Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As golden eyes stare back, the person in the mirror reflects an image of oneself.
Short black hair combed meticulously.
Thick eyebrows arching over concentrated eyes.
Rough tanned skin flushed with acne.
And facial hair growing along a sharp jaw.

Something doesn’t seem quite right, feeling a little uncomfortable under this skin.
Growing pains, was it? Uncomfortable in the way we live in this vessel that acts and grows at its own volition, Unwanted changes.

But, that’s just how it is, The burden of having a body.
And all he can do is shave his growing beard if he doesn't want it.

As the Kujou son stares into the mirror, he glances at the eyebags visible under his eyes and settles that as the culprit of discomfort, and he thinks, “Well, if there really was something making me uncomfortable, I can deal with it another day when I know what it is.”

He finishes washing his face after a quick shave and starts putting on his work clothes. Glancing at the clock he grabs an onigiri he prepared the night before along with a lunchbox for later, The time reads five minutes before eight, he can get to the office early as long as no delays happen in his commute.

Kujou clocks in on time as usual. Sit down, check emails, get on with what work needs to be done and talk to other employees if needed, day in, day out. There’s nothing much to talk about work nor is it interesting really.

Kujou’s father, Takayuki, used to work in the same tech company in a higher position. Kujou was an intern when he got out of college, he was treated well in the company and later on he landed an official position. However, Takayuki had to retire and Kujou was promoted.

Kujou’s current role in the business was the assistant project manager and the boss was Ms. Raiden Ei, she was the project manager and Kujou would do some of the same duties as her, but he ultimately would be under her wing, so she called the shots around here.

The two of them sat in silence in their office. Kujou straightens his back and stretches his wrist around, as he does so, he takes a quick glance at his boss.

Ms. Raiden’s hair was a deep midnight shade of purple that was long, straight, and braided elegantly, its length reaching just past her hips. Her bangs framed her face loosely with one strand hanging in front of her shoulder. The colors of her eyes were an electrifying hue, one that sparked with intensity if you stared too deep. Her face was pale and almost smooth, there were wrinkles on her cheeks and under her eyes, a beauty mark was underneath her right eye. She wore simple business casual clothing as per the company’s dress code.

“Mr. Kujou, do we have updates on how the new service is being implemented?” Ms. Raiden asks as she picks up a stack of documents and her eyes scans the words, not bothering to move her head. Her voice was a little gruff, a little deep and had a commanding tone, but wasn’t aggressive (he hopes so at least, and if it was, he hopes it wasn’t because of him).

Kujou returns to his tab on the laptop where his emails are open and scans the subject lines for anything related, “I believe there was an email from the software development department.” He forwards it to her email.

A small pause, she looks at her laptop before Ms. Raiden asks, “...And from the QA team?” Kujou scans his emails again and shakes his head no.

“I will visit their office if needed.” Kujou offers, ready to stand up, but Ms. Raiden beats him to it.

“No need, I can do it.” She rises stiffly from her seat and briskly walks out of the office.

Kujou sighs and looks around the room, it was a small and mostly empty meeting room. A large table in the middle where they both had their laptops out for work and they sat across from each other, some shelves stacked with papers on each side and behind Ms. Raiden was a window to the outside while behind Kujou was a window to the office hallway, with blinds luckily (he’d be conscious about his work).

Kujou wouldn’t particularly care about the office set up, if it weren’t for the fact that he had a small ‘crush’ on his boss and found it a little distracting because he can get caught up with his admiration for hardworking women… “gross.” he thinks to himself and types on his keyboard with a little more force. 

When he looks at her, her eyes have that energy of a simmering fire, a resolve that burns from within her, which is what sparked something in Kujou’s heart from the start. Something under that underlying flame makes Kujou stare a little longer, wonder a little more, if that was something Kujou could partake in.

When she looks at him, her eyes are full of concentration and he assumes it’s not because of interest in the work, but the kind that seems like they’ve been grinding away at this 24/7, as if her sole duty is to grind and toil away. A constant flame powering a machine that serves a purpose, a duty that is much greater than either of them know.

And Kujou knows better than to distract someone from their work, he knows that very well.

Kujou and Ms. Raiden never really talk much anyway and probably won't in the future because the both of them are absorbed in their work and they value productivity, Kujou doesn’t even know what they could talk about outside of their work.

And yet he still thinks, “what would they talk about if it wasn’t work?”, "Would that even be possible?”, “It’s almost like she has work hard-wired in her brain” well the both of them are alike in that last thought, that’s one thing they share in common at the moment.

Not long after, Ms. Raiden returns from her impromptu visit, seemingly obtaining what information she needed. His boss returns to her previous position as they both fall back to a steady silence filled with tapping on keyboard keys and clicking mouses.

After hours of sitting, typing away on a keyboard and eyes drilled to the screen, Kujou clocks out and arrives home. Hoping to get some rest he lays down on the couch and closes his eyes, his back straight over the firm cushions and arms over his stomach.

Unfortunately though, a text message disturbs the newfound peace, He slides his hand across the soft fabric in search of his phone, when he does find it he takes a peek at the notification. 

It was from Kuki Shinobu, a friend from college. She wasn’t in the same course as Kujou, but Shinobu was part of many different student organizations (God knows how she handled all of that) and since Kujou was in one himself, they just bumped into each other often. Along with another acquaintance that often loves to bother Kujou with mundane things, he has a big personality Kujou would say with tolerance… After all, how could Arataki Itto have been voted president for a student organization? 

Usually Itto and Shinobu would be attached to the hip, but there were times that Kujou and Shinobu were able to talk to each other without distractions.

At first they talked about duties and collaborations between student organizations, but over time they would grab food together, something Kujou would usually do alone and when Itto found out, he begged to “go to the best ramen place that convinced Kujou to eat with people!” little does he know it was the other way around, it wasn’t the place but the people he was eating with.

Kujou chuckled at the memory and then focused his eyes on the screen for hopefully the last time that day, thankfully the next day was a saturday so he didn’t need to burn his eyes for hours on end again.

The message simply read,

“Want to grab some ramen? I assume you’re free from work now.”

Kujou sat up as he typed with one hand while the other supported him up, 

“Yes, would it be the same place as usual?”

another ding, 

“Yeah, the old man probably misses cooking for us”

and so he grabs his wallet and keys and types one more message before leaving the door.

“Alright, I will be on my way. I’ll be there in 5 minutes.”

Shinobu was sitting in front of the counter already, seeing Kujou arrive she waves him over. 

The first thing you would notice about Shinobu is her bright green hair, though since the last time Kujou had seen her, the dye faded a bit, and her natural hair color started growing back at the roots, her hair was short and tied up. The lower half of her face is covered by a mask which only highlights her eyes more, a vibrant violet that pierces through her gaze. She wore a cap and for her shirt she wore a crop top with a baggy jacket over it. for her lower half, loose pants and some rubber shoes.

“Hello, haven’t seen you in a while.” Kujou says as he sits down beside her.

“Same here, how’s… life, Kujou?” She asks, moving a little to the side to give more space for Kujou.

“Busy, staring at the screen all day is nothing I can’t do, but after a while… I’d rather walk the entire building. Thrice.” Kujou replies.

Shinobu chuckles, “not five times?” She then turns to the chef, ready to order, but the man smiles as he puts two bowls in front of them, “You two haven’t changed much.” he comments, probably thinking about back in the day when they would go here often in college.

Shinobu smiles back, “you haven’t either sir, your business seems well.” Shinobu starts to dig into her food.

“Thank you, but it ain’t as good as before when you two would be funding my vacation Haha!” He laughs and the pair chuckles. “If you ever get tired of your job, boy, come work here. could use hearing your stories all afternoon again.” He jokes as he wipes the counters.

Kujou blinked as he looked up, then laughs dryly, “I don’t think my father would be happy about me quitting that job..” He says quietly, slurping up some noodles. Shinobu looks back at him.

“Are you having a lot of trouble or do you get bored sometimes?” She eyes his response.

Kujou, thankful for the concern, but doesn’t think it’s that serious, answers, “Yeah, just need to do something else sometimes…” He trails off, half-thinking that he needs to be dedicated entirely to his job and do his best, that’s what his father drilled into his mind anyway, And the other half-thinking what Shinobu could possibly say in response.

“How about playing games?” Shinbou suggested.

Kujou grimaced, “if I have to stare at a screen all day again…” and Shinobu laughed. 

She grabs a handful of noodles with her chopsticks and says, “Well, if you’re going to stare at screens every day anyway might as well do it for something that isn’t work, it would count as a change of scenery enough.” then she slurps the noodles up.

Kujou snickered at that, she wasn’t wrong, but he expected her to suggest something more… physical, like hiking.

“Well if you suggest, I haven’t played video games in a while though. What video game should I play?” Kujou asks as he picks some nori up with chopsticks. Shinobu pondered for a moment before it looked like she thought of the perfect idea.

“Knowing you, you would love the grind..” Shinobu starts out and Kujou only raises a brow, letting her continue speaking. “Have you heard of Warframe?” she had an expression that wasn’t quite grinning…Maybe it was excited?

Kujou shook his head no, “What’s that?” curiosity filling his mind upon hearing the name.

“Oh, you play as a space ninja  and do missions. It’s a third person looter shooter and sci-fi if that’s your thing.” Shinobu finishes up her noodles.

Kujou pondered for a moment, “Oh, so like halo? borderlands?” He asks and Shinobu only shrugs and nods.

“Kind of, there’s also lore if you want story. The story gets really intriguing after a certain quest” She adds.

Kujou picks up a piece of chashu pork, taking a bite out of it and chewing, “So what do you mean about the grinding part?” he asks after his mouth is empty.

“Oh, there are certain things you have to farm for and some take a while, depending if you have people helping you out or what it is you’re after.” Shinobu sips the soup out of a spoon.

Kujou tilts his head, pondering “Interesting… It’s a multiplayer?”

“You can play solo if you like. You have the option to, but if you ever need people’s help, the community is very nice.” Shinobu emphasized ‘very’ and that only raised a brow from Kujou.

Kujou thinks about it, the game sounds interesting, but he wasn’t much of a gamer especially with recent releases so he doesn’t know what expectations to have. The only games he’s played were the total war series and world of warcraft. Well, he thinks to himself that  he can stop playing the game if he doesn’t like it, but first he'd have to try it out to know.

Imagine his surprise when he finds out the game is completely free, aside from some bundles, but he’s heard that you can grind for the premium currency anyway and so the only paid items were essentially ‘tennogens’.

It takes a while to download the game and make an account with the username ‘Ravengeneral714’ but it works, it surprisingly works on his crappy-definitely-not-gamer laptop, sure it lags a little, but he’ll just change the graphics settings to low.

He watches the opening cutscene in awe , the first word spoken from the game was “Wake up Tenno” and that drew Kujou into the story. He does the tutorial where he commented that the movement felt very parkour-y yet smooth.

Then, he picks out his starter warframe, Volt.

Volt isn’t a ‘flashy’ character (That’s what Kujou’s first impression of it was), the game’s poster boy would be Excalibur. From the abilities descriptions he decided to use a character that seemed more like a support, not wanting to draw attention to himself if he ever played with other people. The abilities were pretty simple, the first zapped enemies with electricity and it chains, the second increases you and your allies speed, the third was a shield you can put down and the fourth was like a stronger version of the first.

Kujou did a few missions solo, wanting to familiarize himself with the game and do the starting quests, but as he explored the game more, he started getting confused, “How do I get an archwing?”, “Where do I get a new warframe since there’s others?”,”How do I make myself stronger?”, “What are mods???”. He had quite a few questions and maybe felt a little overwhelmed since he saw snippets of other branches of the game, it seemed like this game was endless in its systems. 

He picked his phone up and texted Shinobu, 

“Hello, if you are free, can I ask for help in Warframe? Thank you.” 

A few minutes passed by, he checked the time and the clock read past eight so it wasn’t too late for some people, but some were early birds which included himself.

The phone dinged, 

“Hey, sorry can’t at the moment, I’m studying for my law exam.” 

Shinobu texted back, and she continued with another text, 

“I’ll be free to play with you in a few months maybe? But for now you can ask the qna chat, it’s the one with the question mark in the chat tab or you can read the wikis, and make sure to use the one from Warframe and not fandom wiki.”

Kujou sighed and thanked her, returning to his laptop screen.

He looked at the chatbox again and clicked it open. The chat was mostly people talking casually with one another while some people would come in the middle of the conversation and ask various things which then someone would answer. It was a bit strange to see, “was there no world chat?” he asked himself, but he knows that he has better things to ask.

After a while of observing the chat, feeling a bit intimidated by how things work here, he steeled himself to ask his first question.

Ravengeneral714: Hello, Can I ask how do I mod? I’m new to this video game, Thank you.

Some people replied immediately, some commented on the question instead.

HocusPocusLotus: warframe’s greatest mystery
xXChrisTmasXx: we don’t know either lol, just slap on whatever you need
AlmightyShogun: @ Raveneneral714 what are you modding for? warframe or weapon?
Peacebearer_Hunter: guys no spoilers now it’s a baby tenno
Tenno76: lol spoiler alert you’re stuck in the grind for hours, welcome to warfarm
Captain0Melancholy: when baro
Primepaladintyrux: depends on what are you modding

Kujou sighed, getting answers was a bit difficult. So he followed up on the one reply that seemed like he could get a lead with.

Ravengeneral714: My warframe.

And shortly a few people already replied to it.

Cephalon_Atheone: what warframe are you using?
xXChrisTmasXx: slap some strength mods on it ig
AlmightyShogun: you can look at your abilities and see what you need, usually strength,duration, efficiency, range. but it depends on what you’re trying to do
Primepaladintyrux: link your frame with your mods so we can look what need to be improved
Drezura: hey guys how does my fashion look [Look: Zephyr Prime]
ADearFriend: whisper me if you need help getting mods
Captain0Melancholy: look at overframe wiki
Cephalon_Atheone: are you trying to go for a strength build? What purpose are you giving it?

Quite overwhelming, if Kujou had to be honest. He eyed the usernames that were in the chat and fixated on one, AlmightyShogun, they were helping other people in the chat before Kujou so he clicks on their name and presses the ‘talk’ option.

Ravengeneral714: Hello, is it alright to message you for help?
AlmightyShogun: yeah no worries, so what do you need help with exactly? like what are you trying to do with your warframe? making the abilities hit harder on enemies?
Ravengeneral714: To make it stronger? I keep dying in some missions.
AlmightyShogun: okay, do you have these mods [Vitality] [Steel Fiber]? these are the most basic survivability mods
Ravengeneral714: Yes, I have them, but they’re not doing a lot.
AlmightyShogun: oh have you upgraded them yet?
Ravengeneral714: It’s expensive, I don’t have a lot of credits and endo.
AlmightyShogun: okay hold on

Kujou stared at the screen for a bit, but that same feeling of exhaustion returns to his eyes, he checks the time and sees that he’s been playing for way too long now, it was nearly eleven in the evening. A sound effect returns his attention to the screen and a popup that says ‘AlmightyShogun is inviting you to a game’ in the bottom. Confused, he asks them what’s going on.

AlmightyShogun: im giving you some mods and other useful stuff when you’re still starting out
Ravengeneral714: Oh, thank you, is that really okay? You could tell me how to get them and I can obtain them myself.
AlmightyShogun: hey, it’s no problem, all of us vets are happy to help baby tennos. You can add friend me too and message me anytime for help when I’m online.

That’s… kind. Shinobu wasn't joking when she said the community was very nice, just strangely so. You would think that this is the game where all the sweaty, gatekeeping, toxic people were considering the grind everyone in the reviews mentions when talking about this game that Kujou read in his research, but it seems like the grind is what made them kind in the first place, paying it forward, they would describe.

Kujou accepts the invite request and AlmightyShogun brought them into a ‘dojo’ which they explain was the equivalent of a clan base and shortly after, a popup in the middle of the screen asked if they want to trade with AlmightyShogun.

Ravengeneral714: I don’t have anything to trade with.
AlmightyShogun: oh it’s fine just put anything in, even a fish is okay

“Fish? There are fishes in the video game or was that a joke?” Kujou thought, but didn’t want to ask more than he already had tonight, if he had asked every question about the game and AlmightyShogun answered every one, then they’d be there for months and he wants to sleep well tonight at the very least.

Kujou put in a random mod that he had duplicates of and AlmightyShogun had put in half a dozen mods that he didn’t recognize yet and the trade concluded… or not, because they asked to trade again.

AlmightyShogun: gotta do this a couple of times because warframe only lets you trade 6 at a time.
Ravengeneral714: A couple of times? I think what you gave me is plenty enough already, thank you, I don’t even know if I’ll play this video game for long.

He waits for a response and it comes after a minute or two.

AlmightyShogun: alright well, just keep those that I gave you for now, if you decide to keep playing then you can ask me for the rest? or if you really do want to grind them I can tag along to help.
Ravengeneral714: Alright, thank you very much.
Ravengeneral714: I’ll have to leave for now, I need to go to bed. Thank you for your help.
AlmightyShogun: no problem, happy to help. may you have sweet dreams.
Ravengeneral714: Thank you.

Kujou sent a friend request and logged off for the night, shutting down his laptop too, no more screens now thankfully.

He gets ready for bed and looks at the mirror as he brushes his teeth. Eyes stare back, weary with eyebags underneath.
Hair uncombed and messy from the busyness of the day.
Eyebrows furrowed from thinking about the day tomorrow.
Skin moist from splashing water on his face for a quick wash.
And the droplets running down his smooth chin.

Kujou would rather not stare too much about his unsightly appearance so he sets his thoughts and problems aside for another day, and he goes to sleep on his firm mattress, surrounded by his heavy blanket.

Chapter Text

The first thing most people would wake up to is the soft sensation of their bed, the light filtering through the blinds as their body begs to sleep for just five more minutes.

Other people would wake up to the scent of delicious breakfast waiting at the table, cooked by their loved ones.

But, Kujou is not like most people, he doesn’t experience either of those luxuries.

Kujou wakes up to his blaring alarm, the room still dim as the sun has not risen. Nothing else waits for him to slowly stir out of bed, he has to get up on his own.

Kujou enters his office, it was monday again and with a new week comes a new queue of tasks waiting to be done. The office is quiet, it always is when it’s just him and Ms. Raiden, so without any distractions, his mind drifts off to the game he played recently. He hasn’t logged in after that first day of playing because he really did want a break from screens, but right now he wishes that instead of looking at lines and letters on a screen, he would be looking at peculiar sci-fi objects, it’s more intriguing to look at.

But Kujou catches himself getting distracted, he shakes the thought away and places his focus solely on work, reading emails, responding to them and updating how the new service is progressing. Before he realizes it, it’s the company’s break time. Time sure flies faster when you least expect it to.

In the company’s break room, Kujou sits down where the smallest table is, preferring to eat by himself. He looks around the room if there are any other people currently, but so far he’s gotten there earlier than others. The break room was modest in size, enough for some tables and chairs for people to eat on (not a whole lot though, only 5 large tables and 3 small ones), a countertop with a coffee machine and cupboards fixed onto the wall above, one big fridge and then a water dispenser. 

Soon though, the door creaked open and a coworker came in, her name was Ms. Kamisato Ayaka. She had long sky blue hair, the color is almost as light as a snowflake’s hue.The back of her hair was tied up with a bow while the front was a hime cut and the sides were tied with ribbons. Her skin was pale and her muted blue eyes, gentle, as she looks around the room. When their eyes meet, Ms. Kamisato gives a soft smile as she waves ‘hi’ before walking to the fridge to take her lunch out.

They don’t really talk a lot given the nature of Kujou’s job, but they do see each other during meetings and Ms. Kamisato was a nice co-worker. She is the head of the HR department and does her work well, people especially praise her personality. She's considerate and understanding towards the people around her and everyone appreciates her for it. Before Kujou gets to start eating his bento, Ms. Kamisato approaches him, “May I eat lunch with you today?” she asks, holding her bento with both hands.

“Yes, it would be alright.” Kujou responds, moving his things closer to his side of the table.

“Thank you.” Ms. Kamisato smiles and she sits down across from him.

Neither of them spoke for a while as they ate their lunch until Ms. Kamisato was the first to speak up. “What do you usually do in your free time, Mr. Kujou?” She asks as small talk.

Kujous thinks for a bit and with his recent experience he decides to bring up the game. “Recently a friend made me try out a game… though, hmm...” Kujou pauses for a moment, wondering if it sounds hurtful towards Shinobu’s goodwill if he said that he didn’t like that it didn’t help his eye strain.

“Though?” She raises a brow, letting him continue.

“Though I hope to have a hobby away from screens…” He trails off and takes a bite of his lunch.

“If you wouldn’t mind me suggesting, how about reading?” She smiles as she continues eating her lunch as well.

Kujou tilts his head, “Do you have any suggestions for me to read?” He asks.

“Well, I’m not quite sure what genre you would enjoy, but there is a bookstore I frequent. They have a wide range of books, from novels to manga. You might find something that piques your interest there.” Ms. Kamisato softens her gaze, probably recalling a book from there that she’s fond of. Kujou nods, taking note of reading as a hobby.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is the store’s name?”

“Ah, yes, it’s the Yae Publishing House.”

They all return to work after recess was over. Silence hanging in the air once more between him and his boss. Time would pass them by quicker, but when it wasn’t passing, when time felt like it stopped, is when Kujou would steal glances at Ms. Raiden.

“I wonder what she thinks about.” He thinks to himself, and he doesn’t do anything else.If they were to work in silence together for forever… Well forever is daunting, but if that is how Ms. Raiden keeps things as is then Kujou would put her wants first.

“Mr. Kujou?” Her voice snaps Kujou out of his trance, half-scaring him out of embarrassment.

Kujou clears his throat and looks at her properly,  “Yes ma’am?” He waits for any orders to be given out.

“Do you need anything? You appear to be fixated on me.” She says, her eyes drilling onto him. Kujou gulps, this is what he means when he gets distracted with his admiration.

“No ma’am.”

“I see.”

And they go back to work, continuing on just as they have been. This is the eternity that they share and to Kujou, it's more comfortable than any unpleasant changes, because how could he dare to attempt to change anything when everything is alright as is.

After long hours of work, Kujou clocks out. Despite it only being the first day of the week, he already feels exhausted. Then his mind drifts off to those hobbies, he doesn’t feel like looking at screens so he thinks about that book store Ms. Kamisato mentioned.

After looking up the directions to the store on the internet’s maps, he walks on over to the area since it was close to the workplace.

Shortly after he arrived at the store’s fronts, the design and decorations felt more traditional and humble. The wall’s material was mainly lined with wood and was supported with metal bars; it almost looked like modernity was bleeding into traditional styles, but it was subtle.

As he walks in the premise, the door bell chimes, the man at the cashier register straightens his posture and nods at Kujou’s direction. Kujou scans the area and the walls are all covered in bookshelves that reach the ceiling, with nameplates at the center of a wood panel at the top, detailing the genre the shelf is. In the remaining floor space, there were rows of shelves that only reached up to eye-level that held books on both sides, and near the front was a table with highlighted books to read. The walls and floor were similar to the outside minus the metal, and the lighting was illuminating the area with a warm glow to help customers read a book if they so wish to.

Kujou walks around the store, looking at the book covers and titles to see if anything catches his eyes. Though he feels some are a bit… strange and fantastical, something about being reborn as a CEO and with unlimited money? He looks at other books instead, a lot of sagas, serials, and volumes of different titles all line the shelves. With his thoughts and eyes focused on the publications in front of him, he unknowingly bumps into someone.

He whips his head around, apologizing as he bows  “I’m sorry, I was too engrossed in eyeing the works here.”

A chuckle from the other person. “My, it’s no worries, I take that as a compliment that these books are so enticing in your eyes.” The woman says, Kujou brings his upper body back up and takes a good look at the woman.

She has long sakura pink hair that reaches her waist, her bangs sweep outward and some of her locks frame her face, she also has segments of hair that appear to be like animal ears. Big, golden earrings that were embedded with purple jewels dangling from her ears. Her eyes were a mesmerizing indigo, some wrinkles underneath them that were almost blocked by her dark red glasses. As for her clothing, she wore business casual attire as well, a simple button up with a blazer on top, pants and some short heels.

“Hmm.. you’re a new face here, aren’t you?” Her eyes seem to have a natural curve upwards, like she’s thinking of something entertaining (That's what it looks like to Kujou at least). She eyes him up and down, as if studying his very being.

“Yes.. This is my first time visiting. Are you the owner?” Kujou assumes from the way she carries herself, she gives off a vibe that she’s not one to be messed with.

“Oh why yes I am, smart guess. Now….” She trails off “May I have a name to put to your face?”  She smiles, Kujou is unsure if it’s a genuine one or not.

“Kujou is fine.” He says blankly.

She raises a brow, “Is that your first name?”

Kujou looked confused at her response for a second “My first name? No,  Kujou is just fine… I don’t think my name is important.”

Her gaze seems to soften at that “...I see, very well then, Mr. Kujou.” She accepts that as an answer and doesn’t push any further.

Kujou briefly averts his gaze before returning to look at the woman before him “And you are Ms. Yae, right?” He tilts his head slightly, and Ms. Yae’s smile forms a little wider.

“Good job.” she says with a teasing tone, Kujou’s hand only twitches in response.

Kujou clears his throat, looking back at the books then back at Ms. Yae “It’s nice to meet you Ms. Yae, but I’m afraid I need to keep this conversation short, I plan to look for a book to read.” He begins to walk away to survey the rows of books in front of him.

“Why don’t I help you, dear customer? I am the owner after all and I know my books very well. I just need to know you to bring you a perfect match, yes?” Ms. Yae fixes her glasses as she follows behind Kujou.

He looks back at her for a second before placing his gaze back at the books “You’re not wrong Ms. Yae, but I do not know what I would like in the first place.” He picks one up and looks at the synopsis at the back.

“All the more reason for me to help you.” Ms. Yae smirks as Kujou sighs, he doesn’t have any witty responses to keep her off his tail. So, he nods, allowing her to help him.

They begin to have this back-and-forth interaction where Kujou would stare at a book a little longer than the rest (either because of the cover, title or whatever other reason), Ms. Yae would pick up on his stares and start talking about the contents of the book and what makes it appealing to some audiences, then Kujou would listen as he moves on to another book.

“Ooh, how about this?” Ms. Yae picks a book up. “This is an electrifying romance with a dash of mystery, this might be one you would never think of picking up, but this is quite enjoyable if I do say so myself.” She holds it up for Kujou to look at it properly, the features a slightly cartoon-y artstyle depicting two girls and a subway train with desaturated colors.

Kujou scratches the back of his head as he frowns a little, “I don’t think romance is something I enjoy.” He looked back at Ms. Yae with an apologizing look.

“Hm? What’s that? Think or have you read one and actually did not enjoy it?” She puts her hand up beside her ear as a gesture of ‘hear’, as if telling him to repeat what he said.

He shifts his foot in place, “...Think… I have not read one yet.” He admits truthfully. For all his life he never really paid attention to romance or anything of the like despite every media being full of it, in different genres too. Nor does he fully partake in it, only crushes here and there that never went anywhere, the closest would be a girl who had a crush on him during high school, but he felt very disinterested in it. He prefers to admire from afar, but when it’s suddenly about him, he feels pressure. He never really knew why but he felt like he was performing in some way.

Ms. Yae smiles, “Well then, would you like to change that?” She holds the book out for Kujou to grab, but before he does, she continues speaking as she pulls the book back towards her chest “Oh, you’d have to buy it though, we’re not a library unfortunately.” She sighs exaggeratedly.

Kujou thinks for a moment, “I’ll take it, it might be good to explore so I know what I like” he hesitantly grabs the book before walking over to the next row of shelves to look for more.

“Explore, you should.” Ms. Yae mutters and Kujou catches it faintly.

After browsing the shelves and deciding between a few, he goes on over to the counter with three in hand. The romance book that Ms. Yae picked out, a book about Japanese folklore creatures, and a non-fiction book about martial arts. The man at the cashier processes his order and hands it to him in a paper bag.

“Aw, leaving already?” Ms. Yae comes from behind him, startling Kujou in the process. 

“Y-yes…” Kujou answers sheepishly, uncharacteristically of him.

Ms. Yae tries to take a peek at the books purchased but seems to change her mind, “Well, I do hope you enjoy your new purchases, and make sure to come back again for more.” She chuckles as she waves ‘bye’.

Kujou returns the motion, waving bye as he exits the store with his new books. Honestly, he’s not sure what to read first, the martial arts book feels more appealing at the moment with his history of Takayuki enrolling him into some classes back in elementary. Even though those years brought some… unpleasant memories, he feels grateful for the skills he learned mainly focus, discipline and self-defense.

Before he realizes it, he arrives back at his apartment. He takes a moment to drink water and rest on his couch before opening the martial arts book and taking his time to read and learn from it.

Some time passed from being engrossed in reading, Kujou looks up to check the time and realizes that it’s seven in the evening already. He gets up to prepare dinner and eats in silence. He’s not the best cook (There isn’t anyone to tell him if his cooking is delicious or not), but he’s not terrible at it either. He only ever sees cooking as a means of necessity or survivability, so he doesn’t spend his time making his food look good or use a lot of flavors to be delicious. 

After dinner he looks back at the book, contemplating whether to continue reading or to try playing that game again. After some back and forth, he ends up turning his laptop on.

To his surprise, he sees AlmightyShogun online again. They’re answering questions in the qna chat and when they’re not, they’re talking about which weapons are the ‘meta’ and what warframes to pair it with. “What does ‘meta’ even mean?” Kujou wonders.

Kujou doesn’t message them and he does missions on his own, not forgetting to equip the newly given mods from the last time he played. He listens to the voicelines from the one they call ‘The Lotus’, he observes the environment that he runs through in missions (albeit bumping into things and walking into dead ends most of the time) and he learns about the game little by little. The story so far wasn’t extremely intriguing but what Shinobu said about it getting better after a certain quest stuck at the back of his mind.

So, he continues playing, going through the nodes or missions, and completing quests like the one from Cetus, the first open world area. Soon after completing that quest, Kujou receives a message in his inbox from a place called Fortuna in Venus. So he checks what needs to be done to get there and he only needs to complete a junction and just two nodes after.

The junction was a quick fight with a Volt specter (which is a lot like a simulated ‘shadow’ of that character) so, Volt versus Volt and Kujou’s Volt won! Hardly the toughest battle the Ravengeneral714 would face.

Kujou clicks on the node named ‘Fortuna’ and as soon as he loads in he’s brought to a cutscene that starts with someone whistling and humming. The people have mechanical heads and torsos, the vocals of the song come in and the people swing their hammers to the beat of the melody, they work in synchronization as the camera pans around the area.

Fortuna was deep, deep underground, it was dim but the area was lit up by blue and purple neon signs, sparks flying from the worker’s welding or from the slam of their hammer and the vocals harmonize the lyrics “We all lift together. When the camera moves higher and higher,  Kujou’s Volt lands from above and the cutscene ends.

Kujou felt intrigued at what the story could be in Fortuna, so far his  thoughts were, “Are they fully robotic? If not then how or why did they change some limbs for mechanical parts?” and “The people seem to be industrial workers or similar.”, hard workers always catch Kujou’s interest after all.

He talks to the npcs and plays through the ‘Vox Solaris’ quest, He quickly learns that the solaris people work for the corpus to pay off their debts (and are also exploited and if they didn’t meet their quota then parts of them will be replaced with cybernetics), the solaris boss is Eudico who then answers to Nef Anyo since Nef Anyo previously crushed the rebellion led by Eudico. But the tides will soon turn as the Tenno helps the solaris and Eudico on the next rebellion.

After finishing that quest, Kujou notices an in-game message from AlmightyShogun.

AlmightyShogun: hey don’t want to bother you or anything but how are you finding the game so far?

Kujou’s not sure how long ago the message was sent but he replies hoping that he’s not too late.

Ravengeneral714: No worries, you’re not bothering me. The game is good. I just finished playing the solaris quest.

Shortly after, a reply came through from the other person.

AlmightyShogun: that’s great to hear! just lmk when you need help or if you need someone to explain some things in the game

Ravengeneral714: Thank you for your generosity.
AlmightyShogun: haha that’s too kind of you, just here to help out
Ravengeneral714: Well, I did want to ask how do syndicates work since I just unlocked Solaris United?

Kujou patiently waits for an answer and he checks the clock, It's already around eight in the evening, Kujou’s usual bedtime, but right now he doesn’t mind playing a little longer… He hopes that he isn’t slacking off too much at the very least. He looks back at the screen and the reply comes in after a few more seconds.

AlmightyShogun: syndicates are like factions in other games, you can earn standing just by playing (with some exceptions), there are two kinds of syndicates. Faction and Neutral. Factions have some allies and enemies with each other so choose based on the offerings that you want to have and you earn standing by making a pledge which is like a passive. then neutral syndicates are like the open world ones where you earn standing by doing bounties or exchanging things in some of their shops for standing. 
AlmightyShogun: sorry did I take too long to reply?
Ravengeneral714: It’s no problem, but do the messages always disappear after logging off?
AlmightyShogun: yeah they do, why do you ask?
Ravengeneral714: I was hoping I could read back on what you explained rather than looking it up or asking again.
AlmightyShogun: in that case why don’t I get your discord? I was also thinking that it takes me a while to chat ingame to explain things when I can just explain it in vc

Kujou paused, distancing his face away from the screen (which he unknowingly leaned so close to) “Discord? Vc? What are those” he asks himself, trying to recall if he ever heard of those terms. All that he can assume from context is that Discord might be a communication program and vc is an abbreviation for voice chatting? He was unsure but it would explain how it would be faster than typing in chat.

But of course, he works at a tech company, he can figure this out surely.

He opens up his browser and types in the program name, downloads it and makes an account with the same name as his in-game user. When he came back to Warframe’s window, there was a message waiting for him.

AlmightyShogun:hey it’s okay if you don’t wanna share ur discord, just wanted to suggest something
Ravengeneral714: Please wait a moment.
AlmightyShogun: alright

Kujou was figuring out how to send a friend request before he realizes that he doesn’t even know what username AlmightyShogun uses on Discord.

Ravengeneral714: My Discord username is the same as my name here. What is yours?
AlmightyShogun: Imperatrix_Umbrosa!

They were now friends on Discord. AlmightyShogun’s (Or Imperatrix since that’s the discord name) profile had a cohesive purple theme, a profile picture of a manga character colored with a purple hue it also had a moon frame around it, the banner was a beautiful landscape painting in a pixel art style, and there were various effects on the profile that Kujou was unsure how to describe other than ‘visual clutter’. He preferred to keep things simple after all.

Imperatrix sent a gif of a…blue hippo with a leaf on top waving ‘hi’ and so he sent one back by clicking on the ‘wave back’ button.

Imperatrix  8:24pm
im guessing you just made your discord account too?

Raven  8:24pm
Yes.
What made it seem so?

Imperatrix 8:25pm
creation date on your profile and the lack of a pfp

Raven 8:25pm
Ah…
Well, thank you for accepting my friend request. I have to go now, I have work tomorrow.

Imperatrix 8:26pm
i see, sleep well then.

Kujou bids his goodbye and shuts his laptop down, putting it away as he walks into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.

When he finishes, he walks into his bedroom and shuts the lights off, tucking himself between a firm mattress and soft blankets. His body slowly drifting away to sleep, he sleeps a dreamless night.

Chapter Text

Kujou gets home from work, it was nearly the weekend so he felt some tension in his shoulders ease up. The day was long and tedious, but it was peaceful. It was like when a soldier enjoys seeing the sunset from their lookout after a long day of trekking through muddy soil. 

But as a soldier knows, that solace wouldn't last long in a war.

As he puts away his shoes and makes his way to the kitchen to grab water, his phone buzzes and vibrates in his pocket while the phone rings loudly, drawing all his attention.

It was from his father, Mr. Takayuki.

Kujou answers the phone quickly, putting it up to his ear as he stops everything else he’s doing. “Hello, Mr. Takayuki?” He straightens his posture and speaks evenly. 

“Have you been promoted yet?” Mr. Takayuki asked, straight to the point, his voice was stern and hoarse. 

“No, not yet, sir,” Kujou says, not wanting to say ‘No’ as in finality. Yet, it still fails to prevent the anger that rises from the other end of the phone.

“Not yet? You had so much time to improve and yet you’re still the assistant? Your brothers are moving up the ranks. Masahito is a general, you could have been one too if you had listened to me and continued your lessons!” Mr. Takayuki doesn’t hide his disappointment, Kujou knows it very well. Mr. Takayuki continues speaking,  “And Kamaji is holding up well as a politician, how about you? Have you done as well as they have?”

“Not yet, sir,” he says plainly.

“What’s that? Speak up like a man. You’re a Kujou for God’s sake.” He clicks his tongue and groans. “Are you really worthy of that name?” 

A single sentence can make the room feel colder as his heart stops beating (or at least it feels that way to him).

Kujou only stands still as he… thinks, if he is thinking at all, he already knows. He knows very well what the one answer could be. There’s no thinking to be done when it comes to matters such as these.

“Prove yourself, I didn’t raise you for nothing.”

The phone call ends as Mr. Takayuki hangs up. Kujou… Kujou, if you can call him that, feels like he’s floating off of the ground, but not in a good way. The world feels a little farther as he drifts off from the kitchen to the bedroom, leaving the empty glass on the counter, forgotten. His mind feels like a film of static filtering through his vision.

He looks for a way to distract himself and he does so by turning his laptop on, a game might work.

He remembers his acquaintance. He opens the discord application and checks for any new messages, a new habit that isn’t too dissimilar from checking emails at his workplace.

AlmightyShogun’s icon had a number in double digits encircled with red, indicating a few messages from AlmightyShogun, most of those messages were them just reiterating some answers to the questions that Kujou had asked about the game before, but he also notices that they’re online.

He could send a message, anything to keep his mind off of the phone call, well, to try to at least. But it seems the person on the other end was thinking the same.


Imperatrix 6:02pm
hello Raven! saw you online

Raven 6:04pm
Yes, I got off work earlier.


Then Kujou’s mind comes back to work, he needs to work harder, if he works harder he could be promoted, and if he could be promoted then Mr. Takayuki would be pro-


Imperatrix 6:05pm
same, I was about to play some warframe, want to join me?


Who does he think he is? How could he ever be better or as good as his boss? As Ms. Raiden? He’ll always be best as an assistant, the most he does is the least that she could do.


Raven 6:08pm
Sorry, not today. I have work to do.

Imperatrix 6:09pm
didn’t you just arrive home from work?
you should be resting, overworking yourself is not good for the body

Raven 6:09pm
Yes
But I hardly worked at all, I haven’t been promoted after all this time, if that’s anything to go by.

Imperatrix 6:11pm
You risk burning yourself out if you don’t approach this carefully. perhaps there’s someone in charge that can help you? your boss maybe?


Kujou tries to think up a response to refute their words, no words come to mind. It seems Kujou has to ask for help in the end anyway. “What a burden” he thinks to himself.


Raven 6:15pm
I suppose so, that would be the most sensible thing to do, yes.


Of course, why didn’t he think of it sooner?

Why didn’t he do something sooner?

Why didn’t he-


Imperatrix 6:15pm
goodluck! I’m rooting for your success
for now, would you like to play warframe with me? I can explain things in vc too


“Huh, are players from warframe really that nice?”

For now, he succumbs to his acquaintance’s wants.


Raven 6:16pm
Sure.


Kujou opens the game application tentatively. After typing in his password and logging in, a ringtone chimes in that startles him. He looks for the source and realizes it’s from discord, AlmightyShogun was calling him. “Ah, voice chat…” he realizes and fixes his posture, then he joins the call. 

“Hello there.” The voice from the other end was a woman’s voice, it was a little deep but soft and gentle, it struck him like seeing stormclouds. The crackle and clap of thunder forces him to pay attention, then the beauty of the lightning eases him, but as soon as the flash is gone, the feeling is forgotten.

Kujou’s jaw hangs open as he freezes for a moment, like a deer caught in headlights. He feels a surge of shame that he’s unsure where it stems from. He turns the microphone button off and types in the chatbox, “I don’t have a microphone, Sorry.” A lie.

“That’s alright, you can listen to me yap about the game, if you would be so kind as to lend an ear.” She says. Somehow the way she mixes lingo and the way she speaks baffles Kujou a little, and the more he listens, the more he thinks the person on the other end is a bit older, if the accent is something to go by. 

Kujou types in a ‘thank you’ before they start playing together. The two of them decide to ‘farm’ some resources and items for crafting (it was mostly AlmightyShogun killing all the enemies as Kujou runs around gathering resources while he catches up to her), doing open-world bounties for standing, and opening relics for prime parts.

Which AlmightyShogun explains, “prime warframes or weapons are stronger versions of the original weapons, but the improvements are only minimal and are mostly used for mastery xp-” and oh, Kujou forgot what mastery is, but who better to remind him other than someone who loves to ‘yap away’ as they say.

Kujou asks, AlmightyShogun answers. He listens, she talks.

It was a nice back-and-forth, despite Kujou being inexperienced and clueless in what might be even the most basic things in the game, AlmightyShogun is still very willing to help every step of the way. It’s a new feeling, to be in a position that can make countless mistakes, yet someone is willing to extend a hand.

Will this moment be a fleeting one like the spectacle of fireworks?

And as fleeting moments go, it always seems like time disappears in place of memories.

They snap out of their little bubble when an alarm can be heard ringing on the other end of the call. “Oh, sorry.” AlmightyShogun mumbles before some shuffling can be heard. Before Kujou could ask anything, she already responds with, “that’s my alarm, I always set one to eat, drink, or shower. I forget easily when I’m immersed in my gaming session.” 

Kujou nods, it made sense to him that she would set alarms, with alarms come reminders. Kujou then is reminded to check the time, and realizes he needs to cook dinner for himself so he leaves the call.


Raven 7:48pm
I need to cook dinner, I will be logging off. Thank you for today, AlmightyShogun.

Imperatrix 7:49pm
no worries, I had fun. I also need to grab dinner, but contrary to you, I will be ordering mine haha

Raven 7:49pm
You don’t have the energy to cook?

Imperatrix 7:50pm
oh no, far worse
I can’t cook

Raven 7:52pm
Oh…
That’s unfortunate.
I would cook for you if you can’t.


Suddenly, Kujou feels a little too aware of his words, worry and embarrassment creeps up his face as he thinks,  “is that too forward?”, “Does that sound weird?”

He meant it in a way a friend would cook for someone else like when they were sick or tired (not that he’s experienced it himself), “Am I considered a friend?” his mind starts to wander.


Imperatrix 7:54pm
thank you kindly, but I am surviving on takeout so no need to worry


“That can’t be good” Kujou replies in his head, he keeps it to himself since it’s not his place to police people on how they treat themselves… Then, he remembers the earlier incident but he pushes it aside. It’s a different matter after all.

Kujou makes his way to the kitchen and prepares something simple, fried fish paired with miso soup on the side. He eats it in silence, not taking the time to savor the dish before returning to his laptop, to his surprise there was a picture of what appears to be AlmightyShogun’s dinner. 

The photo was taken in a dim room but with the flash on and blue and purple lights from an undefined source. In the middle was a plastic container of stir-fry noodles, on the right was a cup that Kujou was unsure of the contents, and a plate just a little to the left of the keyboard held a singular slice of pizza. Wait, keyboard? Kujou looks at the image again, it was indeed on the desk right in front of the monitor and keyboard.


Raven 8:36pm
On the desk with your electronics?

Imperatrix 8:36pm
don’t worry :-)
the only time I spilled a drink was when I was playing minecraft and got jumpscared by a skeleton


Kujou doesn’t understand any of that, but what he does understand is that he sees a hazard that could potentially end in tears and fears of gamers (he assumes) coming true.


Imperatrix 8:36pm
do you have a photo of your dinner as well?

Raven 8:37pm
You should really be careful with your drink.
No, I’ve already finished eating, I’m sorry.

Imperatrix 8:37pm
no worries, maybe next time
Kujou notes it down mentally, it is interesting to learn about people’s preferences when it comes to food.


He remembers that he and Shinobu have similar food preferences, meals that are fulfilling and balanced. Though, on his end he tends to eat a little less than Shinobu.

Whereas Itto… he really loves to devour anything that is edible, especially meat, something has to stuff all that muscle after all. Well, maybe except for beans, he’s repulsed at those legumes that Kujou can’t seem to place why. 

Then he remembers brownies from Naganohara Yoimiya from college parties (not weed inlaid ones thankfully, Yoimiya knew not to do that to Kujou).

Yoimiya was loud, energetic and loves spontaneity, the complete opposite of Kujou. Despite their differences though, she would invite him to parties and every time he turned her down, she would smile and say, “it’s alright, maybe next time! We’d love to have you around.”. On the next day, Yoimiya would give him leftover food from the party, which most of the time were brownies.

He wonders how she’s doing, the chances of bumping into her these days are low, she loves to venture out and she never stays in one spot after all.

Time feels strangely fast for all of these memories to already be years ago. Has he really been living this long already, for him to be reminiscing about college days?


Raven 8:40pm
I’ll be going to bed. Goodnight.

Imperatrix 8:41pm
I see, i’ll still be playing :-p 
goodnight, Raven, get lots of rest, you need it

Kujou arrives at the office early as usual. He greets co-workers who pass by as he makes his way to his office, in there Ms. Raiden is already sitting down and typing away on her laptop. He sits down on his chair and pulls out his laptop as he joins her in working.

Minutes tick on, neither of them talk as they continue to grind. Kujou glances at Ms. Raiden, wondering if he should bring up wanting to get a promotion now or later.

However as he stares at her, slowly sinking deeper into thought, he notices eyebags under her eyes. It’s not deep and most people won’t notice, but he wasn’t most people, he was observant and he was her assistant.

He clears his throat, “Is there any additional tasks I could take on, Ms Raiden?” he asks. She looks back at him before she slowly raises a brow, curious.

“Would you like to take on more tasks, Mr. Kujou?” She asks, pausing her work to look at Kujou fully, it was a little intimidating with how her entire body is facing him, but it was a little comforting to know that she is indeed listening. If it was Mr. Takayuki…

He shakes his thoughts off ,“Yes ma’am.” he answers.

She stares at him for a moment longer before nodding, “Very well.” She stands up to grab a stack of papers and hands it to Kujou. “Please read through these documents and double-check if they align with our current vision of the project.”

Kujou grabs the stack with both hands and bows, “Thank you, ma’am.” He begins to read through all the pages and points out any proposals mentioned in the document that didn’t match or benefit the project.

After hours of reading through documents added on top of the usual work that Kujou does in his routine, Ms. Raiden holds his shoulder, snapping him out of his work trance. He looks up in confusion to see her standing behind him, before she plainly says “Lunch time.” And she walks out the door.

Kujou takes a moment to himself, thinking about the interaction before he fixes his things and walks into the break room, he wasn’t the first person to arrive this time around. He recognizes various co-workers from other departments that he occasionally notices around the building, he spots Ms. Kamisato at a table chatting away with other people cheerfully.

Kujou debates inside his mind on whether or not he should eat here or find someplace else, but before he could decide, Ms. Kamisato waves him over as she invites him to sit down with them. He nods back at her,taking up the offer as he takes his lunch out from the fridge and walks on over.

“Hello Mr. Kujou, glad to have you join us.” Ms. Kamisato says, the other two co-workers nod. Kujou recognizes the two as Mr. Shima Maosaki and Mr. Madarame Hyakubei.

Mr. Shima was tall and had a big build, but despite his appearance, his work was to train new recruits in the company, whom Kujou was under back when he was an intern. As for Mr. Madarame, he’s skinny and slightly shorter than Mr. Shima, he was one of Ms. Kamisato’s assistants.

“Thank you for letting me join you all,” Kujou says and he looks at each of them for pleasantries. They all smile and continue their conversation as they dig into their food.

“So,” Ms. Kamisato starts out as she looks at Kujou, piquing his attention “Were you able to start a new hobby?” she asks after taking a sip of water from her water bottle. The other two only continue eating.

“I have, yes. Your suggestion helped me,” Kujou nods, taking a spoonful of rice with his chopsticks. Ms. Kamisato lights up and smiles.

“What book have you read so far?” She asks politely.

“A book on martial arts,” Kujou answers, Mr. Shima looks up from his bento and raises a brow.

“Interested in martial arts? With a body like yours?” Mr. Shima lightly jabbed at Kujou’s physique followed by a snicker, which earned a frown from Ms. Kamisato.

Somehow it stung Kujou more than he would have thought. He hasn’t been all too aware of his body, but now that he thinks about it, it feels a little uncomfortable to be perceived in one. Perhaps it was the comment that caused it.

He wasn’t muscular, yes, but he wasn’t skinny either. He just looked average, nothing interesting to note. It was strange being inside a body of living flesh that also adapts to and molds itself with changes.

If he was stripped down to only his bones, perhaps it would be a little less embarrassing to be seen.

“Sorry- Sorry Mr. Kujou, it’s just that….” Mr. Shima pauses to think of his words while still grinning, “I wouldn’t peg you for someone who would be physically active.” He clarifies, but no clarification could lessen the impact of his initial words. 

Ms. Kamisato clears her throat as she adds into the conversation, “I’m sure you would be able to achieve what you want, whether it would be a fitter body or more knowledge, right?” She smiles softly, trying to lighten Mr. Shima’s transgression.

Kujou glances at Mr. Madarame’s direction who looks up and appears confused for a moment before he stammers out, “O-oh right yeah. Mr. Kujou can do anything, he can even get a promotion.” He says so casually.

Kujou raises a brow, his attention fixing onto him. “I could get a promotion?" he asks, his voice a little desperate. That call really put him on edge when it concerns the word ‘promotion’.

Ms. Kamisato rests her hand over the other. “We’re still reviewing every employee’s output and involvement. You are an exceptional worker, but I’m afraid we can’t say much more than this.” Ms. Kamisato’s smile fades a bit, Kujou understands not to get his hopes up.

But to him it could change things in his life for the better.

Though, one thought crept up the back of his thoughts. Curious, he asks, “Shouldn’t Ms. Raiden have received a promotion by now?” Ms. Raiden was so efficient and (In Kujou’s opinion) worked harder than everyone else, those stacks of documents weren’t processed by magic after all, and all those emails back-and-forth amounted to a lot of her time.

Ms. Kamisato looks a little taken aback, maybe from the nature of the question? But Kujou couldn’t tell for sure. “She…” she trails off, contemplating, “...turned it down.” she finishes. Kujou looks at her wide-eyed, so many questions filled his head in place of his initial one.

“She hadn’t given us a precise reason, but you could ask her for yourself, Mr. Kujou? Given how close you two work together.” Ms. Kamisato smiles. Kujou stares back, they weren’t close, probably far from it even. They were just boss and assistant, how could he be close with her? 

“...If possible, I might do so.” He says, though he would rather not bother his boss with personal questions, personal questions such as those are reserved to be asked by friends.

They seem satisfied with that answer and they all continue finishing their meals, for however long their remaining time is for recess.

After returning from the break room, Kujou returns to work by reviewing the documents and responding to emails (again). Ms. Raiden soon joins him in the room and they both work in silence before Kujou speaks up.

“Are there any more tasks I could work on?” Kujou asks, passing the stack of documents back to his boss. Ms. Raiden looks at the papers for a moment before reaching out to take them.

Ms. Raiden lifts her head up, her eyes scanning the area before she replies “You’ve done enough. I can handle the remaining work.” She drags her eyes back to her laptop and she continues typing, not sparing a glance at Kujou any longer.

Kujou frowns a little that he isn’t allowed to do much more (for now), but he would be hesitant to be initiative in case that it would go against Ms. Raiden’s ideals, they continue to work nonetheless. Kujou still thinks about what could’ve been the cause of those eyebags. 

But what can he do? It would be inappropriate to boss around the boss wouldn’t it?

Kujou clocks out of work and starts to head home, he passes by the bookstore again but instead of stepping in to check out the books, he stares inside through the window. There were a few customers browsing for books and the same man was at the cashier, however he didn't spot that familiar sakura hair.

He turns around and continues walking home, letting his eyes follow whatever interesting shops and services line the streets. He spots bakeries, cafes and tech repair shops, though one caught his interest, a gym.

He remembers the co-worker’s earlier comment and contemplates on working out. It would make him feel better about his body if it’s in shape, right? He decides to hurry home and change to something more appropriate for the occasion.

For his clothes he just wore a simple black tank top and some shorts, along with a hoodie to brace him from the cold when he makes his way to the gym. He also stuffs a bag with a change of clothes, a water bottle, towel, and a few other toiletries he would need for showering after his workout. 

Not long after walking, Kujou stands before the gym. He rubs the bag’s strap to ease his nerves as he thinks about where to even start or how people would think of him (especially how his co-worker’s comment was casually said).

He may have had martial arts lessons as a child but the environment was far different. A gym was more open and public for everyone to see, not to mention he didn’t have a trainer so he could be working out painfully wrong.

After who knows how long of shifting in place and rubbing the bag strap, Kujou steels himself and heads inside, walking towards the counter he stops just a few steps away, he recognizes someone that’s standing behind the counter. Someone who loves to flex his muscles and put loads of red eyeliner.

The man stares right back at Kujou in disbelief, “KUJOU, MY MAN! IS THAT YOU?” He practically leaps out from behind the counter to run up beside Kujou and tries to give a big bear-hug, but Kujou backs away respectfully. “Still not much of a hugger, huh?” he chuckles.

“Surprised to see you, Arataki.” Kujou looks him up and down, Itto has built up even more muscle than Kujou previously remembered. And even though he said it was surprising to see him, it does fit right with Itto to be an employee at a gym.

Itto looks back at him in shock, jaw hanging open as if Kujou had insulted him by telling him he looked like an oni. “You’re going back to last name basis!? Come on, we haven't been apart for that long! like what.. One, two, three? Years max!” Itto scratches the back of his head as he counts on his fingers.

Kujou chuckles in response. “That’s still quite a while, and I see you haven’t changed a lot.” The corner of his lips turn upward before he remembers why he’s here in the first place. “I’m looking to see if I could start working out here…” he says, still unsure.

Itto beams “Of course! Ya got the best man in town for this matter!” he puffs up his chest as he smiles and points at himself with his thumb. “Or whatever you used to say when you said things!” He laughs while Kujou grimaces, just how exactly did Itto see him?

Itto happily tours him around the gym, pointing out gym equipment and explaining how to use them properly (and also adding “I can do this much weight on it!” on every piece of equipment, even the treadmill, which Kujou raises a brow at).

By the end of it he adds, “If you’re feeling shy you can always just run on the tread and leave, it’s no biggie! We have loads of people come in here and just use the tread and leave ‘cuz they hadn’t worked up the courage for the weights, y’know?”

Kujou takes those words seriously. And before long, Itto leaves him to his own devices.

He eyes the area and there were quite a few people who were exercising, some on the weights, some on the leg press, and fewer on the treadmills. He followed Itto’s words and started on the treadmill, with a moderate amount of speed so that he was lightly jogging, not wanting to push himself too far if his body wasn’t ready for it yet.

He’ll push himself far some day.

Kujou doesn’t have any headphones or earbuds to distract himself from music so he ends up stuck with his thoughts once more.

As he jogs longer and longer, he feels the burn start to seep its way across his limbs, it wasn’t unpleasant (yet), but it sure made itself known. It was a constant reminder of his muscles contracting and stretching, burning off energy as he sweats and sweats. How the human body works is an interesting thing indeed.

And with a body comes a sort of responsibility, to be inhabiting one, one must take care of it in order for it to be in its best condition. After all, a rusty machine cannot be efficient, it may work, but not for very long and certainly not as well as it could have been.

His heart hammers against his chest loudly, his legs grow weary as each contact the foot makes against the treadmill sends a wave of pain, he is starting to reach his limits.

His vision zones back in the world as he slows the machine down, he unknowingly increased the speed at some point. A quick check on the time on his phone indicated that he ran for a little over twenty minutes, not too short but not too long either. Just average.

He’ll need to put in some serious work so that his body is not average. So that he doesn’t feel this inexplicable feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’s not doing enough. 

Not working hard enough at work, not being active enough to have a fit body, not being good enough at anything.

Kujou can’t even catch a break when he can't do anything at all.

“Woah that really took the wind outta ya?” Itto appears beside his side as he hands Kujou bottled water. He shakes his head, he already has one in his bag anyway.

“Somewhat, I could start on the weights, right?” Kujou asks, anything to keep his mind distracted and anything to make him progress. 

Itto looks at him, oddly quiet before he says, “Take a breather first, Kujou! You're not gonna get good results if ya push yourself so much. Y’know, you learned that in college.” 

Kujou looks at him for a moment and sighs, “alright, I’ll take a five minute break. What weight do you recommend?” He asks as he grabs his phone and swipes to the clock app, setting an alarm for five minutes.

Itto stares Kujou down as he places his hand on his chin, clearly thinking hard, “ten pounds I guess? Don’t want you eaten by the foxes or whatever that saying goes.” Itto gives a toothy smile with two thumbs up.

“I don’t think that’s the saying- it’s thrown to the wolves? If that’s what you were going for?” Kujou stretches his arms around and twists his hips next.

“Yeah! Yeah! You’re a smart cookie as ever, Kujou!” Itto goes to sling his arm around Kujou’s shoulder but when Kujou glares at him and Itto remembers that he doesn’t like touch, he moves his arm’s trajectory and pretends to sweep dust off of his shoulder for him.

“I don’t think the meaning translates well to what we’re doing, but I digress. How did you end up working here?” Kujou asks, knowing that Itto had some criminal records (just vandalism and trespassing), it would have been difficult for him to find a job. 

“Oh! Was hangin around here, working out every morning, busking in front of the gym and I guess they took pity on me and let me work!” Itto smiles, patting his shirt uniform that indicates that he does work here. “They also said I was ‘knowledgeable on the equipment’ and ‘great with people’, so here I am!” Itto grins and makes a voice as he relays what the employees said about him. 

Kujou nods, Itto is doing well and people like him and gave him a chance. What a wonderful thing.

His alarm rings, the five minute break is done and Itto leaves him to his own devices once more. Kujou makes his way over to the weight rack and picks up the dumbbells that Itto recommended, he does sets of bicep curls and lateral raises (with breaks in-between of course) until he completely tires out. 

Muscles burning, breathless and heaving. Kujou decides to finish up for the day, he’ll be back for sure to get a better body. He uses the gym’s shower and goes back to the front to sign up for a membership, apologizing for using the gym for ‘free’.

Itto laughs and says he’d never let Kujou pay even if it was illegal, which earns a light elbow to the side from Kujou and Itto ‘corrects’ himself by saying that it’s fine if it’s at the cost of his job, Kujou sighs and thanks him for his generosity.

Kujou makes his way back home.

When he arrives home he drinks plenty of water before sitting down on the couch, stretching and massaging his limbs that sore and ache from the earlier exercise.

Strangely enough, the workout made him feel a little more energetic and alert, he supposes this is a good thing. Surely he won’t take these feelings as a reason to exercise all-day everyday (hopefully some mercy for his body).

After taking some time to relax, he takes a look at the stack of books on the side table. He hasn’t touched the other two books yet and he also still doesn’t feel the desire to read them at the moment, but he’s considering buying more books anyway.

Maybe he might find one that he does like and does feel the urge to read, if he just browses the bookshelves once more…

Kujou goes about his night routine, this time he doesn’t join in playing with AlmightyShogun. It’s been a long day and his energy is drained for the time being.

It’s time for his body to rest even if he doesn’t want to rest yet, there is so much to do but so little time to work with and even more little is how much a body can take. Kujou feels like his body is too limiting, he could be so much more, but of course, he knows he needs to put in the work to reach that potential.

Whatever that goal actually is, Kujou thinks it’s as simple as getting into shape. But what kind of shape should he actually be?

Despite how right it feels to be working on his body, he feels some underlying wrongness to it, like he’s doing something incorrect once again.

Thoughts drift off to the call, the promotion, the workout. Despite trying, he still does something wrong somehow. 

He is the same from when he was still under Mr. Takayuki’s roof.

At some point he will need to change, especially for the betterment and comfort of everyone around him. But for that day to come, Kujou will need to face himself with ideas he never might have thought of, and a whole lot of encouragement from people he trusts, if he allows himself to believe them enough.

Kujou brings himself towards the bed and lays across it, the mattress feels a lot lighter than usual. It does give his aching muscles some reprieve, though he knows that the next day will greet him with even more sore limbs (it was like that in PE class).

As he lays in soft cushions and eyes drooping, he remembers memories of the past and how unnerving things can change in seemingly the blink of an eye. Itto may have been similar from his memories of college, but he is not the same.

Kujou feels it, deep in his chest, unease seeping its way across the weight of his own body. How people change, grow, and mold themselves into individuals that Kujou can’t recognize.

They change and move on without him.

How terrifying it all is.

So, he sleeps.

Chapter Text

Another usual day of work, typing on his laptop, communicating with employees around the building, and taking on more tasks. Just to get a step closer to making Mr. Takayuki proud, or at the very least, not disappoint him again.

Kujou owes a lot to Mr. Takayuki, he raised him, gave him decent meals, granted him proper education, and provided a roof over his head. Kujou was grateful to have any of that at all.

Anything else that happened under that roof was because of his own mistakes, Kujou was lucky.

At the end of his workday, he starts walking back to his apartment. The clouds in the distance were dark and grey and the air was humid, it was going to rain soon. He tries to hurry on, but raindrops start pattering against his back already, forcing him to take shelter in a nearby shop.

He ends up at the bookstore again.

“Hm? Rain got to you?” that familiar voice muses out, It’s Ms. Yae.

Kujou turns around to look at her, she was in similar clothes as last time, business casual. This time around though, she had her hair tied up into a bun, which accentuates her golden earrings. Compared to her, his shoulders are soaking wet, his hair dripping water on the floor, he looks like a sopping wet dog in a suit.

He bows in apology as he backs himself closer to the door so as to not dirty the floor any more than he already has. “Sorry for making the floor wet,” he says, his eyes not leaving the ground.

Ms. Yae clicks her tongue “None of that, please, you look like a child who wet his bed. Not a flattering look on you, is it?” she chides as she walks to the back to grab a mat to place near the entrance floor.

Kujou was taken aback by the comment, lifting his head up to raise a brow at her, “...Excuse me?” he questions, dabbing his shoes against the newly placed mat to dry the soles. 

Ms. Yae tilts her head as she looks him up and down. “Am I wrong? It’s what you looked like anyway. Now, do you have a towel?” she asks, pausing to give him a chance to answer but he only tilts his head in response. “Wouldn’t want to get the books wet as you browse, those are my earnings, you know.” 

Kujou slips his hands into his pocket to feel around if he had a handkerchief, unfortunately he does not. So he shakes his head ‘no’.

“Oh, don’t worry then.” She chucks a neatly folded pink handkerchief at Kujou, who catches it in time.

Kujou looks back at her, hesitant to use it, “Is it alright if I use this?” he asks.

“Oh yes, I just threw you the handkerchief for no reason…. Yes, use it, unless you’re not fond of pink,” she says, so Kujou starts patting his hair dry (he doesn’t mind pink).

Ms. Yae smirks. “Ah, but you’d need to pay for it… Perhaps in exchange for the handkerchief, you buy a book? That sounds fair, isn’t it?”

Kujou sighs which earns a chuckle from the woman. “What? Just doing business here, dear customer. Forgive me for wanting to pay my bills,” she smiles mischievously at Kujou who only nods and gives in.

He pockets the moist handkerchief and starts browsing the books after he makes sure that his clothes are no longer damp. He’ll have to wash it and give it back some time.

Eyes trail along the titles on the bookshelves, inspecting any item that piques a little interest. Though, Kujou finds it difficult to engage with books that are so… far-fetched? Like he can’t place himself in the shoes of the protagonist, not because he can’t relate, but because he feels that whatever he reads needs to be solely to improve himself. 

He grumbles and the very keen owner picks up on it. “Something the matter, dear customer?” Ms. Yae asks, she follows behind him as he browses again. 

“No offense, but do you just follow your ‘dear customers’ all the time?” he asks, setting his hand on top of a book.

“Hmph, offense taken, I hardly do this at all. Business is slow and some distraction would be nice,” she answers as she leans on the bookshelf and cleans underneath her fingernails with her thumb.

Kujou looks around and sure enough he was the only one inside, unfortunate for him that he’s the only target to be this sly woman’s amusement.

“And besides…” She continues, “You’re a troubled one,” she flicks her eyes back up at Kujou.

Kujou furrows his eyebrows and crosses his arms. “Troubled? Why does me being troubled matter?” He begins to walk away again before her words stop him in his tracks.

“You look like her.”

“...What?” is all he could ask in response. What did she mean by that?

Ms. Yae looks away, as if she spoke her thoughts aloud by accident. “Oh, nothing, just an old friend who had that same punc- squeezable face.” She corrects her words, but Kujou can tell she was about to say punchable.

“You both look so deep in your thoughts that you’d never let anyone in.”

Kujou feels his skin crawl, her words are getting to him, but the rain hasn’t lifted yet. He has nowhere to run.

“Excuse me…” He starts out, he stares at her as she only lifts a brow. “Please don’t say something like that again.” He sounds like a child, she might be right in her observation earlier.

Ms. Yae stops leaning as she stands straight. “Very well, I was just musing to myself anyway. You could pretend I never said a thing.”

Kujou can’t tell what feeling her face is conveying when she says that, he isn’t familiar with this kind of thing. He observes her face a little more but the only thing he gets is her earrings glinting as it sways idly.

The air was a little tense, too tense for Kujou’s comfort (it reminds him of being under his roof), he squawks in a panic, “Uh… You’re knowledgeable on how people engage with books, yes?” he asks, anything to keep the silence from ringing in his ears.

Ms. Yae’s face changes from unfamiliar to curious, she raises a brow. “Yes? Need me to assist you on how you change your outlook on books?” she smirks as she shoots a knowing look at Kujou.

“What? How did you- well, yes. If you would be so kind, thank you…” Kujou scratches the back of his head, but when he drags his hand down it grazes against his jaw. He can feel stubble.

“Oh, just that you have such an expressive face. It’s so easy to play with you,” she mutters under her breath.

“What?” He whips his head to the side to stare at her.

“Hm? Just musing aloud, you can pretend I didn’t say a thing.” She mirrors her earlier words, but this time it’s accompanied with a teasing voice. Doesn’t make it any less frustrating for Kujou though.

“A-anyways… I just can’t seem to engage with books if it doesn’t… benefit me,” Kujou admits, it sounds weird when he says it plainly aloud.

Ms. Yae hums and thinks, she snaps her fingers as if she thought of the perfect idea. “So, you’re the type of reader who reads for knowledge not entertainment, yes?” Kujou nods. ‘Well then, that’s hardly a problem, read books that are educational. No need to force yourself to read fantasy novels and romance manga if they’re not to your desire.”

When she puts it like that, the answer is so simple, yet his problem makes it feel like it was bigger. Maybe it’s like math where the solving is what takes the longest, it could be like other things, too. Things that he doesn’t have a name for yet.

“That makes sense, yes. Thank you, Ms. Yae.” He shakes his thoughts off and walks away in search of the educational books section. The nameplate above a bookshelf on the wall reads ‘Educational’, indicating that he’s in the right section.

“I’m assuming you haven’t read my recommendation.” Ms. Yae pipes up behind him, startling him. Before he could ask her why she keeps bothering him, he remembers he’s in her turf and that he’s her only prey.

Kujou sighs again, another mark on an invisible tally on how many times he’s sighed today. “Not yet, Ms. Yae.” he answers truthfully.

“Oh, well I do recommend it for a reason. Perhaps that book could help you love books for entertainment?” She nudges softly (not physically) while she picks up a manga from a different section. “Oh, but perhaps you could ease into it by reading mediums that mix entertainment and educational?” 

It wasn’t a bad idea, but perhaps it will take him some time to transition between such genres of books. Ms. Yae holds up the manga, the title being the main character’s name (he assumes) who can ‘see death’ but with ‘liar’ before the name.

The striking title piques his curiosity and before he could ask about it, she already read his mind. “This manga is about a highschool girl who can see the corpses of people 24 hours before they die. Gruesome, yes, however she’s very knowledgeable on medical facts and does her best to prevent their deaths using clues on the body and the location.”

A very interesting premise Kujou has to admit. But he has to weigh in what he can get from this manga. Basic knowledge about first-aid, perhaps? He’d have to read the manga to know for sure.

“There’s some yuri elements in here if you like that.” She smiles as she holds the book up as if it was a piece of steak bribing a dog.

“What?” Kujou stares at her.

“What? I thought you youngsters knew all the terms. Hm..” She looks at him up and down again. “Then again you don’t look the type to be in fandoms at all.” She continues as if Kujou would know what she was talking about.

Honestly, she reminded him of AlmightyShogun when she would mention terms in the game that he hadn’t understood yet. It’s like they were in on a joke that he wasn’t a part of.

Kujou just has to be willing to understand the context to be a part of it.

“I don’t understand what words you just said-” Kujou says as he grabs the manga from her hands, holding the book in front of his chest. “-But it would be nice if you could enlighten me.” 

She smiles, this time Kujou can tell that it’s from amusement. The rain seems to have stopped.

“Truly a learner you are at heart.” She smirks, “I wonder what else you are at heart, hm?” she muses aloud once more.

And once again all he could say is, “what?”

After taking his time to browse the books, he continues walking back home to add another book to his collection (if you can call it that) and to change into his gym clothes before working out.

He didn’t take long at home and when he was at the gym, Itto greets him cheerfully and they both work out together (Itto said it was fine because he was on break).

“So, what’s going on with your work, Kujou?” Itto asks, lifting up a forty pound dumbbell, Kujou actually hasn’t looked at the exact weight but it’s a lot bigger than what he can do and looks thrice as big as the dumbbell in his hands.

“...like how’s it going?” Kujou asks to clarify, he still isn’t used to the way Itto talks.

“Yeah! You a big shot now or what?”  He grunts as he lifts the dumbbell up to his shoulder.

Kujou wonders how Itto sees him for him to think that he’s a ‘big shot’. “No, I’m just an assistant project manager.” Kujou lifts his own dumbbell up, no grunts from him so far.

Itto whistles “woah, so the big shot’s little shot.” he mutters but Kujou hears it and chuckles. “Kinda like us, ay?” Itto adds and they both look at the gym mirror. Itto was a lot taller and a lot more muscular than Kujou, he looks like every jock archetype depicted on screen, then Kujou slowly moves his eyes over to stare at himself.

Kujou looks like the tall, lanky, nerd that people make fun of. Well, he has a little more meat in his arms and legs so he isn’t completely thin, but with Itto standing right beside him, it’s hard to feel like anything but small.

That same feeling of shame crawls back at him, he needs to get fitter quicker somehow, that will solve his body image wouldn’t it?

After doing his current set, both Kujou and Itto take a break, On the next set Kujou grabs heavier dumbbells, but Itto stops him by the shoulder. Kujou looks back at him with a frown.

“If ya wanna increase, ya gotta do it gradually. You just started working out, it wouldn’t be healthy for you if you dove right in without stretching, yeah?” Itto tries to convince the stubborn Kujou. It takes him a minute to think and put down the newly grabbed weights before picking back up the previous one.

Itto smiles but with concern spread across his face, he is a very expressive person and Kujou knew what he was thinking. Though Kujou doesn’t say anything more.

After working out, Kujou uses the gym’s showers to freshen up and he bids Itto farewell.

As he walks home, his stomach grumbles. He thinks about what food he has at home and what he can cook, but he also used up all his energy today. So, he decides to stop by the ramen place that he and Shinobu ate at some time ago.

On his way in, he spots a ‘help wanted’ poster, the owner was looking to hire some people to help around the store. Though, Kujou knows that he can’t take up on the offer even if he wanted to.

“Ah, there you are, boy. Was wonderin’ where you’ve gone off to.” The chef smiles at the sight of Kujou who only nods back at his direction.

“Busy with work as always, sorry sir.” Kujou ducks his head as he sits in front of the counter. 

“No need to be so polite, young man! I know it’s always work, work, work, with everyone. Take a breather, even if it’s just a bowl of ramen that I could offer you,” He says.

Kujou looks around and there is no one else in the shop, just going to be him eating alone as the chef waits for more customers. “Now, the usual order?” He asks and Kujou nods, preparing his money to pay.

The chef prepares his bowl diligently and despite how much time has passed, it still has that same comforting aroma as when Kujou and Shinobu first ate here, like inviting Kujou into a warm home (back then, that home would be Yoimiya’s place while they all hang out). It also tastes the same, maybe not everything will change and morph into something unfamiliar to him. Kujou feels comfort in that.

But now Kujou thinks, ”What warm home do I have now?”

“You lookin lost in your head o’er there.” The chef breaks Kujou’s train of thought, slicing a few scallions to refill his container. Kujou looks back at him then back down at his bowl, it’s already empty. “I could top you up on some noodles if you’d like?” he offers.

“Thank you, but no thank you. I’m alright for now.” Kujou declines the offer. He pays for his meal before getting up and continuing his walk back home.

Laying in bed, exhausted and sleepy. Kujou grabs a book and tucks himself under the blanket. The book he unknowingly grabbed was the manga that Ms. Yae just recommended him earlier.

He doesn’t feel like reading it, but thinking about getting up and putting it back to grab another one makes him groan. He ends up opening it, although with a few obstacles on how to read a manga (apparently it’s ‘back’ to ‘front’ and right to left).

He actually ends up enamored with it.

Despite the protagonist being called a liar, she still goes on to save the other character’s lives in ‘normal’ ways under absurd circumstances. The nature of the ‘deaths’ sometimes seem so out of place but as you read on, it starts to make sense (especially given that the manga goes to explain symptoms and causes and the author hopes for readers to avoid danger).

Kujou feels like he’s learning (though he still does go on the internet to fact-check), but it might actually ease him to read other kinds of books. Books that don’t have any educational value and are purely for entertainment.

But, he still doesn’t like the thought of reading for fun, because he wasn’t allowed to anyway.

He doesn’t do anything for fun, it is a waste of time. He could be more efficient.

His phone buzzes beside him and he jolts awake (he didn’t realize he was dozing off to sleep). It was from Shinobu, she was asking about how the game is for him.

Right, the game. Playing games is what you do for fun.

He frowns, realizing that he needs to stop playing that game at some point. It isn’t helping him in any way. He remembers how Mr. Takayuki said that to him when he tried sneaking off to play on his brother's console.

“I’m thinking about not playing the game anymore, Sorry.”

“What? But you just started didn’t you”
"Is it not to your liking?”

“It’s not that.”

It takes Shinobu a bit to type in a reply, indicated by the ‘typing’ text bubble that appears for a few seconds, disappearing and coming back for a few more seconds.

“…your father?”

It wasn’t a secret what Mr. Takayuki was like, but Shinobu was the only one who knew and Kujou hasn’t told her to what extent Mr. Takayuki is like (a lot of what she knew was from inference). As if he could tell her how terrible he is, when it wasn’t the truth…

He was lucky to have him as a parent and any fault he did as a guardian was because of his own mistakes, if it wasn’t for his errors, then Mr. Takayuki wouldn’t do any of those.

It was normal for him, Kujou thinks nothing is out of the ordinary with his upbringing, besides if anything was wrong then it was made up for in other ways.

Shinobu waits for Kujou’s reply, however long it may take.

“I just think that I could be doing something productive with the time.”

“How about thinking of it this way, if you let a machine run for too long, it overheats.”
“You should cool down with the game even if you don’t think it’s productive. It ‘will’ be in the long run.”

“I see. I’ll keep that perspective in mind.”
“I’ll think about it. Thank you, Shinobu.”

“No problem, wish I could play but I’m still stuck studying”

“Goodluck on your endeavors.”

Kujou types out that final text message, his eyelids sink with the rise and fall of his chest. It’s been a tiring day, or it seems to be with his thoughts swimming as his body plunges deeper and deeper into the depths.

It really would be quite refreshing if he could go on a swim, at least he would get some exercise at the same time. The cool water surrounding his skin as he floats above the waves, staring at the clear sky, sun shining on his skin, unlike how the damp and humid rain does.

Rain. clouding the skies with dim weather and the downpour soaking his clothes. His shoulders wet and his hair dripping water on the floor.

Oh, the handkerchief.

Kujou jolts awake (once again), he has to get this done soon. Dirtying someone’s belongings is not good. He knows that well.

He gets up and makes his way to the bathroom, grabbing laundry soap on the way. He cracks the faucet open, rinsing the handkerchief first before putting laundry soap and hand-washing it. After rinsing it one final time and wringing it dry, he stares at it for a moment longer.

The pink color is darkened from the water soaking into the cloth, it had a floral pattern across the edges while the inside was a square of solid pink color. He sniffs it, it doesn’t smell like anything but he contemplates going out to buy fabric conditioner so it smells good before giving it back.

Then he looks up and into the mirror.

What stares back is a tall man with dark, short, hair that’s starting to reach past the ears, stubble along the jaw, with eyebags under gold eyes. And that man is holding a pink handkerchief.

Kujou forces his eyes to look away.

Despite worrying about his friends growing into people he doesn’t recognize, it seems the person in the mirror is someone he doesn’t recognize either.

He walks out the bathroom and hangs it to dry on a hanger. He brushes his teeth without looking at the mirror and goes to sleep. This time, he doesn’t jolt awake.

It was a sunny day today and it was also a saturday so no work to be done (much to his dismay). He walks to the bookstore with an umbrella in his hand and the handkerchief in his pocket.

The bell chimes as he opens the door. There were a few other customers this time around, he doesn’t stare to look at anyone though, he’s only here for one person.

He scans the vicinity a little more, but no pink hair can be seen in his vision.

“Looking for Ms. Yae?” The man at the cashier asks Kujou when he was in earshot. Kujou turns to look at him and nods. The man had a nametag over the left side of his shirt, ‘Kuroda’ it says, that was his name.

“She comes around five to six pm everyday,” Kuroda supplies.

“Thank you…” Kujou looks around for a moment more before heading out to work out. He’ll come back after he’s done.

Itto wasn’t on shift that time around (seems like everyone is only available at the same time after he’s off work) so Kujou exercises on his own, running on the treadmill for however long he wants to.

He showers and changes into casual clothes, coming back to the bookstore, handkerchief still dry and (hopefully) not smelly since he put it away in his bag so it isn’t his pocket in case his sweat soaks through the pants. 

He looks around, there were no other people in the store this time. Kuroda was still behind the cashier and Kujou wonders how long he’s been standing there. Kuroda waves back at him and Kujou nods in acknowledgement.

Shortly after, pink hair emerges from the doorway behind the counter. Ms. Yae.

She spots Kujou and she… smiles at the sight of him.

Kujou feels his chest thump.

and of course the first thing he does is squash those feelings down.

“Ah, wet boy, ”  she says with a grin, immediately, Kujou grimaces.

“Could you not call me weird things?” Kujou makes his displeasure known, which only seems to entertain her even more.

“It’s a term of endearment. My bad for being so affectionate.” she giggles, Kujou wants to roll his eyes but years of learning proper manners prevents him from doing so.

Remembering why he was here in the first place, he grabs the handkerchief in his pocket and presents it to Ms. Yae. “Here, I washed it. I hope it doesn’t smell… I just came from the gym.” 

Ms. Yae reaches her hand out to grab it before stopping herself, “hm? Didn’t you pay for it essentially? You could keep it, unless pink isn’t your color.” She folds her arms as she watches Kujou’s face. She doesn’t know how terrible last night felt, just because he saw himself in the mirror with a pink cloth.

“It belongs to you,” Kujou says with certainty and so Ms. Yae reaches for it, the handkerchief is back to its rightful owner.

“Oh well, thank you. What kind of color do you like anyway?” she asks, it may not be a genuine question, but Kujou bites anyway. It’s bad manners not to answer when spoken to.

“Black…” he answers and then he thinks about how this woman might say that it’s a boring choice, so he adds, “and violet.” violet was the closest color to black wasn’t it?

Ms. Yae squints her eyes at him, she seems displeased for a moment, possibly recalling something.

Then her face changes to her usual look (the mischievous or amused one) “Oh, right, I heard from Mr. Kuroda that you were here earlier… looking for me." She emphasizes the last part and Kujou shivers.

She produces a small paper from her pocket and hands it out to Kujou, which he realizes is actually a business card of some kind, but with an additional phone number written in red ballpoint ink. 

Kujou looks back up at Ms. Yae in confusion, before he asks, she already answers, “My personal number, if you’re looking for me again.”

“Why would I-”

“If you ever need to, it doesn't matter if you don’t contact me at all.”

Kujou tries to study her face but he really can’t get a read on what goes on in her mind. He slides the card in his pocket anyway, “just in case” he tells himself. That action causes a smile from the woman, or maybe Kujou is imagining things.

“Alright…” he says tentatively, “Thank you… I will contact you if the opportunity presents itself.” not wanting to turn her down, but also not wanting to give her expectations. Kujou was a busy man after all.

“Good.” She replies, and that’s all she says at the moment. She looks to the side wistfully and Kujou can’t tell what she’s thinking of.

All that Kujou knows of Ms. Yae is the mention of ‘her’.

Kujou is not close to her at all, so he doesn’t bring it up or ask her about it. Maybe some day he will, but he can’t see himself being important enough to ask something significant.

Kujou arrives home, he barely has anything to get done today and his only choices are to read or to play that game.

He mulls over his decisions and opens his laptop, eyes scanning the screen where there isn’t much to look at (he only has the essential applications and then Warframe and Discord). The Discord application tells him that he has quite a few missed messages he hasn’t read yet.

He opens it to read it, it was some more tips on the game that AlmightyShogun compiled according to his current mastery rank and some useful information to keep in mind, like not using platinum (the premium currency) to buy things except for inventory slots for warframes and weapons, or keeping some weapons to craft other weapons (she sent a wiki page of all the weapons that are needed).

And of course, she asks to play with Kujou.


Imperatrix 5:34pm
hey there saw you online
you free to play some warframe?


Raven 5:35pm
Sure
Though I feel like I should be doing something more productive


Imperatrix 5:35pm
be productive on the weekdays, save your weekends for rest unless you want to burnout
which isn’t good, Raven
besides, I play pretty much everyday and my company wanted to promote me some months ago but I turned it down
so I’m sure you can do well in work even if you play games


Raven 5:38pm
What? Why did you turn down the promotion?


Imperatrix 5:39pm
promise you won’t laugh? 


Raven 5:39pm
No? I won’t laugh, I just want to know why.
Promotion is a really big thing.


Imperatrix 5:40pm
I would become too important for work and I wouldn’t have time to play games :’-(


Kujou facepalms, of course. But then again it is her decision to do whatever she wants and games are one of her top priorities (higher than work anyway).

It’s just a little baffling that Kujou has to try harder because his current performance is not enough (at least he thinks it isn’t, he knows someone agrees with him on that) and AlmightyShogun just… turns it down… for games.

His face slowly heats up in frustration, but he stops himself before he gets any angrier. Proper manners. He has to be happy for people, for their decisions, even if others weren’t doing the same for him.

Kujou takes a moment to take a deep breath. AlmightyShogun must be so spectacular at her workplace that she only works on weekdays and whatever she did in those days was enough to earn her a promotion, despite playing games all day. Okay, he can accept that.

Was it comforting? No. Kujou is not her and can’t become her.


Imperatrix 5:45pm
terrible reason to turn down a work promotion isn’t it?


Raven 5:47pm
No, I was just taken aback.


Imperatrix 5:48pm
alright well, I hope you don’t overwork yourself and know that you deserve some rest no matter what you have or haven’t done.
and I pray for your success at work!


That’s kind.

They both get on voice call (Kujou still muting himself so he talks in chat instead and of course, no camera from either of them) and start playing together. 

Inside the game they do nodes together to try and complete the starchart for Kujou, since AlmightyShogun had already completed it. The most he does is place down Volt’s shields to help protect defense objectives if they were defending or just trying to minimize damage in general.

“Ah right, you can also pick up the shields if you go near it and press X,” she voices out. Sure enough when Kujou places a shield down and goes near it, there is an interact button that pops up.

“Oh, I didn’t know” he types in the chat and a chuckle was heard on the other end.

“Yeah, Warframe doesn’t tell you a lot of things,” she says. Kujou watches AlmightyShogun’s character hover around and summon tornadoes to group up enemies, then she shoots her gun at the tornado which immediately kills all the enemies inside. ‘Woah’ he says aloud.

He looks at the pause screen (it doesn’t pause the game unless you’re playing solo) to check what equipment she has. Each player's loadout is listed under their username and icon at the top-left of the screen, the warframe she had equipped was Zephyr prime.

“How do I acquire Zephyr prime?” Kujou types his question for AlmightyShogun to read.

Shortly after, she sees the message and responds with, “Oh! You crack open relics that have those parts. Every prime warframe and weapons are all acquired from relics.” she answers before adding “The relics are the Lith, Meso, Neo and Axi ones with a letter and a number. You have some right? Do you remember last session?” 

“I think so?” Kujou was unsure, he’ll have to check his inventory. He tries to reach into his memories to remember ‘relics’ and ‘primes’, but because of being fairly new to the game he’s forgotten what they are already. Whatever he did in-game was mostly going with the flow of AlmightyShogun.

He places some more shields down around the objective while AlmightyShogun’s Zephyr does aerobatics around the map as the tornadoes blow past them.

“Want to get her? Your Volt is already max rank, maybe you want to play with something new,” she asks, her voice gentle. 

Kujou had listened to many voices in his life, growing up he heard angry and disappointed voices, in college he heard boisterous and cool-headed voices, at work he heard commanding and hoarse voices.

And AlmightyShogun’s was a mix of Ms. Kamisato’s gentleness and Ms. Raiden’s gruffness.

In all honesty it was closer to Ms. Raiden’s but it was possibly an octave higher and sounds a bit breathy. It still has a certain boom to it like Ms. Raiden’s, but his boss’ is a lot more full and throaty, if that was a word for it.

“Yeah, the character looks powerful.” Kujou replies.

AlmightyShogun chuckles on the other end of the call, “Yeah, she is pretty powerful, all of them can be powerful. I do like her four- the tornadoes- because you can rack up elemental status with your weapons regardless of its status chance.” she starts out.

“And high crit weapons are really good, the tornadoes already give a times two crit damage to enemies inside, even more when you hover using Zephyr’s one because of her passive. So you can focus on those yummy orange or even red crits-” her voice starts to speed up.

“-It’s pretty fun shooting a single tornado and seeing your entire screen fill up with red crits, sometimes I use the gotva prime just to see that!”

Kujou listens to her every word.

“Oh, do you know what orange crits and red crits are? Warframe is pretty unique in that… you can think of it like your crit is critting again, like if it’s above one-hundred percent, it’s an orange crit, but if it’s above two-hundred percent, it’s a red crit. If you crit higher than that then the game shows an exclamation mark beside your damage when you shoot enemies,” her explanation was filled with excitement.

Then Kujou can hear shuffling on the other end before some clacking sounds come out. “Sorry- sorry, yapping away again. Hope I didn’t overload your brain? Some vets accidentally do that to baby tennos and they scare them away,” she apologizes.

Kujou was quick to type out his reply, “No, It’s fine. I’m learning a lot. In fact, it would be good for you to teach me more.” 

It takes a moment for her to see his message and somehow, Kujou can feel the smile behind the screen when she says, “Thank you.”

They ended the game mission without any trouble, thanks to AlmightyShogun’s strong and reliable Zephyr. Before they hop into another mission she asks “So do you want to try and farm for Zephyr prime parts?”

Kujou types in, “yes” and AlmightyShogun takes a moment to look into her relic inventory (she tells Kujou to do the same as well).

“Hmm… I only have a few relics because it’s vaulted right now,” she pauses, knowing that Kujou is still new. “Vaulted" means that you can’t get the relics right now through missions or drops. You’ll have to trade for it or wait for prime resurgence, that’s in the market.” 

“Prime resurgence?” he asks in the chat.

“Prime resurgence is an event where they bring back two prime warframes and their signature weapons back from the vault. Though you need a currency called ‘Aya’ to trade to Varzia for relics containing parts of those primes.”

“Where can I get Aya?”

“You can get it from relic packs, that is from syndicates. From void missions in the star chart. And lastly, and the best way to get Aya is from open-world bounties, I recommend Cetus bounties from my own experience.”

Kujou thanks her for the educational lecture. He now knows what aya is and to look out for prime resurgences, but as it is, the current prime resurgence didn’t have Zephyr. So, AlmightyShogun trades some relics that she did have on hand over to Kujou so they can open it together.

Unfortunately they only got the neuroptics and chassis, so Kujou is missing the systems and blueprint, but they had no way of getting it now that they ran out of relics.

“Hold on a moment.” AlmightyShogun says as she leaves the squad.

Kujou types in “alright.” as he looks at his Discord application. He can see on the right side underneath the profile that displays what game she’s currently playing.

It even says what exact mission they’re doing in the widget, though that quickly changes because of the delay. “Interesting,” he mutters to himself. Now though, it says that she’s in a dojo. Kujou stares in confusion for a moment before he realizes what she’s doing.


Raven 7:31pm
AlmightyShogun.
I’m patient enough, I can wait for the prime resurgence.
AlmightyShogun, I can see that you’re in a dojo, if you’re trading for the missing two parts, I will do something for you in return.


Imperatrix 7:34pm
dang forgot you can see that, that was supposed to be a surprise haha


Raven 7:35pm
Sincerely, thank you.


Imperatrix 7:36pm
you’re welcome


Then back in-game they hop back into a squad and go into AlmightyShogun’s dojo, giving the missing parts to Kujou in exchange for a random fish Kujou caught in Deimos.

The crafting takes a while (12 hours per part and 3 days for the entire frame altogether), so AlmightyShogun offers to give platinum to rush the crafting, but Kujou declines because, “Time flies and I don’t know the next time I will be logging in.”

She respects those wishes and they continue to play. Honestly, Kujou was a little excited for when the frame is finished crafting, he’s been using Volt for the entire time now (he hadn’t tried crafting other frames despite having the parts and materials) and a change of pace in playstyle would be nice.

And speaking of playstyle, AlmightyShogun’s playstyle is… you could say that a lot was going on the screen whenever she was… doing something in-game.

Kujou can’t really follow what was happening, he could tell that she’s using abilities and the weapon, but didn’t know exactly what it was doing or how enemies die so quickly.

AlmightyShogun notices the quietness of her gaming buddy so she speaks, “anything the matter, Raven?” Currently she was blasting enemies away with an explosive gun.

Kujou thinks about how to word his thoughts, maybe it was just because he was new that’s why things are so chaotic in his point of view, but he also can’t help but want to know a little more about her. 

“What goes on in your mind as you play? Doesn’t it get chaotic?” Kujou’s question pops up into the chatbox, he knows that AlmightyShogun has read it because she hums in thought. 

“Rather than being chaotic… it feels a lot like meditation.” She answers truthfully.

That wasn’t the answer Kujou had expected, but he listens readily, as he always has been.

“It may feel chaotic and overwhelming for people who don’t play, or even newer players, but once you’ve got things down, like what sequence of abilities you need to press, when to prime- or shoot, you could essentially turn your brain off.” She speaks with a lot of thought in her words, as if those words were the cumulation of many experiences, which is likely.

“At first the chaos is like an unstoppable force that pushes and pulls, appearing and disappearing in such a short amount of time, but you can control that chaos into a flow. In a way you are the controller of that chaos, you decide what happens. With your abilities in tow and your weapons at the ready, they only answer to you when you will them.” 

Kujou is left to process those words for a minute, it makes sense, he doesn’t think that it would apply to anything he does though. There isn’t a reason to anyway.

Then, she continues speaking through the call, “It’s kind of like my life. Feeling like I’m split in more ways than one… I just make do with this mess, at least I’m not alone in doing so, because of circumstances…” She trails off “anyways did that answer your question? I certainly did get sidetracked.”

“Yes, thank you… I think it’s good that you’re not alone.” 

“Well… sometimes it’s the problem.” she forces out a chuckle, like she laughed at the wrong time.

“What?”

“That’s a story for another day,” she sighs, it looks like a truly long story.

Soon after they finish playing together. It was heading late into the night and they bid their farewells (though Kujou knows that she will play longer), with Kujou saying his in chat and AlmightyShogun speaking hers into the call, “Goodnight, sweet dreams, Raven.”

The next week rolls around, and comes another monotonous day at the office.

Kujou prefers it that way, no sudden changes, no big thing to stress over, nothing to overwhelm him. He can do his best in this state.

And with this state he can focus on working harder and perhaps get that promotion he was aiming for.

Kujou is looking through stacks of documents alongside Ms. Raiden, pointing out any beneficial proposals and writing back to other departments. It was quiet as usual, aside from the click-clack of the keyboards and the low hum of the aircon unit.

Kujou passes a stack of paper to Ms. Raiden, she moves her eyes to look at Kujou for a moment before accepting it and putting it aside. “Thank you,” she says under her breath.

Kujou looks at her, she still has eyebags and he wonders what the cause is. He can’t really imagine what his boss does in her free time. In the first place, he doesn’t know what she’s interested in.

Then, Ms. Raiden clears her throat, Kujou sits straight in attention, ready for any command. “Are you currently happy with your position, Mr. Kujou?” she asks.

Kujou takes a moment to think of his response, since he wasn’t ready for a question like that (he wasn’t ready for her to talk suddenly at all). “Yes?” he answers a little cautiously. It was half-true, he was happy to serve Ms. Raiden and to assist her in any way.

She looks him up and down before speaking again, “As your superior, you may ask me for any aid.” 

Kujou would like to look at her with shock and his jaw hanging open because, firstly, it should be Kujou helping her and not the other way around, and secondly, the idea of his superior helping him sounds blasphemous, and thirdly, he doesn’t need help, he hasn’t for all his life.

But, he supposes that this is for pleasantries, so he shakes his head. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary Ms. Raiden.” he assures her.

She looks back at him again, her eyes scanning his face without her ever moving a limb.

“Very well, do know that you will not be my subordinate for much longer.” she says with such ease and casualness that it almost doesn’t register to Kujou the implications of that sentence.

His eyes widen in shock as he starts sweating, his heart pounding against his chest. How did he mess up? Was he so subpar that they were already firing him? Had he disrespected his boss with his thoughts? He gulps, forcing his hands to work with him as he types in emails but he just keeps shaking.

What a terrible performance right in front of his boss.

“Oh,” she suddenly says as it dawns on her, as if someone had told her she used the wrong slang.

“O-Oh?” Kujou parrots, still unsure what Ms. Raiden was thinking or is going to say next, if she was to elaborate on anything at all, or if she wants Kujou to melt and turn into a puddle of his own sweat by the time lunch rolls in.

This time, she moves her head up as she looks at Kujou straight on. “We- I have recommended you for promotion. And with your previous and current performance under my supervision, I am confident that you are very capable of a higher position,” she explains with conviction.

So that’s what she meant by Kujou no longer being her subordinate, it was just worded quite strangely.

Kujou takes a moment to process those words, it was good, really. But, Kujou can’t help but think if he was truly deserving of it, after all, his work ethic has always been normal to him (he strives to do better and adopt others’ properly), it couldn’t possibly be enough.

His boss looks at him, unblinking, waiting for a response before she adds in, "Would it help to envision it if I were to say that you are alike to a bird?” her voice then took a softer tone, one full of wisdom.

Kujou stares at her tentatively and then he remembers to answer with his words. “Please, do go on, Ms. Raiden.”

“A bird can soar and reach new heights with its wings. However, that bird cannot fly if it is trapped in a cage.” so… Kujou is a bird in that regard. Though he can’t help but think that he can only soar as high as a window sill, his performance is not great enough.

“With your skill and dedication… It is best for your expertise to be utilized elsewhere, rather than keeping you under my wing,” she finishes, her voice returning to its usual monotone and gruffness. 

Kujou would get that promotion that he sought after and he would surely make Mr. Takayuki proud, though it would mean that he no longer works directly under Ms. Raiden. Somehow, that seems a little wrong.

A big change.

Kujou continues to look at her boss (it may be the last time he calls her that and it may be the last time that he sits here) to observe if she had any more words to say but nothing indicates as such.

Yet, with the silence that’s only interrupted by each of their inhale and exhale, and the sound of his heart beating against his chest, his boss speaks up again.

“It is not set in stone yet, the higher-ups have not come to a decision regarding many employees. You may decline the offer, if you so wish, Mr. Kujou.” 

Though that scares Kujou as well, what would Mr. Takayuki think of him if he finds out he declined the promotion, especially for a terrible reason?

“I-I need the promotion, yes, I’m very grateful for the opportunity. It's just… May I have some time to reflect on it? If I get the promotion of course…” He trails off. It was a lot to think about because either decision he makes, means that he would lose something.

“Of course you may,” she closes her eyes and nods before opening them again, she still looks at Kujou’s direction. “Are you doing well financially? For you to be needing the promotion?” she asks.

“Yes, I just need the promotion for…personal reasons.” Kujou looks away, the stare is drilling onto him like she was trying to crack open a closed vault.

“Does it concern family?” 

Kujou is unsure what she’s trying to figure out. “...No need to concern yourself with this, Ms. Raiden.”

Kujou looks back at her and her eyes only look at him with steel focus. She simply says, “I know what your situation is like.”

All Kujou can respond with in his mind is, “What?”

Of course Kujou could ask her what she means by that, but as always, they are not close, only co-workers. So if it takes years for him to understand the meaning behind those words then so be it, even if he ends up not knowing in the end.

Lunch break arrives so he and many other employees fill in the breakroom to have their meals, he finishes his bento quickly trying not to occupy the already limited seats. He took up space somewhere else and that place is standing around the coffee machine, waiting for his coffee to dispense into the cup.

He hears all kinds of conversations, some talking about how boring their work is (Kujou is grateful to be working), some talking about what they need to do later for work (Kujou would be too, if he had friends here), some talking about games that they play at home (Kujou thinks about how his frame might be finished crafting soon), and some talk about other co-workers.

“With how little everyone gets together, who’s the weirdest one you’ve interacted with?” one of them asks.

“Oh definitely that long purple hair one, I forgot her name but she’s a project manager right?”

“Oh yeah, I know who you’re talking about, she goes around the building and my department just calls her robot because of-”

“How she talks and walks, right?”

“Yeah exactly! She also doesn’t make a lot of facial expressions, it’s wei-”

At this point of the conversation, he tunes out, he will make sure to report this to Ms. Kamisato later. He wonders how anyone can blatantly bad-mouth someone, and especially if that person works so hard in her line of work, they just don’t see it.

He sighs and looks back at the machine, it still hasn’t done its work so he checks the plug and finds that it was unplugged halfway through, they haven’t fixed the loose socket.

Giving up on his coffee, he takes a step back to leave but bumps into someone.

“Oh, My apologies.” deep and gruff, Kujou knows who that voice belongs to.

He whips his head around and bows in apology. “It’s my mistake, Ms. Raiden. I’m sorry for not looking.” 

She shakes her head. “No need for apologies, the break room is often very crowded. We’re bound to bump into each other.” She walks away and opens the fridge beside the countertop, grabbing a… tri-color dango and a bottle of milk.

Kujou can only raise a brow in bewilderment, surely she’s not having that for lunch? Ms. Raiden slowly turns her head around and sees Kujou’s gaze. “Lunch time,” she says and then she walks away rigidly to eat at the corner of the room.

He didn’t expect Ms. Raiden to have such a peculiar choice of lunch, but that’s one new thing he learns about her- that she has a sweet tooth.

So of course with that information the first thing he thinks about is cooking and baking sweets for her to try out, there were a lot of recipes he could try out. Maybe buying a cookbook from that bookstore would help.

That daydream quickly dies out as he becomes aware of their positions. He is in no position as a subordinate to be so chummy with a superior and bake brownies for brownie points, literally.

Though he ‘reasons’ with himself that it could be a good way for Ms. Raiden to de-stress since some time ago he remembers reading up a few articles online that state sweets can reduce stress.

Then he feels a little too self-aware and imagines how it looks to other people. Male subordinate preparing all kinds of sweets for his female boss, yeah, not a good look at all. He’ll be the next one to be reported to Ms. Kamisato.

With no more food for him to consume and the failed coffee quest, he goes back to their shared office and turns his laptop on. Time to lock himself in emails, Word, and Excel sheet. 

Shortly after, Ms. Raiden enters and takes a seat on her side of the table. They fall back into their usual silent rhythm, working on their own things and occasionally relaying information. This doesn’t have to change.

And as much as Mr. Takayuki would despise the idea and how Kujou himself has mixed feelings on it, but he really does work best as an assistant.

Kujou sighs to himself (quietly, proper manners around people), then he looks up to look at his boss. He feels a little embarrassed at the sight in front of him.

His boss has a speck of leftover dango at the corner of her mouth. He gently tells her this by pointing at roughly the same spot on his mouth. She sees the gesture and wipes it away.

“Oh, my apologies,” she says evenly, it doesn’t seem like she feels all too embarrassed about it.

“No problem,” he replies in response, going back to his own work. Though, he doesn’t realize that there’s a little smile that forms on his face.

Ms. Raiden sees it though and mirrors it faintly, the smile looks a little flawed and what appears is her lips twitching upwards. As much as Kujou hates to use the allegory, she was like a robot trying to mimic humans.

Strangely enough when Kujou was growing up, he felt more similar to robots. Just that underlying feeling that something is different about himself and everyone else can tell just by looking at him. People just treat someone differently because they weren’t acting ‘normal’.

Kujou supposes that if the earlier incident at the break room was similar enough, then maybe this is another thing that he and Ms. Raiden had in common.