It took Sophie around 10 minutes walking distance from the cafe to her workplace. Today she wore her white satin blouse with dark blue office pants and kitten heels. Her height didn't require her to wear higher heels to portray the charismatic ladylike vibe and growing up in rich business family naturally Sophie had her own enchanting aura like a successful CEO but she was merely a Junior Assistant in her team.
At first, the coworkers felt intimidated by her which resulting to some seniors there intended to nitpick her. Thankfully she avoided this terrible treatment with her wittiness in disguise of her polite and kind attitude hence she escaped from being the unfortunate pushover in the office.
It turned out that this unlucky person was one of her teammates-Neil. Sophie didn't entirely comfortable with this poor culture and seeing how others dumping the heavy workloads to Neil irresponsibly irritated her but her little position didn't allow her to voice out the dissatisfaction openly. Nether did the Star Inc. wasn't her parent's business nor she wanted to reveal her background. It would attract troublesome attention if coworkers here knew her background and it was a safer choice to lay low since she planned to work here for resume experience for one year term only so she chose to keep her distance like others. They didn't talk much to each other except for business matters but that was also only several times throughout this one month since they both started working at Star Inc. and were assigned to marketing department.
"Morning."
"Morning."
Sophie politely greeted her coworkers as she walked to her work cubicle which happened to be next to Neil's desk. As expected Neil had begun his work although the clock had yet to hit 9 am. He seemed to pull an all-nighter to complete the never-ending tasks before today's morning meeting. Sophie was itching to offer help to him seeing the mountains of files on his desk but she held in. If she really did help him out, it would cause unnecessary gossips and we all knew that once office gossips about you spread wild like fire, your career as juniors would be at risk and they would dug out even about your personal lifestyle. Definitely this wasn't what Sophie wanted to get into the trouble but she couldn't help but felt guilty over her selfish decision.
She pretended not noticing how busy Neil was and quietly switched on her computer. She begun her morning routine at work as she browsed through the emails. The cursor on the screen moved around fast and smooth until it abruptly stopped when Sophie caught some mumbled words next to her. Instinctively she shifted her attention to that weak voice and unexpectedly met Neil's sleepy black eyes with dark circles underneath them which were looking directly at her.
For a few seconds Sophie was stunned. Neil often kept his head down and only briefly glanced the person he talked to thus this was the first time she could see his face clearly. He obviously looked bad and distraught. Neil had a habit of persistently adjusting his glasses although they didn't slid down his nose. He was visibly nervous when he made the eye contact.
Neil had that innocence look resembled freshman students who just started their university year. He would wear the typical office uniforms - pure white t-shirt, black pants and tie and a pair of shiny shoes everyday. Even when he was busy with the works and during hot weather, he didn't keep the sleeves rolled up like most of other male workers here.
Women and girls often fantasized seeing their dream guys and knowing this fatal attraction appearance, men also didn't let go of the chances trying to gauge attention from the female. This wasn't the case for Neil considering that he had a small framed and lean body. He also didn't seem the type of gym guy as well.
If someone were to describe Neil's facial features, he looked like most of the common guys out there. There was nothing distinct about his face. His black hair was relatively short and was combed neatly. He had fair skin making the dark circles and eyebag strikingly enhanced his tired expression.
"Err yesss??" Sophie hesitated, unsure of what to say.
"About the mini project...," replied Neil, silently noted the fleeting daze in Sophie's eyes.
"Ahh yes I've few ideas. We can talk about it during the lunch." said Sophie. Well, even if she kept her distance, she couldn't avoid working together with Neil as they were both the only juniors of their team. But the workloads given to both of them were not properly distributed. Female juniors tended to be treated better by the male seniors.
Neil hummed in agreement as he turned back to his desk but he stopped mid-way and looked back at Sophie
"Err or you want to discuss about it now?" asked Sophie confused.
Neil shook his head and then continued the works.
Honestly Sophie was caught off guard with the whole interaction just now. Yes it was sudden but at the same time, she, herself couldn't believe that she rudely stared at Neil and she had to actually pinched her thighs to get her out of the trance. Thanks to her strong self-control, Sophie quickly compose herself and tried to carry out the conversation as normal. But she was aware the fact that she was barely breathing and her body was stiff during that short conversation. She was lucky that she had her hair down for today's style so Neil didn't see how her ears instantly became red the moment their eyes met. Her scalp was tingling from the embarrassment.
Damn, did she just....
Buzz! Buzz! Her phone vibrated and flashed out a few texts. It was Mr James who called her into his office. This led to Sophie finally breathed a sigh of relief and immediately scurried to Mr James's office with notebook in her hand. Unknown to her, a certain gaze followed her hurried steps till she disappeared into the head of marketing department's office.