Fire & Silk

7. An explanation?

   Nayeon pulled the parking brake on her car and turned it off, sitting for a moment silently beside Jeongyeon. She looked at the girl out of the corner of her eye and took a deep breath before turning toward her. "Jeongyeon I-"

Before Nayeon could even begin to ask a question, Jeongyeon groaned loudly and hung her head in her hands. "Why does Mina have to work here? Of all the people I went to law school with, she really has to be the one person who works two floors up from us? I can't believe it. I was having such a great time in my life without her." The two women sat in the car for a few more minutes, Nayeon unsure of how to console her coworker. Suddenly, Jeongyeon sat up and got out of Nayeon's car. She shut the door and walked to the front of the car, leaning on the hood. Nayeon got out and awkwardly stood beside the older woman. "I'm sorry, Nayeon. You shouldn't have to deal with my drama."

Nayeon just shook her head and gave Jeongyeon a comforting smile, patting her on the back. "It's okay. I understand that things like this happen. I mean, I don't really know what's going on, but I'm sure you've got a reason you're so upset with Ms. Myoui." Jeongyeon turned to Nayeon and gave her a half-hearted smile.

"Thanks Nayeon. I'll tell you all about my deep dark past if you agree to come to my apartment for dinner. You can bring your wife and we can celebrate this case too!" Jeongyeon said this and had a slightly bigger smile now, excited at the thought of being able to ignore her problems by hanging out with Nayeon. She hadn't known the woman for too long, but she seemed like someone she could genuinely get along with. She really liked her wife too.

The rest of the day dragged on. Nayeon and Jeongyeon wanted to just go home and celebrate the end of the case but they still had work to do. Unfortunately, Jeongyeon was back to editing and close to falling asleep. All the adrenaline she had during court was wearing off and coffee wasn't doing anything to save her. She scanned through the case report she was currently reading through and stopped to lean back. She had read the same section a few times now and realized that she wasn't actually processing anything that was written. To try and get a little more energy back, she stood up and stretched, jumping up and down a few times to get the blood in her legs going.

"Finally! I can go home!" Jeongyeon cheered from her and Nayeon's now shared office and started to pack her things. She walked out of the room and found Nayeon by the printer. She smiled when she heard her coworker talking to herself and getting angry at the machine.

"I just want to print something out. Is that too much to ask? There's really only three jobs you have and that's scanning, printing, and copying!" Nayeon huffed and pressed the buttons on the printer again, growing more and more impatient as it refused to print out the pages that she needed.

"Need some help?" Jeongyeon laughed when Nayeon jumped and took her turn to try and fix the printer. In just a few seconds, the pages that Nayeon had been working almost 10 minutes to print were neatly stacked in Jeongyeon's hand. Nayeon just rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at the older woman.

"Whatever. You know that I warmed it up for you, right?" Jeongyeon just shrugged her shoulders and followed Nayeon back to the office, waiting for her to put the papers away so they could leave.

The two women left work early since the case had taken up most of their time for the day, leaving them to deal with the rest of the day's work tomorrow. Jeongyeon took the bus back to her and Jihyo's apartment since Nayeon still had to pick Chaeyoung for their impromptu dinner. When Jeongyeon got home, she threw the door open and took her shoes off, walking over to flop down on the couch.

"Ya! You can't scare me like that! You didn't say you were coming home." Jihyo screamed when she felt the couch move and saw Jeongyeon face down, her briefcase on the ground beside her.