I owe the company store my soul but the CEO my heart! Part 2

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I owe the company store my soul but the CEO my heart! Part 2
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The oil black suit coat that hung off the coat rack shone rainbows in a glimmer from the lonely fluorescent lights of your office. Kei was in shock, and slid down to her knees, wrapping a blanket around herself. Kei sat on the edge of a cot that was under her desk, you took a seat in her chair, giving her some space while her heart bubbled and frothed. Kei was in negotiations with herself now and you knew it was because of you.

Kei’s watch is flat on the desk, her few wardrobe options are folded under the cot. Kei shifts and the blanket falls to her sides, exposing her finely toned legs.

Kei stands, hand trembling over her heart until she steadies herself, taking a deep breath.

“I’ve never really had close friends, or, well… I’ve been distant from most people.”

Kei’s hand falls to her side.

“You though. Don’t get me wrong, but…”

Kei stiffly turns away, hiding her face as she slips into a pair of pants

“I like being close to you. I hate how unprofessional this is, it goes against every cell in my body- but… but...”

Kei can’t speak anymore, her usually firm, strong voice is choking up. This is your chance. You only get one time to tell Kei that you want to spend time with her too. You only get this one single attempt to explain how much a relationship with her would mean. Despite or maybe due to the pressure, neither of you speak for what feels like a long time.

“I’d like to become closer too. With a date that is. Want to just go for a walk? It’s not much, but everywhere else is closed this time of day.”

It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Kei turns red, you can tell even without her facing you. She reaches for her coat but lets it slip through her fingers.

“Maybe I’m not cut out for this.” She mumbles.

You can tell from just looking at Kei’s face that her mind is racing like yours.

“You’re overthinking this. Let’s just give it a shot and see, maybe there’s something between us.”

Kei doesn’t seem to like that answer.

“No matter how I think about it, that just seems so unlikely. I don’t even know how to go on a date.”

“All you need for a date is some clothes you’re comfortable in and yourself. You look good like you are, so no need to get dressed up.” You say with a nervous smile.

Kei leads you out of the office, her blue tie matches her eyes in the twilight.

She puts a hand on her hip and stops in the gravel.

“Anywhere in particular you want to go?” She says in her usual monotone, correcting herself with a cough.

“Late night ice cream?” You ask.

Kei seems to try to force a smile.

“Sure”


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Kei keeps space from you, seemingly unsure whether to try and coerce some contact out of you, to speak or to just abandon the prospect of a date at all. Your steps take you in and out of the streetlights’ stark white gaze, seemingly increasing Kei’s tension with every motion.

“It’s a date, we don’t have to be serious or professional. Tell me about yourself.”

Kei fidgets as she speaks.

“Sorry. I uh, I guess I’ve spent so much time being serious and professional that I don’t really-”

“Oh come on, I know that isn’t true. You’ve got to have something you like to do on weekends, something that gets you going. What do you love?” You only notice your choice of words after it exits your mouth.

Kei’s cheeks are flushed as she fights a response to your remark.

“Uh well… I guess the occasional video game is fun. Training and working out is fun, I enjoy swordfighting quite a bit. Driving is nice too.”

“You swordfight?!” You didn’t expect Kei to be a swordswoman, of all the things that she could’ve said.

Your appreciation for her sport of choice seems to let Kei loosen up.

“Yeah, here, check this out.” Kei reaches towards her hip as a black leather belt with sword in sheath phases with a brilliant flash of pixels unto her body. The sword nor sheath has a single decoration, the simple metal construction underlies the supreme workmanship that went into the piece. Just from your experience with other cutting tools you can tell that the sword could hold an edge through striking just about anything and that the material is something you’ve never seen before.

Kei cautiously sheathes the blade. There is a kind elegance in Kei, she lets the sword fade back into a cloud of pixels. The black suit that she usually wears never tainted her heart, or her pure youthful skin. The smile that Kei gave was genuine.

“I could take you to learn someday if you’d like.”

The hollow pale light of the convenience store casts a long face across the streets.

“Whaddya want to get?”

Kei shoves her hands into her pockets as she crosses the storefront, the pale light and resulting shadows play with the appearance of her face.

“Probably a sundae cone, you?”

“I’ll have the same, it sounds good.”

The soft entry chime is welcoming and reminds you of how Kei is warming up. Just being around you seems to be enough to give her a faded smile.

You sit on a concrete barrier outside after buying the ice cream cones, Kei tucks into her own collar in the moment. You feel a soft pressure on your arm. Kei is sitting right next to you, her right arm teasing your left one out before linking at the elbow. Just this simple action has Kei’s face fully flushed.

“Maybe something more like this?” You tease as you put an arm over her small shoulders.

Kei can't even speak, her mouth just stutters out an inaudible string of sounds.  Her strained expression slowly shifts to the most bashful smile to ever exist. She silently unwraps her ice cream, taking a bite of the nutty chocolate shell.

“Better?” You ask with a smile.

Kei closes her eyes and regains her usual tone.

“If I see a picture of this on the internet, I’ll see you in court.”

Her stout, serious expression melts immediately, Kei’s subdued grin is the cutest thing you've ever seen. Just the way her eyes soften and stray in-between checking you out and gazing off into space is enough to drive you crazy for the little lady.

You’re content with this, just feeling such a small figure under your arm makes your heart flutter. Kei seems to be enjoying herself so you start into your ice cream cone. As with all good things though, they end far too soon. As you release Kei from your hold and begin to walk back to the office, there’s a new radiance in those neon blue eyes that Kei has.

“Good night.” Kei doesn’t mind her tone, but still seems happy. You can tell her intentions, and you accept.

“Good night Kei.” You respond with a smile.

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As usual, Kei is serious and acts as if your date last night never happened when on the clock. Out of the corner of your eye, a severe change in her expression piques your interest.

“Something wrong?”

Kei sets the packet she was reading on your desk. She leans into your desk with one hand, other on her hip. Her foot starts to tap halfway through your skim of the information.

“So, Planeptune lost BOTH their CPU and Candidate in the past week!?”

Kei prods the pie graph of share information, showing the discrepancies between this quarter’s reporting and the previous.

“There is something entirely wrong going on right now. Of course I will bring this to Lady Noire’s attention immediately, but we should take action to safeguard our investments in that nation.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Kei pulls on her slick black suit jacket, buttoning it with one hand as she sets a phone into her shoulder to speak with who you presume to be the CPU of Lastation. Kei wanders back to her desk, pulling one of the drawers open. As Kei hangs up the phone, she pulls a matte black handgun out of the drawer. She checks to see if it’s loaded and sets the safety after loading a round. She tucks an extra set of magazines into her breast pocket.The gun soon disappears into a flurry of pixels and Kei turns to you.

“Well, break open the emergency fund and contact some mercenary groups. If we can’t buy one of them entirely, we’ll setup interviews and hire our own. High priority on ex-Lastation and Leanbox armed forces members.”

Kei starts to walk out the door before you interject.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to get us some help. Lady Noire wants to meet at the Basilicom because this matter is over our heads. Shares don’t just accumulate to a ancient, long dead nation for no reason.”

“What?!”

Kei surges back to your desk, prodding the description for the unaccounted 2.1% of shares.

“Read the description. I’m not frustrated with you, I absolutely have to go right now.”
As Kei said, she is practically jogging out of the office. What do the papers say about this situation?

Your finger traces the words as you read:

“The unaccounted shares fail to connect to a census of supporters, indicating possible manipulation though methods to do so are still purely theoretical. Given the rise of these shares that are yet to resound with a present nation and corresponding leader action is immediately recommended. Copyright Jinguji Intelligence”

The copyright mark explains Kei’s amazing ability to accumulate information, yet the summary is terrifying. This really is a situation of uncomparable gravity. After a few hours, you’ve learned more about contemporary armed forces than the rest of your life. Call after call to mercenary outfits yielded nothing: there wasn’t a single group with the capacity that your operations required. As Kei directed, you began the process of accumulating a force. Your advertisements swamped HR by the end of the day with applications. You figured that it would make sense to adopt the standard weapons of Leanbox given the flood of recruits from that nation. By the time you clocked off, your mind was flooded with graphs, maps and diagrams. You couldn’t slow down, just the appropriations that were required to arm the thousand or so men you needed were absurd, not to mention the weapons that would be fielded to deal with the rising anarchy in Planeptune. You were using company money to field a dozen artillery emplacements, a small armor unit and two million rounds of ammunition for everything from mortars to handguns.

This is why no one likes Monday.

You flop onto your couch, passing out immediately.

It was hardly a restful sleep though, you don’t even notice that 8 hours have passed when you wake, still wearing yesterday’s now rumpled clothes. Your phone rings. It’s Kei.

“Lady Noire has approved our project, we’re in the defense business now too.”

“What?”

“She agreed that with our recent string of conflicts Lastation needs to be able to at least cope with internal issues with the CPU gone.”

“That doesn’t explain the jump from defending ourselves to defending an entire nation.”

“Lady Noire trusts me more than just about anyone else in the world, she would never admit it though. We’re going to set up a sort of contracted Coast Guard. It just so happens that our fielded rescuers will also be equipped to deal with any sort of civilian insurrection or instability like the havoc that ASIC caused a couple years back.”
You sigh. You can hear fidgeting from Kei.

“We-We, should g-get dinner again this Friday.”

Just the change in Kei’s voice helps you perk up.

“Sounds like a plan~”

Kei pauses for a moment.

“I think you’re smiling right now, am I correct?”

“How could I not smile?”

A soft gasp creeps out of Kei’s lips.

“A-- Alright-right, uh, that’s all I called for, anyways.

“See you soon.”

“Y-You too.”

You can’t help smiling after that. Kei is still thinking about you, despite everything going on. Getting the motivation to keep working is easy with the sensation currently coursing through you.

Semi-trucks loaded with the munitions you ordered roll into the newly established mercenary camp throughout the week as tensions only rise in the world. With even more funding rushing in from Lady Noire, the orders only increased in size, ranging from missile silos to prefabricated deployable buildings (all built under your wheelhouse of companies).

There wasn’t a single facility in your company that had even a moment to stop and breathe. You opted to do a company wide raise to assuage the pressured workforce. More equipment and facility expansions were without a doubt needed, yet finding the time to rework was an issue in itself. Even more importantly, Kei was pushing herself. You could tell every time that she woke up; there was less and less energy in her greeting. By Friday, there was nearly nothing left.

As you get ready to go on lunch break, you glance at Kei and walk over to her to inform her. She doesn’t respond.
She slides back in her chair, snoozing against the soft leather. Kei’s rhythmic soft breathing is the only sound in the room with the computers off. Should she be woken up? No… you don’t even know how late she’s stayed this week. You kneel and pull a blanket off Kei’s under-desk cot, wrapping her as best as possible without disturbing the sleeping beauty; your sleeping beauty. You switch the lights off and lock the door as you leave. A smile creeps onto your lips.

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The lock loudly releases, shocking Kei awake. As you turn on the light she rubs her eyes with a yawn. As she sees you with some much needed coffee, she just sort of reaches in vain while you’re four paces away.

“What’s the magic word~?” You tease.

Kei sighs, arm falling to her desk with a soft thump.

“Pleeeease.”

You fill Kei’s mug carefully and away from her papers. She rubs her eyes with both hands, seeming to massage them in loose timing. She takes the steaming cup of rich black nectar and slurps as quickly as the temperature will allow.

“I’ve never seen you like this, don’t overdo it now.”

Kei leans back in her chair, holding her bangs back with a hand.

“You’re right. This is actually the busiest I’ve ever been.”

“More importantly, will you be alright to go out tonight?”

Kei looks down at her hands, which she had folded together on her desk.

“I-”

You smile.

“Let’s just go tomorrow-”

“NO.” Kei is completely resolute in her voice, she coughs and resumes in her usual tone.

“It’s part of how I relax and enjoy the weeken-”

“So you really just don’t want to wait?” You tease, filling your own mug of coffee. Kei fiddles for a moment, picking up her pen and beginning to work.

“Maybe.” She awkwardly manages.

You chuckle, but Kei immediately regains her blank, serious expression; almost seeming angry at your teasing.

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The workday comes to an end as it always does. Kei takes her coat and leads the way to her car. A light breeze and drizzle puts a chill to your skin. The melodic pace of the windshield wipers help chase the stress away, each lonely globe of water away from their reach reflects the street lights in brilliant dazzles of rainbow for you to focus on while Kei drives.  Kei tries her best and fails to stifle a smile: she seems happy just to be going out with you again. As you sit at the bar of the restaurant again, Kei lays her coat on the stool beside her. A light flickers over one of the booths while both of you just enjoy a space of quiet time. You feel for Kei’s hand, immediately finding her delicate fingers. She pulls away from your grasp as soon as the waitress emerges from the kitchen, trying her best to hide her embarrassment.

“So when did you get into guns? I noticed there was one I recognized from a game under your desk too, a UMP I think?”

Kei finishes chewing a piece of beef and wipes her lips.

“ I suppose it was just another skill at the time, but I enjoyed the timed target competitions. Long range precision shooting isn’t nearly as fun as tapping three round groups into targets from various firefighting ranges and positions.”

You nod as you slurp down noodles, Kei continues.

“It might be some surprise, but Uni got her hobby from me.”

“I thought you didn’t get along well with Uni.” You spout off before uncouthly snatching a sauce soaked piece of beef.

“We just had to find a common ground. I wouldn’t call us close though.”

Kei continues for a moment, thinking outloud. “Good exercise too, which I could use more of… getting older and all.”

You raise an eyebrow, Kei notices your intrigue immediately and the fact that she was vocalizing her thoughts..

‘Don’t make fun of me now, I’m only 24.”

“That’s one year away from being a-”

Your shin cries out in pain from Kei’s hard slip-on shoes immediately.

Kei’s eyes close and she makes a “Hmmpf” before going back to eating. Before you know it, the waitress is bringing the receipt in an attempt to shoo both of you out. The rain has subsided and the moon creeps through the darkened skies and clouds to project its eerie light upon the world. The night is nearly illuminated, Kei stops before you get to her car, she shakes her head and keeps moving. As you sit she hesitates to start driving.

“Something wrong?”

“Y-You noticed. Uh, well. It doesn’t seem right to part ways now.”

“What?”

Kei hangs her head.

“I couldn’t accept that- that- I felt like leaving you. These emotions flowing through me- I don’t know what these are or what to do with them.”

“I think you do know, you chose to stay right?”

Kei looks up at you.

“Haven’t decided yet. A relationship with a coworker just seems like too much though.”

You can feel your voice cracking as you speak.
“Is that really how you feel? Is this where it ends?”

Kei grabs you by the unbuttoned collar of your shirt, face a mere twitch away. Her eyes gloss over and her lower lip shakes as a tree in the wind would.

“I DON’T KNOW!” Tears stream down her face, Kei’s grip loosens as she presses her head into your shoulder. She stifles a sob and looks back up at you.

“I just don’t know. Of all the things I’ve done before, I’ve never found myself thinking of someone else always, even when I should be focusing; even when I should be working! Always you creep into my mind, your-” Kei is shaking, she wipes away some tears, further darkening your white shirt.

“My what?”

Kei snuffles but smiles. She steels herself and puts the keys in the ignition, starting to drive on a very different road than the one you would take to go home.

In that moment, you had no clue that your natural, unintentional smile was what Kei was talking about, but as she explained without speaking a single word as she drove. You could see that she was more collected and Kei-like, it was apparent her decision. There was indeed another heart in the world that beat for you. Kei flashes her watch, checking the time. A soft accepting breath emanated from her lips before she pulled over to the side of the road. Great fields of wheat sway weakly in the night breeze. Kei pops the trunk open and lays the rear seats down, giving plenty of room for the two of you and a glorious view of the night sky.

“You insisted on tonig-”

Kei clasps a hand over your mouth.

“T-This is wh-what couples do right?”

A trail of light crosses through the sky among the spotty clouds. A few more follow.

Kei points off at the fiery storm of light, weakly smiling. As soon as she notices your attention, she retracts her arm, this time pulling herself snug under your arm.

“Sorry for earlier. It won’t happen again.” Kei stiffly says.

“I don’t mind. You’re human too Kei, and having-”

Kei places a finger over your lips.

“Ms Bossy today?”

The storm of meteors is in full swing, lighting both of your eyes with orange glory.

“When am I not Ms. Boss?” She smugly remarks before sitting up, legs crossed. Her eyes are still towards the sky, watching with the awe of a child. After a thousand more brief trails of hope glance across the endless horizon, Kei turns to you, seeming to reach for your chest before retracting after having second thoughts.

You sit up as well, Kei won’t make eye contact. You pull her into your arms, putting all the affection you can muster into a hug. Kei’s soft silver hair grazes your chin and neck, even invading your open collar. Kei exhales for the first time since you embraced her, her hot breath reminding you of the chill night. You let her ease away, both feeling satisfied with each other's contact.

“This is gonna sound stupid… but…” Kei looks towards you for approval.

“Just tell me, for real, I won’t tease you or anything. You’ve had enough stress tonight.”

Kei sighs, smiling.

“Being with you is like being a little girl again. I can really appreciate everything that happens, good or bad.”

“That’s great to hear-”

Kei seems to be itching to say something.

“A-After you helped make my de-decision.”

Kei freezes. Her usually bright eyes are fraught with unsteadiness.

“I want to end the night on a note to remember. In a good way.”

“Like?” You realize that you already had the answer.

You cup both sides of her face and-

Kiss.

Kei does quite the opposite of resist, she pulls you in, trying her awkward and inexperienced best to kiss back. She has no lipstick to leave behind, but surely your face would have been a mess if she did. As Kei pulls away she gives a nervous smile, cupping a hand over the side of her neck.

“So- well. Uhm, are we even now?”

“This isn’t a business Kei, its-”

“I know what it is. I- I just.”

Kei swallows, knitting her hands together in her lap.

“I want you to know that I’m not going to push you away or anything.”

Your grin is huge, and Kei appreciates the kindness greatly.

“You wanna choose a movie to fall asleep to at my place?”

Kei recoils but inquires with an almost scared expression.

“W-What does that mean?”

“Well, it’s late. If we put on a movie we could fall asleep in the other’s arms…”

“Yes.” You recognize that tone immediately. Kei is entirely onboard with this plan.

Kei’s car pulls into the parking lot of your apartment complex in the middle of the silent night with the sun’s aura creeping out of the horizon. Almost as soon as the familiar deadbolt clunks free you find yourself dozing off with Kei snug against your body to some romantic comedy. Kei’s coat-less body fits under your arm perfectly. Her breaths slow as your sweetheart falls asleep on your chest in the reclined futon for you to follow.

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