“What’s this I hear about you and Daniel talking again?” as usual, Amanda starts off their work day with a breakfast of gossip.

Lisa looks over, glaring at Sue, who’s too far away to meet her eyes and would feign innocence regardless

“What about it?” Lisa, turns in her seat, crossing one leg over the other.

“What happened? Are you two going out?”

Lisa feels her cheeks heat up and refuses to look over at Jaehyun, who like always, is close enough to hear everything they’re saying.

“No.”

“So that’s it, then? You kiss and back to being best friends?”

Lisa does a weird type of shrug for an answer, not wanting to use words.

“This is why you stay single. You don’t fight for any progress. Just back to square one,” Amanda reprimands.

Lisa’s jaw clenches and she finds herself uncrossing her leg, ready to stand and say a few expletives but is stopped just in time by a voice-

“Hey, Lisa,” Jaehyun’s looking over, perfectly still except for his eyes, as if he had just been concentrating on his screen.

“Yeah?”

“I think Michael wanted to see you,” he says curtly, before returning back to his screen.

She waits for him to explain but he doesn’t add anything.

“Uh… okaaaay…” she gets up, not giving Amanda one more second of her time, before heading to Michael’s office.

She’d deal with her later, maybe. But she didn’t know how that wouldn't involve eventually snapping and becoming the “angry black girl” at work.

Lisa knocks on Michael’s office gently.

“Yes?”

“You wanted to see me?” she slips into the room, brushing down her plaid grey skirt.

Michael looks confused.

“No…”

Lisa turns to look back at the door before facing him again.

“But, Jaehyun said-”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. I actually was about to select some people for this year’s holiday party planning. Since you’re here and I’ve already seen you're beyond your scheduled queue workload, I hope you don’t mind if I give you party duties.”

“Oh, um. Yes, that’s fine.”

“And since you’re part of the shopping program, I’ll just leave it to Jaehyun and you to make it simple. I’ve got the budget here and a list of suggestions, but you should know what our usual setup is anyway.”

Yeah, booze and more booze and maybe a balloon. That’s how all their holiday parties had gone since she’d started.

Lisa walks over to his desk, reaching for the piece of paper.

“Nice skirt,” Michael says, when she’s pulling away, reading the list.

“Excuse me?”

“LeVon, right? The designer,” Michael smiles.

“Oh. Yeah,” Lisa says, relieved. For a second she’d thought… “I didn’t know you were into fashion.”

“I work in retail,” Michael says, folding his hands and leaning on his arms, resting on the desk. “I’m into everything.”

There’s a twinkle in his blue eyes that Lisa doesn’t know quite where to place, but there’s no time to stand around and figure it out so she leaves.

“Here.”

She holds out the budget sheet and gives it to Jaehyun.

His eyebrows raise in question.

“What Michael wanted me for,” she says, walking back to her desk.

Jaehyun watches her before looking at the paper and then back up.

“You look a little confused, Jung.”

He smiles at the use of his last name.

“Mayhaps because Michael hadn’t wanted me at all. Mayhaps, you lied?”

Jaehyun his lips.

“Might’ve just been confused. Flu brain or something.”

Lisa stares at him, not breaking eye contact, waiting for him to admit the truth, but the stare goes on for too long and it starts to look like he’s looking at other parts of her face.

“Well, we’re on holiday party duty now.”

“Which entails?”

“Buying expensive liquor and cheap decorations.”

Jaehyun stands up, shaking on his winter coat.

“Alright, let’s do this then.”

---

“No way.”

“They’re cute! Come on!”

“Then you wear it,” Jaehyun stands on his toes, trying to get his head out of reach.

“We can both wear them,” Lisa pouts, standing on her own toes.

There was no point in him being so dramatic. He wasn’t that much taller than her anyway, she could reach the top of his head in a tiny jump.

The reindeer headband jingles in her hands.

“Isn’t this what Snapchat was created for? No need for physical costume attire, take a picture and wear whatever 2d accessory you want.”

“Okay, then.” Lisa puts the headband back on the hook she took it from and quickly types in the passcode to her phone, swiping over to Snapchat and opening it before Jaehyun realizes what’s happening.

She stands beside him, leaning in close so both of their heads are in frame.

“Frick, it always does this,” she waves her phone around a little, trying to get facial recognition to work on the both of them and not just her.

Jaehyun reaches up to steady the phone, covering the back of her hand with his palm.

“That’s not going to make it work,” he lightly scolds, turning his face closer to her.

Lisa stills, feeling his breath on the side of her cheek.

She looks at her phone and on the screen she can see Jaehyun’s eyes drifting across her face, taking in her profile and lingering on her lips.

And it’s enough to jolt her into pressing her thumb down, taking the picture so she can move away.

“Let me see,” he whines, grabbing for it.

“No, it’s ugly,” Lisa lies.

“How can it be ugly? Are we ugly people?”

“Jaehyun!” Lisa gasps.

“What?” he looks taken back and frightened at the reaction.

“What, are you saying you’re hot?”

“Do you think I’m hot?” he asks.

Lisa stammers.

“No- I mean-”

“No, you don’t think I’m hot?”

“No, I mean, you must think you’re hot if you think there’s no way for us to take an ugly picture.”

Jaehyun smiles.

“You’re not saying anything.”

“There’s no way for me to not sound conceited if I admit, I’m probably considered a conventionally attractive person, by society’s standards.”

“In other words, you don’t think you’re hot. You know you're hot,” Lisa translates.

“I’m not the one that said it.” Jaehyun says, quickly snatching Lisa’s phone from her hand.

“Hey!”

He presses some buttons quickly and she hears the sound of a picture being sent from her device to his.

“You’re cute,” he says, looking down at his screen, seeing the way he looks at her.

Lisa rubs her lips together, glancing away.

“You’re not saying anything.” Jaehyun looks over, mockingly.

“We don’t have time for this,” she starts walking off.

“Time for what?” he walks after her.

“I don’t know. Standing around,” she makes up an excuse.

Time for flirting. Time for eyes meeting. Time for you touching my skin and looking at my face like you don’t want to look away.

“The party’s this Friday so let’s hurry up.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

“Please don’t call me that.”