A Daydream

The air in the department pitch meeting was sharp, snapping like a soda fizzing open. I had just reached the third slide when my hand slipped. With a sharp smack, the screen went black. It wasn't me. The computer had disconnected on its own.At the head of the table, Yoel Gilmore looked up, frowning as if the world owed him millions. Three taps of his fingers on the table, and each one felt like a hammer pounding my skull."Three minutes left," he said coldly, like a knife pulled straight from the freezer. "If we don't start now, the meeting is over."I didn't dare look up. When I first set up the projector, I had accidentally connected to the wrong Wi-Fi, and now the giant screen displayed his desktop wallpaper—my cat.It had once been an ugly little mess that could scare neighborhood kids, but I had edited it into a fluffy, bright-eyed little prince, perched on the windowsill and posing cutely for the camera.I had spent three hours editing it to perfection and stored it in a pr

Otherwise, he wouldn't have sent me those clingy, overly sweet messages after the meeting ended.Now I knew exactly who he was, yet he only knew me as a faceless nobody within the group. He was in the open, while I stayed hidden. Suddenly, the situation became interesting.After some thought, I picked up my phone and decided to settle a personal grudge under the guise of work. "Darling, we can't voice chat tonight. The boss wants us to rush a proposal overnight."The work group chat immediately pushed a notification. The proposal presentation was postponed by one day."Darling, the company cafeteria is terrible. The boss piles on work but pays so little. Should I just quit?"At noon, the cafeteria suddenly announced bigger portions at no extra cost. That afternoon, Jeremiah cheerfully informed everyone that this month's bonus would be doubled.As I ate the extra food from the cafeteria, I calculated how much my salary had effectively increased this month. I was in an excellent

I nodded and firmly said, "Yes!"I capped my words with a deliberate, rehearsed smile, sending the clear message that my fiance and I were inseparable, and that anyone thinking otherwise could forget it.Yoel went instantly pale, as though an invisible sponge had sucked every drop of color from him. His lips twitched, but no sound came out. His fingers tightened slightly on the desk edge, and the rimless glasses he had just taken off had left a vivid red imprint on his hand.He looked completely hollowed out, as if someone had drained all the strength from his body. His shoulders slumped, and the air in the office seemed to sag around him.A flicker of sweet revenge ignited inside me, bursting like a firework into a small, wicked mushroom cloud. He deserved every bit of it. By day, he drained me dry, and at night, he played the perfect Prince Charming. And then at daylight, he became a cold, relentless tyrant again."Coffee," he rasped at last. "Weren't we going to get coffee?"

Why did he have to send it now—of all times—right when the Devil himself was questioning me? Did he want me dead?"Aren't you going to check it?" Yoel asked lightly, though his voice carried an authority that allowed no refusal. "What if it's your fiance calling nonstop?"He deliberately stressed the word fiance, weighing each syllable.I forced a stiff smile. "It's fine. He's clingy. I'll call him back later."My phone buzzed again almost immediately, stubbornly refusing to let me off the hook.Yoel remained silent, watching me with a look that plainly challenged me to explain myself.Left with no choice, I forced myself to pull out the phone. If this was the end, I would face it.I flicked my gaze to the screen, scrambling for any excuse that might save me.The notifications were all from Mr. Y."Darling, I was wrong.""Can we not break up?""I'll agree to whatever you want. We can meet whenever you like.""Please don't ignore me…"My mind went completely blank. For a mo

I stayed silent, but my mind was in turmoil. The reason he avoided seeing me wasn't that he disliked me—it was because he feared I would dislike him.I turned to look at him. "The extra meals, the doubled bonuses, the postponed deadlines—were all that you?"He nodded, avoiding my gaze, like a child caught doing something wrong. "You said the cafeteria food was bad, and you wanted to quit… I didn't want you to leave."My emotions churned. The same Yoel who had shredded my proposal in that meeting, calling it a "waste of memory", had gone behind the scenes just because of one complaint from me. He improved the company's cafeteria food and even quietly increased my bonus.What was this? Did he really think he could hurt me and then patch it over with some kind of reward?I still felt the sting of unfairness. "Then why did you say those things in the meeting?""Because Jeremiah was going to touch your head." The words slipped out before he realized it, and a flush crept up his ears