moving up

Chapter 26

"I know you won't tell anyone else, so can I tell you something?" asks Kyoka.

"Of course," Momo replies, wondering what she could have to say that she wouldn't want anyone else to know. She has some slight suspicions, but she keeps those to herself as she asks, "What is it?"

"Okay, so, the other day, I went out with Koji. He told me likes me, so I wanted to give it a chance, and we had a really good time," she says, and now, Momo is less surprised. She's wondered for some time now if Kyoka was interested in him, after all. "I really like him, I guess I always have."

"Well, that's great!" she replies, with an encouraging smile. Even knowing what she does about workplace relationships, she can't help but feel happy for Kyoka, and want things to work out for her and Koji. Maybe it's just because she knows things must have been rough when she and Denki broke up, but she doesn't think they shouldn't be together just because they work together. Hypocritical, maybe, but it doesn't change how she feels.

"You think so?" Kyoka looks relieved. "I dunno, I was almost afraid you'd tell me I shouldn't. Sometimes I still wonder if I should have said no, just because of, you know, the whole work situation."

"If you really like each other, then I don't know if it's really that bad," she admits. "And if it really doesn't affect work, then I think it should be fine."

"That's true, but I think maybe you should take your own advice there. When are you gonna stop avoiding Shoto? If anyone could keep things professional, it would be you."

"I'm not avoiding him! We just don't work together much now, and besides, that's...that's a completely different situation!"

"And how is it different, exactly?" asks Kyoka.

"He isn't interested in me, for one thing!" she says. "He didn't ask me out, like Koji did you. Shoto and I are just friends, and that's all he sees me as, so it's all me. Which is all the more reason to avoid him, if I were avoiding him to begin with."

"Momo, no offense but you're really bad at this." She shakes her head. "Look, I can't say I know exactly what Shoto is thinking, but I do know that you make it pretty obvious that you're trying to avoid him."

"Well, I..." She doesn't know what she should. "I'm just doing what I think is best."

Kyoka sighs. "If that's really what you think is best, I guess that's your business. Still, make it a little less obvious. If you're working him, at least don't give him the cold shoulder. That's not really any more professional than having a crush on him."

"I-I know that..." she mumbles. "But we weren't talking about me, we were talking about you and Koji." She turns the conversation around to get the focus off of Shoto, but she can't stop thinking about what Kyoka said.

~X~

Even if she wants to avoid him, there are times when she absolutely cannot. When they work together, she can almost always find something to keep her busy and away from him, but then there is a night when they have a few call-ins, she has to pick up extra work, and so does he. Rather than keeping them apart, their extra work keeps bringing them together, and when they help each other to get things done faster, there's no way she can avoid him without making it too obvious.

"Aizawa is probably going to start being stricter about attendance," says Shoto. "At least, he's been talking about it for a while, trying to stop all the call-ins we keep having. Of course, since he's been talking about it for so long and not actually doing anything about, it's hard to tell if anything is actually going to get done."

"You know how he is," she replies. "Maybe if one of you pushed a little harder, then he might be more willing to put it into action."

"Maybe. Well, I guess if I offered to handle all the actual work after he handed down the order, he might be more willing to go for that. Either way, we can't keep letting people get away with it. I know it's not always someone trying to skip work, but that's definitely becoming more common."

"As long as we don't let anyone take advantage of it, then it shouldn't be a problem for anyone who's actually sick," she says. "But I don't know, it can be really hard to judge that, and even saying that someone won't get in trouble if they can find someone to cover their shift is hard, because if they're at home, they probably don't have access to everyone's number."

"You make a pretty good point. Maybe we can bring that up at the next meeting," he replies, giving her a small smile, and she blushes. It's not a personal compliment, so she doesn't need to take it as such, but she looks down anyway, trying to focus on her work so that he doesn't notice.

"Yeah, we can...we can do that," she replies, feeling kind of stupid.

"We can try to come up with some ideas some time before the meeting, so we have a few suggestions," Shoto continues. "It's kind of hard to brainstorm when we've got so much work to do."

Momo doesn't really see any issue with talking like they are right now. They have a lot of mundane things they need to get done today, but overall, it doesn't take a lot of focus and it's been easy for them to talk while they've worked so far. If he really wants to try and come up with a few plans to tackle the attendance issue before the next meeting, right now works just as well as any other time. But he's the manager and she doesn't want him to think she's questioning him, so she doesn't say this.

"What do you think we should do?" she asks instead.

"Well..." He trails off before sighing. "Honestly, this is all kind of an excuse."

"An excuse?" Momo isn't sure what he could mean by that. Even knowing that it doesn't make sense for them to not be able to talk about things at work, she doesn't know what he could use it as an excuse for.

"I was hoping that we could talk about it outside of work, but really, that's just an excuse to ask to see you outside of work."

There is a big part of Momo that thinks this isn't real; there is a very big part of her that remembers her conversation with Kyoka and thinks this might be a dream based on that. But dreams aren't as long and drawn out as her night at work has been, which means that Shoto is really asking to see her outside of work.

"We...we can meet up to talk about it," she replies, ignoring him outright saying that he wants to see her for more than just that. None of this necessarily means what she wants it to mean. Even as they make plans, she reminds herself not to get her hopes up for something more.