"Hey, Ishimaru-kun, do you want to go to lunch together? Just the two of us?"
Kiyotaka choked on his iced tea at that question.
Because the girl asking him wasn't just any girl. She was the daughter of the CEO of this very company, and a more gifted programmer would be difficult to find.
Chihiro Fujisaki's intelligence and skill on top of her petite figure and cute demeanor made her very popular with the other men in the office. She was valuable to the company, of course, but she wasn't terribly sociable. While she was exceedingly kind, her crippling shyness meant that she usually kept to herself.
"...I... had no other plans," he sputtered when he'd finished choking, pretending that he had planned on taking a lunch. "But why do you ask?"
He and Chihiro were on friendly terms, but he didn't think that she had considered him a friend. She was nicer to him than anyone else here. She'd gone with him and other coworkers to bars and restaurants when they celebrated promotions or contracts. She had even been the one to tell him about Mondo's rescuing him from an alcohol-induced death, and had apparently argued with Mondo for a short while that she should be the one to look after him before he'd shooed her away.
Still. She'd never asked him to accompany her alone.
Chihiro shrugged.
"I dunno, you... just seem a little off lately. I just wanted to spend some time with you and see if you were okay."
Kiyotaka mentally beat himself up. So people were beginning to notice. His constant distraction was affecting his workplace productivity, both positively and negatively. When certain truckers or dreams of a tech-field-free life plagued his thoughts, he lost his focus, and his work suffered. But then he'd get hyper-fixated on it in an effort to correct those mistakes, and he'd churn out high-quality stuff and even complete work for other people or way ahead of schedule. Then he would be able to sleep at knight knowing he hadn't let anybody down.
His behavior had been erratic and strange lately, and people were beginning to give him curious looks here and there. His parents were happy with the changes. They thought that it was simply because their son had fallen head over heels for a beautiful heiress. His coworkers, however, were less fond of the change, and Kiyotaka wished he could just pull himself together for once.
Mondo Oowada's worst offense wasn't the sexual fantasies he'd inspired or his overtly nosy nature. It was the fact that he'd managed to rattle Kiyotaka to his core in only a couple of conversations. He'd forced him to blatantly and directly address how unhappy he was. And that was making it harder to keep up the ruse.
"...You know what?" Kiyotaka logged out of his work computer. He felt a rush of relief as soon as the documents and emails and reminders were no longer in his line of sight. "Sure, Fujisaki-chan. Let's go to lunch."
Chihiro smiled at him and waited by the office door until he grabbed up his things, and then they left the building together. Chihiro didn't say much on the course of this journey. She just pointed down the sidewalk and named a particular sandwich place as her destination. Kiyotaka had passed it before, so he knew where to go.
Kiyotaka found himself lost in deep thought as they walked side by side. Chihiro didn't prod him to talk. She did glance at him every once in a while, though, biting her lip as if she wanted to say something but didn't know how to phrase it. Kiyotaka ignored this in favor of organizing his thoughts.
Over the last month, he had focused on two things and two things alone: avoiding Mondo Oowada and building up his fake romance with Sonia Nevermind.
He'd been doing well enough at both things. He'd had two brief run-ins with Mondo after the towing incident, once at the grocery store and once at the gym. Mondo would grin and follow him around for a little while once he'd spotted him, and Kiyotaka would pretend to be annoyed and tell him to go away, insisting that he was busy. Mondo always just laughed, like he could tell that Kiyotaka wasn't being completely honest. It was frustrating. But he'd changed his schedule around, and that seemed to have corrected the issue. He hadn't seen the man, even from a distance, in at least a week.
On top of this, he'd started going out on fake dates with Sonia. Twice, now, they had made reservations at a fancy restaurant and eaten dinner together. Instead of flirting, though, they'd laugh gleefully about the success of their plan. Sonia talked about the man of her affections an awful lot. Apparently she had yet to confess to him, and while she suspected that he felt the same way about her, suspicion was all that she had. For now, the man thought of her as a very interested donor to his animal rescue campaigns.
Kiyotaka's parents would call after each date. He'd tell them that it had gone splendidly, and they would sound happy with him for once. They'd stopped calling every single night. He was sure that they were gossiping about him— telling all of their rich friends that their son had hit it off with the hottest heiress in town. They only ever talked willingly about him when they could use him for bragging rights, or else they'd just make snide comments when asked about their son.
Things were going... Well, according to plan, Kiyotaka supposed. Even if he didn't know where the plan was headed. He knew he had to keep that trucker at an arm's length if he was going to manage this, though.
Chihiro made it to the door of the sandwich shop, and she held it open for him. Kiyotaka laughed at that. She managed to make the door look really heavy. She ran in and up to the counter, where the cashier seemed to recognize her, and ordered her own food before coaxing Kiyotaka to do the same, and then they took a seat at the nearest empty booth table.
She smiled at him. Kiyotaka tried to smile back, finding that it had become harder for him to force his usual work smile. It felt rehearsed and dishonest, now, when before he'd thought of it as nothing more than a formality. He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief when she looked away from him.
Maybe just a little bit of socialization wouldn't hurt.