CHAPTER 2

Dylan's POV

Even after the elevator doors shut, Fredrick's last words stay with me the whole way back to my office. I hate how calm he sounds when he says it.

I slam into my chair harder than I should have and turn on my computer again, even though I wasn't looking at the screen. Around me, keyboards click while conversation begins slowly as usual. A few people look at my direction before quickly turning their heads away.

Great. Everyone definitely notices that I'm not in a good mood.

Ethan rolls his chair closer to me carefully, like approaching a dangerous animal. “Well,” he says slowly, “that looked intense.”

I rub my hand over my face. “Don’t start.”

“Do you really have to follow him into the hallway?”

“He interrupted my presentation Ethan.”

“So you almost started a fight with him over a pie chart.”

I shoot him a look.

Ethan raised both of his hands immediately in surrender, but the smile on his face showed that he was still amused. That made me even more angry.

“He walked in there and started acting like he already runs the place,” I mutter.

Ethan leans back slightly. “Or maybe he was just confident.”

“Same thing,” I reply.

My screen blurs slightly as I stare at the unfinished emails sitting in front of me. Usually work settles my mind, but Fredrick Larsen did not.

The worst part isn't even the interruption. It is the room. The way people immediately listened to him.

The way they nodded. Like he already belongs here.

“Dylan,” Ethan calls.

I blink and look up. But before I can answer him, our boss’s voice cut across the office.

“Dylan. Fredrick. Let me see you guys in my office. Now.”

Some of the workers nearby look at our boss's direction instantly. I close my laptop slowly and stand up.

Across the room, Fredrick stands up from his desk at the exact same time I stand up. He adjusts the sleeve of his shirt before walking toward the office without looking at me.

The boss’s office feels smaller than usual as both of us sit down inside. The glass walls surround us on both sides, exposing the entire office floor outside.

Our boss put his hands together on the desk. “First of all, I want you two to know that I don’t tolerate disagreement inside my department.”

Silence stretched briefly.

“He interrupted me,” I says first.

“I simply asked a question,” Fredrick replied calmly.

Neither of us looked at each other.

The boss sighed heavily, already exhausted. “I don’t care who started it.”

His voice rises slightly. “All I know is that what happened in that meeting should not happen again.”

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms.

“With all due respect,” I reply, “bringing someone in to fix work that is already in function is obviously going to create problems.”

Fredrick remained quiet beside me. Now I feel like that silence was on purpose.

“Actually,” our boss continues, “that brings me to the real issue.”

Something about his expression immediately made my stomach tighten. “You’re both going to lead the expansion proposal together.”

I stared at my boss. “What?”

Fredrick doesn’t even react at all beside me.

“One proposal,” our boss repeated. “One team.”

“No. This must be a joke.” I oppose it immediately.

But our boss ignores my opposition and continues. "By the end of the month, you'll put all of your ideas together in one final presentation."

Finally, I turn to Fredrick, waiting for him to say something at least to object to what the boss said.

But instead he simply replies, “We’ll manage.”

Manage?I let out a short laugh under my breath. Of course he thought this was manageable.

Before I could say anything else, the boss pointed to the door. “This meeting is over, both of you are talented. Start acting like professionals.”

I walk out first before my anger becomes visible enough to embarrass me again.

When I get back to my seat, Ethan immediately rolls toward my desk. “What's the update?”

“We’re working together now,” I declare.

Ethan's eyes widens immediately. “What?”

Fredrick also returns calmly to his desk like nothing has happened. He puts his tablet down and immediately starts working.

Ethan lowers his voice. “Maybe it won’t be that bad.”

I look at Fredrick sitting across the room and reply, “Trust me, it’ll be terrible.”

A few minutes later, Fredrick walks to my desk carrying his tablet. The whole office becomes instantly quiet, apparently the office sees us as entertainment now.

“We should organize the structure first,” Fredrick says as he gets to my side.

I kept typing without looking up. “I already organized it.”

A pause.

“Then it needs adjustments,” he replies.

There it was again. That calm tone that somehow sounded worse than criticism.

I finally look up at him. “You mean we should change it.”

“I mean we should improve it,” he corrects.

“The structure works fine,” I say.

“It works,” Fredrick agreed. “But it’s a mess.”

Something hot flashes through my chest again. Mess? Did he just criticize my work like he’d been reviewing it for months instead of hours?

“You don’t get to change everything because you’re new here,” I caution.

“And you don’t get to reject every adjustment because it isn’t your idea,” Fredrick counters.

The words land heavily between us. For a second none of us move.

Ethan on the other hand slowly leans backward in his chair like he doesn't want to be part of whatever was about to happen.

I leaned back in my chair slowly. “Do you always talk like this?”

Fredrick’s expression barely changes. “No, this usually happens occasionally with people who don't focus on their work and always find faults instead.”

God. Even his insults sound controlled.

Before I can answer, Fredrick pulls an empty chair beside my desk and sits down. Smooth and unbothered, like he fully intends to stay here all day.

The tension immediately becomes unbearable. We started reviewing schedules together in an awkward silence break only by short discussions and corrections. Every few minutes one of us stops the other to complain.

Back and forth. Again and again.

Neither of us raises our voices, but people around us have definitely noticed by now. They keep lowering their voices whenever either of us speaks.

At one point Ethan walks past us holding coffee and quietly whispers, “Would you guys like to have some coffee?”

We ignore him completely and focus on what we are doing. Hours pass by like that.

By evening my shoulders ache from tension alone. Fredrick looks perfectly calm beside me, carefully reading through reports while I struggle not to snap at every correction he makes.

The worst part? Some of his ideas actually work. I hate accepting that.

Outside the office windows, the sun slowly disappears behind the city skyline. One by one, employees including Ethan leave the office until it is finally silent.

Fredrick close one of the files between us and say,

“This section works better now.”

I look at the updated structure on the screen. It is cleaner, more organized and better.

The realization immediately irritated me again.

“You really enjoy fixing people’s work, huh?” I remark.

Fredrick looks at me briefly. “That’s where you get it all wrong, I enjoy the results.”

Of course he do

He stands up after that and gathers his tablet calmly. “We’ll continue tomorrow.”

Then he walks away before I can answer.

I stare at the empty chair beside me for a long time after he leaves. I also stand up and leave the office.

By the time I finally get home, my head still feels crowded with his voice.

The apartment is dark except for the city lights coming through the windows. I loosen my tie while walking inside the living room and drop my keys on the counter without turning on the lights.

Silence settles around me immediately. Better, that is what I have been craving for.

I walk straight to my desk, sit down and open my laptop.

The screen glows softly in the darkness as my writer's author page appears.

A.

This is my real world. A place where I can finally be myself and I don’t have to deal with him.

This is also my little secret no one knows about. I'm a fictional story writer.

My fingers move fast over the keyboard. Tonight’s chapter came out harsher than usual.

I intentionally make the man who thinks he is perfect in my story lose everything all of the sudden without any good for it because it makes me remember someone I don't want to. Piece by piece, I destroyed him harder than I originally intended.

I don't stop myself. By the time I finish typing, I feel better now. A little bit better.

I post the chapter immediately without rereading it and lean back in my chair.

Then—

A notification pops up. A new comment.

I frown. “That was fast,” I thought.

I click on it to see what the reader said. It was one of my readers with the username K

I stare at the name for a second. I’ve seen it before.

This person's comment is always well detailed and too sharp for my liking. I open the comment to see what he or she has to say this time around.

The comment is a breakdown of everything that happens in my new added chapter. The choices. The emotion I should have used and a demand for the reason behind my character bankruptcy

I read the comment quickly, my stomach already boiling up again. Then I reach the last part which makes the whole thing a mess. It says:

“Your main character keeps shrinking whenever someone challenges him. Why?”

I frown. Something uncomfortable settles heavily in my chest.

Annoyance. Defensiveness. Recognition.

I lean closer to the screen unconsciously and reread the line again.

Then again.

Who the hell was this person?