Chapter Two: Coffee, Cold Air, and Conversations
662 Words
The gym smelled like eucalyptus, sweat, and quiet desperation.
Nam wiped her palms on a towel and glanced sideways at the guy beside her, who was demolishing the punching bag like it had personally betrayed him.
“You trying to kill it?” she asked, half-smiling.
“Trying not to kill my dev team,” Heng replied, exhaling hard.
Nam let out a low laugh. “Still playing tech god over at Sapphire?”
“Trying. Everything’s a mess right now,” Heng said, pulling off his gloves. “We’re overhauling our backend automation. The new AI protocols are making people lazy and paranoid.”
“How so?”
“Everyone’s obsessed with no-code tools lately,” he said, grabbing his water bottle. “We integrated n8n a few months back open-source automation. You can string workflows together without touching real code. Pull from APIs, auto-assign tasks, trigger Slack alerts… all of it.”
Nam blinked. “So... modern sorcery?”
“Basically,” Heng grinned. “We also use Notion for documentation and team dashboards. Meeting notes, OKRs, sprint planning all connected through automation.”
“Sounds efficient.”
“It is. But it’s chaos if people treat AI like it thinks for them. We’re still cleaning up after one intern who deleted an entire client pipeline with a bad trigger rule.”
Nam raised her eyebrows. “I bet Becky loved that.”
Heng laughed under his breath. “Becky hasn't ‘loved’ anything since 2019.”
They both paused, sweat cooling between words.
Nam leaned against the wall. “So… you’re still hiring, right? For the intern role?”
“Yeah,” Heng nodded. “Still open. Why?”
Nam hesitated for a second, then said, “A friend of mine applied. Few days ago. She’s sharp. Knows systems inside out. Doesn’t have corporate polish, but she builds like no one I know.”
“What’s her name?”
“Freen.”
Heng’s expression didn’t change. “Doesn’t ring a bell yet, but I’ll check.”
Nam gave a small nod. “No pressure. Just… thought I’d mention it.”
“You vouch for her?”
“With everything,” Nam said quietly.
Four days later, Freen sat in a quiet café that smelled like cinnamon and faint disappointment. Her tablet blinked gently in front of her, job portals open and mocking. But her gaze was fixed on her cup steam curling upward, untouched.
Nam stirred her drink beside her, waiting.
Freen finally broke the silence. “I think I’m becoming invisible.”
Nam didn’t interrupt.
“I’ve done everything right. Studied. Worked. Survived. And still nothing sticks. Not jobs. Not people. Not even hope.”
Nam reached across the table and tapped the back of Freen’s hand. “You’re not invisible. You’re just too bright for dim rooms.”
Freen didn’t answer, but something in her jaw loosened. Almost a smile. Almost.
Then her phone buzzed.
She barely glanced at it, fully expecting another rejection or a text ad for toothpaste. But when her eyes landed on the subject line, her breath caught.
INTERNSHIP INTERVIEW CONFIRMATION – Sapphire Systems
Nam leaned in, reading upside down. “Wait… is that?”
Freen nodded slowly. “Friday. Ten a.m.”
Nam blinked. “Holy shit.”
Freen let the phone fall back onto the table like it burned. “I actually got an interview.”
“You earned it.”
Freen looked out the window. The city moved like it always did fast, loud, oblivious. No one knew her name out there. No one ever had.
But maybe… maybe that was about to change.
She didn’t know what Sapphire Systems would bring. Only that its name came with rumors of steel walls, relentless schedules, and a woman at the top who didn’t flinch.
But this wasn’t about them.
This was the first yes she’d heard in months.
And something inside her, something she thought had long gone silent finally stirred.
- Writer
