What Happened?

The panda rubbed his eyes as the bright incandescent lights briefly blinded him. He stepped out of the elevator and into the office floor. "I need to get more sleep," he yawned as he walked through his door. He briefly noticed Tigress's vacant desk. Po sat down and got to work, picking up some papers left at his table. "Ugh, not again. How long is he going to keep pulling this stunt?"

Then he saw something in his lightly frosted panel windows.

Po barely could see a orange bright spot quickly marching to his door. The bear knew who it was. The person knocked.

"Whatever it is, I promise I didn't mean to do it or intend for it to happen," he spluttered nervously.

"Can I come in please?"

Po gulped. He quickly grabbed something and put it on his head. "Alright, come in."

Tigress walked into the panda's room with a small smile, though it briefly vanished when she saw what was on Po's head. "Why do you have on a hard hat?"

"It's to prevent any damages."

"What damages are you expecting?"

"Don't worry about that. What's wrong?" Po smiled sheepishly.

Tigress went back to smiling. "When I went to pick up my daughter from school, she told me about her new teacher that protected her from bullies."

"Oh... and how did-"

"You didn't tell me that your friend gave Song a job as a teacher. Or that she was teaching at Lei Lei's school."

"Oh! Well, that was a complete coincidence," Po chuckled lightly, taking the hard hat off.

"Still, if it wasn't for you, my friend would be swimming up a raging river to find a job and I would have to play lawyer for Lei Lei's school. You did a lot for me." Tigress smiled. "Thank you."

"I promise it was a coincidence."

"No, thank you for taking care of my friend. You didn't have to."

"It was the right thing to do. At least I hoped it would be," Po frowned a bit and sighed. "Tigress, do you think it's right to do the right thing."

"Of course."

"Even if it costs you your job?"

"...Yes."

"What if it costs other people their jobs or lives?" Po asked.

Tigress narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

The panda stared away at the semi-empty bookshelf to his left. To explain this would both worry her and break privacy, but the growing knot in the bear's stomach didn't care. Someone deserved to know the truth, he thought. Might as well be the person who worked so closely with him. "I've been CEO for about two months now. And... Song's issue wasn't the only thing that's wrong here."

Tigress gently sat on the side of his large desk. "How bad is it?"

"Very. What's worse is that it's hard to figure out who's responsible and who's just a puppet. Ughh, I wish I had my old job sometimes."

"You mean the cultural exchange coordinator position?"

Po smiled a hint. "I didn't think you remembered."

Tigress smiled back. "What makes this job worse than the old one?"

"I wasn't the scapegoat. I dealt with stuff OUTSIDE the company. Kind of like Monkey in PR. I learned about other people to know them and then get them involved with Zainan's legacy. Or what I thought was its legacy."

"You had meaningful interactions with people and you miss that." Po slowly nodded. A long frown appeared on the tiger's face. She watched the panda's body waver between depression and misery. "Po... you mentioned that you took this job because you wanted to shut people up. What did you mean by that?"

"It's nothing important."

"I think it's important. Not because I'm curious... well not just because of that."

"Why?"

"Because you're important, especially right now," Tigress replied.

The panda glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "I didn't think you'd be okay with me this quickly."

"Like I said, Po. I wasn't entirely upset with you. Just the fact you were sitting in the seat instead of me. Of course, I didn't realize how hot the seat was."

"Hmm." The panda leaned forward on his desk, brushing off the specks of lint on his black jacket. "Even though it paid well, cultural exchange coordinator wasn't my first job. I was actually the receptionist for a time until they saw my resumé... and the previous coordinator was fired for harassment."

"Ah yes. I remember Viper talked about that," Tigress grumbled.

"Either way, my... ex-girlfriend didn't really appreciate what she considered a dead-end job."

"The receptionist job or the coordinator?"

"Both," Po sighed, "She figured I was slacking off because I was just... talking with people."

The feline tilted her head. "Does she know what a cultural exchange coordinator does?"

"No... we... broke up before she took any interest. Honestly, I think she left because she didn't want to be with a common pencil pusher. Anyway, the break up was... really really painful for me. It was my first relationship and it lasted two years. It... messed up a lot of things." Po groaned into his hands. His mind went through the late nights staring into the ceiling of his room, crying into the soft pillows. He didn't dare talk about the multiple disapproving words, backhanded comments, or gaslighting talk his ex filled in his head. He could still hear her words, 'How can you say you're a man and be stuck doing this?' Even after eating through ten buckets of ice cream for the pain, the ache never lessened.

It was the repeated nightmares of him drowning in a sea of glaring eyes turning their backs on him as he sank into the darkness that led him to talk to his father about it.

"It's just been rough," Po sighed, coming back to reality. Tigress quietly watched the panda slowly breathe before he lifted his head. "So... I go to the psychologist to work things out."

"How recent was this breakup?"

"About... three months before I got this job."

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Po."

"For what?"

"Where do I begin? For invading your privacy. For giving you such a hard time when you didn't deserve it. For alienating you."

Po looked at her with the most tired face the feline had ever seen on a panda. "Tigress, you know why I asked you for your honesty? I couldn't take you giving me a fake smile. It... it reminded me too much of my ex. I know before this position we rarely spoke, but your real smiles and bluntness were what I wanted most."

"Why?"

The panda sighed longingly, "It's nice to know that I'm not around people pretending to like me."

"I'm... really sorry, Po."

He waved his hand at her. "Please, don't pity me."

"But you don't deserve this situation," Tigress reminded him. "You were pushed into this place by fate. You didn't get to choose."

"I did choose though."

"Did you?" She asked. Po looked at her eyes. Those amber eyes had seen pain before. Pain similar to his.

"Why do you ask?"

"Are you sure you're not just using this position as a way to escape the pain you had?"

"This job?" Po mockingly chuckled. "The most stressful, nail-biting, isolating job I've ever had in my life? Yeah I definitely want to escape to this job."

"Better than what you were dealing with, right?" Tigress softly said.

Po pursed his lips together and released a trapped sigh. She was right. He knew that. And there was no point in denying it.

Tigress got up from the desk and rounded it, standing next to him with her arms crossed. "No matter what, you can't distract yourself from what's troubling you all the time. You're going to have to face this sooner or later."

"You've been through this before?"

Tigress sighed, "Life is just hard. With or without kids, family, friends, partners, jobs, money, or anything else, life is just hard. Even those who are rich and pampered will have it hard one day."

"But...what happened to you? I can't imagine the pain you went through was any easier than mine. What happened?"

Just then a knock at the door came. "It's a story for another time," Tigress said.

Po nodded. "Come in."

The door opened. A head of bright white with a red lining along his feathers strolled in like water over a rock. He wore a white suit, white vest, white dress shirt, white everything. Tigress often wondered how he avoided stains. The man behind him was a dark wolf with black sunglasses that he wore in every room, wearing a black suit with a matching black dress shirt. The wolf was his bodyguard.

Po stood up. "Mr. Shen," The panda said tentatively. "How are you?"

"I would be better if there weren't some... minor inconveniences," Shen said with a slight hissing voice. Tigress eyed the albino peacock up and down. His stare and mouth always held a type of hunger that she found uneasy. Shen frowned and folded his wings behind him while approaching the table. "And... Ms. Claw, is it?"

"Yes Mr. Shen," She formally said. This was a member of the board. AKA, one of Po's bosses.

Shen glanced between Tigress and Po. "Exactly... what were you two doing?"

"We were just discussing the Imposter Success Project," Po quickly covered with no stutter in his voice. Tigress nodded, though she side-glanced the panda for a minute. She didn't think Po could come up with something so quickly.

"Well, then. Could you please excuse us, Ms. Claw? I have to have a few words with the CEO."

"Yes, Mr. Shen," Tigress replied. She briskly walked past the bird and his canine bodyguard and closed the door behind her.

She slumped into the chair, feeling tension in her shoulders. Tigress rubbed them and gazed at Po's door. "What is he doing here?" She tried her best to refocus on work, but her mind stirred with worry.

Shen normally didn't come to the CEO's office. He primarily went to the Finance department.

When that thought passed through Tigress's mind, the door to Po's office opened. The peafowl* wore a sour face for a brief moment before skillfully correcting it and grinning at Tigress. "I hope you have a pleasant day, Ms. Claw."

"You too, Mr. Shen," She replied. His smile sent a nerve-chilling shiver down her spine. It amazed her that a well-off bird could look so... hungry. With his bodyguard hovering close behind him, Shen strolled down the hall and into the elevator, disappearing from Tigress's sight.

That's when Po came out. Crossing his arms, he glared at the shiny metal doors of the elevator and leaned on the doorpost.

"What's wrong?" Tigress asked.

"How long did Oogway work here?"

"About 45 years."

"And when did Shen become part of the board?"

Tigress narrowed her eyes in thought. "About... two years ago."

"Yeah," Po grumbled, "I'm starting to see why Oogway retired." He went back into his office without another word.

Continued...

*A/n: I learned this today. Shen is a peacock and/or a peafowl. Peafowls are both peacocks (Males) and Peahen (Females). The more you learn.