The office was decidedly smaller than the large one now belonging to Sharon a few floors above. It was not as wide nor as spacious, with its windows looking to have only been reluctantly carved up to add some life to the office's existence in the corner of the floor where it was.
Sharon felt a twinge of discomfort at the discrepancy, especially as it seemed as if it was her arrival which had brought the change, even though the professional world, the world itself, was a place for competition, with people going up and the majority going down, or pushed down.
Still, the place was already bigger than the cramped place serving as her home now, not at Alex's, where she had forced herself, but where she almost got buried in an avalanche of her own boxes a month ago. It had enough space for the desk wide enough to bear the desktop and a throng of documents, the sofa against the wall where Lance was sprawled, the couch beside it, the small table completing the sitting area, a shelf, and a cabinet.
Leyna seemed to read Sharon, as she smiled softly, before waving her hand dismissively after a glance at Lance:
"Don't pay him any mind. You must be busy adapting to your new job. Do you need my help for something?"
"Yes. Actually, I came to ask for some advice…"
_ _ _
_ _ _
"Thank you, big sister Leyna."
From beside Leyna, Sharon straightened up from her posture leaning forward, her expression bright after all her questions had been answered. The former smiled with soft calm and replied as she brought her greyish blue eyes onto the blonde:
"Don't mention it. I can't just have you call me big sister for nothing, can I?"
Sharon said no more. She showed Leyna a smile more genuine than courteous:
"Then I will get going. See you later."
"See you later."
As Sharon closed the door behind her, the dark-haired older woman adjusted the monitor of her desktop to resume her own work she had paused. In that silence marked with the subtle typing sound caused by Leyna's fingers on her keyboard and the fountain pen softly rubbing against the paper, Lance came back to life, and his eyes moved around, before he sat up.
He exhaled, though with less unwillingness and depression, and moved to sit before Leyna, on the seat across from her. She glanced at him without stopping her actions, and asked as she shifted her gaze away:
"Now spit it out. Why have you come here? Alex sent you, right? Or did you come here just to recover from the depression from Jenny's words?"
Lance looked to the side and scoffed with a bitter expression:
"Tch. Do you think Jenny can say something to make me depressed? Humph, she is just a little girl."
His words made the typing sound pause, and Leyna looked at him. The silent, calm eyes pierced through his defenses, making his face warm up, and forcing him to take the only path available. He tossed the embarrassing subject aside and pretended it never even came up:
"You are right, the chairman sent me. He made me your assistant and asked me to have you check the assignment he gave me yesterday, so I came to shine my bright light on this depressing place. Aren't I the best?"
Leyna didn't pay attention to Lance's self-flattering blabbering. She gave him a meaningful look, an amused smile tugging at the corner of her red lips:
"The chairman, huh?"
Lance nodded firmly:
"Yes. The chairman."
The tone of the answer was defiant, full of vengeful determination, but in the end, just a powerless protest. Leyna shook her head and moved on:
"And the assignment?"
Lance raised the folder he had been holding all along:
"Here. An inspection plan for the subsidiaries of the Group. I barely slept throughout the night to do it."
This time, Leyna didn't move her gaze from her computer's screen. She caught sight of the dark cover from the corner of her eyes:
"Alright. Give me a moment."
"Okay."
The calm silence returned, punctuated by the signs of Leyna's focused work. Lance looked at her, then at the surroundings, moving his eyes from place to place. After some time, his boredom could not be staved off with that empty curiosity anymore. He looked at Leyna, and decided to use another method to pass the time:
"Say, why did you make Sharon call you big sister when you met yesterday?"
Leyna smiled, both at Lance's unsurprising restlessness and at his question, to which she replied with one of her own:
"How close are Alex and her?"
Lance blinked. He didn't need to think for them answer to come up on its own:
"I… don't know."
What had seemed obvious had ended up looking different as his mind thought about it, just before his lips moved. Even though he had seen Sharon at Alex's place, and knew they were living together, he still could not determine their true relationship. All he could say for sure was:
"They are not strangers. I think there is some history between them, but I don't know what."
There, he had his answer. Even as he finished his words, Lance understood. Leyna had already noticed the connection between Alex and Sharon, right at her first time seeing them together. He looked at her, awed.
He didn't know if it was a woman's meticulousness, a woman's intuition, or simply Leyna's own bright and experienced brain. And that added to his confusion at Alex moving her from upstairs to this lost corner of here. That was not really logical.
"Big sis, why did Alex assign you to, what, logistics inspection? Did that even exist before?"
Leyna finally stopped focusing on her computer's screen, apparently done with what she was doing, or having reached a point where she could put it on hold. Under Lance's intrigued gaze, she smiled:
"Does that matter?"
Her calm surprised Lance, but at the same time, it made him exhale and shake his head. Being around smart people could be tiring. He stopped thinking and put the assignment to be reviewed in Leyna's extended hand.
He would pretend her calm smile didn't prick at his heart. Yeah, he would just do that.