Chapter Text
Diana had finally done it. She had achieved the stuff of her dreams and nothing could stop her now.
(When had Diana gotten so cheesy ?)
She had finally gained the courage to ask Akko out, and now here she was happily married to the dork.
She had worked so hard, often at the expense of her own health (though gaining Akko as a roommate was unsurprisingly what forced her out of this), and now here she was in one of the top law firms in the country.
Despite the high-paying cases the firm offered Diana, she tended to stick to her roots, what got her into wanting to become a lawyer.
That is: defending those who couldn’t defend themselves because of the circumstances life handed to them.
So it was to no one’s surprise that she was considerably well known. And not to the extent of well known as when she was just that rich Cavendish girl. No, often enough, at the conclusion of a case, reporters had the tendency of surrounding the courtroom, hopeful for the chance to interview the Cavendish girl with a bright future in law.
The question they were all armed with was, “Why?”
Diana would only respond with a small smile, beautiful nonetheless despite its size. None of the reporters would ever hope to guess it was directed to a girl with a far more bright future than Diana. Someone who would always tune in to any channel, at any time, so long as it had Diana’s face plastered on it. Someone who loved her and who Diana would do anything to make feel loved .
Akko always said that the reason she wanted to be a teacher was so that she could inspire people, make their day a little better than it had been before. Diana was just doing the same, just trying to inspire people, in the only way she knew how.
So yeah. Life was going pretty great for her. Actually, it was pretty wonderful.
The one thing that would vastly improve it would be if her colleagues actually interacted with her.
Diana should probably backtrack a little there. It’s not like her colleagues don’t interact with her. They do. It’s just rather stilted. And awkward. And their conversations tend to have way more pauses than she had thought possible. And-
Anyways.
(Akko really was rubbing off on her.)
The point is, while her colleagues did interact with her, it was quite evident that they would prefer not to interact with her for some inexplicable reason.
Diana, when first faced with the thought, wondered if maybe her colleagues felt they were below her.
She immediately shook away the idea.
Diana expected something like that when she was merely known for being the heir to the Cavendish family. She didn’t deserve it, no, but it was normal, just another part of her life.
Now? She was just an ordinary lawyer with a penchant for helping the unfortunate. Diana could hardly see how someone could feel like they were below someone like that .
Besides, they were all equals. They all had worked extremely hard to make it into this law firm, and here they were to this very day.
So she simply could not understand why -
It had been a long day at the firm. The work was rewarding (it would always be rewarding) but Diana could not help but be worn out sometimes.
She knew she would be in for a long night, so Diana rose from her chair and cracked her back. It was now time to maneuver the depths of the office to reach her destination: the water cooler.
‘Ah. Here arrives the mini Akko in her head to narrate her every move and cheer her on.’
Diana arrives at the water cooler in the average time it may take one to arrive at the water cooler.
She is not paying any attention, of course - too sleep deprived and too focused on getting water into a cup - when a person squeaks behind her.
As such, Diana lets out a louder squeak (though she’s pretty sure it’s not by a generous margin) when she turns around and is met with the face of her coworker, Julie. Julie immediately squeezes her eyes shut upon hearing Diana’s squeak.
At that realization that she caused such a reaction, Diana awkwardly rubs the back of her neck and says, “Julie, right? I'm so sorry if I surprised you. It's just been a really long day and I guess I was too sleep-deprived to notice you.”
Julie slowly opens one eye. Not two, but one.
Diana smiles awkwardly. She has to take her victories where she can get them.
Julie, upon seeing Diana’s smile, hopefully deemed herself safe when she opened both eyes.
“I-It’s okay. I th-tha-think it’s pretty norm-normal for,” and then Julie's speech becomes faster than it was before, her hands now wrangling together more repeatedly than before, “p-people to be tir-tired after a lo-long day.”
Diana feels herself nodding in agreement. “Yes! In and of itself, the work is highly rewarding, but it is only natural that people begin to tire throughout the course of the day.”
Julie lets a smile slip onto her face, before remembering the situation she is in. Rapidly waving her hands at Diana in a state of “flustered,” Julie squeaks out rapidly, “O-Oh! I'm so sor-sorry! I-I-I must ha-have been district-distracting you from your wa-work!”
A confused look on her face, the only thing Diana can do is shake her head and cautiously throw out, “It’s no problem really. I was the one who started this conversation after all. It's odd, you know, but I was hoping I'd have a chance to interact with my colleagues in a much better manner.”
“R-Really? A li-lot of us tho-thought you were ta-too...focused ta-to ri-really inta-interact with!” A blush bursts onto Julie’s face at the thought of having just revealed a badly-kept secret to the person of interest.
Julie turns around, clearly heading towards her work space. Before she leaves, she tilts her head towards to Diana to yell, “So sor-sorry! I-I-I didn't ma-mean any ha-har-harm!”
With that, Julie resolutely does not turn to look back, her back the last thing Diana sees of her for the day.
If Julie had turned to look back at the most opportune moment, she may have seen Diana with her hand stretched towards her. She may have heard Diana whisper, “Nice talking to you, I guess.”
Diana's mind is plagued with thoughts of the conversation she just had as she finally situates herself in her office.
She tries to ignore the temptation of calling Akko, the presence of the phone lying next to her computer now more glaringly obvious than ever. Diana sits down and dives back into work.
But she cannot focus. Diana has been reading the same sentence for at least 5 minutes, with the words “too focused” floating around in her head a constant distraction.
Diana, no matter how she prides herself on having restraint, can be weak to temptation sometimes.
For example: when she grabs the phone viciously, not worried at all about chipping the plastic case.
(If it could not stand up to this , then the sticker on the package when she bought it was lying, which is rather bad marketing tactics. How could they expect more customers to buy it-)
For example: when she stares at her lock screen for a few seconds before grudgingly unlocking it, immediately clicking the icon of the Phone app.
For example: not having to even scroll down to find the contact she's looking for because it's right there at the top.
The pressure of her thumb on the contact feels right to Diana, no matter how odd that may seem.
The clock signals the passage of time as if to irritate her, the tick-tock growing increasingly grating as Diana waits in suspense for Akko to pick up.
Diana’s breath hitches at the back of her neck once Akko picks up. Akko’s concerned, “Diana? What’s wrong, you rarely-” is nonetheless interrupted by her despite how breathless she was a few seconds ago.
“Am I too focused on my work sometimes, Akko?”
Akko stops talking for a millisecond, before immediately regaining her concerned tone as she says, “What’s this about, Diana?”
She feels her throat close up. “Nothing, I guess.”
“Diana, silly. You wouldn’t ask about this if you weren’t worried.”
Despite how clogged up her throat feels, Diana can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You always knew me so well after all…”
“So? Any interest in explaining this to me? I don’t exactly possess the ability to mind read.”
Diana freezes up. Many words rush through her head and she wonders how she should string them together in such a way that Akko will no longer worry about it.
“I-It’s just that my colleagues don’t exactly...interact with me. Well, they do! I guess it’s just... stilted more than anything. And this evening, I went to the water cooler to, you know, get some water to drink when I bumped into my coworker Julie. We had a co―well, I suppose you can’t call it a conversation, but regardless, when she had suddenly apologized for distracting me from my work, I may have told her about wanting to interact with people in the law firm.”
There’s a lilt in Akko’s voice when she says, “Did you now?”
“Y-Yes. I did tell her that. It came out of nowhere, truthfully. I suppose maybe it was because I didn’t really expect anything out of it. Bu-But then Julie said that everyone thinks I’m too focused to really interact with. I don’t know... Am I too focused?”
“Honey…”
“So I am too focused, aren't-”
“Diana, that's not what I was going to say a-”
“But it's what you were thinking, just like every-”
“Diana! I thought you would know better of me! Sure, you can be focused sometimes - heaven forbid I forgot all the times I had to drag you out of the library at 1 AM - but it's all for a good cause."
Diana can't help but blurt out, “Really? A good cause? It still doesn't get my colleagues to talk to me.”
Diana hears Akko sigh on the other side of the call and feels her heart plummet. Great . She’s ruined the conversation already .
Or so it seems, except Akko continues to speak, unperturbed by Diana’s harsh voice. “You always told me that people try to make you take their cases, try to coerce you with a hell lot of money, but that you'd always say no because you know they got the better side of life, that they aren't unable to defend themselves like the people whose cases you do take. If your coworkers can’t see how caring and kind-hearted you really are from the kind of cases you take on, then it's their loss!”
“Oh,” she says, and thinks to herself, ‘ Great response Diana. Absolute phenomenal , honestly.’
“Yes, Diana, no matter how much you think otherwise, it's true. If I, Akko, a person who according to you is rather short-tempered, can deal with you when you were-”
“Worse?” Diana says in a deadpan tone.
Akko snickers at that. “Yes! If I could deal with you in college when you were worse , as you so foolishly say, your coworkers must be cowards if they're scared of you now. You're a nerd. I know that, your friends know that, and your coworkers will figure it out once they get their heads out of their ass.”
Well then. “Akko, despite that rather crude statement-”
“Crude! I’d say not! I've heard you say worse when you’re drunk!”
Diana feels a blush spread across her face, reaching the tip of your ears. “Akko, can we please not discuss how I dirty talk when I'm in my office-”
“It’s a travesty not to, with what you did to me later that night-”
“ Okay. Let's not go there.” Diana clears her throat, flustered, before saying, “Ahem. As I was trying to say earlier, thank you for your advice. You've always been there for me, Akko, and I honestly don't know how to make it up to you.”
The mischievousness is clear in Akko's voice when she says, “You can start by calling me every evening and talking to me, Miss Cavendish. I get that you're too immersed in your work, but that just means it's up to me to pull you out of it.”
The way Diana opens and closes her mouth over and over again makes her look like a fish, she soon realizes. Thankfully, Akko is not in the room at the moment, so she does not tease her about it. Thankfully .
As such, Diana just says in an overly sweet tone, “Bye Akko!” and laughs to herself after hearing Akko squeak out, “ Diana -”
Clicking the “end call” button and ending the conversation, Diana smiles to herself.
It's as Akko said, no matter how crudely she phrased it. If her colleagues have yet to see that they are equals, then she will just to force them. She is a lawyer after all, and Diana's heard that lawyers are extremely persuasive.