"What are you doing?" The mouth corners of the girl are slightly curve up, and making a teasing or mocking expression as she asked, "What do you think?"
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In an office where everyone wore ties or skirts, a bronzed girl with a huge backpack whom wearing a tight tank top and hot pants stood in front of TinJau. No one could quite associate what kind of relationship these two had.
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But a sharp-eyed female colleague noticed the hickey and bite marks on the girl's neck, and TinJau look like almost exhausted and dispirited. The coworkers immediately understood.
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The girl noticed the commotion around her, and TinJau's face turned red as the commotion escalated. She then made a gesture to TinJau which show "Okay, I've had enough fun, I'll let you go now," and waved the envelope file in her hand.
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Inside was the material for TinJau's meeting that day.
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"...I found a business card in the envelope, not sure if it's yours, but I was free and bored, so I decided to come and find out," the girl explained in a coffee shop which far from the office, "Is this document important?"
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"Of course, it's important! It's related to my salary adjustment at the end of the year!" TinJau thought for a moment, then added, "Actually, it's just a show for making my annual performance appraisal look better. You ask if it's useful? I would say it's not completely useless. But not implementing the entire plan wouldn't cause much loss to the company. It's just a minor administrative reform within the company, as it could considered as the scope of business management, which will look good on the annual performance appraisal."
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"Okay," the girl nodded satisfactorily.
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"I'm sorry, I couldn’t stop talking about company matters. It's all so boring," TinJau said.
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"No, it's okay. I had once been a white-collar worker before, so I understand what you're saying," the girl replied.
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"Really?"
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"Yes. I may look younger than my actual age. By the way, how old are you?"
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"Over twenty-five, under thirty."
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"Then I might be able to be your older sister."
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"Really?"
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She chuckled, looking genuinely mature and not joking.
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(If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have thought you were a real "youngster.") TinJau thought to himself.
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"I appreciate your honesty just now, it reminds me the 'real you' presented last night. I thought I would hear a bunch of polite empty words," the girl said.
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"When facing friends unrelated to work, you can always speak a few words of truth," TinJau replied.
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"Sure, sure. You can't tell your boss that everyone's job is fricking boring, right?"
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"Haha," TinJau thought, trying to change the subject quickly, "By the way, did you just come back from a trip?"
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"No, I'm still on my travels. You can tell by the way I'm carrying this backpack everywhere."
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"You're not from here?"
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"Yes and no."
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"What do you mean?"
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"I was born here and have an ID from here. I left last year and traveled a lot, but now I'm back for some mundane affairs, though I won't stay long."
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"You've been traveling for a whole year? Don't you miss home?"
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"This is my home!" she said. She is patting the backpack beside her.
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"What a big backpack!" TinJau remarked.
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"When you imagine fitting everything from home into it, you'll realize it's never being enough," she replied.
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"I see," TinJau sighed. "You seem to live in a world I can't imagine."
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"Do you envy it?"
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"Are you asking if I want to travel with a backpack like you? No," he said. "But I am curious, don't you have to work?"
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"I'm pretty frugal. When I don't have enough money, I'll do odd jobs. But most of the time, I work just for fun, to experience how locals live."
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"That’s not what I meant. I mean don’t you have a full-time job?"
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"Ever heard of 'Unpaid leave'? That's the excuse I used to run away initially."
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"Is that even possible? What kind of company do you work for?"
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"If you want, you can request it from your company too."
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"No way! That's not possible."
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"Have you tried?"
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"... Never, actually."
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"Then why not give it a shot?"
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"Why would I want to take a'Unpaid leave”? How do my parents make a living? Will my girlfriend forgive me? Will there still got a position for me when I return to the company?"
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"But bumming around the world with backpack is your wish."
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TinJau’s heart is trembles.
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"When did I say bumming around with backpack is my wish! I might look like I'm tired, I've had three cups of coffee since morning, I'm completely awake now! What I said was, I 'don't' envy your lifestyle! I'm different from you! I can't let go of many things!"
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"Why are you going off on me?"
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"I'm not..." TinJau also wondered, why was he losing his temper?
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"Why are you going off on me? Answer me."
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"... Yes. I admit I envy your life, your freedom," he shook his head and said with a bitter smile. "What kind of woman are you? Why every word you said seems to pierce my heart?"
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"Isn't it simple? You just need to get the other person drunk the night before."
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"Is that what I told you after I got drunk last night?"
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"Didn't I just tell you? You were snuggled against my chest and burst into tears last night, saying you didn't want to force yourself to work anymore. When would you not have to work for money anymore?"
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"That was all just talk in a bad mood, I-"
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"Let me finish. After that, I asked you, what would you do with your time if you didn't have to work? Could you guess how you answered?"
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"... I said I want to bum around with a backpack?"
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"You told me that it was the thing you wanted to do the most since junior high. But when you graduated from high school, you were in a passionate relationship with a girl who still in her second year of high school, so you couldn’t make it in that summer. In the following years, you were either busy with part-time jobs, or spent money to go to Tokyo Disneyland with your girl. You always thought you could hit the road immediately whenever you wanted in the future. However, after entering the workforce, you suddenly realized that the opportunity already gone forever."
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"... What else did I told you?"
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"You told me that you weren't trying to be cynical or antisocial person. You knew very well that in this society, everyone is struggling just like you. But your effort will eventually pay off. Not to mention the outcome will beneficial to society or anything like that. At least as an adult, having a place in society and using the money you earn to provide a better life for your family, that's what we called a normal life. You completely agree that all this hard work is worth it, you just feel unwilling."
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"Unwilling?"
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"You were unwilling to let yourself bury your desire deep in your heart and spent your whole life to hiding it like this. You said you don’t want to travel with a cane after retirement. How could you wander around with a urine bag stuck in your body?"
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TinJau couldn't help but laugh. "Did I really say that?"
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"Yes. When you said that, we burst out laughing at the same time and sprayed the wine in our mouth on the bartender."
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"Really?" TinJau laughed heartily for a while. "Oh, I'm sorry, you... you..."
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"You can call me SiuPui."
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"I'm TinJau."
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"I know. Actually, we already introduced ourselves last night."
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"Thank you, SiuPui." TinJau snatched the bill and stood up. "You relieved my stress. Just chatting with you make me feel like I've traveled around the world. I have now fulfilled my wishes and I can focus on work again later."
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"Are you trying to deceiving yourself again?"
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"What do you want from me? So what if I feel unwilling? It's not like I'm the only one who is feeling unwilling in this world. I daresay that everyone has some regrets from their youth in their heart, but that's reality! The reality is that I just can't leave everything behind and go bumming around with a backpack. Now I have to rush back to the company to sort out the materials for the meeting, then I can present a report at the meeting two hours later. So that I can strive for a five percent salary raise next year!"
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"What time does the meeting start?"
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"In two hours."
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"If you take a taxi back and forth, you should still be able to make it in time."
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"What on earth are you planning? Are you trying to sell me some new religion? Or are you going to have ‘second round’ with me?”
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"TinJau, if I say I have the ability to help you achieve your wish, are you willing to sacrifice these two hours you going to spend on preparing for the meeting?"
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"Are you kidding me? Are you the daughter of my boss?"
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"Technically speaking, pretty close."
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"...I don't understand."
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"Listen, TinJau," SiuPui speaking seriously, "I'm now testing how eager you are to fulfill your wish. Let me put it this way, 'I have the ability to help you fulfill your wish of backpacking around without any worries or constraints.' Are you willing to gamble for my word and go with me now?"
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"Now? We set off now?"
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"Of course not," SiuPui said, "We'll go to the branch of 'LV' first to transfer the membership."
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After saying that, SiuPui left the coffee shop without looking back, waved for a taxi. As she expected, TinJau opened the car door of the other side and got in the taxi. (“Spending two hours to buy an impossible dream is actually the same as going to see a movie, instead of buying a movie tickets and popcorn, I paying for a round-trip taxi fare. I still could afford put in such level of effort.”) TinJau try to rationalize his behavior in his mind. ("Besides, the materials required for the report were completed three days ago. Further editing would only go as far as checking for typos and the like. Scratch that.")
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"Oh, by the way, SiuPui. When you mentioned 'LV' earlier, it can’t be that “LV”, right?"
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“Which “LV” are you referring to?” SiuPui asked back.
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“Louis Vuitton!” TinJau seems realized and said , "You're not... asking me to buy you something from LV , as a... as..."
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"As what?" SiuPui asked angrily. TinJau originally wanted to say "as the price for last night," but he instantly realized, if he say it, wouldn’t he treat SiuPui like a prostitute? Once TinJau was glared angrily by SiuPui, he stop talking immediately.
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"What is your understanding of 'Louis Vuitton' then?" SiuPui asked.
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"...One of the most luxurious brands in the world? Buying a bag would cost me a whole month's salary... something like that?" TinJau replied.
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"After all, that is still something money can buy." SiuPui said.
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"Then what did you mean by 'LV' earlier?" TinJau asked.
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" The ‘LV’ I mean is 'Long Vacation'. Don't you think that, for urbanites, giving themselves a long vacation to fulfill all the wishes that they had always wanted to achieve is the most luxurious thing in the world?" SiuPui said.
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