Work Text:
"Shu! Get me another cup of coffee!"
"Shu! Fetch those files from the printing room!"
"Shu!"
"Shu!"
"Shu!"
The moment the clock hit 5pm, Shu slammed his laptop shut, packed his things and headed towards the entrance of the office building. He didn't think he could stand another minute here.
It was so strange. Five years ago, when he had first gotten this job, he thought his life was getting better. He thought maybe he would finally be able to get out of the debt that had been piling up since he graduated from university. Well, he had been able to at least make hi smonthly payments and still have enough to not starve. But better life? Ha! Shu had been naive.
He should've known that he would be nothing more than a glorified errand boy. He thought he would be at least doing something productive, but all he did was run around doing everything his manager asked of him like a dog. At least the pay was good. But it was sad for him. Five years of his life spent being an errand boy, and he had never been promoted, never been recognised for his efforts despite his contributions.
However, fate seemed to really hate him since the second he stepped past his manager's office, the devil in question stepped out. His manager (whose name he still didn't know, he just called the other 'sir') saw him and immediately started yelling at him. "Where are you going? There's still so much work to be done!"
"Sir, it's 5pm. I'm not working overtime, and I'm well within my rights to leave," Shu explains calmly, though he's quite sure it's not working. His manager's face grows redder from fury, "What kind of worker are you? This is what's wrong with your generation! Always wanting your stupid worklife balance and bullshit, then you expect promotions after promotions?"
Shu was already tuning him out. He had learned very early on in this job that the manager only really heard his own voice and no one else's (unless they were his superiors), so arguing wouldn't really make much of a difference.
"Are you even listening to me?!" His manager shrieked, looking every bit of the demented person everyone had warned Shu he'd be. Shu stared blankly at him. "Is something the matter here?" Someone spoke from behind them. The manager whirled around and blanched on the spot. "Mr Kaneshiro! No, nothing's wrong!" He stuttered. Kaneshiro? Oh. The CEO. Wait, the CEO?! Shu snapped out of his daze and focused on the man who appeared before them.
Luca Kaneshiro was hot. And that was objectively true. He was tall, with long blonde hair that was tied back into a ponytail, and his lavender eyes were both kind and excited. Mr Kaneshiro's eyes trailed past the manager and landed on Shu. "Is everything alright?" He asked gently, directing the question at Shu.
Shu opened his mouth to reply, but his manager cut him off. "It's all good! Shu here was just agreeing to overtime!"
Shu glared at the manager as he protested, "I never said that! I was leaving when you demanded I stay back to finish work that isn't even assigned to me." He stepped away from the manager quickly. He might have been an errand boy during work hours, but he was not going to be ordered around after hours.
"You-!"
"Forcing overtime?" Mr Kaneshiro raised an eyebrow, his voice suddenly not so friendly. The manager looked like he was sweating bullets, and Shu sure hoped he was. He was petty, sue him. "Certainly not! You must've misunderstood me, Shu!" The manager forced a smile on his face, his eyes shaking with anger. Shu smiled back at him, "Perhaps," he says simply, "I guess I'll be going now, then."
He turned back to Mr Kaneshiro, nodding his head in gratitude, "Thank you, sir."
And he left.
~
Turns out, Shu couldn't leave anyway. It had started raining at some point between him wanting to leave and him actually leaving, and he had forgotten his umbrella. And he didn't have a car. He really was screwed over by the heavens.
Just as Shu was about to just walk in the rain to the nearest bus stop, someone called out to him from behind him.
"What are you doing?" Shu turned around to see Mr Kaneshiro standing behind him, looking at him with confusion. "Going to the bus stop," Shu replies. His boss frowns, "But that's two blocks over! You don't even have an umbrella!" Shu shrugs helplessly, "I left it at home."
Mr Kaneshiro's frown deepends, "Come with me," the man half-orders, pulling him back into the building and bringing him to the office carpark. "Sir—?" Shu yelps, nearly tripping. The other was as strong as he looked. Mr Kaneshiro brought him to where his own car was parked, it was in pristine shape and looked like it cost about 20 years worth of Shu's salary. "Where do you live? I'm bringing you home," Mr Kaneshiro said casually, opening the driver's door.
"What? There's no need for that," Shu waves his hand frantically. What if someone saw and thought they had some weird relationship or that he was trying to seduce the boss or something. Oh god what if someone thought that?
"Oh come on," the other grinned, looking more playful and less like the intimidating CEO Shu had heard of. "I can't just let you walk off into the rain when I can help you! Get in!"
Against his better judgement (and maybe the comfortable looking seats had something to do with it), Shu got into the car. "Thanks, Mr Kaneshiro…" he muttered, clutching his bag to his chest tightly. "Luca."
"Huh?" Shu turned to look at Mr Kaneshiro as the car moved out of the car park. "You can call me Luca. Mr Kaneshiro is my father, and I'm not big on all that title stuff anyways," Luca shrugs, keeping his eyes trained on the road. "Okay. Thanks… Luca."
Luca grins at his words, "No problem, Shu!"
Shu lets out a hum of acknowledgement, but says nothing after inputting his address in Luca's car's GPS (because of course the expensive car had a built in GPS).
When they reached Shu's apartment complex, a more run down building with barely any working appliance (unless you bought it youself), Luca's easygoing grin melted slightly. "You… live here?"
Shu winced, "Not all of us are rich," he mutters, before clamping his mouth shut. Not the smartest thing to say to your boss. Luca didn't seem bothered, thankfully. "Goodbye, Luca."
Shu didn't look back.
He didn't realise that Luca kept looking.
~
Something felt weird in the office. From the moment Shu stepped in the next day, something was different. People weren't ordering him around as much, his colleagues who used to simply ignore him were actually treating him with respect (though he could see they were more nervous rather than wanting to be decent human beings).
During his lunch break, he found one of the few tolerable people in his department, Mysta. "Mysta! Can you tell me what's going on? Why's everyone acting so weird?" Shu asked, glancing around nervously. Mysta's eyebrows shot through the roof. "You didn't hear? Apparently, the CEO himself came down and scolded the manager for putting so much on you! Everyone is scared of crossing you now because they think the CEO will go after them next!"
"What?" Shu gaped, but not for the reason most people believed. Luca did what?
"Yeah," Mysta nodded, "Are you two close or something?" Shu shook his head, "I didn't know him until yesterday. He just happened to see the manager being rude to me."
Mysta patted Shu on the back, "Well, that's good, at least! The manager has been overworking you, everyone can see that. At least you'll be less burdened now!" Shu nodded at that, though his mind drifted off to Luca.
Later that day, Shu did something he never would have expected. He went to the elevator and took it to the upper floors, where usually executives worked. While the underlings weren't banned from the upper floors by any means, no one ever really had a reason to be up there. He walked through the hallways, feeling like he didn't belong there, because he didn't. He was just an underling, he had no business being up here.
"Oh? You're Yamino, right?" A deep voice spoke from nearby. Shu whirled around to see Vox, one of the executives, leaning against a doorway behind him. "Yes, sir," Shu said nervously. Would he be reprimanded for loitering around here? "What's your business here?" Vox stepped forward, his eyes betraying nothing as he questioned Shu.
"I heard that… Luca had said some stuff to my manager, and I wanted to ask him about it," Shu said, daring to look Vox in the eye. He wasn't in the wrong here, no one really was, maybe except his manager. He wasn't restricted from coming up here.
Vox gave him a smile, before grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him towards the office at the end, Luca's office. Vox swung the door open, calling out, "Luca, my boy! You have a visitor!" Shu let out a loud squawk, surprised at Vox's boldness. Wasn't Luca the one in charge? How was Vox allowed to do all this?
Luca was simply sitting behind his desk, doing some paperwork when they had walked in. His eyes brightened on seeing Shu, "Shu! Hi! What're you doing here?" Shu heard the door shut behind him, and a quick glance back told him that Vox had left them alone.
"Did you talk to my manager?" Shu said bluntly, crossing his arms. He wasn't even sure why he was mad. Maybe it was the fact he felt weak that he needed someone with more power than him to help him, he couldn't even help himself.
"Well, yeah! What he did wasn't pog at all!" Luca shrugged. Pog? Shu guessed that meant something along the line of 'cool' or something. "I don't appreciate exploitationin my company."
Shu sighed, "I was fine. I didn't need your help. All it did was made everyone jealous that I know you and all," Shu recalls how some of his colleagues who had treated him with indifference before now stared at him openly with envy in their eyes, clearly wanitng to be in the position where they could say they knew the boss.
Luca frowned, "Oh, I didn't think about that," and the worst part is that Shu believes him. Luca looks so genuinely sad that things had not gone to plan. Shu sighs again, "It's fine. Just please… let me fight my own battles. Why even help me? I barely know you. No one would've batted an eye if the CEO left a random underling on his own."
Luca stood up from his desk, walking over to Shu's side. "Well, one, I like you. I want to know you. And two, what kind of boss would I be if I let my employees be bullied within my company?"
"Hold up. What do you mean you like me?" Shu took a step back, face flushing scarlet. Luca tilted his head, confused, "Well, of course I like you! I've known you since college!" College? Where Shu had been invisible, hiding in the back of the class? College, where he wore large glasses and barely interacted with anyone beyond his teachers? Sure, Shu had been aware of Luca in college, he had been the popular, rich kid. The jock. The guy who Shu had never seen be alone. Heck, all his friends from college were all executives here, now that he thought about it, which explained Vox's casual nature when it came to talking to Luca.
"So? You're helping me because you had a… crush on me in college?" Shu questioned, raising an eyebrow. That was a dubious reason to be helping someone. "Not 'had', I still like you, Shu! I liked how smart you were, how you worked hard and didn't care for acknowledgement! When I found out you were working here, being bullied by that manager who only got his job because his father is a business partner… Well I couldn't just stand around, now can I?"
Ignoring the revelation of nepotism, though Shu would definitely be unpacking that later, he looked at Luca incredulously. "You're not like… expecting me to date you because you helped me, are you?"
"Oh god, no! I would never!" Luca denies firmly, "I just wanted to show you that I'm here, and that I'm on your side," Luca glances down nervously, his cheeks tinting red. Cute. Wait, what?
"Well, thanks. But, next time, let me do things myself," Shu said, heading towards the door. Luca caught his wrist before he could leave. "Wait, uh… would you maybe like to get dinner with me this Saturday? You don't have to say yes, obviously! I just… I just really want to know you," Luca asked shyly, looking oddly reminiscent of a kicked puppy.
Shu had known Luca was upfront, hell he had even admitted on the spot he had feelings for Shu, but he didn't expect the sudden request for a date. But you know what? Luca was kind, he was good looking and Shu would be lying if he said he wasn't mildly attracted to the guy. "Why not? Give me your number, I'll text you my address and a time to pick me up," Shu holds his hand out. Luca hands him his phone faster than Shu can blink and enters his number. It was then he noticed that his number had already been in Luca's contact list, saved as "Shu <33". He looked up at the other, who was suddenly avoiding his gaze. "Ah, well… your number is on your file…"
Shu hummed, "I see. Well, at least you can text me the details of our… date," Luca's head snapped up. Shu couldn't believe he was actually calling it a date, but he supposes today was a first for many things. "See you later, Luca," Shu smiles as he leaves the office.
Vox had been waiting outside and had definitely heard everything, "About time he said something," the other mused, "He's been pining on you since the first year of college."
Shu tries not to react as he returns to his desk on the lower floors.
He had a date this Saturday to prepare for.
~
"Something on your mind?" Luca asked, handing Shu a glass of water. Shu leaned against the bedframe, staring out the window. "Just… thinking about the first time you asked me out. You looked like a kicked puppy when you thought I was going to say no," Shu chuckled, letting Luca slip into the space next to him.
"Heyyyy!" Luca wailed, "Don't bring that up!"
"Why not?" Shu laughs as Luca wraps himself around Shu like Shu was a body pillow, "You were adorable. I can't believe I thought about rejecting you." After that date, Shu had grown more fond of Luca, until he simply fell in love with the other. After they began dating officially, Shu stepped down from his position within the company, saying that he felt that their relationship made any promotion he got feel biased. Instead of being mad, Luca simply created another position among the executives for Shu, introducing him to his friends, who had taken to Shu immediately. It was like he had always been there.
"I can't believe you said yes to the date, and the next one, and the next," Luca rambled, running his fingers through Shu's long hair. He had grown it out over the years, and had begun styling it with the help of Uki, who turns out, had had their eye on Shu since college too, for a different reason. They claimed that Shu was absolutely gorgeous and that it was a waste to let him wander around without awareness of his beauty. "I still can't believe my college dream of marrying the Shu Yamino came true," Luca pressed a kiss against his husband's cheek.
Shu reached his hand up, the diamond ring on his finger glinting under the night, tapping Luca's nose lightly. "Careful, it's Shu Kaneshiro now, don't forget that," he teased lightly.
"How could I ever forget? You have no idea how long I was planning that wedding," Luca grinned, pulling back. "Since college? Ike told me," Shu winked. Luca pouted, "He snitched? I made them promise not to say anything!"
"What can I say? Ike just likes me better," Shu said victoriously. Luca got a mischievous glint in his eyes as he suddenly took away the glass of water, setting it to the side. "What are you doing?" Shu asked, confused.
"Showing my amazing husband just who likes him the most," Luca winked, pulling his shirt off and all Shu can think about was how in love he was with Luca Kaneshiro.
"I love you so much, Shu, thank you for loving me too," Luca whispers against Shu's skin.
"Shut up and kiss me already, you idiot."
And being the ever dutiful husband he was, Luca obliged.