The Penang Invitation

The first thing Faris noticed was the way Jiawen stopped smiling with her hands.

It wasn’t that her face fell. Her mouth still held the right curve, her eyes still had that polite brightness that made people assume she was always fine. But her fingers–those quick, expressive fingers that fluttered when she laughed, that tapped the edge of her mug when she thought, that pointed at his screen when she wanted to tease him about a typo–went still.

It was a small stillness, like a pause in a familiar song.

They were at their desks, the late afternoon thinning into that specific Meridian Harbor Systems glow: overhead lights too white, monitors too blue, the office air-conditioning set to a temperature that made everyone bring a jacket they never wore outside. Somewhere down the row, the pantry kettle clicked off. Someone’s laughter rose and fell like it came from behind glass.

Faris glanced up from his tracker.

Jiawen’s eyes were on her phone.

He didn’t ask immediately. The office taught you not to react too fast. React too fast, and you made things into a performance. It was the same rule he’d learned over and over–on client calls, in steering committees, in HR meetings: hold your expression, wait for the full picture.

But Jiawen had trained him to break some of his own rules.

So he leaned back slightly in his chair and spoke low enough that only she would hear.

“Bad news?”

Jiawen blinked, as if she’d forgotten she was not alone. Then she turned her phone screen down like it was an instinct.

“Not… bad. I think.” She breathed out, and it sounded like she had been holding it without noticing. “Penang.”

“Penang?”

“My cousin’s getting married.”

Faris waited.

Jiawen’s mouth did that thing it always did when she wanted to make a joke but couldn’t find the right angle for it. “And my mother said…”

She paused. Her fingers finally moved again, rubbing her thumb against the side of her phone.

“Bring your partner,” she finished.

The words landed lightly. The weight came after.

Faris didn’t move. He kept his face neutral, as if she’d told him there was a new workflow change, as if this was just another task to slot into a calendar.

But his mind did what it always did when someone used a word like partner.

It ran.

Penang meant flights, leave approvals, work coverage, client expectations. Penang meant family. Penang meant being seen under a different kind of light–one that didn’t care about job titles or Jira tickets, only whether you were serious.

And in Jiawen’s voice, there was something else: not excitement, not dread, but that careful middle place where you didn’t want to name the fear because naming it made it real.

Faris looked at her screen–only the reflection of the office lights on tempered glass.

“When is it?” he asked.

“Next month. Weekend.” She swallowed. “They already assumed I’m coming. And…”

“And?”

“And the plus-one thing is… not really a suggestion.”

Faris nodded once, slow.

He could already hear the tone of it. Bring your partner. Not an order, not a threat–just the quiet authority of family, wrapped in a sentence that sounded harmless. It was the kind of pressure that didn’t yell. It simply existed.

Jiawen tilted her head, watching him like she was waiting for him to do something–either reject it, or take control of it.

In the past, he might have offered solutions first. A plan. A schedule. A clean sequence of actions.

But Jiawen had taught him that sometimes the first thing someone needed wasn’t a solution.

It was being seen.

“So,” he said carefully, “how do you feel?”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly, surprised by the question. Then she exhaled, a short laugh that didn’t have full laughter behind it.

“I feel like… I can survive HR, you know?” she said, voice low. “I can survive Reza and his nonsense. I can survive people in office thinking they’re detectives.”

Faris’s mouth twitched despite himself.

“But Penang?” Jiawen continued, and her humour thinned. “Penang is… family. The questions are not jokes. And if I say the wrong thing, it becomes a story forever.”

Faris’s fingers rested on the edge of his keyboard. The urge to say I’ll handle it rose automatically.

He didn’t say it.

Instead, he asked, “Do you want me there?”

Jiawen’s gaze dropped, then returned. This time, her eyes were honest in a way that made the office around them feel too loud.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “But not as… a shield. Not because I need someone to hide behind.”

Faris held her gaze.

“As a choice,” she finished.

The word warmed something in his chest. Not like fireworks. Like a steady flame you could hold your hands over.

He nodded once.

“Okay,” he said.

Jiawen’s shoulders loosened slightly, as if the simple agreement had removed an invisible weight.

Then, predictably, she tried to lighten it.

“But you’ll have to eat everything,” she whispered, leaning closer like this was a conspiracy. “My aunties will keep feeding you until you can’t stand.”

Faris looked at her with dead seriousness.

“I can stand.”

Jiawen’s mouth opened in a silent laugh. She covered it with her hand, shoulders shaking.

Faris let her laugh. It was the kind of laugh that reminded him the world didn’t always have to be heavy.

Across the aisle, Reza walked past with a stack of printouts, then paused mid-step. His eyes flicked between them with the sharpness of someone who had built an entire hobby out of noticing.

“Eh,” Reza murmured, as if he was passing by casually and not lingering like a cat. “Why you two so close? Discussing confidential?”

Jiawen straightened immediately, face adopting innocence.

“Yes,” she said sweetly. “We’re discussing your bonus. It’s getting cut.”

Reza gasped theatrically and moved on, muttering something about betrayal.

Faris’s eyes followed him until he disappeared, then returned to Jiawen.

“Leave,” he said softly. “We can apply. I’ll cover your work. Or we plan it properly.”

Jiawen narrowed her eyes at him. “You see? There. You started.”

Faris blinked.

“You started the project manager voice,” she whispered, amused but pointed.

Faris closed his mouth, then opened it again, as if choosing words carefully.

“It’s not a project,” he said.

Jiawen smiled.

“It kind of is,” she replied. “But I don’t want you to handle it alone. Door deal, remember?”

The phrase landed between them, familiar and ridiculous and somehow meaningful.

Door deal.

Meeting halfway.

He nodded.

“Okay,” he said again.

But before they could settle into the comfort of that word, Jiawen’s phone vibrated.

Once.

Then again.

Jiawen’s face shifted so quickly that Faris noticed before he even saw the screen. Her thumb hovered.

“Who?” he asked.

Jiawen didn’t answer immediately.

She flipped the phone over so he could see the notification preview.

A number she hadn’t saved.

A message that didn’t pretend to be polite.

He’s really the reason you left?

Faris felt his stomach tighten, slow and cold.

Jiawen’s fingers went still again.

She stared at the message the way someone stared at a door they thought they had already locked.

Faris didn’t take her phone. He didn’t reach for it. He didn’t decide for her.

He just asked, voice steady.

“Junhao?”

Jiawen’s throat moved.

She nodded.

Faris watched her, the office noise suddenly distant. He could see her breathing–small, controlled, like she was keeping herself from tipping.

“Block?” he asked.

Jiawen’s smile returned for half a second, brittle.

“I already did,” she said. “He always finds another number.”

Faris’s jaw tightened.

He remembered the first time she’d told him about betrayal. The way she’d said it with calm words, as if calm could make it less real.

Now the past was pressing its hand against the present again.

Jiawen’s thumb moved, hovering over the message.

She didn’t open it.

Instead, she locked her phone and placed it face down on her desk like it was something she refused to let breathe.

Then she looked at Faris.

“Can we talk later?” she asked, voice light, but her eyes were not.

Faris nodded.

“3:20,” he said.

She blinked, surprised.

“Our coffee,” he added, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Jiawen’s gaze softened. A tiny relief moved through her face, like someone had loosened a tight knot.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Faris turned back to his screen, forcing his fingers to type, forcing his mind to stay on work for the next hour.

But the message stayed behind his eyes like an afterimage.

Penang.

Partner.

Junhao.

And somewhere beyond the fluorescent lights, a different kind of scrutiny waited–one that couldn’t be handled with policies and process.

When the clock on his monitor ticked toward 3:20, Faris found himself thinking of chairs.

Seats.

Who placed you.

And who chose you.

At 3:20, the pantry was the same as always: bright, too cold, smelling faintly of instant coffee and microwaved food. The refrigerator hummed like it was alive. The sink had a single mug abandoned in it like someone had given up midway through washing.

Jiawen stood at the coffee machine, watching the stream fill her cup.

She looked smaller in here, surrounded by tall cabinets and white walls, like the office had designed itself to swallow people whole.

Faris leaned against the counter a little distance away–close enough that she could reach him, far enough that the office couldn’t call it anything.

When Jiawen turned, she didn’t speak immediately.

She held the cup with both hands, letting the warmth seep into her palms.

Then, softly, she said, “I hate that he can still do this.”

Faris’s eyes stayed on her.

“Do what?”

“Appear,” she answered, voice flat. “Just… show up, and suddenly everything I built feels like it can shake.”

Faris nodded once.

“He doesn’t get to take Penang from you,” he said.

Jiawen’s eyes flicked up. “You sound very sure.”

“I am,” Faris replied.

She stared at him for a second, then her mouth trembled like it wanted to smile and cry at the same time.

“And if he messages again?” she asked.

Faris didn’t say I’ll handle it.

Instead he said, “We document.”

Jiawen blinked.

Faris continued, calm, practical. “Screenshots. Dates. If he shows up, we don’t talk. We don’t negotiate. We escalate properly.”

Jiawen’s lips parted slightly.

“Properly,” she echoed.

Faris’s gaze held hers.

“Properly,” he confirmed.

Jiawen looked down at her coffee. Her fingers tightened around the cup.

Then she laughed softly, almost incredulous.

“Wah,” she murmured. “You really are like… HR, but handsome.”

Faris’s mouth twitched.

“That’s the worst compliment I’ve ever received.”

Jiawen’s laugh this time was real.

It loosened something in the air.

Faris watched her, then asked the question that mattered.

“About Penang,” he said. “Do you want to tell your family now? Or… later?”

Jiawen’s smile faded into thought.

“Now,” she decided, surprising herself. “Before they find out through pictures or gossip. Before it becomes… a story they tell each other instead of one I tell them.”

Faris nodded.

Jiawen looked up again.

“And you,” she said, voice softer. “Are you okay?”

Faris paused.

It was a strange thing–to have someone ask him that with sincerity, when most people assumed he was always fine.

He thought of being watched at work. Being watched by HR. Being watched by Reza’s hobbyist curiosity.

Then he thought of Penang aunties.

He exhaled.

“I’m okay,” he said honestly. “But I… don’t want you to feel alone in it.”

Jiawen’s gaze warmed.

“Door deal,” she reminded him.

Faris nodded.

“Door deal.”

They stood there for a moment, holding coffee, holding the quiet.

Outside the pantry glass, people walked past. Lives continued. The office went on.

But in that small space, something else was taking shape–an agreement bigger than HR, bigger than gossip, bigger than a message from a number that refused to disappear.

Penang was coming.

And with it, the kind of questions that didn’t care how good you were at your job.

Faris looked at Jiawen and thought, with sudden clarity, that this was not just about being together.

It was about being chosen.

Not privately.

Not conveniently.

But properly.