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"Did he not CC you in?" Jiwon asks, brows furrowed, spinning ever so slowly in her desk chair to face you. "Came through at, like, 10 AM? Our time? Must've been late where he is. Probably an accident."
The wheel of your mouse being spun as you skim down your inbox punctuates your frown while you look for any emails you might have missed—but there are none.
From across the room, you hear Jiwon's mouse clicking, and then a soft, "Oh. No, he didn't CC you in. That's weird. Let me forward it over."
Perhaps you're going crazy, but Jungkook not copying you in on work emails to your department feels like a dig. Proof that he doesn't need you. That the dream team is now the stuff of nightmares.
It's not even like it's some benign email that would prove no use in the future, or formality for the sake of appearing busy. Attached is the list of all the stadiums Mitch has provided an 'in' to. Contact details, rough idea of premises and locations, specifications of foot traffic. It's all numbers and statistics, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't be privy to it.
Glancing across to you, Jiwon offers a sympathetic frown, not that you're paying her any attention. You're too busy trying to look unbothered.
Issue is, Jiwon has seen you on a near-daily basis since the kiss. She's seen how your face twists when he comes to the office and asks to speak with Lea instead of you. She's seen how you kiss your teeth whenever he walks by, talking to whichever one of the new girls has taken his fancy for the week.
But she's also seen how Jungkook glances back to make sure you saw him, and how he'll always ask where you are if he comes by the interior design office and finds your desk empty.
Nothing's been quite right ever since the kiss, which is weird, 'cause Jiwon was almost certain it was the most romantic thing she'd ever witnessed.
It's no secret that you've always thought your pairing with Jungkook would be fatally flawed. You've reeled off reason after reason over the years as to why it wouldn't work.
His apartment is too minimalist! I'd rather not work with a hundred office girls who have also lusted after my man, if I'm being honest. Who? Jungkook? God, no. One of us would end up dead.
You believe them all, until you start to think about reasons it could work, instead.
He watches all the A24 movies I tell him to, and always listens to my opinion of them, even if it's just to disagree with my judgements. He always brings me back snacks whenever he drives past that one service station. He's the one I want to see when work is going well. He's the one I want to see when work isn't going well. And Christ alive, he can cook.
The thing is, no matter how much of a catch he is, you wouldn't work. You know you wouldn't. Your lives wouldn't fold in together like the ingredients of a cake. They'd repel. Separate.
