Mei's enthusiasm.
It was very late in the evening ( morning?) when the two of you meandered back to the conference hotel. Mei's hair was tousled and messy, and there was a pink in her cheeks, either from all the grinning or the alcohol or a mixture of both. Somehow she had not run out of things to talk about the whole night and was jabbering away as the two of you entered the elevator, affectionately clinging to your arm the whole while.
When the elevator stopping suddenly at her floor seemed to bring her out of her happy stupor.
" Oh! this is my floor!" she whined softly
Glancing up at you, she paused for a moment chewing on her lip before grabbing your arm tightly and pulling it, dragging you down closer to her.
" hey wai-" was all you had managed to say before she had pressed her lips to yours and had, somewhat sloppily but passionately kissed you .
Caught off guard, you missed closing your eyes to kiss her but you did knock into her forehead.
" Oh! Ouch!"
The both of you had parted and rubbed at the red marks on your foreheads before looking to the other and laughing once more.
" Good night Y/n" was the last thing Mei had said cheekily before hugging you one last time and hopping of the elevator.
For the rest of the night, you had ridden the high of that kiss. Lying in bed you had wondered just where the hell Mei had been all your life before going to bed for the night.
In the morning you had risen early , eager to meet Mei downstairs. You couldn't find her at the restaurant or anywhere else.
Deeply disappointed you had settled into the mornings panels and workshops in a very dejected mood. At lunch you fruitlessly tried to search for her again, but you couldn't find a trace of her in the crowd.
At the end of the day you slowly walked back to your room. What had happened? Hadn't Mei had a good time last night? Had you not said enough?? These thoughts had swirled in your head al lday and you were no closer to a answer than before.
Stepping into your room, you had been vaguely wondering about what you needed to pack up for checkout later when you realized you had stepped on something coming into the room.
There was a folded paper on the floor, clearly someone had slipped it under the door. Curiously , you had opened it to find it was a note from Mei!
breathing a sigh of relief, you were eager to read that Mei had wanted to meet you in the morning but had been distracted by one of her old Overwatch colleagues (Mei used to be in Overwatch?! That so cool!) and had lost track of the day. She had left her email and phone number in the letter, along with a very promising winky face and signature.
The rest of evening was spent packing and texting back and forth with Mei. Her texts were just as bubbly as she was, and you had plenty to read as you checked out and boarded the plane for the night.
Stretching out in first class, you had wished each other good night and had put the phone down. You has been on the edges of sleep when your phone lit up with another message.
Curiously, you checked your phone.
There was one last message from Mei, right under her good night wishes.
All it said was :
"Something for you to think about ;) "
And an attachment.
You opened the attachment and waited for it to load, taking a drink from your glass a water before glancing at the phone again and-
you nearly dropped your phone as you choked on the water, spilling some of it on your blanket
Oh. . .
Oh my. . .
~
Mei giggled to herself in the dark bedroom. She had been really sad that she had missed you before you left but it turned out she had left the note at the right room! ( thank god!) and from the way you left the last message she sent on read she was more than assured you would happily be replying to her in the future.
She had missed so much being in cryo for so long. So she intended to do a lot of catching up.
A LOT of catching up.