Lina's POV
I was late. Again. Not that it mattered. Kael Wu didn't care if I was early or late, alive or dead, as long as I didn't screw up anything that mattered to him which, to be fair, included pretty much everything I did. I shoved my bag under my desk and tried to concentrate on the pile of papers like a good employee, but my brain had already wandered. Again. You may be wondering but yes I just got a job I'll get into details later.
Kael Wu was the kind of boss who looked like he invented stress. He didn't smile unless he was furious, and I didn't think anyone had ever seen him blink more than once in a meeting. But the problem? Even with that attitude he was kinder to others but he hated me. Not mildly, not with that polite distance you get from a boss who is just professional. He hated me with the precision of a sniper. And this wasn't new. High school, even. I was just some early-secondary-school nobody wandering the halls, and there he was, all high school and hair gel, always in the corner of my memory, the kind of guy who remembered my mistakes before I even made them. Now, years later, here he was again, just a bit taller, a lot richer, and every bit as infuriating as I remembered.
I really needed this job. Money doesn't grow on trees, and apparently, neither does rent. So here I was, trapped under lights, with the printer making that god-awful grinding noise, pretending I wasn't simmering with resentment. Resentment wasn't strong enough, but it would have to do.
Tessa poked her head over my cubicle wall. She always had that cheerful, mischief-in-her-eyes look, like she knew secrets you were about to find out the hard way. "Lina, again, again, it's happening; Kael wants you in his office."
"Oh no, what is it this time?"
"You got this girl! Fighting!"
My stomach dropped. The official translation: "Prepare to be yelled at for something you didn't do or possibly something you did do, but he just noticed it now." I groaned. "Why is it always me? Did he wake up this morning and just pick my name out of a hat?"
Tessa grinned. "Maybe he missed you. Or maybe he just really likes making you suffer." She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Probably both."
I didn't have time to reply. The elevator dinged and I walked down the hall, straight to my doom. He made me want to leave, but I had bills, so I went in anyway.
He looked up from the stack of documents on his desk. The desk itself was too clean, which made me think of it as some kind of battlefield where only the strong survived. He didn't even glance up in a way that said hello. Just the stare that could make someone reevaluate all of their life choices.
"Sit," he said. His voice was low, and I wanted to roll my eyes so badly I could feel my head spinning from the effort. I sat.
"Here's what I need you to do." He tapped his pen against the edge of a folder. "I need these reports revised. The client brief rewritten. The budget projections double-checked. And then. …." He paused like I might have forgotten he existed .."make sure the office inventory is updated by noon."
I blinked. Twice. I may have considered fainting, but I didn't want to embarrass myself before he could even begin to hate me properly.
"I… okay." I gritted my teeth. "Sure. No problem."
"Good. That's all." He went back to his papers, like I was already invisible, except I wasn't. That's the thing about Kael Wu: he could make your blood boil just by existing in the same room.
I left his office. My entire body was vibrating with irritation. Back in my cubicle, I sank into my chair and started muttering to the empty space in front of me, the way I often did when I needed someone to acknowledge the chaos in my head. "I don't get it. I do my job. I don't flirt with anyone, I don't steal anything, I don't even talk back… Why is it always me?"
And then I remembered. High school. The first time he looked at me and decided I was worth his personal disdain.
I had tripped on the steps outside the library once, carrying a stack of books. Nothing dramatic, just a regular, clumsy fall. But he had been there, of course, laughing just a little, but enough and something in his expression had made it clear he was setting me up. After that, he started small. He was the worst senior I had ever had.
And now, years later, it hadn't changed. He remembered me. He carried that memory around like a weapon, sharpened over the years. And now he was my boss. My actual boss.
And then I started thinking about that one thing that made him hate me even more. Not just my existence, not just my presence in his office. No, it went deeper. Much deeper. Something I wasn't ready to admit to anyone not Tessa, not Mika, not even my own reflection.
But it was the truth.
And the truth, if I thought about it too hard, made me want to pull my hair out and cry at the same time.
I tapped my pen against my desk. I could almost hear him smirking in my mind, smug, superior, knowing. And the worst part? I was going to have to deal with all of this today, and tomorrow, and probably every day after that.
I closed my eyes for a second and let myself sink into that perfect, well-earned hatred.
Because the problem wasn't just that he was Kael Wu, the strict, unbearable boss. The problem was why he had always hated me. And I was about to remember it, whether I liked it or not.