Chapter Text
“Did you hear we are getting a new regional manager?” Kiba asked with the chewed straw of the juice box he got from the break room hanging out of his mouth. He tossed two more boxes on either of their desks.
Ino pushed the box to the side, not looking away from her screen. “What happened to the last one?”
Hinata accepted her juice box. Peeling the plastic off and poking the straw into the top. “She was transferred to an international branch.”
Kiba pushed his chair back on its wheels. “I wonder who it is?”
“His name is Itachi Uchiha.” Ino and Kiba both stopped what they were doing to look at her. Sometimes, she felt like she was the only one who read her emails. “It was in the corporate announcements email Monday.”
Kiba shrugged. “No one reads those.”
Maybe she was right.
“I hope he doesn’t suck.” Kiba’s juice box went dry, making a gurgling sound. “If we get another micromanager who doesn’t know what they are even asking for, I am going to quit.” He crushed the empty box and dropped it into the trash can by his desk.
“No, you won’t.” Ino hummed. “Because you’re not going to find another job that is this close to your apartment, and you still don’t have a driver’s license.”
Kiba's face twisted irritably because he knew she was right. “I can take public transport.”
Hinata sighed and picked up her phone. If they didn’t get the answers they were looking for, they were going to talk about it for the rest of the day. It only took a search to find his public business social media profile. “He has a degree from a good university, and” She scrolled. “Has worked with the company for six years.”
Ino stopped typing and leaned toward her. “What does he look like?” Hinata held out her phone and scrolled back up to show his picture. Ino’s jaw dropped as she took the phone. “Is he married?”
Hinata resigned herself back to her computer as Kiba looked over Ino’s shoulder. “You’re married.”
“Who said I was looking for me?” Ino flicked her hand up in his face to get him to back up, but he just moved his chair closer to their snooping.
“I don’t think he’s going to put the fact that he is married in his business profile. Isn’t that illegal?” Kiba said.
“It’s illegal for the company to ask, not for you to announce it.” Ino rolled her eyes at him as she flicked through the profile. Then she went ridged.
“Oh. Shit.” Kiba suddenly said.
“Whoops.” Ino quickly scrambled to put Hinata’s phone back down on her desk and pulled her hands back, looking at it guilty.
Hinata blinked. “What?”
Ino pressed her lips together, and they both quickly went back to trying to look busy.
Hinata picked up her phone, and her stomach dropped to the floor. A banner across the top of the page. ‘You are now following Itachi Uchiha.’ She could melt right out of this chair and become one with the ugly office carpet.
Maybe she could just unfollow him, and he wouldn’t notice. No, because if he got the notification, and she already wasn’t following him, he would know that it was by accident and that she was trying to hide the snooping.
But maybe he just wouldn’t see it. Not everyone had notifications turned on.
She turned off her screen and placed her phone on its face as she tried to go back to her computer, but she was overly aware of how hot her face was and the occasional side eyes her coworkers were giving her.
A vibration made all three of their hearts stop because they all knew whose phone was always on silent.
Hinata ignored it for a moment, but between her own growing anxiety and the emotional pressure from Ino and Kiba that she could feel in the air, her resolve didn’t last long. She turned it back over to check the notification.
“He followed me back.”
“Morning, Hinata.” The front desk attendant greeted her waving her over. “This came in for you.”
“Good morning.” Hinata accepted the large envelope, twisting it to read the address. “Oh, I’ve been expecting this. Thank you.”
She heard the elevator ding, announcing that the doors were opening on the floor they were on, and she hurried to it to get on. The man that had been waiting, got on before he saw her and held his hand out to keep the door open.
She bowed her head as she entered, huffed out a breath, and folded her arms over the envelope in front of her.
It took her a long moment, but as soon as she realized that she recognized the face she just saw her heart shot up through the roof. She kept her head forward but glanced to the side to confirm, and just as quickly, her eyes shot forward because she was right, and Itachi Uchiha was looking at her!
She had the worst luck. She had the worst coworkers for clumsy following him on her phone in the first place!
Hinata tried to keep her composure as she watched the floor tick up.
“Are you going to the top floor?” Itachi asked.
“Oh.” Hinata squeaked, looking at the only lit button on the panel. “No, sorry.” Her hand shot forward to add her floor to stops before she stepped back, tightening her hand impossibly tighter to the edges of her mail.
Itachi nodded to her and looked back up to watch the floors.
When the elevator came to her floor, she stepped forward, eager to get out of this tense metal box, but the few seconds it took for the elevator to right itself and open the doors felt like an eternity.
Once she was freed, she scrambled to her office to hide in the safety of her cubicle and sat down, feeling her heart beat out of her chest and her face irradiating heat.
Did he recognize her? Surely not, right?
Could he see how red her face was?
If he did recognize her… should she have said hello? Was it weirder that she didn’t?
Was it too late to transfer to another building or… company?
Hinata melted down and laid her face down on her desk. It was cool, but it wasn’t going to help.
“Are you okay?” Ino asked as she came in and set her purse down under her desk.
“Itachi Uchiha started today.” Hinata whimpered out.
Ino sat down and moved her mouse to wake her computer up. “Oh? How do you know that?”
“I rode up in the elevator with him,” Hinata admitted, lifting her head to find that her misery had already awoken her own computer.
“Really?!” Ino rolled her chair over to her. “Well, is he as cute as he is in his picture?”
Yes. “I don’t know. I wasn’t looking.”
Ino covered her mouth as it fell open. “Did he recognize you?”
“I don’t know.” Hinata couldn’t even imagine what it would look like to him if he had. “I hope not.”
“Aw.” Ino put her hand on her shoulder. Why was she comforting her like this wasn’t her fault, to begin with? “Hey. Don’t worry about it. It’s possible he didn’t think anything of it. The higher-ups probably follow each other on those business sites all the time.”
Hinata just rolled herself closer to her desk and tried to focus on her email, but she knew that she wasn’t going to escape from the swirling knots in her stomach.
Did he recognize her?
Did he wonder why she followed him?
Was he just following her back because she followed him?
Was it too late to call a sick day?
“Incoming.” Kiba came back to his desk in a hurry, tossing his usual offering at their desk. “The new manager is touring.”
Hinata turned to Ino as she shrank down to a whisper. “Is it too late to hide in the bathroom?”
“He’s already seen you.” Ino hissed back. “This can’t be any worse.”
It was worth a try.
Hinata could hear their direct manager down a set of cubicles, and it made her wish she was invisible or maybe unemployed.
“Hey guys.” Their manager waved her hand as she got around to them. “I am showing the new regional manager around and introducing him to everyone.” She gestured to him. “This is Itachi Uchiha. We are very excited to have him working with us.” She waved her hand at the empty desk in the set of four. “Lee usually sits here. He is on paternity leave. Kiba is the one at the end. He is our resident snack gremlin.”
Kiba picked up his snack pack and waved it.
“Ino is our darling deal closer.”
Ino flicked her hair over her shoulder.
“And…”
Itachi interjected with a comment that made Hinata’s heart stop. “I know Hinata. We're friends on social media.”
Both Kiba’s and Ino’s eyes shot at her and Hinata’s eyes blurred.
Hinata didn’t have a response to that. She didn’t have a single thought that was helpful. She felt dizzy. “I’m… sorry.” Was all she could come up with.
Her manager laughed. “Hinata is shy, but she is the most on top of her email inbox.” That was her identifier? That sounded like something to be said about someone who didn’t have any other qualities. “Thanks guys.” Their manager started to head to the next alcove of desks.
Itachi stays for only a moment longer, smiling at her.
As soon as he was gone, Kiba snorted. Ino swatted at him and hissed for him to stay quiet, but she was also trying not to laugh. Hinata was glad they thought it was funny. She just wanted to die right here in her chair.
Ino tiptoed into the office and slid a vase full of flowers onto Hinata's desk with a guarded smile.
“What is this for?” Hinata stood up to look into the flowers.
“It’s an apology” Ino adjusted the bouquet, perfecting their positioning. “Please forgive me.” She tilted her head with a smile to look innocent.
“Thank you, but I wasn’t really mad.” Hinata hummed, touching one of the delicate petals with the tips of her fingers. “I am just hoping that I don’t cross paths with him often.” She said that, but she knew from one of the many company emails that he was going to be closely monitoring select projects to make sure that they were keeping up with the high-performance standard that they had last year, and she was on more than one of those projects.
“Well, maybe he has a good impression.” Ino always had a more positive outlook on what people thought of her, and she was usually right because she was beautiful.
Hinata sat back down. She couldn’t hope for that.
Hinata chewed on her bottom lip as she read the document on her computer. She knew leaning into her screen was bad for her posture, but this was a PDF, and zooming in would mean she would have to slide the whole document back and forth to read a whole line.
This was the final check, and she wanted to make sure that she was completely sure that it was correct before she sent it upstairs. The last thing she wanted was to be pulled into the regional manager's office because she let a critical typo through.
“Hinata.” Ino nudged her.
“One moment.” Hinata hummed.
“Hinata.” Ino persisted.
Was it important? “Hmm?”
Ino pointed over her other shoulder. Hinata followed her direction, and her heart shot up into her throat as Itachi was standing just shy of her chair with an amused smile. How long was he there? How long had he watched her waiting for him to notice that he was there?
“Well, I was going to ask if you knew if you were going to have time to work on that today, but it looks like you are on the case already.” Itachi nodded his head at her screen.
Hinata flickered her eyes to it and nodded. “I am almost done. I will email you when I have it ready.”
“Thank you.” Itachi nodded his head, but instead of leaving with his answer as she hoped, his eyes floated up to the colorful bouquet on her desk. “Secret admirer?”
Hinata’s turned and waved her hands. “N… No.”
“Known admirer?” Itachi raised an eyebrow as she shook her head. “Boyfriend?”
“No!” Hinata squeaked. “Ino-chan brought them in for me.” Please, please, please do not ask why. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to come up with a convincing lie.
“That’s good to hear.” Itachi bowed his head to the group. “I leave you to it then.”
Hinata blinked at the blank space that he left.
Good to hear.
What did that mean?
Ino squeaked, shaking her chair. “Did he just say it was good you didn’t have a boyfriend?”
“I… have no idea.” But she was having a really hard time convincing her over-activating heart that it wasn’t what he meant.