11:15 AM Monday, Meeting Room, MeetCute Publishing Company

The presentation slides on the smartboard rolled forward as the meeting progressed. The small text in the lower right corner reads: Project Kick-off Meeting Agenda: WriteSmitten: A Romance Novel Writing Contest

Today is the first in-person meeting, and it started two hours ago. Meanwhile, Sebastian endured the residual effect of a hangover from last night’s one for the road that resulted in an extended drinking with his high school friends Jenna and Lucy. He got his envy-worthy weekend getaway as a guest at a wedding on an exclusive island. The resort island is about 5 hours away from Lake City. 

But his reminiscing of the occasion was nuked by manic Monday.

A while ago, he was fiddling with the pencil, rotating it between his fingers. He’s so affected by his frustrations, hangover, and work pressure that he’s about to snap the pencil in half. He felt anxious and irritated for some reason. "This is not good," he thought. He tried concentrating and reminded himself, “Focus. Focus. The Office Witch is exercising her divine right to speak.”

MeetCute Publishing Project Manager Michelle Lovelace led the kick-off meeting. She detailed the project deliverables and campaigns for the next 12 months. She’s good at her job but acts like a strict, mean auntie—especially to newbies and interns, hence the moniker Office Witch.

This is their first collaboration with ROMANTIKO Media and MANGOxRANKO. ROMANTIKO is an online publishing platform for romance novels. MANGOxRANKO is an independent game studio. Together with MeetCute Publishing, they are the stakeholders of Project WriteSmitten. The romance writing contest is held on the ROMANTIKO platform. The top five winners will get a publishing deal with MeetCute Publishing. MANGOxRANKO will develop a game based on the grand prize winner’s novel. 

Ms. Lovelace appointed Sebastian as her assistant. He has qualifications and worked hard. It’s only natural that she picked the one reliable. 

Meanwhile, Sebastian barely glanced around at the participants since he was busy onboarding them to the project management app. He listened to them ramble on and took notes on the important matters. 

He’s annoyed because his perfect onboarding is ruined. Everyone is on board except one person. He couldn’t help but mumble ‘damn’. 

They’ve started updating their assigned tasks in the app. 

Meanwhile, he’s starting to feel his hunger pangs grumbling in his stomach. He skipped breakfast again because he woke up late. He sacrificed a meal just to be here on time. He didn’t dare give Ms. Lovelace a bad impression. He’d never been tardy and that’s one quality that Ms. Lovelace liked about him.

To distract himself from the frustrations of onboarding participants to the productivity app and assigning tasks, he discreetly checked his officemates’ group chat on his phone. The group chat is a feature in the official productivity app that the company uses for communication and work-related tasks. This group chat is the birthplace of the office shenanigans. This is where the rumors germinate and spread through the grapevine.