Gary half-walks, half-skips into the office with his new shoes and gelled hair (without his cap), although it was awkwardly combed. He greets his colleagues heartily (‘Good morning everyone!!!’) and plops into his chair opposite Jihyo’s.

“Good morning, Jihyo-ssi,” he greets gleefully.

“Good morning, Hee Gun-ssi,” she replies, a smile creeping up her face.

“You are here so early,” he remarks.

She nods, before reverting back to her report. Her colleague in the next cubicle arrives, and she greets him. He nods, mumbling a good morning back.

Gary greets too. “Good morning, Joon Yong ssi,” he greets, looking up. Jihyo and her colleague looks at Gary curiously, before looking back to their own things.

“Uh... good morning, uh…” the colleague named Joon Yong begins, but trails off, realising that he didn’t know his name.

Jihyo whispers to him, “Hee Gun, the newcomer.”

Joon Yong mumbles a thank you to Jihyo, and completes his morning greeting to Gary.

The morning continued like this, with Gary greeting everyone by name, as they struggle to recall his name. He earns himself some weird looks, but either he doesn’t care, or he hasn’t notice, because he continues to greet gleefully.

Everyone finally settles down, and the morning greetings come to a halt.

Jihyo takes the chance to ask Gary. “When did you find out all their names?”

He shrugs. “If you pay a little more attention, it’s not that hard. You can hear people addressing each other all the time.”

Jihyo looks back to her screen, but Gary continues. “I think it’s nice to greet people by name,” he says. “It makes people feel known.” Jihyo stays silent, but she knows it’s true.

 Jihyo finally finishes her report. She rubs her tired eyes as she prints it out. Gary darts of to the printer to help her collect the papers. She sighs a little as she watches him move energetically. How long has it been since she was like that?

He passes her the papers, along with a small box, with a ‘fighting’ and a muscle arm drawing on it. She chuckles, and looks up at him.

“Eye drops,” he says. “You keep rubbing your eyes.”

She leaves the report on the table and picks up the box of eye drops, and fiddles with it. She smiles gratefully and taps on the divider. “Thank you,” she says.

He nods and smiles, although she can’t see his smile because of the divider.

She submits the report to her superior, who is obviously unhappy that she was able to complete it on time- with all the edits he requires. He grunts, and makes her leave, without a word of thanks or good job. She walks away like a disappointed puppy with her tails between her legs, mentally chiding herself for expecting a word of praise. She should be used to this by now. Gary the gleeful puppy comes bouncing up to her, asking if the superior approved it. She smiles tiredly, and Gary grins widely, asking for a high-five, as if he had a part to play in the report.  

Jihyo gives him a report for reference, and makes him edit it another one to make it sound more concise, like the reference. She busies herself with a financial summary. Gary finishes his editing pretty fast, and taps on the divider to get Jihyo’s attention.

“You’re done?” she asks, surprised. He nods. She glances through his edit, it was quite well for a newbie.

“I’ve done this before,” he admits. “In my previous companies.”

“Ah,” Jihyo says, suddenly remembering that he worked in two other companies before. Then she shakes her head apologetically. “But you still have to redo these training,” she tells him. “This is part of your evaluation component.”

He nods, as if it is nothing new.

“Ah, you want to look at how to do financial summaries? Have you done it before?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “I majored in business,” he reminds her. She nods, and gestures for him to come over. She shows him the template and demonstrates for him with her current report. He watches as her deft fingers dances around the keyboard. She could type without even looking down. He watches as she concentrates on the figures, which seem like a mess to him. He watches as her eyes light up while she types. She must like this job, after all.

“There!” she says, pointing at the screen, a tinge of excitement in her voice. She turns to look at Gary, and catches him looking at her. They held eye contact for a moment, before turning away awkwardly.

“Do you understand?” she asks.

“Ah…” he stammers. “I… numbers are not my thing,” he admits.

She smiles. “You’ll get used to it,” she assures him.

The clock strikes one, and it’s lunch time. The colleague who came for Jihyo yesterday comes again. This time, Jihyo packs up and gets ready to go. Gary follows behind quietly, as he watches the two lady talk. The colleague, Kyung Ah, tells Jihyo about how horrid her superior was that morning. Jihyo nods, but doesn’t tell her about her own experience. Another female colleague joins the duo while waiting for the lift. She tells them about the offer in the boutique, which gets Kyung Ah excited, but Gary notices that Jihyo only smiles and doesn’t comment.

The trio and Gary arrives at the packed cafeteria, and they join a table, filled with others. Joon Young, the colleague who sits beside Jihyo in the office, notices Gary and introduces him to the others. Gary smiles and greets them politely, but keeps his eyes on Jihyo, who is pretending to fit in, but isn’t.

They get their food and sit down. Gary sat beside Joon Young, and opposite Jihyo, who was sandwiched between that other two female colleagues. The males share the latest updates about football, while the females share the latest gossips about celebrities. Jihyo continues to smile and nods, but Gary notices that her eyes are faraway.

“Ah,” Gary suddenly jumps up. “I just remembered I have an important question out the summary you showed me just now!” he says, looking at Jihyo.

Jihyo looks up, confused. “Eo…?”

Kyung Ah shoots a look of disapproval. “It’s lunch time now, Hee Gun ssi.”

Jihyo stands up. “It’s okay, I’m already done, anyway.” She goes off to clear her tray with Gary, her colleagues comments on how Jihyo should learn to relax, while another sarcastically remarks that it’s no use if she works hard, since she is a girl.

Gary and Jihyo aren’t out of ear-shot yet, so Jihyo hears them. She puts on a calm façade, but Gary bristles for her. He tries to turn back, but Jihyo shakes her head and advises him not to.

“You shouldn’t offend them for my sake,” she says and sighs. “We don’t need any more tiresome war of words.”

 Gary frowns, but doesn’t say anything. They enter the lift, and Jihyo reaches out to press 18, their office level. But Gary stops her and presses 30 instead. Jihyo looks at him, confused. He smiles. “I was lying about having a question,” he says. “Let’s take a break at the rooftop.” She looks at him blankly, but doesn’t protest.

The lift opens up, and they climb to the rooftop.  They sit over the ledge, like yesterday.

“If you don’t like hanging out with them, then why do you still eat lunch with them?” he asks.

She shakes her head, confused. “I don’t,” she says. “I mean, I’m okay with hanging out with them.”

He frowns and shakes his head. “But you weren’t paying attention to them. You were looking elsewhere when they talk,” he points out.

“What are you? CSI?” she asks jokingly, and they both laugh. She notes that her monotonous repetition of office life is disrupted by Gary’s entry. Her life is no longer the same pattern every day, and she likes it this way.

“I don’t understand,” he muses. “If you like it better here, then you should just tell them. Maybe you’d feel more refreshed after lunch each time.”

She stares at the man next to her. He has only been here for two days, and he reads her like a book.

She sighs. “And what, come here and eat alone every day? At least if I eat with them, I don’t feel lonely.”

He ponders over what she says, and finally replies, “No. You can be alone and not feel lonely, or be with people and still feel lonely. Alone is a physical description, but lonely is a state of mind.”

She thinks for a while. It’s true. Even when she eats with so many people, she still feels lonely. There is no one she can connect with. But when she’s alone, she gets time to refresh and organize her thoughts. She doesn’t feel lonely.

But still, she shakes her head. “If I come up alone, then they would criticize me for being antisocial.”

He nods and sighs. They criticise her for everything.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “I don’t do things that I don’t like. I won’t be joining them for lunch, you can join me up here if you like.”

“Tongues will wag,” she protests. “People would think we’re dating,” she says, and Gary notices that she blushed a little as she said that.

“And?” he presses, ignoring her little blush.

“And… and people will talk behind our backs.”

“As if they aren’t now,” he says, and it kinds of hurt for him to point it out to her. Her face falls.

“But it’s doesn’t change anything,” he says gently. “People will treat you the same way they have been doing so, so you really don’t have to be afraid. Their words can’t hurt you.”

“Oh, you don’t know,” she laments, as her voice starts to crack. “Their words do hurt. I just pretend that they don’t. I feel like there’s no one on my side. I’m always alone, and you’d think I’m used to this…” she says. Gary listens quietly, putting his hand on hers.

“But I am not always like this,” she continues. “There was a period, when I used to come up here for lunch. Alone. I felt peaceful when I’m up here. But people started talking. Saying that I’m antisocial, or that I think I’m better than them, or that I’m a workaholic. All sorts of things. So I stopped and I joined them, but I still couldn’t fit in. I was so stressed out, but there was so one I can speak to. So, I took a break and came up. And as I sat on the ledge… suddenly I wondered what it would be like to just jump. That’s why I stopped coming up. Because I was afraid…” And she breaks down into soft sobs, her shoulders trembling lightly. She looks so vulnerable. Gary hugs her, as she sobs into his shoulders.

“Their words do hurt,” she repeats, as she sobs softly. “I wish they would stop. What’s wrong with being an introvert?” she asks rhetorically. Then she pulls away, embarrassed, but Gary pulls her back, knowing that she still needs the comfort. He pats her back, silently.

She finally calms down, and he pulls away.

“I’m glad you didn’t jump,” he says. “I’m really glad you didn’t.” She smiles weakly. He cups her face in his hand. “You did really well for holding out,” he tells her, looking into her eyes. “Words can only hurt you if you let them, Jihyo,” he says, dropping to banmal.

She nods slowly, drying her tears, and chuckles a little as she points out he lowered his speech.

“Ah,” he realises belatedly. “Still, I’m older than you, and it’s outside work now,” he points out, awkwardly, back to jondaemal.

“I know, oppa,” she says, lowering her speech. Gary looks at her with rounded eyes. “It’s outside work now,” she reminds. They both chuckle.

“You changed jobs many times,” she comments. “Was it because you ‘don’t do things you don’t like?”

He laughs and nods. “My first job was an office job, in a company bigger than this,” he explains. “I worked for slightly more than a year, but the office politics was too much for me. So I switched to another smaller company, and I stayed for another nine months, perhaps? But I still left in the end.”

Jihyo calculated quickly in her head. That was about 2 years. So what happened to the other three years? All the odd jobs?

Gary smiles and explains, as if he read her mind. “Then I went back to my hometown for a break. I did many odd jobs- baby sitter, tutor, cashier, while I wrote songs. And I realises that was what I really wanted- to convey my emotions thro