Begin Again

Chapter 2

I let out a sigh. We were in a car, heading to a meeting. I did not like this meeting at all. The draft agreement, the review of the said draft, and the data were all prepared, but it felt like there was something tugging inside me.

"Pete, are you tired? It's not even noon and it's not like we are walking there,"

Khun Yok, my boss, said while jokingly slapping my shoulder.

"Awww Khun Yok. I'm not tired just thinking if the data is enough or not," I lied.

"It's okaaaay. I know The Theerapanyakul can be intimidating, but their business team is actually chill you know. I've met them a few times."

"If you can meet them yourself and have met them before, why the hell do you need me?"

I asked the same question I had asked at our office before we got in the company's car.

I worked at a new start-up as one of its finance team. The company was still small with only less than 200 people working there, but we saw a steady development, so we were always looking for partnerships to give an even better experience for our customers. The Theerapanyakul, their legal side of the business, decided to open a new finance-based company and contacted us, interested to integrate with our company's payment system. From the inception of the partnership, I had avoided meeting them face to face, only involved in reviewing the draft.

"Because no one else is available, darliiiing. You know that. All your team members are preparing the daily reports. The other team members are not related to the project, so it's only you."

"Haaaahhhh. If I knew that it is gonna be this hard to be a team leader under a manager like you, I won't accept the promotion."

We both laugh at our misery. Because of all of my achievements in what little time I had joined the company (and also because of the lack of man power), I was quickly promoted to be a leader, just under one year.

I composed myself, it was not like the upper chain was gonna be in this meeting themselves, but I would still need to brace for impact, just in case, Khun Yok let slip to their team that I used to work there. I followed Khun Yok to a restaurant inside a mall. The Theerapanyakul had reserved a VIP room for us to have a lunch meeting. We arrived first. I prepared my laptop, a book, and a pen.

We were going over the materials once again when the door opened. A woman in her late twenties or early thirties entered the room and greeted Khun Yok happily. Khun Erika, her name was. Following her was one of her team members, Khun Prim, who also said hello to Khun Yok energetically. It seemed that they were the ones who Khun Yok described as 'chill'. I greeted them and introduced myself.

"We know," the two women said in unison and laughed, "you really are cute, just like Yok said," one of them added.

"Oh, today my bosses wanted to join the meeting, that's okay, right?" Khun Erika informed us.

"That's alright, the more the merrier," again, the three women laughed together.

"Oh, here they are," I looked up once again.

Oh boy, oh boy.

I finally got an answer to the tugging feeling I had earlier. You see, I did not know that something that had been shattered, been broken once, could be broken again, but there I was, eh?

***