[2] Red | Mingi ✓

six | the one where she discovers she feels great

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MINT WANTED FREEDOM.

NEEDED IT.

   No need to deem speaking to Bang Chan a betrayal of trust—Mingi's trust.

   Bang Chan had been strutting his blue hair all week, but not enough to keep him busy. He was also rather taken lately by Mint's tardy-early entries, being the first to take in her bushed form striding in a couple minutes shy of past eight, already anticipating those driving seconds to close hour.

   He wore short sleeves again. This one was a very faint shade of salmon and would have made a terrible mix with the deep blue on his head. But the salmon had been closer to white, and hence the color Mint saw when she looked beyond his dark frames popped on their own. No telling if they looked that way all the time, Mint wouldn't know, for it was not everyday she scooped up sudden interests in the most interesting guy at work. He was the talk amongst the cubicles, a marvel beyond them, a force to be reckoned with through that door in the corner, next to a large potted fern, farther away from one out of three water dispensers in the open-plan office where professional and frivolous thrived on a very thin line. That was Boss's office. Around here, everyone knew you'd arrived once you became the favoured one. And Bang Chan, he damn made sure he got around to that. Each time Mint took him in, she saw competition. Ever since he'd become the competition, Mint stopped bothering with the details except it left him in the mud, and how to make that a reality? Still a mystery to her. In time, the fire dwindled.

   Bang Chan had no intentions that involved simply breezing by and on his way after a "hey" and "you good?"

   Mint watched her corporate enemy (much of an ignoramus on that subject) yank out the nearest chair to sit and lay out some ground work. As if he was certain this two-man huddle would go down the way he expects it, him rising, triumphant and accomodating arrogant thoughts, Well, boy, I really am good at this stuff. Bang Chan appeared as comfortable as a prim-proper, work-oriented lifestyle would permit. It was the way Mint chose to classify him ever since it turned out he lived for nothing but work. Outside that, Mint could think of nothing.

   Pretending not to notice him, Mint indulged scribbling the same sentence over and over in an open jotter he wouldn't get to see from where he sat, except he stood and looked over her shoulder. But if Bang Chan was even remotely curious about what she was up to, his inaction to react was no giveaway. Not even a hinting of what went on up there where she couldn't see (and wished she could) when he sat here like this, staring.

   Or was it studying?

   Maybe he was scrutinizing.

   Mint wondered what would happen if she glanced up to meet her gaze square with Bang Chan's. Just how high were the prospects of a beet-red blush. Afterall, a bad history can make any woman bashful; the biggest loser feel on top of the world, she thought. True story.

   "Good day, Park." Apparently he was also down for taking initiatives these days when it came to her. To feel honoured or not to feel, she deliberated, realizing it could mean that Bang Chan's iffy doting of recent had to do with his knack for maintaining a tiptop team. If that happened to be the case, Mint figured she could cut him some slack.

   At least he didn't seem as ambiguous as some people. People she hopes to flush out her system soon enough.

   Feigning fright, Mint literally jumped in her seat to look believable when she met Bang Chan's eyes to lie to him. What was his take on pretenders, she wondered.

   "Oh, Chan." Mint started calling him just Chan because everyone called him Bang Chan, and back in the day when she harbored an undefined crush on him, she thought it made her stand out in the crowd. That Bang Chan—no, Chan—would notice.