** Where Seungwan is a little too obvious according to Sooyoung, who just wants to help move things along **

** Warning just in case: there are brief mentions of/it’s set during lockdown because well —gestures around vaguely— :{ but very minimal and lighthearted, at least I think so (no mentions of the pandemic or anything, only being stuck working at home). Wanted to give a heads up anyway. If you think otherwise please do let me know then I’ll write a more specific warning accordingly **

Ding~

….

Ding~

….

Ding~… Ding~… Ding~

“Ughhhhh,” she lets out a frustrated groan.

She knew she should have never let herself be convinced to turn on her notifications. Call it a premonition but somewhere in the back of her mind she anticipated this incessant annoyance when Yeri and Sooyoung teamed up to, quite frankly, bully her into giving them her phone so they could change the settings, not quite trusting her to do it herself.

Now the high-pitched noise is rudely interrupting her peaceful thoughts and demanding her immediate attention because she can’t in good conscience know there’s a message waiting for her that she’s just ignoring. It’s a curse really, she thinks.

Seungwan closes her eyes briefly and sighs before reluctantly tearing her eyes away from her computer screen and leaning over the desk to grab her phone. 

She unlocks it without bothering to read first, directly opening the messaging app and honestly she can’t say she’s entirely surprised to see that it’s Sooyoung. 

It was a fifty-fifty chance really. 

Looking up at her laptop screen again briefly, she clicks through the list and searches intently, trying to find the little video showing the culprit among the many others kept hostage in this seemingly never ending departmental zoom meeting. When she finds her, she’s greeted by the sight of a mysteriously smiling Sooyoung leaning back in her chair without a care in the world looking way too smug, which immediate prompts her to actually read the texts, the tiniest bit alarmed.

y Dynamite [16:44]: Unnie…

y Dynamite [16:44]: I can see you~ actually we all can

y Dynamite [16:45]: My god, you are not subtle

y Dynamite [16:45]: Careful, keyboards usually aren’t equipped to deal with liquid, including drool ;)

y Dynamite [16:45]: Hey! I know you heard the notifications! Why won’t you answer me :(

She quickly types a reply as she feels a light blush crawl up the back of her neck, forcing herself to keep her eyes focused on her phone even after hitting send, not daring to betray herself —even more apparently.

What are you talking about? [16:46]

And you’re supposed to focus on the presentation… [16:46]

She can vividly imagine the other rolling her eyes hard enough to the point it almost hurts even without looking up. She knows her well enough by now, just like Sooyoung looks right through her. 

y Dynamite [16:46]: Please, Mr. Jeong can’t present , he’s been literally reading his slides to us for the past 30 minutes 

y Dynamite [16:47]: And has awful time management too, this was supposed to be done a long time ago! :( I’m waiting for someone to tell him so we can move on

y Dynamite [16:47]: Or I might accidentally disconnect, who knows

Fair enough [16:47]

The presenting stuff, not you leaving [16:47]

Didn’t he hire you though…? [16:48]

y Dynamite [16:48]: Yeah, his only redeeming quality is that he has good taste and can spot talent. Evidently.

She snorts, amused by the younger’s overflowing confidence. Not that she shouldn’t be but she distinctly remembers a situation in which that wasn’t the case. 

It’s refreshing that you’ve stayed so humble through it all [16:48]

Almost like you didn’t fall on your first day [16:49]

She looks up just in time to see the younger huff incredulously and roll her eyes, slightly annoyed, like she can’t believe Seungwan brought it up (again) and she can’t help but chuckle softly at the scene, her lips stretching into a wide grin.

On Sooyoung’s first day, she waited by the elevator to welcome the new employee that had been hired and would join her team and this very young looking woman appeared, all round-faced and well-put together with fierce determination in the way she squared her shoulders, towering over her with a staggering and significant height advantage. The only reason Seungwan wasn’t incredibly intimidated from the get go was because the other was visibly nervous, understandably, and she could see past that protective shell and took note of the edges of anxiety by the way her fingers were wound together and twitchy. Neatly manicured nails digging into her skin to stop their slight trembling and eyes carefully darting around and taking in her new surroundings, apprehensive, with a shy, nervous-laced smile send her way. 

Deeming it safe enough, when the younger stepped forward to go through the doors after taking a steadying breath she clearly forgot about the heels she was wearing, causing her to trip and stumble forwards somewhat clumsily and unceremoniously. Luckily she caught her just in time before she could fully connect and get intimately introduced with the floor, but the damage was already done. 

Thinking back to it never fails to make her smile. And clearly it wasn’t that much of a blow to the younger her self-confidence. At least not anymore. 

Don’t get her wrong, she would much rather have this meeting in person and in a hushed voice and dodge an elbow to the ribs, but there’s something equally beautiful about texting friends and seeing their reaction live, before they try their best to school their expression or hold back their laugh. It’s incidental but immensely enjoyable.

She has discovered another as well. One that Sooyoung has apparently noticed too.

y Dynamite [16:49]: Shut up. It’s called making an entrance! 

y Dynamite [16:50]: But you think he would receive it well if we gift him a course on presentation techniques for Christmas/New Years? Like as a department…

y Dynamite [16:50]: It’s practically a gift to ourselves as well

Seungwan laughs and locks eyes with the other, at least as much as that is possible through a screen shared with multiple people, before realising she, too, is still on camera and quickly tries to stifle her laugh. She shakes head.

 hahaha [16:50]

Not sure but we can always try XD [16:51]

y Dynamite [16:51]: Great, we’ll just send it anonymously then

Probably best yeah [16:51]

y Dynamite [16:52]: Anyway, back to the real topic. I thought seeing you send heart eyes her way was bad when we were in the office but now you’re not even trying to hide anymore

y Dynamite [16:52]: You’ve completely lost self-control, unnie :P

y Dynamite [15:52]: Not gonna lie, it’s kinda cute seeing you like this though

The texts come in rapidly, one after another, and she flounders, trying to keep up with the blows and not quite knowing how to respond to each one. Caught, her face instantly feels hot, dry and she opens and closes rapidly to refute the younger’s unapologetic teasing (thought entirely accurate) accusation but nothing comes out. 

She can feel Sooyoung’s eyes on her and she quickly types out a reply, even though she knows she can’t really escape her predicament. The fact that her mind immediately goes back to her is telling enough, but she has to try at least. Give a little resistance.

I have no idea what you’re talking about [16:53]

Me?!? [16:53]

I’m at least trying to listen to Mr. Jeong, as should you [16:53]

y Dynamite [16:54]: Come on unnie…. Did you forget I introduced you two? You guys got along pretty well I remember, before all this lockdown stuff

Seungwan bites her lip and averts her gaze, resisting the urge to turn off her video to hide as soon as possible. Okay, so she may have let herself go a little bit — she is not subtle— and a bored Sooyoung is way too observant for her own good and very invested. Granted, she introduced them to each other a couple weeks before everyone was asked to work from home and immediately after learning about just how big her crush on her coworker is but that doesn’t mean she can just call her out like this! Teasing or otherwise.

She would get extremely nervous seeing Joohyun at work, both intimidated and stunned by her, to the point where she could barely speak in normal sentences or string together a coherent thought when she got near her. Her heart would pound so fervently in her chest that she was sure everyone could hear it. To avoid that she resolved to only sneaking admiring glances at her from afar, quite weirdly Sooyoung didn’t fail to tell her. If Joohyun knew about it, she didn’t mention it or show a reaction so it must not have been too bad she reasoned.

Then Sooyoung decided she had had enough of all that—or she may have taken pity on her— and introduced them. Sooyoung had already wormed her way into the older’s very small social circle of colleagues, impressively and largely unaffected by the woman that would make Seungwan go a little bit out of her mind. 

After that they started getting more acquainted with each other, possibly even considered friendly, with greetings in the morning, a quick wave and a smile in recognition in passing gradually developing into brief, easy conversations at the copy machine, when bumping into each other in the small kitchen while making tea or on the way out in the elevator. Nothing major but it was still great progress and she felt amazing about it. Perhaps even hopeful. 

They were getting along so well, at least she’d like to think so. But all that was instantly lost when they were asked to work from home, now deprived of these small interactions she would look forward to throughout the day and no way to contact her. They didn’t exactly get to the point of exchanging personal details yet. 

It’s not like her world came crashing down —not entirely anyway— but it was still quite a rough and disappointing adjustment.

So can you really blame her? It’s like getting whiplash. 

Although she does her best not to show it and be too obvious, in the comfort of her own home it has proven quite difficult to not to look over at her when they’re in a meeting together and it’s easy to forget. Where the many eyes at work provide a welcome reminder for her to at least get some sort of a grip on herself, there’s no apprehension or immediate consequence now and so she catches herself listening to whoever is talking but attention drifting away shortly to look for her every couple minutes. To curiously observe her in her own home. Not in an (too) intruding or creepy way, just..… making sure she’s doing okay. 

Friendly concern. 

Kind of?

Simply watching her exist and move around her space with a fascinating ease and comfort that’s a little different than she’s familiar with is a real privilege. She’s still graceful and captivating as ever, professional and focused, but just a tiny bit rougher around the edges. More relaxed if she’s judging by the occasional smile that somehow looks less forced, with the lines around less taut. 

How she wears her glasses a little more frequently than before, bobs her head or moves her shoulders ever so slightly, to what she expects is some music playing in the background, because it feels like no one is watching. Or the adorable scene of her all wrapped up in a big, fluffy blanket. They’re all things that she wouldn’t see her do in the office and it doesn’t help to diminish her crush. Quite the opposite.

The current dangerous slanting of her head, her pretty brown eyes shining prettily, the way her lips twist as she bites her cheek and runs a hand through a little tousled, dark hair is very hard to look away from. She’s positive that she sees a small chuckle escape through her sealed lips, almost like a secret. Unfortunately, with all of them muted in the call she can’t hear the sound but she also doesn’t need to. She knows that pleasant sound, heard it travel down the hallway softly a couple times and she’d be lying if she wasn’t awed by just how wide her smile could get and eyes could crinkle cutely when she was fortunate enough to be on the receiving end once or twice.

What’s truly puzzling and amazingly distracting is how there’s somehow never an unflattering camera angle when it comes to her, even when the video automatically starts upon entering the video call. Every time she looks, her breath catches in . 

She smiles despite herself and her train of dreamy thoughts of the person occupying her mind practically every day now is once more interrupted by the notifications. She audibly sighs in resignation before she goes to check.

y Dynamite [16:56]: Correct me if I’m wrong but she’s on the far right side of your screen…

y Dynamite [16:56]: You keep looking that way and Mr. Jeong certainly doesn’t warrant any expression like the one on your face right now. Or anyone, excluding me of course

y Dynamite [16:56]: Get a room, seriously ;)

There’s really no point in trying to deny it anymore, Sooyoung won’t let this go. She’s having way too much fun with her literal front row seat to how she’s (badly) coping with any and all things Joohyun related. She takes a deep breath and lets her eyes flutter shut, trapping her bottom lip with her teeth as she bites down. 

Ughh fine [16:57]

I can’t help it [16:57]

Not my fault she’s so amazing and cute. It’s unfair :( [16:57]

y Dynamite [16:57]: You want us to make a breakout room for the two of you? 

y Dynamite [16: