A few days passed.
The breach cleanup continued. Files reviewed, patches applied, one junior employee who needed the same thing explained three times before it landed. She explained it three times.
Work was work.
Still.
She closed a tab.
The word had no context and she wasn't going to manufacture one. Whatever he meant by it was his business. She had a system patch to review.
She reviewed it.
Han Ming started acting strange sometime around the third day.
Nothing she could name directly. Just — looks. The half-second-too-long kind, from across the room, that snapped away the moment Qinran glanced over. A suppressed smile that had no visible cause. The very deliberate stillness of someone pretending to be deeply absorbed in their screen.
Mildly irritating. Not her problem.
The break room was empty when she walked in on Friday afternoon.
She filled her cup. Stared at nothing while the machine ran.
Footsteps behind her.
Han Ming walked in, spotted her, and smiled. Normal enough. Qinran nodded once and turned back to her coffee.
Then she felt it.
That look. The specific weight of it on the back of her neck — not hostile, not particularly readable, just — pointed. Like Han Ming was looking at her and thinking something she found very funny and had absolutely no intention of sharing.
Qinran turned around.
Han Ming was already looking at the vending machine. Expression perfectly pleasant.
"...What"
"Hm?" Han Ming glanced over. "Nothing. Just standing here."
Qinran looked at her for a flat second.
Han Ming looked back. Blinked once. The picture of innocence.
Qinran picked up her cup and left.
Behind her she heard nothing. No laugh, no comment.
That somehow made it worse.
Back at her desk she pulled up her files.
Whats going on with her lately.
She started typing.
Still.....