Sunrise

Chapter 2

The next few days move slowly, and before we know it, it's Friday. I got in early to turn in my project and have been sitting at my desk doing absolutely nothing for the past three hours. I have barely spoken to Taehyung, save for a few jabs here and there, but nothing like usual. I guess he's still processing Monday's incident. I look at the clock, which reads 11:45 am, almost lunchtime. I open my desk drawer and pull out Janice's favorite romance novel. She loaned it to me two days ago, saying I should give myself a "self-care" day while reading it. I wanted to tell her that there was plenty of "self-care" in my life and that a cowboy romance book wasn't going to do it for me, but I refrained from making the situation weirder. I haven't cracked it open yet, but figure I have some time to kill before my glorious lunch break.

As if on cue, Janice steps out of her office and claps her hands loudly. "Attention everyone! Everyone has wonderfully met their deadlines for the month and so I'd like to treat us all to a team dinner tonight! Korean Barbeque! I hope everyone can make it, we'll all meet there at 7pm!" she squeals in excitement before hurrying back into her office, probably to finish whatever romance book she is reading now. At least that woman has her priorities straight.

Team dinner. It's been ages since we've had one of those. Our team isn't particularly boring, but they aren't exciting either. There are 12 of us: five middle-aged office workers, two college interns, three in their early thirties, and then Taehyung and me. Taehyung almost never comes to team dinners. It makes them all the more boring because there's no one there I can tease.

"Are you going to dinner this time or are you going to bail again?" I ask him, eager to reestablish our daily, argumentative flow.

"Yeah. It's KBBQ. I wouldn't miss it for the world. The other times were less important."

"Anything that doesn't involve meat is always less important to you." I wheel my chair over to his desk. His tie is loose, and the top of his shirt is left unbuttoned. "Janice says you're working on the Patterson design proposal. Do you think you could show it to me?"

"Yeah, I'll email it to you. Go back to your desk, you're invading my space. I feel myself losing brain cells just talking to you."

Ah yes. There it is. "As if you didn't have a low IQ to start with. Oh, by the way, I saw Martha in accounting staring at you during meetings. I better warn her that she's lusting after someone with the same number of brain cells as a rat."

"Lusting? Does she drool the same way you do when I walk by your desk?"

"Need a new eye doc?" I play with his favorite pen laying on his desk, "Looks like your eyes are deceiving you more frequently recently. A new pair of glasses can help, although I'm not opposed to the idea of you going blind."

"Mmmhmm. My eyesight is perfectly fine." He laughs to himself, never taking his eyes off his computer. "Are you going? To the dinner I mean."

"Obviously," I scoff, "free food? KBBQ? Janice knows how to win her staff."

"I figured she already had you in the palm of her hand once I saw that book you were reading. Or I guess hiding is a better word since it's been sitting in your drawer for the past two days."

My eyes widen as I realize what he's talking about. Semi-naked man book. Fuck. "I was merely obliging her. She had asked me so many times to read it. She kept calling it "self-care" and this was the only way to get her to stop bothering me." Idiot. Why did I mention self-care?

He catches the bone I unwittingly throw him. "Self-care" huh? I bet there's a lot of that built into your schedule considering your sad, lonely, single life. When was the last time you had sex? High school? College?"