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“Get in here.”
“What can I do for you, sir?”
“You can start by getting in here when I ask.”
“What do you want, Ding You?”
“Call Chuntao into my office.”
“You couldn’t have told me this through the intercom?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because, Baishi, I need to tell her we couldn’t substantiate her harassment claim against Nangong Lie.”
“Not what I meant— Did you even investigate?!”
“And risk the security of our jobs? No.”
“Fine, I’ll get her. It might be a while, everyone’s preparing for the exhibition right now.”
“Oh, one more thing..”
“What.”
“Your ass looks great today.”
“…”
”…”
”…”
”…”
“Who do I report the Head of HR to?”
“You’re so lucky you get to wear pants.” Jingnu squirms to re-adjust her skirt. She sits up on her knees to pull the offending fabric down from where it bunches around her upper thighs. Her legs and knees press together, generating their own heat and sweating enough to make her think the skin will melt and fuse together. She sits ass to Achilles tendon; pointed heels knocked over next to her stocking-covered feet, she wiggles her toes under the netting.
“It’s never been an issue before.” Qi Yan unbuttons his blazer to roll it off his shoulders. He leans over crisscrossed legs to lay the blazer over Jingnu’s lap.
“I’ve never had to sit on the floor before.” Qi Yan taps the side of her thigh, and Jingnu leans back on her toes to lift her knees off the sealed cement ever so slightly. Qi Yan slips part of the blazer under her knees.
“My apologies, I’ll be sure to consider that next time you volunteer us to help the Merchandising Team.” He resumes the task at hand and begins stacking product below the lowest shelf while Jingnu tosses the box in between her hands.
“Merchandising and Presentation Team, first of all.” She slams the box to the ground with a thud and its contents clink inside. Qi Yan considers sliding it away from her, but she picks it up again and sets it over her lap, leaving a dusty square outline on his blazer. “More importantly! This has got to be the most uncomfortable floor on earth, like, they couldn’t have rolled carpet over it at the very least?”
“I’ll be sure to let the Director know how you feel.” Qi Yan pushes a box to the back with another box.
“While you’re at it, find out why MPT are understaffed today of all days. I shouldn’t have to do this. I have one job, and sometimes I do your job, too. Why must I do their job, as well?” Jingnu sets the box on the floor, dusts off her lap, and places her hand on the side of the box as if ready to push it. Qi Yan smiles under his sigh,
“I’ll be sure to—”
“Why are you doing it like that?” Qi Yan stops pushing his third box with the fourth box to find Jingnu’s cherry matte lips open in an appalled O -shape, she gapes and gapes with brows upturned in great concern.
“Like what?” He pulls the box toward himself slowly, hesitant to making any sudden moves.
“Like that. ” Jingnu takes the product away from Qi Yan in a swift motion. “Why are you going the long way? We won’t fit as many.” She swoops under the shelf to retrieve the boxes, leaving her bottom stick out for all who can see; Qi Yan is quick to scoot behind her in an attempt to block any passerby's view. He does a quick look around their environment to make sure the MPT and their volunteers are diligently setting up the exhibition. Jingnu resurfaces with two boxes and dust on her elbows, she sneezes the way Qi Yan imagines baby kittens do. “Oh, hi?” is Jingnu’s response to Qi Yan’s sudden presence, who stabilizes her back into a seated position with two firm hands on the hips. She regains her composure with a double clap. “Now! We have to do it the short way.”
“But, wouldn’t you say it’s all about the presentation?”
“Wrong! There’s an excessive amount of product and limited amount of space, we have to make it fit .” Jingnu begins rearranging the box in quick succession, taking them off the pile, onto the ground, turning them to please her, and putting them in place. Her torso twists with her movements, and she sheds her own blazer to roll up the sleeves of her dress-shirt.
“But the rows above have been done the long way, it won’t look—” Qi Yan leans back to watch Jingnu flutter and fret, his arms extend behind him and his ball of his palm digs into the cement.
“ But the row above— Who cares?! These are going on the floor anyway, so no one is going to see them.”
“I must insist we do it the other way.” Jingnu stops. She stops for half a second before furiously spinning the boxes. “What? Jingnu, what’s wrong?” She completes the row with a huff.
“ That’s what’s wrong.” Jingnu points a manicured fingernail at an innocuous gap between the last box in the row and the metal leg of the display. She slides another box —the long way— toward the gap and attempts to fit it in. The box misses the mark by three inches. “There’s a gap, a stupidly bigger than necessary gap.”
“Ah, I see now. You’re right, we should—”
“We can’t just leave it there, it looks stupid. And if we center this row, there’s still an unnecessary gap.” Jingnu pivots on a knee, Qi Yan winces on her behalf, and points the accusatory finger at him.
“I understand that, my love, I’m agreeing with you—” Qi Yan covers his smiling lips with a deft hand when Jingnu’s lips pucker into a pout, eyebrows knitted and cheeks as red as her lipstick. She bunches her fists before throwing them in the air.
“That’s why I said we can’t do it the long way, but no one listens to me in this house. Must I do everything on my own? Have you no shame, making your poor, innocent, overworked girlfriend fix every—”
“Baby, please—” He makes an attempt to grab her flailing hands, but she manages to evade him with every twist and turn of the wrist. The squeak of a freshly polished shoe brings Jingnu to a halt, a box being held up in the air as if she were the Statue of Liberty and Qi Yan a pecking seagull. Nangong Lie wears a badge; “Merchandising and Presentation Team” on a tacky red-white lanyard.
“So, how are you guys making out?” The two of them look up, in sync. Unblinking,
“We’re making out.”
“Manager Sunu, why are you jamming scissors into the coffee machine?”
“I need coffee.”
“And why the scissors?”
“It’s not working.”
“Breaking it with scissors won’t help either. Here, let me.”
“Ah, Ruru, my beloved. What would I ever do without you?”
“Not at work, Sunu.”
“Oh, yes, Manager Yanru, what ever would I do without you? My knight in shining armour!”
“Sunu…”
“Oh, don’t be a worrywart, Ruru, it’s just us in the breakroom.”
“The Director has eyes and ears everywhere.”
“As do you, the Li Yanru faction has been steadily expanding since you inserted your man in HR.”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“Of course not, whether you decide to overthrow and purge this company means nothing to me, you will always be my Ruru.”
“Your coffee, then, my princess.”
“Your queen, soon. And you, my king.”
“Pspspsps!” Shunu’s itches her palms against granulated carpet. She uproots rolls of lint, fragmented stone, and a gritty collaboration of dust and dirt; they embed themselves into the lines of her palm. She scrapes off the build-up on a cubicle wall while continuing her hands and knees shuffle, back perpendicular to the floor. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty!”
“Are you a cat whisperer now?” Red bottom heels dangle off a barefoot in the air; attached to long legs, attached to ass leaving a heart-shaped print on glass tabletops. Jiya tips her toes forward, and the heel slips onto Shunu’s back. It bounces off and falls to the floor with a muted thud. “You’re not going to find it that way.”
“Yeah, well,” Shunu tosses a pinch of the trail mix over her shoulder; Jiya pushes the ball of her foot into Shunu’s back, forcing a stuttered arch. “ Ah – I don’t see you helping.” She scurries around the partition, pushing a swivel chair aside. “Pspspsps, where are you, sweet one?” Shunu pulls open the filing cabinet, and a cacophony of dust bunnies stains her blouse. She coughs and bats her hands around. “Fuck, I broke a nail earlier.”
“That’s why you should always keep them trimmed!” Jiya lilts as she throws an elbow over the cubicle wall, dangling her arm and waving her neatly trimmed nails. They glisten under fluorescent lighting. Shunu pokes her head under the desk.
“You trim your nails for other reasons.” Shunu backs out from the cubicle to rest thigh on calf; her stocking and skirt are loose, crinkling under her weight. “Would you kindly get down here and give me a hand?”
“In this skirt? No fucking chance.” Jiya uncrosses her legs, her thigh is bruised light red, and crosses them again with the alternate leg on top. She tosses a paperweight in her hand and rolls it over a mousepad.
“You didn’t have to wear that skirt.” Shunu circles around the corner to shove another chair away, her nails clink against the sheet metal cabinet as she wretches it open. “Where are you, sweetums, where are you hiding?”
“Company policy mandates that as a female employee, I must wear attire befitting of my station in the feminine capacity.” Jiya bowls the paperweight, it hits the ground with a moderate thud.
“Is that–!” Shunu sprints on her hands and knees to turn the corner; her skirt catches around her knees and trips her, elbows scathing the rough carpet. The glass egg rolls lopsidedly. Shunu thumps her head on the ground; her body prostrates before the paperweight, fists clenching and tangling in her hair. When she sits up, a beaded pattern laces her forehead. She furrows the grit off with her brows. “Company policy also regulates the length of feminine attire, to avoid situations like these.” Shunu claps her hands together, she is greeted by a cloud of pollution. She places one hand on the ground and another on the table beside Jiya’s ass to stabilize herself as she stands. Her black skirt is grey around the circles of her knees, she bats away at it.
“Situations like what?” Red lips curl into a smirk as Jiya uncrosses her legs, separating her knees from each other with a slick pop. Shunu smoothes out her blouse, she turns her back to Jiya and buttons up a few forgotten holes. She trudges over to the wall cabinets and begins throwing open doors.
“Situations where the Director is going to have your head because you lost the c–” Dust bunnies and mothballs force Shunu into a coughing fit, she slams the door shut and stumbles back.
“Oh, honey, relax. It’ll turn up eventually.”
“Don’t call it an it.”
“You just called it an it.”
“That’s– Don’t turn this on me, she’s lost because you suggested hide and seek.” Shunu points her broken fingernail at the accused.
“We wouldn’t have lost it if,” Jiya slides off the table, her skirt bunches higher up on her thigh. She strides toward Shunu in two easy steps, getting close enough for the jagged nail to graze her chest, “you had been satisfied with just one round, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, sure, so we’re both equally responsible. Now, please, help me find her.” Shunu pulls her hand back, cradling it close to herself.
“The little rat probably got tired of waiting and found its way back to R&D.” Jiya bends over to grab her heels; she hooks a finger under her skirt to eliminate a long-suffering wedgie, her panties snap against damp skin. Shunu spins on her ballet flats and returns to the wall cabinets, she opens them slowly.
“R&D must be wondering where we’re at. If we don’t come back with the c–”
“Shhh…” Jiya snakes an arm around Shunu’s waist, pulling ass against crotch. She reaches for Shunu’s hand, resting on the cabinet handle, and gently pries her fingers from the door. Jiya coddles Shunu’s chest with her own hand, tapping her long nails over the buttons of her cotton dress shirt. “R&D is helping MPT with the exhibition, no one is looking for us. You can relax.” Jiya gently pets through her clothes. “How about another round, just to ease your nerves?”
“Mm, Jiy–”
The office door ricochets off the door stopper with a bang, squeaking wretchedly with every shake of its hinges. A child chirps,
“Ready or not, here I come!”
“Sijiu, how are the preparations coming along?”.
“Delightfully, Director.”
“How’s the hall?”
“Merchandising and Presentation are setting it up.”
“What else?”
“Data Analysis and Research & Development have created all the PowerPoints for you, Sir.”
“What about my guests?”
“Service is tending to all their needs, Miss Shunu and Miss Jiya are watching the child for the Prime Minister’s convenience.”
“Nothing can be amiss. My company’s debut on the global stage depends on this.”
“Manager Sunu and Manager Yanru are supervising the whole operation. They are handling everything with precision and care.”
“What a capable team I have. Sijiu, I feel good about today. The Nangong Company name will be in everyone’s mouths after tonight.”
“As you wish, Director.”