KINA:
I was thinking about food again.
Seafood boil drenched in seasoned garlic butter. Thick steak, medium rare, with mashed potatoes so creamy they could pass for a dream, drenched in hot, peppery gravy. Gochujang rice cakes from that Seoul street stall I bookmarked on YouTube. A fat bowl of ramen with pork belly melting into miso broth. Mochi. Strawberry vanilla boba tea. Soft bread. Egg fried rice. Bibimbap. Wagyu slices seared table-side. Spicy tuna rolls. Strawberry parfaits in those tall café glasses. My tongue ran along my lower lip.
God, I was starving.
My fingers barely tapped the keyboard, the screen blinking back like it was judging me. Two spreadsheets open, three half-edited PDFs, and a deadline that was breathing down my neck like it had lungs of its own. My stomach growled.
"Kina!"
I jumped like I'd been caught stealing from the heavens. The voice sliced through the air, so impatient, clipped and sharp enough to strip paint.
I turned slowly, already shrinking into my seat.
Ms. Lacey. My senior. Not my direct supervisor, but someone with enough seniority to make my life hellish on a whim. She was standing two desks away, arms crossed, a deep frown pinching her face like she'd been born with it.
"Why are you just sitting there? That report for finance was due two hours ago."
I blinked. "I'm still working on the—"
"Well, hurry up," she snapped before I could finish, already walking away.
I sighed. Long. Defeated. A sound that belonged to someone double my age.
Junior Operations Analyst. That was my fancy job title. Which really just meant catch-all, fix-all, do-everything mule. Any task that couldn't be passed upwards, got dumped on me like I was a damn folder with legs. Data entry. Presentation formatting. Invoice corrections. Proofreading. Internal comms. Coffee orders, on a bad day.
By the time I finally stitched everything together, calculations, revisions, formatting, all with trembling fingers and an ache behind my eyes. it was close to 4:30 p.m. I carried the file, slightly smudged with the sweat from my palms, to my boss's office.
He wasn't alone.
Katherine Cho was standing beside him, Executive Director. The woman whose father technically owned half the corporation I worked at. Silk blouse, icy perfume, and the personality of a guillotine. Neither of them looked up when I knocked softly on the open door.
I cleared my throat.
Still nothing.
"Sir, I've finished the quarterly revision—"
Katherine's eyes slowly slid toward me like I'd dragged mud into her penthouse. "And?" she said, like I'd interrupted world peace negotiations.
"I—I just came to hand it in."
I moved to give it to my boss, but Katherine reached forward and snatched it instead. She barely skimmed through it, flipping pages like they were beneath her fingers.
"This is what took you so long?" she said, lips curling.
I said nothing. I bit the inside of my cheek, counting to three. Then five.
"It's passable," she continued with a dismissive flick. "Which is another word for lazy. Start all over."
My heart stopped. "Ma'am?"
She looked at me like I'd cursed.
"Start over," she repeated coldly. "This level of mediocrity won't fly here. You'll never make it anywhere thinking 'barely enough' is acceptable."
I didn't know when I'd stopped breathing.
Start all over? That meant hours more of work. More stress. More typos. More redlining. More...
"And add the numbers from the Tanaka file to it," she added. "Since you're already working late. Shouldn't be a problem for someone young and hungry, right?"
The bile crawled up my throat, but I swallowed it. Hard.
I wanted to say I didn't sleep last night, I haven't eaten since breakfast, I've redone this damn report twice already because of shifting standards and everyone's last-minute changes but instead I nodded. Meekly. Quietly. The way I always did.
I took the file back with shaking hands.
"It's nothing," I whispered under my breath. "It's temporary. It's just a bad day, not a bad life."
Still, it stung. I didn't know why Katherine hated me. Maybe she saw something in me she despised. Maybe I reminded her of someone she hated. Or maybe she was just that kind of woman, made of steel, untouched by the idea of kindness. Either way I didn't have any other option than to take it. If I wanted to keep my source of income...
I sat back down at my desk.
My boyfriend, Aaron, crossed my mind for half a second. I could text him. Vent a little. Maybe ask for dinner.
But no. How could I ask him to believe in me if I couldn't even survive a few late nights and some corporate bullying?
I opened my laptop again.
You wanted this job. You begged for it. You prayed for it. You need the paycheck.You need to stay.
4:45 p.m. Almost closing time.
I doubled my speed. My fingers danced.. no, sprinted across the keys. I took one quick breath and typed up a message:
[Kina]: hey, how's the meeting going?
Sent. Delivered. No reply yet.
That was okay. He was probably busy.
I pushed the phone aside and dove back into the document, back aching, eyes sore, stomach begging.
Food could wait.
My fingers were moving so fast, I could barely feel them. Just rapid fire over the keys, click click click, trying to make the damn spreadsheet balance itself by willpower alone. I was in panic mode, tunnel vision locked on rows and tabs and formulas like my life depended on them.
Because, in a way, it did.
Everyone else had already clocked out. The office was dead quiet, only the hum of the air conditioner and the occasional creak of the old ceiling lights keeping me company. Desks around me were empty. Chairs pushed back. Coats gone. Even Ms. Lacey had vanished like some cursed wind spirit.
I rubbed at my temples, groaning when pain throbbed behind my eyes like someone had lodged a heartbeat there.
And that's when it hit me, I'd forgotten to wear my glasses.
I cursed under my breath. The optometrist had warned me last month, If you're going to spend all day in front of screens, you need proper blue-light protection. I said yes. I said of course. I said I'll remember. And here I was. Blind. Head aching. Probably aging my eyeballs by ten years in one sitting.
I blinked against the strain and checked the time.
7:02 p.m.
"Shit," I muttered.
I reached for my phone and opened our chat.
Still no reply.