Chapter Text
11:57AM in the corner of her eye.
Zoey has been drumming her fingertips against her desk for the better part of the hour. Just her right hand, tapping rapidly around her mouse as she rolled through several windows with her left hand. The text on the screen is blurring together. Numbers and words and code all jumbling. The sooner her probation is done, the sooner she can stop watching time tick away like this.
There's an itch under her skin and a slow crawl of her nerves buzzing. She needs a kick that isn't nicotine, and as soon as it's noon sharp she'll find the rush in 300 seconds.
Maybe 245 if she takes the stairs instead of the elevator.
Yeah, she should definitely take the stairs.
She pulls up the digital clock, the second hand at 11:59:59 when she sends off a "LUNCH!" in Slack and rockets out of her chair with lunch box in hand. She nearly bowls over someone with long hair and gets some coloured strands in her mouth as she shouts back a quick "Sorry!". She doesn't wait for a response as she guns straight for the building stairs, straight down two floors to the cafeteria.
Her eyes dart around, not seeing either pink or lilac hair. Okay, she beat them both. Day, what day is it—Thursday. Thursday meant they'll grab lunch from that Asian fusion stall and she hurries to line up.
There's two people ahead of her when the elevator doors open and her crush walks out with uh, wait, she knows her. Ms. Baek, HR. She'd been her go-to person for all her onboarding and just maaaaaybe a bit mad at all her shitmillion questions about leave and pay and PTO—and she gets recognized because for sure the tall pink haired woman is glaring at her.
That is, not good. She had a final question to ask but its probably intrusive and crossing those professional-personal boundaries—"Hey!"
Oh the dulcet tones of an angel.
(Cool it, she needs to be super cool about this.)
"Wassup?" Zoey turns completely, bright smile locked in with a twinkle in her eye. Nailed it.
"You're red. Did you run down the stairs?" There's someone asking her something, words going in one ear and out the other.
She doesn't mean to ignore the other woman. It's just that her attention has been fully taken-in by the lilac haired beauty beside her.
"I mean, its a fast way to get your steps in Mira." The angel laughs, her eyes sparkling with joy despite her friend's soft 'harrumph' of disagreement. "Zoey, right?"
"Yep, but you can call me Zee or Zippy if that's easier." She's been noticed, yay! "So uh, what's good?"
"It's ah, sunny outside. And I'm sorry I have so many tech tickets." Another bright smile, if a little pinched and followed with soft exasperation. "Can I get your lunch?"
"Ru, it's literally her job."
"Oh don't worry about it. I'm here for you—all your—a-all tech problems, yanno?" Stay cool, stay cool!
"But—" There's a forceful cough coming from the cashier and the braided beauty clams up with a small embarrassed flush.
Oh shit, it's Zoey's turn already? "Orange chicken and broccoli combo, with a nestea please!"
She can feel a stare at her back and was briefly wondering if Mira from HR could read her mind. There's absolutely no way the taller woman knew she knew Rumi's lunch order(s).
There's no way, right?
"Oh that sounds good. Same for me, please!"
[ - - - ]
"Beef chow mien, no drink." Mira had her own thermos of hot yuja cha with her, thank you very much.
The new hire Ha Zoey is obnoxious, the try-hard era. All energy that can be used for laser focus.
Just not for work.
If she hadn't done her interview, a decent argument could be made for the younger woman applying just to be within the Rumi's sphere.
Mira had, of course, done the research. That was not the intent. Not before, at least. Now on the other hand...
"Why don't you join us? I promise Mira won't bite."
"Woof." She ignores the half-eye roll sent her way, her own eyes boring into Zoey.
"Is it really ok? AHEM yeah sure, I'll, I'll grab us a table!"
...It's almost pitiful.
Mira snaps her eyes back to the brightly back-lit menu signs hanging above the stall's alcove. Text in a bright red garish font that described yellowed images of food and atrocious combos. Attempts to convince her roommate that they didn't need to eat like college students had, once again, gone ignored.
She didn't take it personally.
Her eyes flicker over to meet Rumi's, "Crazy how you two have the same order."
"Hm?" There she goes, batting her doe eyes awful slow. "How crazy is it?"
"You're the math nerd."
"Mathematics and statistics are two different disciplines." Heaven help these two idiots. Missing the forest for the trees and the forest for a tree.
"Okay. So what's the probability someone else would have the same lunch order as you every day?"
"A hundred percent if they have good taste." Rumi puffs out her cheeks. But there's a fondness in her eyes.
"And an iron stomach for cheap food." She snorts, taking their tray of hot food, and starts walking towards the hapless flirt. "Or. Maybe she likes you."
Mira ignores the huff of indignation and tunes out the whispered argumentative points. She's heard them all, frankly.
She hasn't recovered from her last relationship. She's not looking for something new. She's perfectly fine focusing on her career. No, she doesn't feel lonely. Romcoms are a perfectly acceptable movie genre and so are tragedies. She is an adult and eating a pint or two of ice cream is not-indicative of heartbreak or grief from love. Dating apps are too impersonal, mixers are a scam, and speed dating events are awful and she'll mix people up.
And, the big one: there's no way someone would be interested in her.
Some times, Mira felt the urge to mimic a cartoon and try shaking some sense into her friend. Yun Rumi simply does not give herself enough grace to bloom into her full self.
Maybe what she needs is a push instead of patience.
[ - - - ]
Returning to her cubicle, Rumi slides on her compression glove and got to work. A few new emails, quickly sorted with the inbox zero process: delete, delegate, reply, differ, and archive. Next is checking Slack, and there's a funny meme of a blue cat waving at her from the chat she had with Zoey. She sends a laughing-crying emoji back while keeping a smile to herself.
This is just friendly banter. Good vibes between departments. That's all.
She opens up her spreadsheets and got to work. Lunch banter already forgotten as she crunches numbers.
Because numbers are safe. Numbers make sense.
And if they don't, then she digs further into why they don't. Triple-checking the work didn't hurt anyone.
(Okay maybe a little. Mira is always on her case about all the OT she does. And for bringing work home with her.)
There's notifications popping off on the side, but it's fine. She can get to those later.
If she needed to be reached, then email is best. She checks them in 15-minute intervals. Delete, delegate—Oh, the same blue cat from earlier? It's trying to climb up a curtain but it's too heavy, and its claws rip through the thick fabric. Poor kitty.
Reply: 'Where do you keep finding these? I feel so bad for them!'
A forwarded email from Mira's personal account. Trivia at a near-by bar, with the topic of rom-coms. Tonight was Mira's turn to get groceries.
Reply: 'Sure, it could be fun! Meet you there?'
Differ, archive. A new email pops up before she clicks out, from Zoey again.
'I make them myself :p'
Reply: 'You do? That's so cool.'
(This isn't flirting, it's just sharing something funny.)
Back to work.
[ - - - ]
Zoey blinks, that's a. Message. From the pink haired lady.
[email protected]
hey Zippee
trivia 2nite
u in?[email protected]
sure???
what kind of trivia???[email protected]
movies[email protected]
[address]
18:30
don't b late
Besides, how bad could it be?
[ - - - ]
Thank sweet baby Jesus that she has this opportunity to hang out with her crush.
She'd arrived half an hour early, raised an eyebrow at a follow-up email from HR Mira saying she couldn't make it but she let Rumi know that Zoey was coming. And she wasn't about to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Or a set-up in the...calendar? She wasn't sure if that one simile-analogy-something would work. And she spent the minutes ruminating with an iced sprite at the corner of the bar, watching the doorway for her trivia partner (eeee!) to arrive. She'd already ordered an ice tea drink to be poured as soon as a lady with lilac-purple hair shows up.
Zoey feels like she's fallen in love again at seeing Rumi's hair in a looser braid than at work. Oh what she'd do to run her fingers through those long tresses. Or with a brush. Brush first, fingers weren't that refined a method for combing.
She waves her muse over to join at the bar. But then some guy with way too long light violet bangs joins them, seriously? She couldn't catch a fuckin' break.
But then the questions started and, that was when Zoey started trying to pray to anyone out there that would take pity on her. She keeps crossing herself before each question as Rumi diligently wrote down answers on the trivia-answer sheet. Twelve years in Catholic school and she absolutely needed her one singular prayer answered now.
Forgive her lord for she has sinned and asked questions that were then rudely answered by the universe.
The last thing she wanted was to look like a dumbass with Rumi, but it could not be helped. And the mysterious guy was answering some questions, here and there.
What cross-dressing romcom title is based off of a Shakespearean play? What's the movie that had the female lead in a magazine publishing house writing an article on dating from 2003? A movie based off a self-help book from the 2004 and got a film adaptation in 2009? What's a cult classic title with three words starring SJP?
At least she knew the bonus question's answer. ("'The Devil Wears Prada' is classified as a romcom but is more of a comedy-drama for young career people movie.") It wasn't worth much, but, at least their team ended up in the middle of the rankings instead of at the bottom.
Zoey'll simply have to pay more attention to the next topic for trivia night, that's all.
But the commute home was another blessing in disguise. She and Rumi made their way to the same station ("No, I don't know that guy's name. I've been calling him 'Mystery' for weeks. It uhm, I think it's too awkward to ask him what his real name is now." Rumi's blush is SO pretty.), took the same train ("Do you like movies?" "Yeah who doesn't? The sound, the pictures, the acting and the stories—even a bad movie can be fun to watch!"), and ended up at the same apartment building lobby! ("Whoa, wait are we neighbours?" "How come I've never seen you around?" "I'm house-sitting for my cousin, she's studying at SNU.")
These were some, pretty crazy odds??
Throw in Mira with a bag of convenience store goods who just happened to be in the lobby and walked with them into the elevator that she'd been waiting for? Pretty unusual. But they didn't live on the same floor so...this was all a coincidence, right? Probably.
But maybe she should definitely play the lottery tomorrow. Just the scratchers.
"So. How was trivia night?" The pink-haired lady seems to ask more out of boredom than interest.
"Good." Rumi smiles, "We did alright."
"Uh, we came in 5th out of 8 teams." Zoey grins bashfully.
"Huh. Get good." Her eyes go wide at seeing Rumi nudge the other woman. "What?"
"If we had you on the team, we could've made it to the top three."
"There's always next week." Zoey says, playing things off.
She couldn't wait for next week.