A Missing Step

Alternate Identity

She didn't know either.

She headed to the lobby to leave as soon as the day was over.

The murmuring about her died down as soon as her colleagues saw the ever so familiar frown on her face.

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Trying to distract herself from her odd state, she decided to dig through her drawers to see if she needed to toss anything out.

Aside from some candy wrappers, she didn't really find anything else.

Looking around the rest of her apartment and seeing that nothing else needed organizing, she decided to go bed early.

In the dead of night. her phone vibrated on her nightstand.

Groaning about her sleep being interrupted, she picked it up and was greeted by a picture message.

The two people in the picture weren't facing the camera, but were facing each other.

The taller person was slightly hunched over, gently grasping the smaller person's hand.

The smaller person appeared to be in the middle of a what appeared to have been an amusing sentence, seeing as how the tall person was laughing.

Rubbing her eyes in an attempt to clear their blurriness, she picked her phone back up to look at the picture again.

"Sai..and me? Well, sort of.. Who sent this?" She scrolled to see if there was a caption along with the picture. A simple capital "G" was present.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she closed her phone. After a moment, she flipped it open again, rapidly pressing keys, a small chuckle escaping from her.

"Thanks, 'G'." She muttered in amusement.

She looked at her new lock screen for another moment and closed her phone to go back to sleep. However, the 'odd feeling', as she called it, came back.

"...I wish we could interact like that.."

She paused, a small idea popping into her mind.

"Maybe we can."

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Waking up at 6 in the morning, she put a bit more care into her appearance.

She decided to go for an alternative outfit; a mid length black dress without slits.

Looking over herself in the mirror, she nodded at her reflection in satisfaction and walked out the door.

Deciding that she should enact her plan as soon as she saw him, she smoothed out her hair, waiting for him to show up.

The clock showed that it was 3 pm. Her hopes of seeing him diminished until she heard him speak.

"So what do you wanna do now?" He asked Genos, who glanced knowingly in her direction. She let out a squeak, quickly covering her mouth.

"Hm?" Saitama paused briefly before continuing on with his and Genos' conversation.

She twiddled her thumbs, deciding to take a small peek into Saitama's mind while she waited.

"Wonder what that was. Sort of reminds me of the cute squeaks Tam makes when she's really chipper about something.." "He thinks I'm cute?" Despite a tiny part of herself saying otherwise, Tamaki being called cute also applied to her. "Aggh, focus, focus." She berated herself. Digging a small sticky note out of her pocket, she moved out of the shadows. "Hey. I found this on the floor, had your name on it. " Handing it over as casually as she could, both men looked confused at her actions.

"Thanks." Saitama took it from her hands looking at the writing on it. She nodded and walked away.

All that was present on it was a greeting followed by his name.

"Weird. No name." He said, putting away in his pocket.

"Writing on a sticky note counts as something, right?" She thought shyly to herself.

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She continued with this strategy the rest of the week, only adding to the greeting from before.

By the end of the week her attitude as she was giving it to him almost gave her away as the sender.

Saitama kept all of the sticky notes, putting together the tiny message they had.

Hello Saitama. I think that we should get together outside of work in order to improve relations if we have to fight a monster; lead by example.-T

Genos walked his small display on the coffee table. "She could've just said it directly." Saitama commented. Genos nodded, "Agreed."

Genos bombarded him for the next hour with tips on how to approach her until Saitama grew tired of his ramblings.

"Man, it's not like I'm asking her out."

"I am certain she'd like that to be the case." Genos thought to himself.

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"I don't even know if he got it through his thick skull. I gave him a bit too much credit in that department." Tatsumaki smoothed out her skirt, trying to relax for the inevitable.

She felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned around. Saitama was towering over her, albeit unintentionally.

"So, wanna play video-games at my place this Saturday?"

" I suppose." Her arms were twitching at her resistance to cross them. 

"Ok, just text me when." He waved before walking off.

Tatsumaki waited till he was out of sight.

"Success!"