Locked away inside her bedroom, Mei typed furiously on her computer, analyzing new data and correcting mistakes that had appeared over the last month corresponding to recent weather. When it came to weather analysis, she excelled greatly, but even though she enjoyed doing it, everything seemed to get a little mundane doing it every single day. It had been months since Winston had sent her out on any kind of mission, but it was understandable due to the circumstances. She wasn't suited to most missions that involved face to face combat and she generally was just too nice on the battle field and too careful for her own good. Not to mention half the time she would have to be saved from someone else due to her slower speed and inability to get out of situations with more than one person coming at her.
She took a deep sigh as she pushed herself away from her computer desk, reaching her arms above her head in a long stretch. Just thinking about her last few missions was enough to depress her, for she knew she wasn't exactly meeting up to standards when it came to battle. When she brought it up to some of her closest friends like Angela or Hana, they would both reassure her that she was a great addition to the team and that she did nothing wrong.
"Of course they would say that, they're both just too nice and wouldn't want to hurt my feelings," she spoke to herself. Leaning back in her chair for a moment, she stared at the ceiling, mind completely blank from thoughts. She knew that the next mission she was on, she would have to prove herself, not to impress anyone, but to make herself feel better.
She erased her mind from the negative thoughts that she was having and sat back up, looking to her computer screen and shaking her head at it, reaffirming to herself that she would take a break from her work. As she stood up she slid on her white slippers to shield her from the freezing hard tile underneath. She looked at her bedroom door, contemplating whether or not she should leave her room. It had been at least a week since she had left her room for any other purpose than to get food and she thought that maybe talking to people would help. She looked back to her desk, thinking that it might be best to just get back to work, but then she shook her head again and walked out the door...
The base at Gibraltar had always been huge, and she finally had gotten stationed there to stay for a long time it seemed like. Everyone had their own bedrooms, but not work stations, the base wasn't that big. Mei had the opportunity to work in a larger room shared with Winston, but she preferred to do most of her work inside the comfort of her own bedroom. Even with the amount of space that Overwatch had at this base, a certain area was restricted downstairs for a pair of new members that they had discovered-Junkrat and Roadhog. They were originally upstairs with everyone else, but due to the amount of fire alarms going off and disruptancies, the entirety of Overwatch came to the decision of putting them downstairs so they could be unseen and unheard. This decision was fine with Mei of course, she never cared for the junkers. They were too rude, loud, obnoxious, gross, and not to mention, criminals. When Winston made the decision to let them in to their group, she made no hesitation to blatantly reject his decision, even in front of the junkers. With time, she came to be tolerant of Roadhog, for at least he was quiet and didn't cause a scene, but with Junkrat...She absolutely detested him. He was a no good bully and his laugh was enough to make babies cry. She didn't know how he could even look himself in the mirror after all of the bad he had done to other people. It wasn't up to her to let him in, though. If it was, he wouldn't have even been an option. Just thinking about him made her upset, and seeing him stirred an even worse reaction, but of course, she had to tolerate him as a teammate when it came to the battlefield. Negative feelings towards a comrade would only make a mission go sour, but that didn't mean she had to like him outside of a mission- especially not now...
Padding her feet across the floor towards the kitchen, she passed Zarya who briefly spoke a few words to her, but swiftly denied joining her for tea due to her extreme workout schedule. It was fine with her though, she didn't quite take Zarya for someone to be good at small talk anyways.
It wasn't until she reached the kitchen that she noticed that nobody was there which was strange considering it was almost lunch time. She simply headed to the cabinet, pulling out all the things she needed to brew some tea. Just as she began to pour some water in the kettle, a loud crash was heard out in the dining area that was similar to a bag of flour hitting a wall.
"Oi! Sheila! Ah-Mei I mean."
Mei knew exactly who was calling out for her based upon the shrill voice and slowly turned around, meeting eyes from a distance with the lanky junker whom she detested. Junkrat was leaning up against the wall from before, elbow against it to lean on it, trying to look as cool in front of Mei as possible. He always had trouble talking to women, but with this certain girl, he couldn't formulate a coherent sentence in front of her without looking like he had mental issues-which he did.
"Ain't'ya gettin' the alert? Ol' ape has been messaging us for er.." he looked at the clock on the wall, obviously trying to decipher it since it was using roman numerals instead of actual numbers, "Fifteen minutes now? Important stuff, darl'. Says he needs everyone packed n'stuff and on the heli."
"Gosh! I left my phone in my room. Than-" she stopped herself from saying a simple 'thank you' to Junkrat, knowing it seemed immature, but she couldn't allow herself for a moment to think that he willingly came to warn her out of the kindness of his heart, "Alright. I'm getting my stuff now. Five minutes."
As she hurriedly walked past the junker, she caught glimpse of him staring at her as she walked by, and even felt his eyes on her back as she walked past. Simply ignoring his rude staring, she hurriedly rushed back to her bedroom, getting dressed in her usual jacket and boots. She already had her mission bag packed and ready to go, much as most people did who wanted to be punctual, but this time she wasn't due to her carelessness.
"Not off to a good start," she thought to herself.
She looked to her phone and read over the brief summary that Winston sent out along with the mission report. It seemed like her, Angela, Zarya, Jesse, Roadhog, and...Junkrat... were all going on the next mission to Volskaya to set up. No other details than that and at the bottom in big text was a note: BRING FORMAL ATTIRE. She stopped for a moment and craned her head in confusion. "What does formal attire have to do with a mission?" she thought to herself.
Her confusion was set aside for a moment when a soft knocking on her door broke her from her thoughts. She hurried rushed over and opened the door only to show miss Angela Ziegler standing there with a bright smile on her face as always.
"Hello, Mei. I've come to retrieve you for the mission. You got the alert, yes?"
"Yes, but I was wondering about the-." Mei was cut off for a brief moment.
"The formal attire part? Yes, we will explain later, nothing too big of course, but you need to bring a dress and some nice shoes." Angela was beaming now, which threw Mei off a bit. She couldn't figure out why Angela was so excited for the formal event that they were apparently attending.
Mei nervously smiled and went to her closet where she looked at her barren amount of dresses. She reached in and pulled out two and looked to Angela where she frowned, "You only have two?"
"Just two. I uh.. Never have tried to impress anyone I guess? I-I mean I'm always in my lab so what do I need dresses for?" Mei nervously looked at both of the options. She had a medium blue colored dress that modestly would go down to her knees and had straps, but she also had a long dark red dress that clung to her body and went all the way down to the floor, leaving a cut down the side for her leg to show.
"Oooh, Mei, you should do the red. I've only ever seen you in blue! Plus, that dress would really capture the men's eyes." She giggled and winked at the other whereas Mei only looked down and blushed. Thinking about getting a man's attention was the last thing on her mind, up until she got in bed at night alone. She always told herself that she didn't need a relationship to disrupt her work, it would only cause trouble, but Angela did have a point. She would look really good in it. As she was thinking about putting the red dress in her bag, she was cut off from her thoughts with a loud, boisterous voice.
"Oi, I agree with the winged sheila. The red would look fuckin' hot. Like a bunch'ov ass and tits in that thing, which ya' got would be all righty with ol' Junkrat to look at." A shrill laughter appeared from the doorway which Junkrat was eavesdropping on the girls the whole time, but he didn't think of it that way, more like a mere coincidence of gathering.
"W-.. Why were you standing there listening to us? Don't you need to be on the helicopter?" Mei raised her voice at him, obviously embarrassed from his...somewhat compliment. He was much too vulgar and straight-forward for her liking, and the way he described her body like that only made her cheeks flush.
"Well, golly, ya' don't have to bite me head off, darl'. Ya' said five minutes and it's been another ten so they sent me back down 'ere to get ya'." He grinned at her widely, watching her panickedly shove her blue dress in her bag and leaving the red on the bed.
"Ok! Well, you're not needed anymore, we're coming." She snipped at him, her cheeks still red and puffed out from embarrassment.
Junkrat simply gave a loud giggle and waved her off, "Ouch, so cold, love." And with that, he walked away, the loud clanking of his peg leg giving signal that he was getting farther away.
Angela looked over to the flustered girl after the other had left and gave her a knowing smile, "Just between you and me, he really likes you, Mei." Before Mei could deny what she said, she watched Angela giggle and walk out of the room.
It took her a moment to think about what she had said to her, but she knew that it wasn't true. It couldn't be. She could never like Junkrat and he could never like her, they were two completely different people with very different aspirations and desires in life. Plus, he was a criminal and a bully. She could never like someone like that back even if he did happen to have a crush on her. A thousand different denials swam through her head from Angela's words, and a she shook her head at the thought of even remotely liking the rude junker as a friend. Once she cleared her mind, she began to head out the door to follow suit with Angela, but before she did, she looked back at her bed and saw the red dress that he...no Angela...said would look nice on her. And with that, she grabbed the garment and shoved it in her bag, zipped it up, and left for the helicopter.