Reflections [Complete]

Chapter 1

He entered the room pretty much the same way he always did. A little shy. A little tentative. Nearly always hugging the edges of the room as he made his way towards the seat. For such a strikingly good looking man he somehow still managed to appear invisible in a room with less than 20 people. It may have something to do with the way he dressed. If I was ever tasked with the job to describe his clothing I think the only word that would ever pop into my mind would be brown. Not that he always wore brown though. There might even have been some creams. Or beige. Or even some grays splattered across his wardrobe. But I don't think I have ever seen any actual color on him. And maybe it's not simply the clothes. His hair also has a combed yet shaggy look, where they aren't particularly unkempt but definitely looked like he was solely responsible for giving himself that atrocious cut. Then there were his glasses. The thick round, cheap looking ones that effectively shielded much of his features. And I think his style is clinched by the fact that I don't think the man has shaved with anything other than a sickle since he hit puberty. His beard is uneven, patchy, and let's be honest pretty horrendous.

This was obviously no Superman/ Clark Kent kind of story. Anyone with reasonable eyes looking at him for more than two seconds would be able to assess his very pleasing features. It's just that it seems the whole point of his attire was to get the least amount of people to look at him as possible. Now that I think about it his whole demeanor screams, more like whispers discretion.

I had taken over this team over a year ago and in that time I had heard and forgotten his name almost instantly. Which is a magnanimous feat cause my entire claim to fame is my spectacular memory. That and my ability to turn a dying team into a profit making miracle. But I manage to do that cause I am great with people, and these aren't my words. I am simply quoting some magazine that for another year had me listed as one of the 30 under 30 to watch out for.

Unrelated self-bragging aside, I knew how to work with my team and I knew how to get them to work for me. And I achieved that by getting to know how they functioned, how they thought, and how I could mold them into what I needed. Him on the other hand I had simply not paid attention to. He came to all the team meetings. Sat silently at the end of the table. Didn't contribute at all vocally. Didn't seem to crack the loud, sometime crude jokes the rest of them like to participate. Even his laugh was a quiet chuckle which involved the bare minimum of face muscle involvement. One year and I hadn't connected the dots that he was a full time employee on my team instead of a temporary intern here just for a few short months. In fact I am very sure I had even sent him on multiple coffee runs, and since I managed to get the caffeine I asked for I can only assume he must have complied, since he definitely didn't look like the type to be able to delegate anything.

It wasn't until three weeks ago that I finally became aware of his presence other than just somebody also sharing our office space. The launch of our new product had been pulled up by a couple of weeks and now we were battling a rather tight deadline to roll out the marketing plan. As much as the magazines liked to portray that people bought things solely cause of my disarming smile, that is obviously not the case. And currently it was almost like we were trying to put an out of control forest fire as we tried to string together our market research reports, information about our competitors, and our overall marketing strategy. Although it was very rare for me to ever raise my voice at my team mates, that particular day I was ready to snap the head off anyone sneezing in the wrong direction.

And amongst all of this circus, he quietly walked by to hand some of the preliminary reports he had put together to KC, my assistant. Except his preliminary reports were goddamn detailed. He had more information in one folder than the useless professional consultants we had hired. And it wasn't until I had breathed a heavy sigh of relief, finally gotten home around 2 am, and flopped on my bed did I realize that I didn't even know the name of the guy who had managed to save our hide. I didn't even know what that man did on my team.

So I woke up bright and early and bought a large cup of coffee and marched right to his desk to thank and acknowledge his efforts and made a mental note to keep better track of my subordinates.

It has been three weeks since the day he sheepishly accepted the coffee, mumbled an embarrassed acceptance of my gratitude, said he was just doing his job and went right back to being invisible behind his large chair, corner cubicle, and very unremarkable personality. In fact if I wasn't actively looking for him, and at him every time we had a team meeting he would have disappeared from my consciousness soon enough.

Turns out he is our one and only in house researcher who puts together his own reports and fact checks or proofs all the reports we get from external agencies and the consultants we hire. No wonder I had never directly interacted with him for so long. He puts together all the documents I need to read and gives them to KC, who in turn hands them to me. And since up until now I didn't even know we employed someone with his job description I just assumed the consultancies were doing the job they were hired to do. So I went back to everything he had handed me for the past year and compared that to what the consultancies had submitted. I believe it might be time to fire those money grubbing lazy corporations cause it was definitely my man right here doing all the actual work. In fact his reports were downright brilliant. And the further back in years I went the more I was convinced of the genius sitting quietly in the corner of my office being as invisible as possible.

I blinked a few times and tilted my head in an angle to make it so that it seemed I was looking at whoever was talking at the meeting currently but I also managed a direct view to where he sat. We were gathered around the large conference table as usual for our daily meetings and though most people had their books, folders or computers sitting on the table, their elbows leaning in to make them an equal part of the group, he sat a little further back. Hunched into himself. His notebook on his lap while he continued doodling away almost ignoring the person talking.

I am not really sure why this seemingly uninteresting man, who would have easily gotten lost in a small crowd, had managed to catch my eye. Perhaps I find it annoying that a person this valuable to the company isn't getting his due. Either ways the more I looked at him the more amusing I found his quirks. Throughout the meeting he had kept his head bent low over his book, but every once in a while when someone said something noticeably stupid the corner of his mouth would lift slightly in a small smile before his face would return to its original deadpanned expression. And by the time the meeting was almost wrapping up I was certain mainly of two things. First, I hadn't heard most of what was said today and second, I would really like to know what the private jokes inside his head were.

We were almost done and people were gathering their belongings to go begin their work days when I spoke up for the first time the entire meeting.

"Good talk everyone. Let's have a productive day."

Everyone nodded at me, starting to discuss their daily duties amongst themselves. He was almost by the door of the room already. Somehow he always seemed like the first to leave the room as soon as our meetings were done, but I still had one more thing to say.

"Oh and tomorrow how about Kong gives a presentation of everything he has been working on."

And for the first time today he snapped his head up and looked straight me, confusion apparent on his face, which quickly turned to embarrassment when he realized everyone else had their eyes trained on him too. It doesn't seem like he used to handling even a tiny bit of attention on him. Having him stand up in front of the room and give a presentation would definitely be an interesting view.

"Uh...me?"

"Yes, you. I would love to know what knew information you have been able to gather. Why? Is there a problem?"

"No...no. It's fine. I can do the presentation tomorrow."

"Good, I can't wait."

He met my eyes once again briefly before he lowered his gaze and hurried out the room. I had a thousand and one things to do today but somehow I couldn't wait for tomorrow to arrive.