Chapter 1.8 - Friday Cake
Next day at work.
(I’m beat.)
The day turned out to be an exhausting one. But contrary to Mirei’s expectation it wasn’t exactly because of her waking up in the middle of the night, but simply because there was a last minute change request before a deadline, so the entire place got whipped into a bit of a frenzy.
(The bulk of it is done at least.)
She went through the list of remaining to-dos for the project. A lot of her job was about slicing requests and requirements into appropriately sized chunks and coordinating those with team leads. As such, she had a good general overview of the project’s progress. She raised her arms toward the ceiling again and habitually stretched herself. Letting her eyes wander, many colleagues were still sitting in their workspace and working on their designated tasks. But they were gradually decreasing.
Mirei also felt like going home, but felt too tired to move from her seat, so decided to stick around a little longer. She was just about to write an email, when her hands stopped while she opened the address book to pick out the recipient.
(Speaking of which…)
She remembered her mental note from the day before.
(Nope, nope, nope, no, nope…)
Since she didn’t know his name, she could only go through her old emails from earlier the year in spring, where the application documents were forwarded to her. There were a good bunch to click though, but she eventually found the right one.
(Mamoru Inui… 24 years old, came straight after graduating uni…)
The shy awkward yet agreeable smile displayed here was quite different to the expression she had seen on him the day before, but these features definitely were him.
“Mamoru Inui…”, she repeated, this time aloud in a low whisper.
“Miss Hagiwara?”
Mirei flinched and by reflex immediately minimized everything to the desktop. The standard blue wallpaper of the operating system showed up on her screen.
“YES?!”, she turned around and saw a somewhat petite looking girl standing before her. No correction, not just a girl. It was the place’s unofficial idol, but that was not how to address her. “Err…”
“I’m Chiyoko Koizumi”, she reminded her, while pointing both fingers towards her face in a cute pose. “Did you forget?”
While she was a whole decade younger than Mirei, she was still a full-fledged adult. Unlike that young man she had come over from her junior colleague instead of university, which made her some two years younger than him, but she started at the company this spring as well and had been a part of this office ever since. She was quite skillful at making it impossible for Mirei to forget her name, though teases like these.
“Sorry for giving you such a start”, she giggled. It was a very girlish giggle, one that made her seem more high school age than not. Her small frame didn’t help.
“It’s fine. Are there any issues?” Mirei replied. With what remaining staff were still there, she was one of the most senior ones present. Maybe she needed some guidance.
“No nothing really, we just wrapped up everything. I thought I’d let you know.”
Mirei blinked. If that was all there was, usually team leads would come to her with a list of things done or email it to her. Besides, if the statuses were input into the system, she’d see them directly anyway.
“Thank you.", she said. “I’ll check what tasks can be delegated to you for tomorrow, then. You’re free to go for today.” Mirei was just about to turn back to her computer.
“I also wanted to thank you.”, the petite woman took a chair and rolled it over next to Mirei. “For the cake", she added sweetly.
“Hm? Oh, you’re welcome. It was a hard day after all…”, Mirei had heard thanks throughout the day, but hadn’t expected it to come up again this late, when the cake had long since been consumed down to the last crumb.
“Some were even moved to tears.” She grinned with a chuckle. “No one expected a homemade cake from the Empress. On a Friday, no less.”
“If I am an empress, then you’re the idol of the place.” Mirei replied.
“Oh sure am.”, she smiled sweetly. “But your fan club is definitely bigger. I know, because I joined, too.”
“… Is it?” Mirei wasn’t exactly sure if that was a joke or not. If it wasn’t, it was news to her, frightfully so, but it would also explain a few things…
“Now, don’t look so surprised.”, Mirei got a slightly reproachful wry grin. “A lady who has it together, who is tall, but not too tall, is capable, always cool, calm and polite. Saved so many asses from needless overtime. And now they find out about your kitchen skills on top?”
“You’re exaggerating, it’s just a simple rare cheesecake…” Mirei was seriously starting to wonder where this conversation was supposed to go.
“Say, do you have any tips?”
“Tips? For what?”
“For being cool and all that. Or, even just the cake recipe would be cool!” Mirei’s new self-proclaimed fan clapped her hands together and made a pleading gesture towards her.
“I… don’t really understand.” Mirei said, but did have a small hunch…
“See, I’m small, so I always thought I never had a chance at being cool, thought I needed to be cute for the guys instead.” She looked up at Mirei almost as if she was looking at her own favorite idol. “But being cool is just so much cooler! If you were a man, you'd be so cool, I’m sure I’d fall for you!”
“Uhm. Wait." Mirei felt like she needed a time-out from all the talk of ‘cool.’ “Please, let me just say one thing, Miss Koizumi. There is absolutely no need to be cute for any of our male co----”
“But I want to!” Young Miss Koizumi resolutely interrupted her. “Or, well, I wanted to, but now…”. She stopped after she saw Mirei’s completely confused face. “Oh, I’m sorry, you weren’t with us at lunch.” She gave herself a cutetsy oops gesture. “I should start at the beginning.”
While most of the male colleagues tended to go together to lunch by team or based on whatever project they were all involved in, the female ones tended to always go together regardless of team affiliations. There weren’t that many female workers to begin with, so they naturally flocked together. Except for Mirei, because she had a habit of having lunch later than the rest or stayed behind with Sei or their team-leads to discuss scheduling and budgets.
(And because I’m not particularly interested in going…) Mirei admitted to herself.
