Blurry// RamRangz

{8}-Trail Mix

**Gaeul's POV**

It was already a pain figuring out these numbers by myself but now I had to train an incompetent teenager too?!? I found myself raising my head from my desk occasionally to check in on her. Every time I did so, she looked completely zoned out; she would be slumping in her chair, spinning around, sometimes even just looking around mindlessly.

"HYUNSEO!" I shouted quietly enough to not raise attention, "please focus and do your work."

"But Ms. Kim, I al-"

"No excuses. If you cannot fulfill your workload, then I may have to report you to Mrs. Choi. It is imperative that you complete your assignments on time for you to complete this program. You may take it easy now that you're officially in the internship program however it does not mean you can slack off. There are multiple other people who wanted the position you are in and yet you took it from them."

She stayed silent after that. She repositioned herself and started working again. I went back to working on my own work, but I still found myself glancing up at her once in a while just to make sure she heeded my words. 

After confirming that she was actually focused and working, I stopped this routine. With my head fully focused on working, I thought I could figure this out before the end of the day if I don't get distracted anymore. In the middle of drafting the project report, I heard loud crunching sounds. Assuming the worst, I looked over to her desk. To my surprise, this time, she wasn't slumping and slacking off, rather she was eating a big bag of trail mix.

"Hyunseo. Can you be quiet? Your chewing is quite loud; I can't focus."

"I'm sorry miss. I'll just stop then." She bowed softly and threw the bag into her backpack.

"Actually Hyunseo, you aren't even allowed to have food items at your desk especially while in the middle of the working period. I'm going to have to ask you to stop bringing food to work. It is disruptive and unprofessional."

"I'm sorry Ms. Kim, you won't see me with food again." She bowed again.

"Thank you," I said, trying to maintain my authoritative image, "it's about time to submit the Han file, are you close to finishing? We need to transfer the project to the Graphics department so that they can finish their part too."

"Yes, I finished it a while ago; when you called me at first. I also already sent it to Mr. Sung to review."

"Oh...you did it already..." I was moderately surprised that she finished it so easily. "Why didn't you review it with me first?"

"I wanted to but you seemed too focused on your work and then Mr. Sung came by asking for the file, so I gave it to him."

"Ahh I see...that's fine then. Next time, just alert me when you finish or when you hand over the file."

She hung her head down low, "Yes, ma'am."

I figure I needed to keep her morale up. It's not very beneficial to have a depressed employee. "Hyunseo, you're not in trouble or anything. It's just so you know for the future."

"Yes. I know," she quietly responded, "I-I'm going to go to the pantry now."

She scuffled over to the back of the office where we kept the snacks. She brought out a box of trail mix from her locker and placed it down on the table. Her friends Seonghyun and Yujin were already there, sitting, drinking coffee. I finally saw her smile when she could talk to her friends. You could even hear her compressed energy explode from beyond the walls. I've only ever seen her expressionless and talking in whispers; I didn't know she had all this energy in her to be honest.