There's a RUMOUR going around...

Some gossip travels by word of mouth, this kind leaves a mark.

There's a rumour going around the office, and for once, it's worth believing.

It's got a cord phone that curls back on itself when you hang up too fast. A photocopier that hums like it's thinking about something. Blinds you pull down with two fingers when you want to see out without being seen. That office. The one that runs on paper trails and landlines and whoever's leaning on the watercooler at the time.

No login required for that one. No read receipts. Just a paper cup, and someone saying "okay don't say I said anything," which, historically, has never once stopped anyone from saying something.

Call it a character flaw if you want. Really, it's just the original office software. Someone leans against the filing cabinet. Someone else finds a reason to walk past. A post-it changes hands. And by lunch, the whole floor knows something nobody actually announced. That's not a leak. That's just Tuesday.

Anyway. Here's the actual gossip.

There's a red mark going around and nobody's explaining it.

First it was a paper cup by the cooler, a stain on the rim that definitely wasn't there this morning. Then the edge of the photocopier glass. Then, allegedly, a post-it that got passed hand to hand until it landed on someone's desk with a perfect little smudge in the corner, like a signature. Like evidence.

Because that's the thing about a red lip: it was never going to stay where you put it. It gets left on cups, on collars, on whoever you got close enough to. It's the original paper trail. The lips are the source, the lips are the carrier, and by the time anyone's asking questions, the lips have already moved three desks down.

Nobody's owning it. And she's not about to start now, walking past the blinds, cup in hand, entirely unbothered, like she can hear exactly what's being said about her and has decided it's a good look.

The theories are doing what theories do at a watercooler: getting bigger, getting redder, getting less accurate by the hour. It's a colour that isn't supposed to budge and somehow won't stop leaving a trace. It's a stunt. It's not a stunt. Someone's cousin already has one and is being very unhelpful about it.

My lips are sealed. Nobody's confirming this.

But if something's leaving a mark on every cup, every collar, every corner of this office, that's not an accident. That's a tell.

They're talking.

Good.