The elevator doors were nearly shut when Minjae slipped inside.
Yura was already there, sipping from her tumbler. She glanced at him, offered a brief nod.
"Morning."
"Morning," he echoed, adjusting his bag.
The silence stretched as the car climbed. Then Yura spoke again, her tone casual but edged with curiosity.
"You looked tired yesterday. Are you even sleeping?"
Minjae blinked. "Enough."
"That's not a number."
He gave a small sigh. "…Seven hours. Sometimes six."
Her eyebrow went up a bit. She decided to drop it though. Then the elevator dinged. They stepped out, walking right next to each other. Still, they kept that little gap there.
---
Later that morning, he stood at the vending machine, card already tapped. His finger hovered over the options when Yura's voice broke the quiet.
"Didn't think you were the sweet-coffee type."
"I'm not."
He pressed the button anyway and handed her the can.
Yura accepted without hesitation. "Thanks."
"You usually give these to anyone?"
"No."
"Good," she said, cracking it open with a soft hiss. "Makes it mean something."
He gave the smallest of nods and walked off.
Yura lingered a moment longer, watching him disappear down the hallway. Then she smirked to herself. "That's one point."
---
Much later in the day, Minjae caught her again, but this time in the copy room. The printer growled, ejecting pages at a snail's pace.
"Bet you miss dragons now," Yura muttered, arms crossed.
He looked at her, brow furrowed. "What?"
"The printer. Thought I'd provoke a reaction."
"You're not the joking type," he said.
She tilted her head, a shadow of amusement in her eyes. "Maybe you're not the right person to joke with."
Silence settled—neither moving, neither looking away. Then the printer finally spat the last sheet. Yura gathered the papers, brushing past him.
"Still," she murmured as she left, "you react more than you think."
Her words lingered long after the door swung shut.
---
That night, Yura replayed something from months earlier.
It had been during a cross-department meeting—operations, finance, strategy—all crowded into a single conference room. She'd been giving a short update when one of the operations team leads leaned back in his chair, smiling far too broadly.
"You're sharp, Yura," he'd said, his tone just shy of patronizing. "I'll have to invite you to dinner sometime. Strictly off the record, of course."
A few people chuckled. Yura kept her posture straight, her smile neutral. She hated the heat crawling up her neck but said nothing.
The silence stretched until Minjae spoke.
"We'll need her focus here," he said evenly, his eyes still on the slides. "Her analysis has been central to these projections. If she's pulled elsewhere, our timeline suffers."
Not raised. Not cutting. Just firm enough to close the matter.
The team lead gave a sheepish laugh, muttering something about "just joking." The moment passed.
Yura hadn't turned to look at Minjae then, but she remembered the relief—the quiet steadiness of his tone. He hadn't embarrassed her. He hadn't made it a fight. He'd simply set the boundary where it belonged.
That was the day she realized there was more to his silence than detachment.
---
Back in the present, the break room was a quieter battlefield.
Seori stirred sugar into her tea. Yuri slipped in, carrying her usual calm. Yura followed soon after. For a moment, only the clink of the spoon and the faint hum of the refrigerator filled the air.
"He offered me coffee today," Yura said, her voice casual but deliberate.
"Kind of him," Seori replied without looking up.
"He helped me fix a report yesterday," Yuri added, her smile measured.
The air shifted. They all knew what it meant.
No declarations, no accusations—but none of them would step aside. A tension hummed softly beneath the surface, as steady as a heartbeat.
---
At his desk, Minjae reviewed projections, face calm, movements steady. On the surface, nothing had changed. But inside, their words echoed.
Yura's sly teasing. Yuri's warmth. Seori's quiet presence.
They were no longer colleagues, and he could not comprehend why their notice was more despotic than figures on paper.
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling's fluorescent glow.
You react more than you think.
She was right.
And the truth unsettled him more than anything else.