The office felt normal at first.
The soft tapping of keyboards, the low hum of AC, quiet greetings, and the faint smell of coffee drifting through the air — all familiar, all ordinary. Just another weekday in Orion System's sales floor.
Jeanna Mossvale placed her bag under her desk, powered on her computer, and tied her hair into a low ponytail. She moved through her routine like she always did.
Then she looked up.
The desk directly in front of her was empty.
Ethan wasn't there.
It didn't bother her — or so she told herself. Maybe he was late. Maybe he was in a meeting. Maybe he didn't feel well. There were many possible reasons, and none of them should have mattered to her.
Still, her eyes flickered toward that seat again. And again. Not on purpose, but sometimes, familiarity pulls attention without asking.
And yet today, silence sat there.
Normally, she would catch the sight of him standing occasionally, stretching like someone whose body couldn't tolerate stillness for long; or she would hear his calm voice answering calls; or the quick rustle of pages when he organized his client notes. Things she used to find distracting… things she didn't expect to notice were gone.
Work moved on, but something felt slightly off — not loud enough to acknowledge, but present enough to linger.
By lunch, she told herself to stop thinking about it.
---
Day Two
Still no Ethan.
The second day felt a little strange — not alarming, just… quieter.
Jeanna tried to focus, eyes trained on spreadsheets and sales logs. She made calls, she reviewed product sheets, she corrected reports. She wasn't new anymore — almost six months in — but every day still felt like she was trying to find her footing, like the office was a world she hadn't fully mapped yet.
During break, she leaned toward Trixie, voice pretending to be casual.
"Have you seen Ethan today?"
Trixie paused mid-sip of her drink and smirked instantly. "Ohh? Looking for someone?"
Jeanna clicked her tongue and looked away. "He sits right in front of me. It's noticeable when he's gone."
"Right," Trixie grinned. "Totally just observational."
"It is," Jeanna insisted softly, though her cheeks warmed. "Nothing else."
But after break, she found herself glancing up again.
Still empty.
And she felt… odd. Not worried. Not really. More like her routine was nudged off balance, and she didn't understand why that mattered.
---
Day Three
"Maybe he resigned?"
"He wouldn't resign without notice."
"You never know, the good ones leave quietly."
Whispers floated from two coworkers across the aisle. They weren't talking to her, but the words hit like tiny pebbles nonetheless.
Jeanna stared at her screen, fingers hovering above her keyboard. Resigned? Just like that? Without a goodbye?
She told herself she shouldn't care — people came and went often. But a prickling feeling rose inside her chest anyway.
She forced herself to work, but every time someone passed by his desk, her head lifted slightly — hopeful, then immediately embarrassed at the reflex.
During lunch, her food tasted dull. She scrolled through her phone absentmindedly. It was silly, she told herself. He was just a colleague. A coworker who happened to sit across her. Someone she sometimes talked to about work, someone she sometimes silently glared at for stretching too often.
But silence had weight when you were used to someone's presence.
She exhaled quietly and returned to work.
---
Day Four
She woke up with a thought she refused to acknowledge.
Will he be back today?
Ridiculous. Irrational. But she felt a strange expectation tugging at her thoughts she couldn't explain.
At lunch, she finally whispered to Trixie, voice unusually soft.
"Um… I think I might be… starting to like him."
Trixie's eyebrows shot up, and she tried to smother her grin. "Aha! You miss him!"
Jeanna covered her face with her hands. "I don't — okay maybe a little — but it's… not serious."
"Crush level: awareness activated," Trixie teased.
"It's just admiration," Jeanna insisted, peeking between her fingers. "Like… appreciating that someone exists."
Trixie nearly choked on her laughter. "That's literally a crush."
Jeanna groaned and dropped her face on the table. She regretted saying anything, but at the same time, a tiny part of her felt relieved — like she let a small secret breathe for a moment.
---
Meanwhile, Elsewhere
Ethan woke up peacefully, sunlight filtering through curtains. His routine was simple: tea, quiet reading, a documentary playing in the background about human behavior and societal patterns, a slow morning unlike the structured rhythm of the office.
Later, he met an old friend at a quiet café. They talked about ideas — about perception, silence, the invisible pressure of expectations, how the world shaped people without them realizing.
No gossip. No workplace noise. Just thoughts exchanged without judgment.
He didn't think about work much, but occasionally, a memory surfaced: a quiet girl who avoided attention yet caught his awareness without effort.
He didn't dwell on it — thoughts passed like wind through leaves.
---
Day Five
Jeanna arrived a little early. She didn't plan to — she just happened to wake up quicker, move faster, walk to work with a strange restless energy she didn't name.
She placed her bag down and sat, trying not to look immediately ahead.
But she did.
Still empty.
Her heart dipped slightly. Maybe he is gone. The idea tightened something in her chest more than she expected.
Then someone sat in his seat.
Jeanna's breath caught — she leaned forward slightly, hope flaring—
The man stood.
Not him.
The tiny spark inside her extinguished. She turned back to her screen, pretending her chest didn't feel oddly hollow.
Then—
A familiar voice.
"Morning."
Her heart froze.
She looked up — and there he was.
Ethan stood beside his desk, new haircut, expression soft and relaxed, like someone who had been breathing fresher air for days. People surrounded him immediately.
"You disappeared!"
"We thought you resigned!"
"Bro, don't do that again!"
Ethan laughed lightly, rubbing his neck. "Just took a week's leave."
"You didn't tell anyone!"
He smiled in that calm, understated way of his. "Quiet vacation is a real vacation."
Jeanna sat incredibly still, pretending to type when she wasn't typing anything. Relief washed over her quietly but deeply, like a warm tide filling an empty shore.
When Ethan sat, he glanced her direction.
Their eyes met.
He smiled — small, soft, polite.
Jeanna smiled back, gentle and controlled, though her pulse raced in her ears.
Don't blush.
She looked down at her monitor immediately, fingers suddenly unsure where to rest. Trixie arrived and leaned close.
"You're pink," she whispered.
"Shut up," Jeanna whispered back without looking up.
But there was a warmth in her chest she couldn't ignore — a quiet spark settling in its place.
The office felt normal again.
Normal… but different.
Alive in a way she hadn't noticed until it disappeared.