Juno arrived at twelve-fifteen with a tote bag, strong opinions about the building's architecture, and absolutely no intention of being quiet about either.
"It's so tall," he said, standing on the pavement outside Draxen Global with his head tilted back. "Why is it so tall. Nobody needs a building this tall."
"Forty-three floors," Seren said.
"That's aggressive." Juno lowered his gaze to the facade. "All that glass. You can see everything."
"You can't see anything. It's reflective."
"Exactly." Juno pointed. "Watching without being watched. That's a power move built into the architecture."
Seren looked at him.
"You've been doing that thing where you read meaning into buildings again."
"Buildings have meaning, Seren. That's literally what architecture is." Juno thrust the tote bag at him. "I brought food. The good containers, not the ones that leak. You're welcome."
They sat on the low wall across from the entrance.
Juno had brought rice and something with vegetables that smelled significantly better than anything available in the building's second-floor café. Seren ate without arguing about it, which Juno correctly identified as a sign that things were going reasonably well.
"So," Juno said. "Three weeks in. Real verdict."
"It's good."
"That's not a verdict, that's a deflection."
Seren considered. "The work is harder than anything I've done before. The systems took time to learn. The expectations are, significant."
"And?"
"And I'm meeting them."
Juno looked at him over his container. "You're not going to tell me about the CEO."
"There's nothing to tell."
"You've mentioned his name four times in the past three weeks without being asked."
Seren had not realized he'd done that.
"He's my direct superior," he said. "It would be strange if I didn't mention him."
"You described the way he takes his coffee."
"I described it because knowing it is part of my job."
"Black," Juno said immediately. "No exceptions. Specific brand."
Seren said nothing.
Juno smiled with the specific satisfaction of someone who had made their point without needing to state it.
They ate in a companionable quiet for a while.
The lunch crowd moved around them, people from the building, people from the offices on the adjacent block, the specific midday energy of a financial district briefly released from its own importance.
Seren watched the entrance of Draxen Global without meaning to.
Caught himself doing it.
Looked at his food.
"The woman," he said. "Lysandra."
Juno's attention sharpened. He'd learned to track the names Seren mentioned carefully , the ones said neutrally were usually the ones that mattered.
"Still?"
"Still." Seren turned his container over. "Nothing I can point to directly. Misplaced files. Comments at the right volume. She's precise about it."
"Can you document it?"
""Good." Juno's expression settled into the particular focused calm he got when someone he cared about was being treated unfairly and he was deciding what to do about it. "She's threatened."
"Probably."
"Definitely. You walked in and made everything look easier than she wanted it to look." He stabbed a piece of vegetable. "Some people hate that."
Seren shrugged.
"I'm not there to make it look hard."
"I know." Juno pointed his fork. "That's exactly what threatens her."
The building doors opened.
Seren registered it peripherally, the steady traffic of people in and out had become background noise over the past three weeks. He didn't look up.
Then Juno went slightly still beside him.
Not dramatically. Just the small pause of someone whose attention had been caught by something they hadn't expected.
Seren looked up.
Damien Roth had come through the main doors and was crossing toward the side street that led to the parking structure. He moved the way he always moved, direct, unhurried, the particular purposeful efficiency of someone who didn't take indirect routes.
He wasn't looking at them.
He was looking at a document in his hand.
Then he wasn't looking at the document.
He was looking at Juno.
Three seconds.
Brief, comprehensive, the same quality of assessment he brought to everything, but landing on Juno with a specificity that was different from how Damien looked at a document or a problem or a floor plan.
Then he looked away.
Kept walking.
Turned the corner and was gone.
The whole thing had lasted under ten seconds.
Seren looked at Juno.
Juno was looking at the corner Damien had turned.
"Who," Juno said, "is that."
"Damien Roth. COO. My direct manager essentially."
Juno turned to look at him. Something in his expression that Seren couldn't entirely read, which was unusual, because Juno's face was generally a complete transcript of his internal state.
"He looked at me," Juno said.
"He looks at everything."
"Not like that."
Seren raised an eyebrow.
Juno pointed at him immediately. "Don't do the eyebrow thing."
"I'm not doing anything."
"You're doing the eyebrow thing, which means you're thinking something, which means I'm going to be annoyed at you in approximately thirty seconds." Juno turned back to his food. "Something about that man annoys me."
"You've spoken to him for zero seconds."
"I don't need to speak to someone to know they're annoying." He stabbed another piece of vegetable with more force than necessary. "He's very — still. Did you notice that? He just stood there being still and looking at things."
"That's generally how looking at things works."
"You know what I mean."
Seren did know what he meant.
He also knew that Juno's particular brand of annoyance, the fast, certain, slightly indignant kind, was almost exclusively reserved for things that had gotten under his skin before he'd had a chance to prepare for them.
He said nothing.
He ate his rice.
"He has a good coat," Juno said, after a moment.
"Yes."
"That's not a compliment. I'm making an observation."
"Noted."
"It's a very good coat," Juno said, quieter, to no one in particular.
Seren looked at the corner of the building.
Looked back at his food.
Kept his face entirely neutral, which cost him more effort than it should have.
They finished eating.
Juno packed the containers back into the tote with the efficiency of someone who had grown up in a household where wasting food was not an option and had never lost the habit.
"Come down again Thursday?" Seren asked.
"Obviously." Juno stood, shouldered the bag. "Tell me things are actually okay. Not the professional version. The real version."
Seren looked at the building.
At the glass facade that reflected the street back at itself.
Three weeks in. The work was good. The systems were running. The tests kept coming and he kept passing them. His account had absorbed the first paycheck with a completeness that had made him sit quietly at his kitchen table for a full minute before doing anything else.
His mother's prescription was up to date.
Mira had been to school every day this week.
"It's actually okay," he said.
Not the professional version.
The real one.
Juno looked at him for a moment, searching, the way he always did, for the gap between what Seren said and what Seren meant.
He seemed to find them aligned this time.
"Good," he said.
He hugged Seren once, quick, firm, the hug of someone who had learned that Seren received them better when they didn't linger, and left.
Seren watched him go.
Then he looked at the corner of the building where Damien had turned.
Thought about three seconds and a very good coat.
Went back inside.