“What?”

“Disingenuous.” Dylan pointed to Bryce. “Like dating him and wondering when he’s going to commit.”

Amber choked on her water.

Chris laughed. Then began coughing to cover up his amusement.

Bryce exhaled, aghast. “What’re you saying?”

“What, you want me to spell it out for you?” asked Dylan, crossing his arms.

“Oh no,” Chris muttered, his eyes dropping. “He’s using that tone.”

“Bryce,” said Amber, hoping to diffuse the tension. “How was your date last night with Lauren?”

His features softened, and Bryce sat down at the table. “No Glow,” he said, a soft gold light beating faintly through his shirt for a moment. “She’s nice.” He paused. “It isn’t serious, though.”

“I knew you and Lauren would hit it off,” Amber chimed in, beaming at her odd accomplishment. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘it isn’t serious’?”

Dylan sighed and finally returned to the table. “What do you think?” he muttered.

“Who’re you going with tonight?” asked Chris, as he dug his fork into his cold pasta.

Bryce appeared too preoccupied thinking of the date tonight that he didn’t see Amber’s dumbfounded reaction; Dylan was amused by the woman’s face. “I, forget her name. But she works in a bookshop, I know that,” Bryce said, opening his sandwich bag. “Oh! Saturday, I’m going to the seaside with Carly.”

Amber rolled up her plastic lunch bag and whacked him on the side of the arm, causing the bag to bow in the middle. “You said you were hoping for the Glow with my friend Lauren.”

“No, I didn’t.” Bryce began to explain himself.

Except Dylan took no interest in his explanation; he knew what he needed to know. To a certain degree, Dylan did respect the artistic designer, but it was Bryce’s nonchalance to dating that bothered him immensely. In the one and a half years that Dylan had known him, he’d witnessed more dates than most people have limbs, and for this reason, Dylan did not pity him.

“…but, uh, yeah. I’m not against getting the Glow with her, either,” came the end of Bryce’s explanation.

Chris looked appalled.

Amber’s sighed loudly. “No, no,” Amber told him like she was scolding a child. “Those are the wrong reasons. I set you and her up together because you’d be good together. Complimentary and shit.” Bryce began to elaborate on his reasoning, but Amber shushed him. “Those are the wrong reasons,” she repeated.

Bryce, his eyebrows pulled up in concern, eyed his coworkers. “I’m not tying myself down because I don’t know she’s my Soulmate. When I meet them, I’ll settle.”

Dylan laughed. Loud and openly.

“What?” Bryce asked, cocking his head to the side.

“That’s just rich, coming from you,” said Dylan. “‘When I meet them, I’ll settle.’ That’s bullshit and you know it.”

The artistic designer’s skin prickled in agitation. “It’s better than being alone forever.”

And the weight of the room dropped faster than a falling elevator. Everyone’s breath struggled.

“…w…what?” asked Chris.

Bryce’s eyes darted at the other people at the table, jaw tensed, and began to speak, “Wait, no. No, no, no, no, no. I, I didn’t mean it to – ”

“No,” Dylan butted in, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the tabletop. “How have we not had this discussion before?” he asked, gritting his teeth together. He swallowed, feeling another anxious wave wash through his chest. “You want to talk Soulmates?”

Bryce sighed, ruffling his brown hair in frustration. “Dylan, I…I-I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Like what?” Dylan asked, shrugging despite the flames in his eyes. “Finish the thought, Houghton.”

“I didn’t mean it…like something mean,” he insisted.

Dylan pulled on his collars, once again revealing the soft Glow that shone up his neck. It snapped back in place when he let go. “What, did you think my Glow is, just, nonexistent?”

Bryce sighed again. “Dylan, I–I didn’t mean that – ”

“Because I’m sure that your chest is just glowing all the time with Soulmates.”

“Dylan, just listen – ”

Instead, Dylan angrily stuffed the rest of his sad excuse for a sandwich into his mouth and threw out what remained of his lunch in the bin. “Piss off,” he spat, crumbs flying out of his mouth as he retreated to his cubicle to do work. His middle finger rose as Dylan left the room.

Amber exhaled and put her face in her hands. “We talked about this, Bryce. We literally talked about this yesterday when Stevenson said he’d be replacing Atchison.”

Bryce ruffled his hair and sat back down at the table. It was here when he finally asked, “What the hell was that?”

Amber sighed, rolling her eyes. “We told you. Dylan was an early bloomer.”

Bryce nodded in understanding before his eyebrows came close together in concentration. “So why is he so…touchy?”

“Wouldn’t you feel touchy if you were seen as a defect?” asked Chris, his voice low.

“Dylan’s just tired of his Glow. He’s a ‘False Alarm’er,” she said.

Bryce drew in air slowly through his teeth. A “False Alarm” Glow was a genetic abnormality, wherein someone’s Glow repeatedly goes off regardless if the person is a Soulmate in any capacity. And Dylan was among the incredibly small percentage that was affected by it – based on the worldwide population, the percentage with “False Alarm” Glows was about 2%.

“That…sucks,” Bryce whispered, looking down at his lunch. “I mean, I feel bad for him, sure, but…” He threw up his hands. “…what can you do?” Chris’s jaw tensed before he stood up and left, leaving behind his lunch and his appetite. Bryce’s eyebrows rose before he added, “Apparently, I’m offending everyone today.”

“You should’ve have said...” Amber never finished the thought, rubbing a crisp between her fingers. She swallowed before standing, packing her lunch away before finishing, albeit under her breath, “That could’ve gone better.”

Bryce watched his project partner depart the room, leaving him alone in the windowless room to finish eating. He took two bites before running his fingers through his hair, his mind playing the words through his head, taunting him with his mistake. Tidying up the table, Bryce resigned to his cubicle for the remainder of the day.

In the comfort of his desk, Dylan ran his fingers over the keyboard of his laptop in lieu of working, believing that he had done enough already for the day.

He hadn’t.

Dylan’s cubicle had been poorly decorated, not showing his personality while also showing it at the same time. It was bare of posters or pictures that were common in the cubicles around him, the only exception being a small, old picture of his family, parents and all. Yet even that was obstructed by his pencil and pen receptacle. He had a fake plant that he sprayed with a lemon cleaner if only to add a little colour and to add a pleasant smell. It was collecting dust.

He felt it was ironic that his least favourite colour – green – was used to make the space feel lived in.

He mostly considered this as a side job while he worked on his collection of horror stories, centred around a skeletal figure that could only be seen in reflections or in an electronic screen’s image. Dylan called the figure “The Child of Death”, based on his first short story where the character asks its next victim if it would like to play a game.

Plagiarism was not present in his head.

“Are you okay?” came a voice. Dylan looked up and noticed Chris hanging a granola bar over his computer’s monitor. “Working on your story?”

“Yeah,” he said, taking the granola bar and tossing it to the side of his desk. “I’m just tired.”

“How late did you stay up till last night?” he asked.

Dylan inhaled, a tightness in his chest present. “I’m not sure. I got rid of most of my clocks.” Dylan typed out two more sentences before adding, “There’s a new Potential in my building.”

Chris’s jaw tensed. “How close are they?”

Dylan reclined in his chair, which creaked the further he leaned back. “Two floors up. But – ” Dylan looked up and gave Chris the best sarcastic smile he could muster. “ – my Glow doesn’t fucking understand proximity.” His smile vanished under a scowl and he returned to looking at the computer.

Chris sighed and leaned over the cubicle wall further. “Is there anything I can do?”

Dylan bit the inside of his cheek and exhaled. “Unless you can figure out how to…to deactivate the Glow, there’s absolutely nothing you can do.”

The other man nodded, and lingered, biting his lower lip.