Melted: A MaxTul AU story

Sixty-seven: Before

Author's Note: This chapter focuses on Plustor and Taina.

The bus carrying the Team 2 Crew—Wanna started calling them this on the bus to the farm and the name stuck—pulled in front of Shilapath at around four PM with little fanfare because Tul had only told his father and the board about the duration of the trip but none of the particulars. Also, even if anyone knew that Team 2 was coming back that day, they wouldn't necessarily know what time they would arrive. The trip between Isan and Bangkok took between five and six hours—longer if there was weather or if they caught behind someone moving livestock or a farm vehicle—and even though Kim had posted pictures on social media from the breakfast this morning, she had never posted when they were leaving.

Their co-workers were curious of course, but there was a sense of shame in their curiosity. Nearly every white-collar worker at Shilapath not on Team 2 with the exception of IT had shunned someone on the team at one time or another in the past. Yes, there had been some outreach and genuine thanks to Tul after he had been so helpful to others in Japan, and the team members were no longer seen as pariahs; however, since there had been no change in the way that Metinee or Plustor had treated Tul, most of their staff (and that included most of Shilapath) still did not think they had permission to be openly friendly to the team members.

As Ann and Prin had said, the shift had begun to change when people saw that Max Nattapol was chosen to shadow their group. Even though Plustor and Tul hadn't known who he was, many people in the company did. He was a well-known business writer, so many knew him by his name alone, but it also didn't take long for people to notice the handsome man with the full grin who seemed to be able to talk with ease to every single category of person at the company. Max had charmed them all with his open and frank talk and his genuine interest in their day-to-day lives.

Max's presence and the way he talked about the team was in complete contrast to how Metinee and Plustor talked about them, and for a while now instead of everyone else seeing them as rejects, they had started to see them as victims of Pakorn discrimination. Seeing the major security breaches the team had been facing only solidified this. Then, when news got out that Team 2 had not only secured a deal with Hongtai farms but that Sinjai Hongtai herself had come to make the deal, the tide really began to turn.

The team didn't know this, but because of this nearly everyone at the company except Plustor and his few loyalists had been hoping for a miracle when they saw them all working so hard to meet the Hongtai deadline, especially since many were suspicious about how the samples had mysteriously disappeared. When word got out about the successful presentation and then, too, how impressed the board had been with Tul's presentation, many people in offices across the company had silently cheered.

The news of the special invitation to the farm just seemed fitting, and there were more than a few who were wishing now they were on the team that seemed to do everything together. Everyone agreed, even Metinee and Plustor, that the trip signaled a major triumph. Other teams were already trying to leverage their association—because "we are a team at Shilapath, too" bit—in their negotiations with other companies, and some of this had even worked to get their foot in the door at places that previously hadn't answered their calls. The media/PR department was over the moon. They didn't have to do anything but bask in this story that they didn't need to tell or promote. It seemed to write itself.

Metinee was resigned. She still didn't like Tul, but this was helping Channarong and was making board members happy, so she was determined to say and hinder nothing. Plustor, however, was furious. 

He had been getting angrier and angrier as each of the five days the team was at the farm passed. Kim posted pictures of the Team 2 Crew—Kim ran with Wanna's name in all her social media posts—each day. She tagged Shilapath, so the posts and all the pictures, reposts, and comments kept coming up on Plustor's feed.  He saw that Team2Crew and Hongtai Farms was trending. Everyone in the field seemed to be interested in this trip. Hongtai Farms and Team2Crew were topping searches on multiple platforms and Tul and Sinjai Hongtai were not far behind. He had even taken questions himself about the trip and the deal in two of his meetings that day.