"Sunny you do realize I hate you more than anyone. Ever."

 "Even more than celebrities?"

 "Even more than Byun ing Baekhyun."

 "Ouch, Fany-ah, that's harsh. Are you gonna dump those noodles on me? Please don't, they were very expensive..."

 "I'm hungry, so no." Tiffany slurps up said noodles. "What do you even have this time? Another gala? A golf date with your dad's buddies?"

 "Uh, no... Actually, I'm going on a date with the guy I went on a blind date with on Friday."

 "I'm not covering your shift for a date, you ."

 "I'm not a , I'm a very noble date-goer, Ms Hwang." Sunny turns her nose up and Tiffany would roll her eyes if she wasn't preoccupied with her noodles. She'd insisted Sunny take her to a fancy place for lunch since she didn't have to pay.

 "Sure, you are."

 "I am! Anyway, so, uh... I'll buy you those shoes you've been looking at? And I'll owe you!" Tiffany considers it. Her shift would start at 7 pm on Monday, so tomorrow, and end on Tuesday at 3 am. The shift she'd cover for Sunny would start at 8 am on the same Tuesday and end at 4 pm. That was basically a double shift, so she would be a damn zombie by the end of the day. But the overtime money would be delicious. And she would get new shoes and a favour. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

 "Deal." Sunny's about to jump with joy, but tiffany cuts her off quick. "But! This won't happen again! Don't pick night shifts if you can't come through! Or do lunch dates with your boy toy. I can't afford to lose sleep for your ."

 "I promise!"

 Damn right, better promise or you won't live to break it, Tiffany grumbles to herself at 7 am on a Tuesday morning. She had gotten home from the company building just a short three hours ago. She had spent all her downtime sleeping, not even bothering to change out of her pink scrubs.

 She checks her appearance in the bathroom mirror. She doesn't wear makeup to work, so nothing's messed up there. She swipes a strand of hair from and scrubs her eyes clear of any sleep dust. She takes her hair out of its ponytail and decides to go with something else. Elastic bands hurt hair anyway. She takes a large clip and puts her hair on a bun on the back of her head. It's a matching pink to her uniform. She clips her nametag back on with a safety pin. It's bedazzled with pink rhinestones and glitter, courtesy of Sunny's little sister. She's so pink it hurts her eyes. If only she felt pink as well. Her current state of mind is the colour of piss on concrete.

 The commute to work isn't too bad. The bus stop isn't far from the company building, but Tiffany hates it nonetheless. The morning bus is flooded and the traffic sets her schedule back a good fifteen minutes. She has to jog to the building to clock in on time. She's sweaty and feels gross, but freshens up in the locker rooms with a gross amount of Axe bodyspray.

 By the time she's made it to the janitor's office, the man has a dozen different tasks ready for her. She has to run up and down stairs to deliver this and that. She replaces toilet paper and fills soap dispensers. She has to make a catalogue of what needs replacing and refilling. That's actually the most time-consuming of all she's had to do. She is not at all upset about it — the opposite. Typing on a spreadsheet felt like heaven when she'd been on her feet for the last two hours. But good things never last.

 Another reason why she's so glad to be holed up in the janitor's booth typing numbers is that she's all alone. There is no risk of encountering a bother, or worse, a celeb. But outside the booth, it seems as if she's been cursed. She keeps bumping into Friday night's mistake. The Pretty Stranger, a new face in the company and constantly in Tiffany's way.

 For their first encounter, Tiffany had stumbled into a remote balcony in between floors one and two and had caught Pretty Stranger on a smoke break. What an idol/singer/whatever was doing smoking, she wasn't sure, but she wasn't about to comment on it. The second time they meet, Tiffany's cornered in the bathroom by two junior employees who don't quite know their place yet. They're poking fun at her for being the help. It's pretty innocent, but Tiffany hates catty y humour. She's about to rip them a new when someone steps out of a stall. Pretty Stranger starts scolding them for being mean to the cleaner. They bow and blush and apologize to unnie. Psh. Of course, they'd be fans of hers. Tiffany has a job to do so she flees the scene. The third time- hah, third time's the charm, yeah? No!

 The third time Tiffany encounters Pretty Stranger is right in the middle of a coffee machine disaster. Much to Tiffany's delight though, the talent is swept up by numerous employees, probably her managers, and Tiffany is left to clean it all up. Because that's her job, to clean up others' messes. But, hey, at least she has discovered that Pretty Stranger is named Taeyeon.

 Even she, a person with an irrational hate for celebs, knows who Kim Taeyeon is. How she didn't recognize her at first glance is like original sin. Kim Taeyeon is everywhere — posters, billboards, adverts, everywhere. She's the leader of the nation's fave girl group, Girls' Era, and a newly debuted solo number. The whole group has apparently shifted to this agency, but Tiffany's not sure. She heard of this from Sunny about a month ago, when she'd been gushing about it. Another person added to her people-to-avoid -list. Great.

(If you're curious, the list goes as such:

• Byun Baekhyun for the Noodle Incident (HR knows)
• Dad for obvious reasons
• Sunny for obvious reasons
• Suho from the legal team, spilt wine all over the carpet
• Kyuhyun from production for calling her by the wrong name
• Sunny
• Kim Taeyeon for ... annoying(?)

 She's written Sunny's name down numerous times, but she's can never keep her on there for a long time. Sunny was a great friend even if she was annoying most of the time.)

 "Ouch," It's a cliche that Tiffany's too deep in her thoughts and accidentally slices her finger when she's picking up glass. Though, it's not too cliche. No handsome man rushes to her aid. Not even an average looking man. She looks around and it's as if she's invisible. People are looking into their empty coffee cups with disdain and asking their coworkers if they should go out to get some. What an inconvenience, indeed, yet they do nothing. Tiffany takes some paper towels and wraps her hand up so she can finish cleaning. She gives the janitor a note that the broken coffee machines need to be disposed of. She adds replacement coffee machines to the catalogue spreadsheet.

 She takes what she needs from a first-aid kit and hides away in a bathroom to her wounds. The third floor's abandoned washroom works perfectly for this. She cleans the cut under the tap and puts some antibiotic cream on it before wrapping it up. It's only 1 pm, so she has a good three hours to waste. It's only her right ring finger, it's not like she uses it much anyway. But it'll make things a bit awkward. And it'll hurt like a if some of the cleaning products get into the wound.

 "Are you okay?" The voice startles her. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." Kim Taeyeon, previously known as Pretty Stranger in Tiffany's mind, has appeared in the bathroom.

 "It's fine." Tiffany's too tired to be mean. And it's not like she has reason to. Taeyeon hasn't been anything but kind to her, except maybe for that one, misguided comment about her being too pretty to be a cleaner. A cleaner was a perfectly respectable occupation. Tiffany made good money.

 "Sorry, I have really bad luck, I must've set something off on the machines when I walked past." Taeyeon rubs her neck, a sheepish smile on her face. She has dry clothes now and it doesn't seem like she's hurt anywhere. But Tiffany doesn't care if she's hurt or not. She doesn't. Also, to assume decades-old coffee machines combusted simply because you walked past on is a whole another level of crazy. Taeyeon's not at fault here, even if Tiffany would very much like it to be.

 "Rumour has it the second floor's haunted. It's fine." She's not sure why she opened this conversation. But it is true. There are all kinds of rumours about the second floor. Like, the previous big boss's witchy niece cursed the building but was only able to get floor two. It's weird and Tiffany doesn't really believe it.

 "I love ghosts. It's so fascinating, right?" Taeyeon has on a Ghost Busters hoodie, so Tiffany isn't surprised. However, it's surprising how cute Tiffany finds it when the hood keeps falling into Taeyeon's eyes. But to banish that thought from her mind, she instead wonders why Taeyeon is acting as if Tiffany hadn't been incredibly rude to her just a few days ago. Well, it wasn't like she was sorry for it, but usually, celebs took every insult very personally. Their egos were fragile.

 "Right." She says dryly, turning to check herself in the mirror. Her scrubs have coffee splatters and smell like cleaning products. Hair strands are falling out of her hair clip, but she can't be bothered to do it again. It looks like she's been punched in both eyes with how dark the circles are. She sighs and goes to pick up the stuff she brought to treat herself with. Only she can't properly grip them.

 "Let me help!" Taeyeon surges to grab them from her, but Tiffany pulls back, wincing when she moves her finger.

 "I'd rather you don't." Taeyeon looks like a wounded puppy. And Tiffany is instantly regretful. Wait. No, she's not. "We both have to get back to work."

 "I mean, I don't... I've already recorded my parts." Taeyeon smiles, she smiles like a kid, so sunny and bright and Tiffany would find it beautiful if she wasn't so jealous.

 "Cool. I have to get back to work." She says, tone dead and void of emotion. She remembers when she used to be like Taeyeon, happy and helpful, wanting to change the world and the people around her. How stupid.

 "You can't work with your hand wrapped up!"

 "It's just a finger."

 "Still!"

 "I'll live," Tiffany grumbles, clutching the items to her chest and making her way to the third-floor first-aid kit. After that, she goes back to the janitor's booth to get some more assignments if she doesn't find anything to do in the way. She makes a beeline for the stairs, hoping to shake the idol off. She does not succeed. Taeyeon tags along with her all the way, like a little duckling. Even when she makes a detour to help with the understaffed cloakroom. Taeyeon stands by, a frown on her pretty face, as Tiffany pointedly ignores her.

 "Hey, excuse me, ahjussi? Could Tiffany-ssi take the rest of the day off? She's sustained an injury and is in great amounts of pain." Taeyeon asks the old, curly-spined janitor sweetly, not even a second after they'd made it to the janitor's desk. Before Tiffany can say anything like no, I'm definitely not in great amounts of pain and/or Taeyeon is a dramatic whiny , the old man has demanded she clock out. Despite her body practically ing at the thought of rest, she stubbornly glares at Taeyeon for taking away her overtime pay.

 "Wanna eat lunch with me?" Taeyeon asks when she's out of the locker room. She hasn't changed out of her scrubs, but she has a thin windbreaker coat over them. It is autumn, after all. Tiffany does not understand why Taeyeon is wasting her time with her. This is probably some elaborate revenge plot for insulting her Friday night. She keeps her guard up.

 "No." Tiffany closes her eyes for a few seconds. "I just want to go home."

 "Let me drive you." Taeyeon's smile is still vibrant and her teeth are still Colgate-level, but it's gentler now. Tiffany doesn't know why, but she says:

 "Okay." It's only because commuting is exhausting.

 (No, you dumb , it's because she's cute as hell.)