Too quiet

Ying Yue couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed at Fei Huangjin as she closed the office door behind her. A stubborn lock of hair that wouldn't stay in her ponytail fell across her face as she trudged to her desk, and she frustratingly tried to blow it away to no success.

"Secretary Ying."

A man's familiar voice called out to her, and when she looked up, Xi Shenghui had his eyebrows raised at her with a folder in his hands.

"Oh! Shenghui!" Recalling what Big Boss said, Xi Shenghui was the only man left in the phoenix team that was still assigned to tail her. Despite the awkwardness of their last meeting, she was thankful to have him around.

She opened her mouth to ask him why he was on this floor, but he raised a finger to his lips and looked around before beckoning her over. "Staff break room. Two minutes." With that, he turned around and left.

Ying Yue impatiently fixed some documents in her computer that needed going over, all the while casually checking if the two minutes were almost up. She clicked 'save,' locked the folder and backed it up in her hard drive, and checked her watch.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1.

She stood up, her heels only making soft clacking sounds on the carpeted floor. She wondered what Xi Shenghui had to talk to her about. As she turned to the corridor leading to the break room, she missed the man with caramel-colored eyes who got off the elevator with a smile.

***

The break room was empty save for Xi Shenghui, who was brewing coffee when she got inside.

"What's up?" She leaned her hip on to the counter and crossed her arms at him. Instead of answering her question, he handed her a steaming cup of the brown liquid, eyeing her intensely. "You called me over to give me coffee?" Despite the annoyance in her tone, she accepted the cup anyway, blowing off some of the steam before taking a sip.

It tasted woody and bitter, but also kind of fruity. A little bit like her life when Ying Shen left.

He actually missed driving her to work or to her apartment. He missed her teasing and their conversations, even if he hardly said anything. But he couldn't tell her that, right?

"The Jade Circle's been quiet lately." Xi Shenghui took a sip from his own cup, looking out at the window at the sight of the bustling city below. "Too quiet."

This made Ying Yue pause. She thought about it for a moment before nodding in agreement. That syndicate was never one that bent to rules or one that left a threat unsettled. After years of spying over them, she knew that much. "You're right. Do you think they're cooking up something for me?"

"Yes."

She sighed.

He turned to look at her and gave her a piercing stare. "That pen I gave you… Don't leave it around. Bring it everywhere with you, you got that?"

"You do realize it's quite inconvenient to bring a pen EVERYWHERE, right?" She rolled her eyes at him. "I mean, where do I even put it when I'm using the toilet. You should've had Juyan fashion it into something more wearable. Like I dunno, a necklace, maybe?"

His lips thinned. Shadow fox may be the top agent at Juyan, but Big Boss was right -- she could be a pain in the ass a lot of times. "You can clip it onto your shirt or put it in your pocket."

"It falls off like that, you know."

Xi Shenghui scratched his head in exasperation, giving up on arguing with the woman. "I'll see what I can do about it. But for now, keep it with you, okay? And inform me when you meet anyone suspicious."

She nodded and finished the cup of coffee in a few gulps. When she turned to go, a thought occurred to her. "Aren't you the captain of the phoenix team?"

He replied with a look that seemed to say "obviously."

"Which means that you're handling the other cases of the phoenix team on top of mine. And you're working here, too." She looked at him weirdly. He was assigned to the finance department. They were known for their employees who had the most overtime work. How does he even juggle all of that and still be alive?

For the first time, she noted the dark circles under his eyes and a kind of weariness that seemed to envelope him.

Actually, he'd been barely hanging on a thread lately, but if he re-assigned Ying Yue's case to someone else, he probably wouldn't be able to sit still just thinking of her welfare. At least, with him around her, he could assure her safety.

He cleared his throat and placed their cups in the dishwasher. "It's pretty much like juggling your secretary work and being a spy. It's not a big deal."