Break
Kuvira sits by the window with a cup of coffee. A steady stream of jazz flows through the speakers of a new radio with a crisp and willfully crackly sound. She stares at an empty desk, not knowing what to do from there. Usually there is something to be done, something to attend. But it would seem that today is completely free.
She hates these kinds of days.
They are wasted, useless days.
She finishes her coffee and sets the cup aside. There has to be something to do. She paces around her office trying to come up with something. She will find something to do. Something to busy herself with. Perhaps if she is lucky, someone will call with a proposed marketing plan or someone will call with a concern worthy of an office meeting.
She pushes thick, rectangular framed glasses up her nose. Maybe her email would give her something to attend. She types in her password and hits enter. She scrolls through and deletes a heap of junk mail. At last she comes across an email from Baatar Jr. regarding his data findings for next week’s presentation.
She looks it over, but the man does good work.
She finds nothing to correct nor criticize, as hard as she tries, so she sighs and sends him her approval. Not that she minds, letting him know that he has done a good job. He just hasn’t helped tighten her schedule any.
One song turns into the next, taking the melody from something mellow and down-tempo to a faster, upbeat rhythm. She prefers the smoother jazz to the avant-garde types. If Ming were in the office right now, she had no doubt that the woman would be dancing.
She frowns to herself, forced to accept defeat.
With nothing of substance to do, Kuvira decides to invite the woman to her office for a brunch date.
A second one.
Third if their dinner and movie date counted.
She taps her pen on the edge of her desk, it shouldn’t take Ming too long to get from floor seven to floor nine. Kuvira makes her way back to the window with her arms clasped behind her back and gazes down at the traffic below. Everyone is a frenzy, rushing to get somewhere--be it a job or to get some shopping done. A lot of them are on foot and there is an equal number traveling by car.
She longs to be among them.
Among the hustle and bustle.
Among people who have a sense of duty.
She hears a car honk below and wished that she had somewhere to be that urgently.
“Hey.” Ming greets, causing Kuvira to start. She rubs her temples. She hates when Ming does that. Even if she could let entering without knocking slid, the woman somehow always manages to cross the room without a sound. Sometimes she stands behind Kuvira without a peep until she turns around and notices her.
“We talked about this.” Kuvira grumbles. “That’s a door, give it a knock.”
“I left my hands at my desk.” She replies, referring to her prosthetics.
“That’s an awfully curious thing to forget.” Kuvira replies.
“I’d shrug, but, my arms are with my hands.”
“How do you expect to have lunch without…”
“I was hoping that you, kind and fuzzy as you are, would just feed me.”
“Not a chance.” Kuvira says. “I guess we will be stopping by your desk on our way out.”
“What type of stick lodged itself up your ass this time?” Ming asks.
Kuvira opts to ignore the way that the question has been posed. “I have nothing to do. No paperwork. Nothing to fax. No irate callers on the line…” She trails off.
“Ooo, rough day.” Ming half-whispers.
Kuvira rolls her eyes. Sometimes, she doesn’t know why she bothers with Ming. The woman keeps her desk in a constant state of discord, papers in messy piles, staples and paperclips mixed into the same container--when they aren’t scattered on the floor, and staplers in places they ought not be. With the hazardous random placement of thumbtacks, Kuvira is surprised that the woman hasn’t stepped or sat on one yet. Pictures of her friends and pets are plastered all over the cubical amid band posters and political quotes about freedom. Yet, Ming claims that she knows exactly where everything is. She can’t possibly fathom how the woman has ended up in an office; apparently being in a band wasn’t paying the bills and this was her last option.
Either way around, it is overwhelming and she hopes that Ming will hurry and grab her prosthetics, so she doesn’t have to look at the chaos any longer.
Hell, Kuvira doesn’t even know how the woman has managed to remove both unless she has leaned over and requested that Zhu Li take them off for her.
“Help me put them on?”
Kuvira obliges just to move things along.
She knows, even less, why she had asked the woman to go out for a first date. It was a compulsion. A moment of coffee-fueled, overworked, ugly-sobbing weakness. Ming just so happened to be there to lend a hand. Which for her entailed, actually removing one of her prosthetics and stroking Kuvira’s back with it.
It was ridiculous enough to stop her tear-flow. So she supposes that it had served its purpose. No less, she was stuck with the woman now.
“Isn’t this much better than data entry and mountains of things to file away?”
“Not really.” Kuvira mumbles as she picks at her food.
“I think it’s better. Gives me more free time.” Ming states. “I was able to write a new song. I’ll have to show it to you when we get back to the office, ya know, since you have nothing better to do.”
If things kept the same momentum, it wouldn’t be long before Ming started asking her to go see one of her band’s shows. “You haven’t finished your work.”
“I’ll get it done eventually.”
“You have a deadline.” Kuvira lifts a brow.
“And I’ll meet it.” Ming vowed. “After I finish the important stuff.”
“Clearly we have different priorities.” Kuvira replies dryly. Her eyes light up as an idea forms. “I can help you with your work!”
Ming blinks. “No.” She refuses. “You’re going to enjoy your break.”
“Now you’re just being a pain in the ass.” Kuvira grumbled.
“I’m only trying to help you remove that stick from yours.” She shrugs.
Kuvira pinches the bridge of her nose. She has really gotten herself invested in an interesting sort of woman.