The meeting today had been quite satisfactory for Arsyeela. One by one, the participants left the conference room until only she and Adrian remained. She didn't immediately register their solitude; her mind was still fixated on a brief comment Adrian had made earlier—a simple sentence, yet one that lingered longer than it should have.
The scrape of a chair being pushed back pulled her to attention. Adrian was standing, ready to leave. Reflexively, Arsyeela called out to him.
"Adrian."
His movement paused. He turned, waiting for her to continue.
"I feel like…" Arsyeela hesitated, trying to piece together a shard of memory that surfaced without warning. "I've seen you before. A long time ago."
She fell silent again. A tiny snippet of the past nearly touched her conscious mind when the vibration of her phone cut the thought short. Arsyeela's gaze dropped to the screen, and her expression immediately hardened.
"Excuse me. I have to take this." Arsyeela said.
Adrian nodded.
Before truly moving away, Arsyeela looked at him once more—as if she felt that if she turned too quickly, something would slip away entirely.
She stepped out of the room, took a long breath, and finally answered the call.
"Hello—"
Before she could finish a single word, the heavy voice from the other end—her father's voice—cut her off. Arsyeela squared her shoulders, steeling herself to listen to the barrage of sentences delivered without room for interruption.
"Yes, Papa, Arsyeela promises."
In the end, that was the only phrase she kept repeating—a brief, nearly mechanical response. She couldn't tell if it was exhaustion reaching its limit, or the automatic commitment to the victory her father expected. The conversation ended abruptly, along with the renewed promise she had just made.
Arsyeela lowered the phone from her ear. Her breath was still shallow, and the promise she had just uttered felt heavy, pressing the air from her chest. She stood in the corridor, steps away from the meeting room, attempting to recover from the continuous reprimand. There were no questions about her. No concern for the burden she carried. For her father, the company always came first.
When Arsyeela turned around, she saw Adrian, who seemed to have just exited the meeting room.
"It's lunchtime, Madam. Aren't you going to eat?" Adrian asked, walking closer. His tone was slightly softer than usual, like speaking in a quiet room. He held his step for a half-second when he saw the tense expression on Arsyeela's face, although there was nothing wrong with his question—a common query, typical of a relationship between a superior and a subordinate.
Arsyeela was slightly taken aback. "You go first," she replied after a brief pause. "I… still have something else to attend to."
Arsyeela then walked away, seeking a place to calm herself. Adrian simply watched her retreat, making no attempt to press the issue. He only watched her back fade into the distance, with a faint sense that something had shifted since she took that call.
Arsyeela's steps unconsciously led her back toward room 3B. It was a space that felt neutral, a place where she could briefly escape the gaze of others. She walked in and sat on one of the sofas facing the window.
She lapsed into thought, letting her mind dissolve into the room's silence. Demand after demand seemed never to find an end. Her life had become a rigid formula: a machine programmed to generate profit and prestige. She couldn't remember the last time she lived outside the shadow of obligation and the prominent Pramatya name.
She opened her eyes. This was the persona she had created: the untouchable Director, a leader focused only on numbers. It was her best shield, a layer of ice preventing anyone from seeing the fragility within. For her, perfection was the minimum standard.
Arsyeela didn't know how long she had been sitting there. The daylight slowly shifted, leaving a pale reflection on the window glass. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to quiet her mind, but instead, one name returned unbidden.
Adrian.
Not as the Director of Operations, not as a manager she had to oversee. The name surfaced in a disturbing way—calm, consistent, and difficult to ignore.
In the following instances, their interactions became more frequent. There were no open disputes, nor personal conversations that crossed professional boundaries. Everything proceeded naturally. Too naturally. Yet, that was precisely where the anomaly lay.
Adrian always presented the same demeanor. Efficient. Punctual. Never trying to take up more space than necessary, but never disappearing either. His gaze was steady, his voice low and measured. He never interrupted, but always knew when to speak.
Adrian's attitude was truly an anomaly. In a corporate environment filled with intrigue and competition, Adrian moved like water: flowing silently, yet possessing the power to shape anything it passed. He never sought attention.
And Arsyeela began to realize something disturbing: she found herself observing.
It was more than just professional observation. It was far more detailed, more personal, and unconsciously settling into a mental routine that bound her.
She noticed how Adrian always waited until everyone finished speaking before offering his opinion. How he subtly shifted his seating position slightly away when discussions grew heated, as if giving room. Even the way he looked at the presentation screen—focused, but occasionally glancing her way, not for approval, but to ensure alignment.
Arsyeela noticed the sharp line of his jaw when he was concentrating, the way he held his pen, even his habit of rubbing the back of his neck when considering a complicated answer. These were details that should never have settled in the mind of a superior.
There were no excessive smiles. No attempts to get closer. Yet there was something between them that felt… quietly tense.
Arsyeela was used to being surrounded by people who were afraid, or overly ambitious. Adrian showed neither. He displayed a consistency that felt foreign.
She had tried to look for flaws or hidden motivations behind Adrian's composure, because her professional world ran on hidden agendas. She searched for excessive respect, subtle flattery, or even indicators of dislike. There was none. Only pure professionalism, which, in its simplicity, felt suspicious.
After Adrian left the room, Arsyeela sat silently again. This time, it wasn't due to exhaustion.
A new awareness surfaced, unsettling her.
She caught herself anticipating Adrian's presence everywhere. She began to consider his existence, even feeling a strange emptiness when he wasn't there.
In fact, she found herself rearranging several meeting schedules, ensuring Adrian had to attend as the operational representative.
And the most unsettling part—Arsyeela was shifting her view of Adrian as more than just a subordinate.
She didn't know what that change meant. She didn't want to know. But for the first time in a long time, her mind wasn't entirely consumed by her father's demands or the company's burdens.
There was one name lingering too long in her thoughts.
Arsyeela realized—that calmness wasn't safe. It was a hidden threat to the self-defense system she had built her whole life, a crack challenging her total control. If she allowed Adrian's composure to seep in further, she feared she would lose her strong reason for being the cold, efficient, and flawless Director of Pramatya. She feared that composure would remind her of the thing she avoided the most: that she was just an incredibly tired woman longing for a pause.