Chapter Text
Miku sighed as she sat down in the unoccupied conference room. Ten fucking minutes she'd been trying to work, all gone to waste because Kagamine didn't know how to shut the hell up about her 'annoying fuckass twin brother' and how he killed her whole family or something- she couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the actual details, because this goddamn spreadsheet was due in less than two hours. Well, it's possible that if she didn't spend the entirety of the three weeks she could've been working on it messing around with that little newbie. But those priceless scowls and yelps of surprise the bluenette always found a way to drag out of her seemed way more worth the procrastination at the time. In retrospect, she wanted to bash her head against the wall, because this project was looking to be a huge pain in the ass.
She flinched at a loud crashing sound outside to see that the aforementioned newbie had somehow tripped over a desk, seemingly on the way to go downstairs. Miku heard a couple snickers but, instead of joining in as she typically would, simply rolled her eyes- she didn't have time for this. Kasane had seemed to be caught in some abnormal streak of horrible luck lately- rather fortunately for the rest of the sales department too, as they often found it hilarious to see her mess up simple tasks again and again. Apparently rumor had gotten out since then that Kasane's birthday was April 1st, commonly known as April Fool's Day, which supposedly meant she was a joke and the universe was going at her for it or something? Well, whatever that rumor was, it was stupid, desperate, and all behind Kasane's back. Cowardly. At least Miku had the guts to only be an asshole to her face.
She never thought she would admit it, but this streak had grown somewhat tiring. Sure, it was funny the first couple of times the printer backfired, and the client on call ended up being really drunk and spouting utter nonsense, and the… anyway. However, this had gotten to a point where it was just sort of… sad? Not like the 'this makes me feel so bad for you' kind of sad, but more of the 'this is so hard to watch so please just go home already' kind. It was a miracle to her that Kasane hadn't quit by this point- Miku herself hadn't caught much of a reaction lately other that muttered 'goddammit's and little frustrated exhales, and while she drank in every last one of those, they just didn't have that same saccharine taste anymore.
Well. Enough thinking. She quit staring into space and began to type numbers and results into the spreadsheet at a rapid-fire speed.
Come to think of it, the rather difficult appearance of this task was deceptive- why wasshe given three weeks to work on this? Just a simple ten minute period of undistracted typing, and she was already halfway done. Such goes the life of working at CFM, she supposed. Hell, she'd probably be completely done in just another ten minutes. …well, given that the CEO had no opposable thumbs, it would probably have taken her five times as long to type this shit out. Whatever, though. All she had left was to… wait.
Her gloves. Where the hell were her gloves. Oh my god, she must've left them downstairs when she was checking her appearance in the shitty bathroom mirror.
Miku nearly smacked her forehead in annoyance before squeezing her eyes shut, gripping the edge of the table, and taking a deep breath. Ten minutes of typing- hell, a whole hour in the workplace, and she hadn't noticed. How could she make such a careless mistake like that- and at work, of all places? She thought she'd gotten better about that. It was fine, it'd be fine, she'd just go down and grab them, then finally get this stupid assignment out of the way. Fuck this idiotic dress code.
She hurried downstairs, lest someone else find the gloves and take them (which would be an odd thing to gatekeep, but that was just how the minds of her coworkers went), and sure enough- right there, on a slightly stained porcelain sink beneath a light panel just a little more dim than the rest in the room, were those cerulean atrocities. "Thank god," Miku muttered under her breath as she took tiny steps toward the area of interest. She could've sworn she heard something from one of the stalls, but brushed it off as 'building noises'. At last, her hands reunited themselves with the blue cloth, and that mattered more (if at all). Just as she was leaving the bathroom, however…
No, she definitely heard something this time. Somebody else was in here. There was some sort of sniffling coming from the third stall on the left, the one a little more shaded than the rest due to a broken light overhead. What kind of idiot was here, crying at work of all places? Did they have any idea what would happen if they were found like this? Hell, Miku even had half a mind to go after whoever was behind that door herself. The only thing stopping her at this point was… well.
It used to be her, struggling to hold herself together in the workplace bathroom.
So there she was, steeling herself to jab at a crying coworker with some sort of message along the lines of 'shut up'. It was the least she could do to maintain her image. However, she stopped short when there was some sort of a choked sob, followed by a quiet "…fuck this…" before more sniffling.
That voice. That smooth, slightly pitchy, although a little bit lower than usual voice. Kasane.
And now Miku was completely tongue-tied. The last time she'd been found crying at work was when she was a newbie herself, and she was told… what was it? 'Take a break from your work for this feelings bullshit again and you'll never get to take another one for the rest of your shabby little life'? That absolutely wasn't the thing to say to Kasane, she had some sense of morality- yeah, she wasn't like the other assholes. She couldn't be like the other assholes, not to the newbie. She was Hatsune fucking Miku, and if there's one thing she wasn't, it was VFlower. (Thank god that dickhead was laid off ages ago.)
Thus, she pretended nothing had happened and quietly made her way back out of the room. Well, she couldn't really act like she hadn't heard anything- no, she had to warn the newbie. Why was that, again? Something was compelling her to let her know what would've happened if anyone else were to find her in such a position- they'd eat her alive, like a merciless pack of rabid dogs. Kasane was so, so, so fortunate that it had been Miku who was here, because she wasn't one to stir the pot when it was already overflowing.
She could get to a quick conversation later. For now, though, she had to finish that goddamn assignment.
｡・:*☕˚:✧｡
So. A mental breakdown at work. Isn't life great?
Unfortunately not- Teto was suffering a… let's say… family loss. (Which certainly wasn't out of embarrassment for the deep truth of the reason.) And as fun as it was to try suppressing that throughout the entirety of her work day, that task wasn't exactly made easy by the daily onslaught of sadistic coworkers breathing down her neck. Who could blame her if she needed a couple minutes to herself?
So there she sat, in the downstairs bathroom for about 15 minutes, sobbing her fucking eyes out. Anyone else would probably think it was the result of incessant workplace 'teasing'; they'd think she finally snapped after all this time and effort of putting on a brave face for the sake of her own dignity. She could've sworn she heard footsteps at some point, but it would've been scarily uncharacteristic of the peanut gallery from upstairs to leave her like this without some sort of snide remark or half-assed attempt to push her even more over the edge. It was probably just old building sounds, so she dismissed it as whatever.
After the sniffling had subsided at last, she sat next to the mirror, checking every so often to assess the state of her face. At last, her eyes were no longer noticeably red and puffy unless you came close. "God, finally," she sighed in relief, before grimacing at the hoarse tone of her voice and promptly clearing her throat. Now all that was left in her day were….. seven-ish hours before she could go home and properly grieve- after she managed to clean up the belongings left behind by this 'relative', of course. She'd technically finished her main projects for the week, so she could probably just get away with discreetly playing Solitaire on her computer in the hopes that she wouldn't be bombarded with too many extraneous coffee requests.
Her hopes were to no avail, however- five minutes after Teto had taken her seat back in her cubicle, she was beckoned by a waving hand from the large conference room, adorned by a blue glove. Hatsune. "Oh, newbieeeee, refill my mug with the usual black coffee, would youuu~? Thaaaanks!!" she shamelessly called, and just like that, all eyes were on Teto again. Expectant, waiting, almost voracious stares followed her as she sighed and trudged over to the aforementioned room.
Like clockwork, she fell back into this typical daily routine. Taking the empty cup that had just recently held coffee from her smug-looking asshole coworker, carrying herself to the break room to successfully refill the dishware, ignore all attempts from those around her at making her fail her task, and finally getting the coffee back to Hatsune. Her, the ringleader of the Let's All Make Teto's Day As Miserable As Possible Circus. The woman inexplicably hellbent on making her work life as shitty as possible.
Yet something was different about her in this moment. There was enough suspicion to be found in the fact that she nodded in acknowledgement when she recieved her order- a bigger, or at least nicer, reaction than Teto had ever seen from her. She was tempted to ask what the cause of this unusual behavior was, before Hatsune murmured, while pointing at the doorframe behind her, "Hey, go close the door, will you? I need to talk to you about something."
If it was anatomically possible, Teto's stomach would've sank to the floor. Whatever this was, it couldn't be good- when was it ever good when it came to Hatsune?! But at the same time, the ideas of what misfortune could come from resistance sparked a much greater fear. So she gulped and responded with a weak, "Y…yeah, okay," before turning around, taking a few steps to the aforementioned door, and closing it as was requested of her.
Once Teto turned back around and took a seat across from Hatsune at the long, wooden conference table. The lights flickered ever so slightly overhead, which somehow stressed her out even more. They faced each other in silence for a few moments, the redhead fidgeting with her thumbs and rocking back and forth on her heels all the while. Why wasn't Hatsune saying anything? Were the other coworkers gonna toy around with her stuff while she was in here, and was this all some elaborate ruse to distract her? Oh god, she left her phone on her desk, too! What if they pretended to be her if she got a call from the cemetery asking when it would be most convenient to bury her c-
"Look, newbie," Hatsune finally muttered in a voice drawn low, snapping Teto out of her internal spiral, "you seriously need to be more careful about this crying thing, okay? I don't know what was going on down in that bathroom, but you're pretty damn lucky that nobody else was around for that. You have no idea what most of us would do, finding you in a position that vulnerable." She briefly shifted in her chair, leaning in closer. "Sure, they might act like it'd be below them to rub salt on open wounds, but when push comes to shove and the cameras are gone, they can make hell a reality."
Oh. So she hadn't imagined those footsteps- no, that was Hatsune.
"What does it matter to you?" Teto swallowed her mortification at this realization, crossing her arms in a defensive manner instead. "It's not like I can help it when I get emotionally overwhelmed. And, not that it's your business, but somebody I really li- love died yesterday, thanks. I could do with a little less of your goddamn urge to push me around and tell me how to process my own emotions, especially today."
Hatsune cocked her head to the side in what looked like confusion. "Well, you know you can just use one of your sick days if a family member or friend died, right? Otomachi's fine with it- that's much easier than going about your normal routine."
"It's… not that easy," Teto muttered, incredibly embarrassed with herself for what she was about to admit. "It wasn't… it was my cat. I've had it- her… since after I graduated middle school, then took her with me when I moved out, and… yeah. I knew it was just about her time, but it's still hard to handle. She started to get pretty sick last week, and I had her put down yesterday. That's not something worth taking the whole day off for, is it?"
Hatsune stared at her for a moment, unblinking. Then, the sound of gloved hands slamming against the table echoed throughout the room as she stood up, shaking with… rage?! "Kasane, you can't fucking do that. What if the cat got better? What then?! Are you just gonna go living your life when you know she could've survived?!?"
Completely taken aback by this reaction, Teto stammered, "W-what?! Well, I said she was old, so it's not like there was all too much of a survival chance! A-and isn't it better for her to die a painless death over a painful one?!"
"Oh, fucking please," the taller rolled her eyes and sneered, moving to take Teto's shoulders in an insanely tight grip. "That's what everyone fucking says, but you know what? They know. They fucking know when you give them a lethal injection- they know that you fucking carried them to their death!! Wouldn't that make it infinitely more painful?!?!" She began to shake the shorter back and forth in frustration. "ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID, KASANE TETO?!?!?!?!"
"What the fuck are you acting like this for?!" Teto struggled to voice amidst the shaking, completely shellshocked by this change in her demeanor. She finally pushed herself away from the older's grasp, panting from exhaustion at the effort. "Look! I-it's really hard for me, and if I could've prevented it I would, but this is how things had to go. She was gonna die on my floor at work or she was gonna die safe in the vet's office, okay? So just… I don't know," she began to inch back to the door, hiding her face as she could feel tears prickling at the corners of her eyes once more. She couldn't, wouldn't, cry again at work after this. "…don't… act like you know how much this hurts, okay? I tried. I really did."
Hatsune's expression softened ever so slightly. "I… you know what? You're right, I've… never kept any pets for more than half a year, so you win this one. But really, if you need the day off to mourn your cat, Otomachi'll hear you out. She's sweet like that." Wait, what was happening now? "Take your time, okay? Cats are great, I get that they can be pretty special."
Slow blink. Then, "…okay? I'll… do that… I guess… maybe… thanks, Hatsune." And that's when Teto slipped out of the room, immediately shutting the door behind her. She could feel Hatsune's eyes practically staring a hole in the back of her head as she ventured back to her desk. Her face burned with embarrassment at the bewildered stares of her coworkers, who had probably made out some sort of yelling from the conference room.
That was. Something. To say the least. Hatsune would never let her off in such a way, especially in a vulnerable time like this. And yet… she did. How about that?
Well. She spared a glance at a photo framed on her table, a nice polaroid she'd taken of her cat a couple of years ago- she'd been sleeping peacefully on the windowsill as the sun set behind her. Maybe Teto'd overlook the slip in Hatsune's character just this once- and maybe look into that day off, since she now knew she had the opportunity.