If You Miss It

3. switch flip

CHAPTER THREE

SWITCH FLIP

—

So, Dmitri didn't quit.

After thinking on it, searching for other jobs and coming up with absolutely nothing he gave up. It was slightly pathetic, to be honest— the fact that he gave up on his job-hunt in barely a week.

For now, he was managing, though. He was constantly writing and publishing History articles, every waking moment spent behind his screen, he was still helping his students out with their school work, despite not teaching at the school anymore, and he had even gone as far as to offer to walk his neighbour's dogs when they were busy.

All in all, everything was fine.

Except for his sleep schedule. That was definitely not fine. But still, he liked to pretend that everything was fine.

"Oy. Dmitri, you're spacing out," Trinh called out from her position near the grinder, causing Dmitri's hand to instantly jerk, nearly spilling all the coffee onto the marble counters. "Try not to zone out, yeah? We have shit to do."

Muttering out a soft apology, Dmitri shook his head, clearing it of all his thoughts as he handed a mug of coffee and a slice of cake to someone. "Have a good day," he said, voice coming out emotionless, robotic. Fuck. I should probably try to sound more enthusiastic. Less dead inside.

"What's wrong with you?" Trinh asked, bumping hips with him as she hummed the song that was blaring through the loudspeakers. "Why are you so... not Dmitri today? Is everything okay?"

A short sigh escaped Dmitri's mouth. Might as well. "Honestly, I have no fucking clue. Might just be me overworking myself, might be the mental illness, but who knows? I'm just fucking tired," he admitted lowly, eyes scanning the coffee shop to check if anyone was listening in, even though he was sure that no one could hear even a word of what he was saying.

To be frank, Dmitri didn't expect himself to just admit that to Trinh, but as he had just said, he was really fucking tired. And he had no filter whatsoever when he was tired.

Eyes narrowing, Trinh frowned as she poured some coffee into a take-away cup, orange band encircling her wrist today. "Is it the environment? Because Tariq is working above us?" she questioned, voice barely audible over the music echoing through the room. Yes. No. I don't know.

"No, no. It's not the environment. I promise. It's just—"

Right when he was about to try to convince Trinh that it was his own fault and nothing else, someone walked into the coffee shop. Fuck.

"Speak of the fucking devil."

The door swung wide open, and in walked Tariq. But he looked different today— the same unnerving confidence that he had been radiating for the past week gone, replaced by an obvious exhaustion on his face. And Dmitri just knew that the previous night had been a bad one.

That is, if Tariq still had bad nights.

Of course, Dmitri didn't question it, he just watched as Trinh handed him his coffee, free of charge for him as she had mentioned before, the reason being, Dmitri, he works here!

He expected Tariq to walk by, to not make eye contact with him. That was normal for them. The two of them ignoring each other was normal.

What Dmitri didn't expect was for Tariq to accept the coffee, before cursing under his breath and dropping it right onto the wooden floors, causing it to spill all over the ground.