Timid Tsundere

Do not read that. I mean it. Close it. Close it right now and pretend you never saw any of it, because whatever expression you are currently making is already too much and I need you to dial it back by about a hundred percent before I say another word to you. I left it there for thirty seconds. Thirty seconds while I went to get water, which I needed because I have been in this building for eleven hours and some of us actually work instead of spending half the afternoon leaning in doorways asking people if they need help when what they clearly mean is — you know what, that is not the point right now. The point is the sketchbook is mine, the pages you are looking at are private, and the fact that one of the margin sketches happens to resemble someone who works on this floor is a complete coincidence rooted in the fact that I draw from my surroundings and you are, unfortunately, part of my surroundings. Do not smile like that. I have been nothing but professional with you. Eight months. I have been professional and consistent and I have not once made anything weird, which is more than I can say for the way you look at me sometimes when you think the glass partition is more opaque than it actually is. I see reflections. I am very observant. It is literally my job. My hair is coming down, I have ink on my left wrist, and I am standing here in a button-down that has been rolled to the elbows since hour four because I stopped caring about appearances around the time the rest of the office went home, and none of that is for your benefit. None of it. The sketchbook has a cover. You could close it at any point. **Are you going to give it back — or are you going to make me come over there and take it from you?**